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About to pull trigger for 60D package but would appreciate advice on alternatives for store


Matt Stevens

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Gents (and ladies),

 

My brother in-law over in Vietnam is foaming at the mouth over this package...

 

http://www.ebay.com/...984.m1438.l2649

 

The basics of the package: Canon EOS 60D +6 Lens Pro Kit: 18-55 IS, 55-250 IS, 50mm, 500mm Preset telephoto, 58mm Wide Angle + lots of bundled stuff.

 

Now they claim a USA warranty. They claim no grey market. Their feedback is quite good (nearing 38,000 at this point and 99.7% +).

 

My bro has exactly $1300 to spend, so this fits right in there.

 

In Vietnam, Canon will only service Canons purchased in Vietnam. But those cameras have a huge tax that makes them double priced. Hence the need for a foreign purchase, which I will hand deliver in January when I visit.

 

I have not found any bundles that are anywhere near this and would appreciate it if anyone who knows of trustworthy stores with bundles can let me in on those places. I'm in no way a DSLR expert. I have T3i with kit lens purchased from New Egg that I barely use (and I may sell it in Vietnam).

 

Thanks to all for your help. Oh and if your opinion is, just go ahead and pull the trigger, say so. I have the money. And I certainly can test everything out when it gets here.

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Good grief no.

 

The ebay seller you linked to, Get It Digital, is mentioned in a comment on this post at wisebread.com, in which they're described as pulling, well, exactly the sort of crap you'd expect this sort of feeble ebay junkie to pull.

 

Even were this not the case, this seller rings alarm bells for me. The lenses listed look like the bottom-of-the-range, the bundled kit lens sort of stuff, and you should carefully evaluate whether they're worth as much as the seller claims. The wide angle and telephoto adaptors are, given their appearance and apparent price, almost certainly not capable of enough resolution to satisfy the 60D's sensor either. The "start up battery" probably means some awful cheap low-capacity thing, which I wouldn't expect to be a Canon original in this sort of context. And the rest of it is just cheap junky crap you could buy from ebay anyway. Card wallets? Please.

 

These huge bundles-o-junk are often not much more than an opportunity to upsell the customer on better batteries, chargers and other accessories, and endlessly delaying shipping for spurious reasons until the customer agrees to be upsold, often ending up with a far worse deal in the long run. And given that the accessories are worth very little, this isn't a particularly good deal for a 60D in the first place. All 60D bodies from a reputable dealer - which is just the standard package Canon ship - include a battery and charger anyway!

 

Personally, if you want a 60D body, I'd go and buy a 60D body from a place you can take it back to and bang on the counter if it goes wrong. I wouldn't touch this outfit with a barge pole.

 

P

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Well, Phil, I read through that article and it certainly was scary. I also calld the company and trid to talk to them about certain things (like are they giving me a knockout battery instead of the original Canon) and they were not ken to answer those questions. So...

 

I've spoken with my brother in-law and he agreed that it's too risky, so I will likely buy the body plus two lenses directly from Amazon and whatever money is left over, buy a good backpack and other misc. items.

 

I appreciate your response. You saved me from myself.

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Phew, I had the feeling we were going to hear that you'd ordered it, and this thread would turn into another horror story.

 

My feeling on the high value stuff is that if you want a 60D body and a couple of lenses, you should probably just go down to a reasonable photo store and buy one. You're unlikely to save more than a fraction by looking online and the ability to go and see them if there's a problem is invaluable.

 

P

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Well, once they leave the USA, that'll be that. So I am going to buy him the body and am deciding on lenses based upon his wants.

 

The problem is, he is sending me links ot all sorts of kits that look good, but when you dig deeper, are poop.

 

Such as...

 

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Filter-CANON-Cameras-including/dp/B0057CPD1M/ref=sr_1_80?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1354428401&sr=1-80&keywords=Canon+60D+Kits

 

The keys to that one are the so called super wide fisheye, the 0.43x wide angle lens and the 2.2x telephoto.

 

There are no ultra inexpensive options for such lenses, correct/ The optics on these cheapos is foggy and downright terrible from some reviews I see.

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There are no ultra inexpensive options for such lenses, correct

 

Not really, no.

 

Primes tend to be cheaper than zooms. Zooms with a very long range tend to be poor. Zooms which are very fast and very sharp and have a long range are extremely expensive. A friend of mine has a 28-300 f3.5-6.3 Tamron zoom which is, on the face of it, some way beyond absolute junk, although it's marginally OK for video use as long as you avoid the extreme long end and don't open up beyond about 5.6 anywhere in the zoom range.

 

Possibly the best EF-S lens for the money is the 60mm macro prime, but that's not really a tool for general photography and it's still $400 or something.

 

If you're shooting solely video you can tolerate slightly soft glass better than you can if you are shooting exclusively stills for high end applications, but in general you're right to be cautious.

 

P

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I'll be purchasing the 60D body today. I would like for him to have the 50mm 1.4 but he is opting for the 1.8, which is only $110 but not exactly top build quality. I've used it and shot with it. But I don't know about longevity.

 

He's also considering the 40mm EF2.8 STM.

 

One or the other. No both. Primary use would be for video.

 

Right now I am basically negotiating with him on how to spend his hard earned money.

Edited by Matt Stevens
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To some extent it's a learning process. If this is his first decent camera, he'll probably have to spend a while figuring out how he likes to shoot things in order to know what he wants. On that basis I think it's almost inevitable that in a year he'll be able to say "If only I'd known then what I know now..." almost regardless of what you end up buying.

 

On that basis, don't worry about it too much. I think you might find 50 is pretty narrow on an APS-sized sensor.

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I would recommend that if it's mostly for video then get a nikkor 50mm f 1.4 ai or ais. I'm looking on ebay right now and there's 1 for $160. The 50mm f 1.8 focus ring is extremely small so it's hard to get a good focus. Also with a Nikkor lens, it has a manual aperture so you can use it with other camera instead of only Canon.

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  • 4 months later...
Guest Christopher Sheneman

I bought a 60D camera and lens kit from Get It Digital on eBay, super cheap- everything was Canon, right down to the batteries. No problems here. They do call you up, but hey, I guess they're trying to make money, huh?

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