Sun just before heading below the horizon

[Robert Watcher]

Sun just before heading below the horizon.

Anne and drove to lonely spot on a hill overlooking the lake this evening. I took along my newly delivered Olympus EM1 mkii to familiarize myself with while sitting on a bench with frozen fingers. This pic is shot with a 600mm equivalent lens.

Unfortunately the camera purchased off of Amazon with a great price $100 lower than the sale price on right now for that model - wasnt what I was expecting. It was brand new sure enough, and is a beautiful camera to use, but not being an Authorized Olympus dealer there is not even a one year warranty. As well when I dug into the menus to set it up, I realized the Video options are 25 and 50 FPS, with no option to change to standard NTSC 30 and 60 FPS. There is the Cine 4K at 24FPS which is fine, but that’s not the point. That was a little maddening. So tonight I submitted a return of my funds to Amazon. We’ll see how that goes.

 

[Robert Watcher]

A few minutes earlier with the sun higher in the sky, I snapped off two or three shots with these seagulls flying through the scene.

 

[Maggie Terlecki]

It's too bad you have to send it back but Amazon makes it very painless for returns. The colors you captured are marvelous though

 

[nicolas claris]

…
Unfortunately the camera purchased off of Amazon with a great price $100 lower than the sale price on right now for that model - wasnt what I was expecting. It was brand new sure enough, and is a beautiful camera to use, but not being an Authorized Olympus dealer there is not even a one year warranty. As well when I dug into the menus to set it up, I realized the Video options are 25 and 50 FPS, with no option to change to standard NTSC 30 and 60 FPS. There is the Cine 4K at 24FPS which is fine, but that’s not the point. That was a little maddening. So tonight I submitted a return of my funds to Amazon. We’ll see how that goes.

​

Robert, this is the exact reason why I always buy to a brick and mortar shop, and I know what I'm speaking about, I'm buying a whole new system (body and lenses) which costs around 15 grands (€)…
But I won't get to any grey market, if a problem appears I drive to the shop directly and find someone responsible and easy to deal with :~)
At the end I even might save some money in case of real problem…

Nice shots by the way!

 

[Robert Watcher]

Robert, this is the exact reason why I always buy to a brick and mortar shop, and I know what I'm speaking about, I'm buying a whole new system (body and lenses) which costs around 15 grands (€)…
But I won't get to any grey market, if a problem appears I drive to the shop directly and find someone responsible and easy to deal with :~)
At the end I even might save some money in case of real problem…

Nice shots by the way!

yes I agree with your Nicolas. The reality is that I buy used most of the time and have had good success for the most part. The last time I purchased new gear was when I switched over to digital in the early 2000’s. I was extremely busy with my studio and I could justify what was expensive gear at the time, based on savings of $500 to $1,000 or more that film and processing cost me for each job. In those years and with my film gear before that (RZ67, finders and lenses) I had well over $50,000 in camera gear - a nice tax write off too. LOL.

Not making much of living anymore from photography dictates that I cannot justify the crazy costs of modern bodies and especially lenses. The top tier lenses are way beyond anything but dreaming about them, and the cheap ones run close to $1,000 a piece.

This time the purchase of this pro body new, was as a gift from my wife for our upcoming 45’th wedding anniversary on May 8’th. She wanted to get me something special - a new camera. We don’t go out anywhere except secluded places locally from time to time, and we aren‘t in a city where there are brick and mortar. Everything we have purchased over the last year since coming back from Central America has been through Amazon with delivery right to our door without exposing ourselves to anyone. Also saving us a ton of money in shipping or gasoline driving to pickup. It has worked well. We both have purchased some top tier stuff without issue.

I didn’t realize until after I ordered and it was being shipped, that the camera was grey market. Actually I may have been fine with it, if it was from the USA and has the video standard I needed. Anyway, lesson learned. Olympus Canada has a deal on until the end of April that is $100 more than what we paid. Hopefully we get a return from Amazon before that price goes back to the normal price that is $700 more.

I appreciate your advice. Thanks.

 

[nicolas claris]

I completely understand Robert!
It happened to me to order at B&H from France (after I visited their amazing and huge store in NYC) they are really reliable, have an exchange policy and sometimes refurbished gear. They deliver all over the world.
There are some other US shops doing the same…