Digital Camera purchase -- did I get ripped off?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I suppose I should have come here first for advice, but I got caught up in the details and purchased a digital camera online. I’ve since read some disturbing reviews of the company with which I placed my order.

I’d like advice from knowledgeable digital camera fans as to:

  1. Opinions of the camera I’ve selected
  2. Whether I am getting the right accessories
  3. Whether I’m getting ripped off on this particular deal, in terms of buying wrong accessories through my own ignorance, or price.

First a little background. I know not very much about cameras and photography – in particular, things like focal length and f-stop and exposure (does that even mean anything in digital photography?). My wife knows more – she has used an SLR camera for some years and taken a hobby class. But she declared herself overwhelmed by the enormous amount of choice in modern digital cameras, and punted the decision to me.

We’ve wanted to go digital for a long time, literally years, but finances have held us back. In addition to the convenience of digital, and lower cost of errors (no wasted film), a factor for us is that film contains animal products. Now that we’re vegan, we shouldn’t be consuming film, and she’s had to give up a hobby she loves until we could afford to switch to digital.

I spent a lot of time reading reviews of cameras at sites like www.dpreview.com and http://www.steves-digicams.com/ and so on. I also read some camera forums, about thirty reviews by purchasers of various cameras I was particularly interested in, and bought three magazines. All in all, I wound up deciding on the Nikon D50, although by a fairly narrow margin over competitors, especially the very competitive Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi. The D50 got a lot of praise for its ease of use and sensibly designed features; I was concerned about paying for stuff we’d be too incompetent to ever use anyway. It was also touted as having the best noise reduction yet seen in an “affordable” SLR.

So far so good.

But then I went out and price shopped. After a few days, I was most excited about the package deals at one site – I won’t list it here because I am going to say some things that might be uncomplimentary. The site itself looks professional and has various tags stating that it is secure and approved by various certifying authorities – it doesn’t look fly-by-night.

After I ordered I got a callback, allegedly for the confirmation number on the back of my credit card. The representative proceeded to “upsell” me, however.

He said the memory (SD memory) I had ordered is not high-speed, and to get high shooting speed out of the camera, I should buy the high-speed memory instead, for about $200 more.

I was instantly dubious, and he could tell. So he started sweetening the deal. He offered a higher capacity battery, a fast-speed battery charger, and then when that didn’t sell me, he offered to upgrade the lenses to “new”, “professional” lenses with slightly different specs, from a different manufacturer. Finally he knocked $20.00 off the “upgrade” package price and threw in shipping. So in theory, I was now getting:

  1. same size memory but the “high speed” version
  2. better battery
  3. faster charger
  4. better quality lenses…instead of the Nikon 28-105mm 3.5-5.6 aperture and 70-300mm 4.0-6.0 aperture lenses, a Sigma 28-70mm, f 2.8-4.0 lens and a Sigma 70-300mm f 4-5.6 Macro lens.

I believe I want macro capability for some of my anticipated pet and hobby shots, so I was happy to see this feature.

All for +$180.00, in theory.

I hate to let myself be upsold, but this did seem like a good deal. One mainstay of the decision to buy the D50 had been to avoid shot delays, and the faster-writing memory card allegedly would exploit the capability of the D50 instead of being the weakest link.

I also ordered a cheap compatible battery from another company for $29.00 (shockingly lower than most places I saw them) because I wanted to have a backup battery available while the main was recharging.

So my package took some time to wend its way through the UPS Ground system. I looked around on the web to kill time – and I found a lot of vocal complaints about the very company from which I had chosen to buy! People mainly accused them of “bait & switch”, not sending what was promised. There were complaints about the upselling callback as well.

Now it’s hard to tell if the complainers are legitimately outraged customers, soreheads, or even plants by competitors – but seeing numerous comments didn’t make me feel any confidence.

I called them back twice – once to ask for the exact description of standard package, then a second time to ask them to read my order back to me. I was somewhat relieved to see that the order did indeed seem to match what I’d agreed to in the upselling call, but still worried.

Well, it came at last yesterday.

  1. Nikon D50 digital camera body
  2. Sigma 28-70mm, f 2.8-4.0 lens (replacing Nikon 28-105mm 3.5-5.6 aperture)
  3. Sigma 70-300mm f 4-5.6 Macro (replacing Nikon 70-300mm 4.0-6.0 aperture)

both lenses specified as being for Nikon AF(d)

  1. 2 Gb Secure Digital Memory (allegedly high-speed, although I didn’t specifically see it on the packaging)
  2. High speed digital memory card reader (USB 2.0, it’s the MH-18a iirc)
  3. Battery – looks like a regular Nikon EN-EL battery, if I remember the number designation, no idea if it’s “high capacity” (the backup battery came as well, but I don’t entertain doubts about it, as it was not billed as anything special)
  4. Tripod
  5. Mini desk tripod (cheap, no doubt)
  6. Camera case, junk (lens case, lens cleaning kit, LCD screen protectors, cap keeper)

The camera case is cheap – no leather – but that plays into our hands anyway, since (as vegans) we try to avoid leather.

Total price $899.00. Looking around the web that looks like a good price to me, IF the items (particularly the lenses) are as advertised.

My specific questions, if you’ve read this far, are as follows:

  1. Any comments on the choice of the D50?
  2. Price seem okay?
  3. Are the lenses good? Sigma seems to have a good rep, but all makers make a variety of lenses to appeal to all budgets. Do they seem like an upgrade over the Nikon lenses in the original package?
  4. The Sigma lenses (for Nikon AF(d)) should be fully compatible with the D50, right? Because of the negative reviews, and my own inexperience with cameras in general, I’m just a bit concerned that the guy might have sold me something that doesn’t autofocus on my camera, or something.
  5. How can I tell if the Secure Digital memory card is “high speed”? It looks sort of generic. I might have to go home and inspect it for a model number and report back to this thread.

I have seven days to return this thing, if I understand, so if there’s bad news, please let me know. In my dewy-eyed innocence, I kind of think it looks ok, though. I’m getting excited about the new toy.

Thanks for taking the time to read and/or comment!

Sailboat

2

Sailboat, I’m a Canon user so I don’t have any info on the D50, but as regards non-OEM lenses my experience has been that they are usually of lesser quality/compatibility as compared to the OEM.

Would the initials of your vendor be PRP, by any chance? If so, based on experiences I’ve read about on the web I’m afraid you may have just learned a fairly expensive lesson, as even if you do return the equipment they will almost certainly charge you something on the order of a 15% restock fee.

3

All I can say is that the memory speed claim is not definitively bogus; SD memory is available with quite a wide range of different read/write speeds - all of them will work for storing photos, but if you expect to be using them for video or for taking high resolution photos in quick succession, yoiu may well need a high speed card - otherwise video may be choppy and with stills, you might find yourself waiting a couple of seconds while the camera writes the image to the card.

4

That upselling is egregious. I just purchased a name-brand 2GB SD card (high speed, “50X”, though not the highest) last month for less than $30 using Buy.com. See about canceling your order, as I would not want to have to deal with that shop.

Good reading: a pretty informative guide to buying camera equipment.

I think many people buy more camera than they really need or can use. From the same site is an article about that.

Good luck with your purchase.

5

You got ripped off.

Let’s put it this way…if the extra stuff was such a screaming deal, they would not have called you to upsell you on it anyhow. You can get 2GB SD memory for under 100 bucks nowadays, so him trying to pump you for 200 bucks for it is just awful. And he replaced your Nikon lenses with a name I have never heard of, and then threw in a buch of high-margin shit (memory card reader, camera case and wipes, etc) to make it seem like you got a good deal.

Amazon has the camera itself for 610 bucks with free shipping. It looks liek the lenses are what you were bait ansd switched on, as the nikon versions look to cost about double what the Sigma versions cost. This is likely where they really saved their money and scored with you. If you had insisted that it ship with the nikon lenses, they probably would have held onto your order forever, insisted they were waiting for parts in order to ship it, etc etc…

6

Amazon has the following prices:
D50 body: $450
Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6: $134
Sigma 28-70mm f/2.8-4: $130
SanDisk SDSDH-2048-901 2 GB Ultra II: $65

I don’t know about the battery, but if it’s off-brand, it’s probably worth less than $20. That’s $800 total so far. Even with a tripod and memory card reader, $899 seems a little high. If you hunt around, you can probably get even better than Amazon, especially the memory card.

There’s nothing wrong with Sigma. But generally Nikon lenses are at least as good, if not better.

Also, 28mm is pretty long for a DSLR wide-angle lens. Personally I’d have gotten a D50 kit with an 18-55 lens, and added a Nikon 70-300. Add the above-mentioned 2GB card and it adds up to about $840 (at Amazon).

7

The extras might have made it worth it, but paying $200 for SD memory is a total ripoff. Even fast speed can be had for ~ $50 for 2 GB. I’m at work so I can’t reply at length, jsut wanted to throw this out right off the bat.

8

And I should have previewed, I didn’t think I had taken all that long in responding!

9

First of all, there are many, many shady internet camera retailers that are notorious for palming off grey market items as domestic, breaking apart retail packages and selling the items separately, aggressive upselling tactics, etc., and it sounds like you’ve run into one of them. If you want to check on a store’s reputation, I’ve found http://www.resellerratings.com/ to be an invaluable resource.

The D50 is an excellent entry-level DSLR. I used one for over a year before I upgraded to the D200 and I highly recommend it. There’s a full range of controls from fully-automatic to fully-manual and picture quality is technically superb. The complaints I had were to do with not enough control buttons and dials, making me dive through digital menus to change settings like the metering mode, and the lack of a backlit LCD panel. These are relatively minor quibbles, though.

Seems high. And you definitely got screwed on the SD card.

Those Sigma lenses are pretty good and are pretty much comparable to the listed Nikon lenses. They are also fully compatible with the D50.

However, as stated above, 28mm is a little long for a DSLR (the D50 has a crop factor of 1.6x which means that 28mm will render a field of view comparable to 45mm on a 35mm SLR). You could get the D50 kit lens which is a 18-55mm, but I recommend against it. I found the lens to be soft, lacking contrast and experienced severe purple fringeing in high contrast scenes. I was much happier when I traded it in for the superior (although more expensive) 18-70mm which is the kit lens for the D70.

There should be a “high-speed” label somewhere on the card or packaging. Definitely do an online search for the model no.

All things considered, I think you got some quality items, but you probably paid too much. Also, it’s important that you find out if you got a grey market camera (not meant for sale within North America). It’s not technically illegal for these places to sell grey market cameras but Nikon won’t honour the warranty so you’ll be taking a big chance if anything goes wrong.

10

The D50 rules. Love mine.

But I read at www.dpreview.com for a long time before I decided on an online store. Chose B&H. Awesome place.

The whole “calling you to make you buy different/expensive stuff” sounds A LOT like what happened to people who bought from camera stores that rip people off. If I can find the site again, I’ll post a link later, but someone went around and figured out where exactly all these camera stores are. Most are in Brooklyn. B&H has a huge superstore in Brooklyn where you can actually shop in. A lot of the online stores out there are really a front and change names/locations often. It’s actually quite crazy.

I wouldn’t have gotten the Sigma 28-70, and would have stuck with the kit lens or gotten body only and a different lens. Just me though. I’ve heard not so awesome things about the Nikon equivalent to this lens, but YMMV.

The battery in charger in box are Nikon ones, and very nice. If you needed an extra battery, Nikon makes them and that’s the only battery I’d trust. I think the battery lasts a long time per charge anyway. Sigma makes some good lenses, along with Tamron, Tokina, etc but not all of them are great and it’s good to read people’s experiences with lenses first I think - some are good only are certain focal points, some are soft, blah blah.

I got a SanDisk Ultra II 2 GB card for my Nikon. It’s easy to find it on sale/reg price even places like Circuit City for less quite a bit than $100, usually around $60.

From now on, I’d recommend checking out Reseller Ratings and maybe hitting the Nikon D40/D50/D70s/D80 boards at www.dpreview.com They are helpful with camera questions, store recs, photo critique. It’s how I found out about B&H. There are some other really reputable camera dealers too.

But crazyjoe got it - the ol bait and switch.

11

You’re probably thinking about this site. It really underlines how slimy and widespread the problem is with these places. Also, check out Thomas Hawk’s experiences. This story became quite famous within the photographic community and sparked a lot of consumer education efforts. Sadly, these people rarely suffer consequences for their unsavoury business practises.

I’d like to second the dpreview forums. There’re a lot of helpful, knowldgeable people there. One caveat though: their digital retouching forum is filled with all sorts of photoshop monstrosities. Subtlety is not definitely not their forte.

B&H is a good reputable NYC dealer. Also check out Adorama. Those are the only 2 NYC camera dealers I’m willing to trust.

12

Well, I called to get an RMA number to return the whole package.

The operator attempted to “make things right” with counteroffers. Speciofically, he offered to knock 10% off the price ($85), and throw in the 5-year extended warranty. He insisted the memory card was high-speed. He told me “You’re getting SanDisk Ultra II or (something else)”, listing brands of memory I’ve seen mentioned on line. I gave him the name of the actual card suplied (PQI or something) and he said “Or that, that’s high-speed.” So I asked him what speed it might be. He eventually allowed “40x, but that’s the fastest that’s compatible with your camera.” That smelled like BS to me.

But the whole thing is BS. So I insisted he supply a return RMA.

He then explained I’ll need to pay for shipping – the ORIGINAL shipping cost used to ship it out to me. Which was apparently $50.00. So I have to pay to ship it to them AND pay for their original shipping, even though I am returning it because it was not as advertised?

I’ve tried to contact the Better Business Bureau here, but they are literally not answering their phones, and I need to return it right away.

Does that sound like a customary charge? Can I dispute that?

Thanks,

Sailboat

13

I don’t know, man. At this point I’d take the $85 and consider it a lesson learned. It’s not that you got a HORRIBLE deal, just a not good one. Live and learn and all that…

14

Most cameras really don’t take advantage of very high-speed memory cards. For nearly all P&S cameras a 60x card is all the camera can take advantage of. For dSLRs some can exercise up to 150x, but the D50 isn’t one of them. Unless you are shooting burst mode in RAW you might not need more then 40x.

But you still got ripped off on the memory card. I bought two 150x SD cards for $32 each from newegg.com three months ago. Frankly, brand name really doesn’t matter as there’s almost no difference these days.

Lenses that come with a camera kit are usually not that great. Many people upgrade when they buy a new dSLR body. I’m more familiar with Canon so I can’t say anything about the D50 kit lens.

The camera bag, tripod, mini-tripod, extra battery, are all probably junk.

Reputable stores don’t push deals like this. I only use B&H, they will always treat you right. Reward good behavior by merchants; maybe more places will follow suit.

15

Is there something in writing on their website or in the paperwork that was shipped which states this? If not (I assume you paid with a credit card) you might want to give them a call. See if you can cancel payment to them and pay for shipping the items back to them.

And for the record, I have a couple Sigma lenses and I love them.

16

Yeah, you got ripped off. In the future, for most electronic purchases, you can check the following websites to make sure you are getting a good deal, and to see what is on sale:

www.pricewatch.com
www.newegg.com
www.fatwallet.com (for deals)
www.cnet.com (for reviews)

You should also use Google to double check all of those places.

17

If you are unable to work with the company (yeah, you might get stuck with the restocking fee), you can always call your credit card company. I had a problem with an online vendor not returning my calls or email. I called my CC company and they stopped payment… It was amazing how fast the company called me back and worked out the differences… I always use credit cards for large purchased because of this feature now…

18

Was this Abe’s of Maine? (And as an aside, why on earth don’t people just mention the name of the company when telling stories like this? They’re not going to sue you, I promise.)

I had a nearly identical situation when I bought our Nikon D70 as part of a package deal from Abe’s of Maine last year. A customer service rep called me to offer to upgrade the lens I chose with two Sigma lenses (one wide angle, one zoom). He also noted that we had ordered an extra battery which was not the high capacity version, and offered to change it to something which looked generic but which was supposed to be compatible. I was suspicious, but ended up agreeing to both upgrades.

It turned out that I was quite happy with all the changes made. While not a camera guru by any means, the Sigma lenses have been great for our needs and were a worthwhile upgrade. The high capacity batteries last noticeably longer than the one that shipped with the camera (we almost got through our entire trip to Africa on one of them without recharging). I’m grateful to them for calling me and pointing out both upgrades, which I would have chosen on my own had their website not been such an absolute disaster. (Abe’s of Maine had, and probably still has, one of the worst websites for an online store I’ve ever seen.)

So the upsell is not always a rip off. Of course, not letting you return the camera without a huge restocking/shipping fee sure is – I second the recommendation to talk to your credit card company.