Thursday, April 27, 2006

New camera purchase - Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT 350D

I broke down and nervously purchased a new digital camera. As the title says, I bought a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT 350D with accessories. I was nervous because this is an inexpensive expensive digital SLR. Expensive for me but inexpensive for others, I guess. The camera with kit lens is like $799 at most places online or like $100 more at Best Buy or other local camera sellers. It does come with a $100 MIR so it now becomes $699. If you want accessories, that brings the price back up.

I've been wanting a digital SLR for a while. I want to get into photography personally but if it turns some profits professionally as well, I'm not against that. I have two digital cameras already but they wouldn't allow me to do things I want to do because of limited zooming, no manual focus and the such. They are nice cameras. One was top of the line HP 2.1 megapixel like eight years ago and the other is a Canon SD500 (or like that) which is a 5 megapixel with a few more features than the HP. Both great cameras for the everyday snapshot. I wanted more.

So, I came into some financial aid money that I could possibly use for this purchase instead of PAYING OFF or DOWN some credit card bills like I originally planned. I also wanted a rocking laptop. I was looking for a desktop replacement laptop but I would still keep my desktops. As mentioned, I just wanted a rocking laptop.

I pondered and pondered, waited and waited, for a sign that told me I should purchase this laptop. The first sign was when I got my financial aid money but I wasn't totally sold on the purchase. It would have wiped out 2/3 of the money and there was no real dent to make in my credit card debt with the remaining 1/3.

I waited some more and a new sign arose but not for the laptop. I saw an entry on the Fresh Deals blog that had the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT at Amazon for like $759 - $100 Canon MIR and free shipping making it a pretty worthy deal to check out.

I was at work when I received this "sign" and it just happened that a coworker of mine that I helped purchase a digital camera came in my office and said she needed me to do some research to find her another digital camera and she wanted one where you could interchange the lenses. What luck for her, huh?

She purchases the camera from Amazon buys some additional accessories like a 2GB Compact Flash Card, a 75mm-200mm extra lens and some lens filters. Anyway, she was anxious to get her new toy and so was I since I wanted to see how it was before I purchased it.

Well, she had a death in the family and it was like a week and a half later before I got to see and play with her camera. I don't play with it strictly for my fun. I have to figure it out for her and explain the basics to her so she'll understand because she can't learn herself from the instruction manual. Funny, huh?

Anyway, during this week and a half, I couldn't wait. Temptation drew me in and the urge to spend the extra dough in my pocket was too great. I had to buy this camera. I decided I concede to getting one on eBay - new or slightly used. I figured if I didn't like it I could always re-eBay it and get my money back. Turns out this is a very popular camera and eBay was no exception to its popularity.

I watched a few auctions to see how the pricing went. Some people were spending more than the Amazon deal for the same exact item(s) and some were spending just a little more than the cost of just the camera. eBay buyers aren't very smart sometimes. Anyway, I found a few auctions by this one seller that seemed to be a pretty good deal. They were selling the camera with accessories: external flash, 1-6 GB Compact Flash card, USB card reader, 3 filters, wide-angle lens, additional 70-300mm lens, regular case, hard aluminum case, table tripod, regular tripod and a lens cleaning kit. The particular auction I was looking at had a 4GB compact flash card for $1,118.00. Quite a bit above the $699 that originally caught my eye but I think worth it because of all the stuff you got with it. The 75-200mm lens my coworker bought was $193+s/h, 2GB flash card was like $100+s/h, the filter kit was around $30+s/h and then she bought a case locally. So you figure she spent around $1,023 where as I should have spent $1,118. Again, it was a sweet deal.

I used the "Buy It Now" option as it was the only option. I called the company to pay and their sales/cust.svc. guy sold me a couple of additional items. All pretty much needed of course. I purchased an additional "professional" long-lasting battery for $69.99 (originally $89.99 but had a 30% coupon) and a 5-year extended warranty for $199.99 (originally $245 but another coupon). With these "upgrades" I was upgraded to a PRO wide angle lens, PRO filter kit, PRO flash and 2-3 day shipping.

Good times, huh? Are you feeling the excitement too!? LOL!

Anyway, I am anxiously anticipating my new toy. The laptop purchase has been thrown to the "wants" pile especially since I have two other older ones but they aren't desktop replacements.

I want my toy NOW!!

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