This page assumes that you live in the United States or that you live in Europe and will be mail ordering from the United States. If you are visiting Japan, you probably want to read Buying a Camera in Japan.
I want to support photo.net
photo.net was started in 1993 as my personal Web site. Today the site attracts almost 5 million visitors per month and the server processes more than 10 million requests every day. The site has a staff of full-time employees working on editorial, programming, system administration, and customer service. After much discussion with readers in the spring of 2000, we concluded that the best way to keep photo.net alive was referral fees from retailers. So if photo.net has been a valuable resource for you, please help by following one of the following encoded links:
* amazon.com (oftentimes the best price and delivery time)
* Adorama (full-line professional store)
For more specialized needs, here's our original "where to buy" page ...
I want it cheap and fast
You don't have to go to New York anymore. amazon.com sells all of the popular cameras, most lenses, and many accessories. You probably already have an account there and they have more sophisticated credit card fraud system than the New York stores, so your "ship today" order will actually ship today.
If you want to got to New York, we recommend Adorama, which has obscure items that you won't find at Amazon:
Adorama
42 West 18th Street
(between 5th and 6th Avenues)
New York City, NY 10011
US voice (800) 223-2500
overseas voice +1 (212) 741-0052
FAX +1 (212) 463-7223
email: info@adoramacamera.com
www.adorama.com
Many photo.net readers who have never set foot in the United States are satisfied Adorama customers.
One thing that a big New York retailer can do that your local camera shop cannot is to go to Japan or Europe and import cameras themselves. Suppose that Nikon USA is selling F5 bodies to retailers here for $2500. Adorama has enough volume that they can fly to Japan and buy a bunch of F5s from a wholesaler there for, say, $1800 each. They bring them back to the US and sell them as "grey market" (parallel import) for $2200. It is exactly the same camera but you get a lower price. You will miss out on any rebates that Nikon USA is offering and the Nikon USA warranty, though the US retailer will give you its own warranty. Camera bodies are very reliable, lenses are even more reliable, and the authorized importers usually offer extremely slow service to consumers. Hence, it is probably not worth paying more than $25 extra for a "USA" model. Sometimes grey market bodies even have useful features that are disabled in US models due to patent problems.
I want to get screwed
Place an order with any store offering a camera for less than 90 percent of what Amazon is charging. When you have finished reciting your credit card number, they'll say "oops, that price was for the grey market version; right now we only have the US version in stock and that is $200 extra." Another popular fraud is to add a $150 shipping charge to an order for a camera body and two lenses.
You'll find more stories about bad (and good) retailers in the photo.net Neighbor to Neighbor service.
I want to see it in a catalog and have it explained to me
Try Calumet, based in Chicago at 1-800-CALUMET. Their sales people tend to be patient and experienced. Calumet caters to professionals and studio photographers. Calumet is not competitive for common items such as the Canon or Nikon systems. They tend to push their house brands even when the consumer would be better served with a name-brand product. For example, their view cameras aren't much cheaper than equivalent Sinar products, but any working photographer would be much better off with Sinar (see "Choosing a Large Format Camera"). A friend bought two of their house-brand flash packs. They had some nice electronic features and were a bit cheaper than equivalent name-brand flashes, but neither triggered reliably when one hit the test button or used the sync cord. By contrast, I've seen lots of cheap strobe packs that didn't have the features of fancy Broncolor packs. But the cheap packs always worked.
I want an intelligent recommendation for serious equipment
Talk to Jeff Hirsch at FOTOCARE, 136 West 21st Street, NY, NY 10011. (212) 741-2990 ( http://www.fotocare.com/). Don't ask him which point & shoot to buy, but he rents all the good large- and medium-format stuff plus studio lighting. Because he rents and uses this stuff, he knows what matters. This is the place to buy weird but essential stuff, e.g., ballheads, quick releases, etc. Jeff's prices on those items are often identical to B&H and Adorama.
I want to trade a Hasselblad and a Leica in for a new Linhof
Petrified Forest (north-central Arizona). Gil Ghitelman, www.gilghitelman.com used to be a psychologist in the Montgomery County public schools, where I suffered through 10 grades, but I won't hold that against him. He started collecting Leicas and then decided to go into the family camera business. You can trust Gil; he'll go the extra mile to make sure that you get what you need, and you might pay less than you would at B&H.
Although Gil is hidden away in Weston, Connecticut, he is a pretty high-volume Hasselblad dealer and has an in-house repair service (forget what anyone says; 'blads need a lot of maintenance). He also stocks oddities like $800 English camera bags.
I've bought a bunch of Linhof stuff from Gil, new and used.
I want to take a picture like this
Brooks Falls, Katmai National Park
Talk to Leonard Lee Rue III and Len Rue, IV. When they aren't out chasing wildlife or sitting in a blind with a 600/4, the Rues operate a mail-order service for wildlife photographers.
They've personally used every piece of equipment in their illustrated catalog and don't sell it if it doesn't work. Much of the stuff you'd be unlikely to know you needed. If B&H has the same item, it will be somewhere between the same price and 25% cheaper.
Leonard Rue Enterprises, 138 Millbrook Road, Blairstown, NJ 07825, (800) 734-2568, http://www.rue.com.
[Note: Bear photo was taken with Nikon 300/2.8, FOBA ballhead, 8008 body, Ektar 25 film, 1/60th at 2.8 under overcast skies. From Travels with Samantha.]
I want to buy a used camera
A tree in Petrified Forest (north-central Arizona).
If you don't see anything you like in the photo.net Classifieds, rec.photo.marketplace and Shutterbug magazine are the places to look for advertisements from shops and individuals selling used cameras.
Midwest Photo Exchange, 3313 N. High Street, Columbus, OH 43202, 614-261-1264, FAX 614-261-1637, is a good source for old view cameras and the like (esp. strong on Linhof Technicas).
KEH Camera Brokers puts out a big catalog that is useful for reference prices.
http://www.photo.net/photo/where-to-buy
