Tonight , something made me hesitate as I was about to delete a spam email before it had opened fully . It was the little teaser about the 5d at $899 GBP , or something like that . I let it open and ultimately arrived at the MaxiBigz site . An eyeopener for sure .
Checking up on its history I found this site , so now I'll relate to you a tale .
The MaxBigz site reminded me of a site I'd found out about a couple of years ago nearly , ( I forget its name properly , but something like Real DV . Maybe , but certainly had DV in its moniker ) and this time it was for the camera of the moment - for me at least , being a tyro astrophotographer - a Canon 20Da . Note the tiny suffix ' a ' after the 'D' . A limited run astro specific Canon initiated by the CEO of Canon Japan who was also an avid astro chap it seems . A huge camera company paying attention to the wants of the tiny astro community was quite remarkable . Anyway I think Canon knocked out a couple of thousand for the Eastern market and a couple thou' more for the west . End of production . Externally , other than the suffix identical in all respects to the 20D . The premium to pay above the normal 20D was quite hefty , some $800 or more I think . At anyrate , two years ago here was this online company flogging 20D's at about £750 and - bogglingly - a 20Da for about £850 ! Despite the protestations , - very like the supersceptics of this forum - of my astro chums on an astro site I went ahead and coughed up the necessary . Well , the sceptics were right of course . I waited and waited . The upshot was that one day about three months later I'd just drafted a letter to the CC company and printed out all my unacknowledged emails and was about to pop'em in an envelope to post off and wait some more and hope , when knock , knock on the front door and ....'lo !! a box containing a Canon camera was presented to me . Sure enough it wasn't a 20Da but a plain 20D . Nice , but not what I'd wanted .
After several more emails to the company asking their advice about returns and please could they send to me the camera I'd ordered - all unacknowledeged - the upshot of it all was that the CC company pretty swiftly paid me back the money I'd paid and I still had the 20D to toy with . Well , what can I say about this little parable other than here was a fairly happy outcome - except for a mild feeling of guilt about coming by an attractive piece of hardware for no effort on my part other than months long pent up anxiety . Reward ? I'm still not sure .
So seeing MaxiBigz tonight and their remarkable mark downs on top gear got me to thinking again of course : a full size CMOS sensor ,.. hmmmn !! Not a strict parallel of course as even I can see how a minimum wage packer in a warehouse could not , in haste, distinguish the subtlety between a 20D and a 20Da . But , there's nothing to mess up so far as I can see in this 'come on ' from MaxiBigz . If you pay by CC either way you'll get the camera or your money back .
Go for it ? Well there is the angst to endure should it not arrive in a reasonable time . BTW , I didn't have to pay duty on the 20D despite it having been sent from the USA .
Right , time for bed !
Bruce
I'd steer clear too!
