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I was in Chester today and stopped off at a little camera shop to have a chat about tripods. I think tripods are something I certainly needed to have a play with before purchasing.
I have a Velbon somethingorother that's plastic construction and requires a total of about 4 knobs to be tightened before the camera is fixed. It doesn't hold the weight of a 50D + 24-105 lens very well and as I'm planning on a 70-200 I figured it would finally be time to get a decent tripod.
The guy in the shop was dead helpful. He started out with cheap tripods but when I started talking about wanting decent stability, fewer knobs and more sturdy construction we started looking at Manfrotto stuff. Quite quickly I could see the build quality improvement over the other stuff in the shop. He unpacked a Joystick 222 head and set it up with a 190xProB trio of legs and after messing about with it I realised I wanted it. Not being an idiot though, I walked out of the shop to have a think before slapping down the plastic. But not before the guy had written down the specs of the legs and head and telling me to check the website to make sure what I was thinking of would be able to handle the weight I wanted to put on there.
The problem is, that he wrote their prices down there too.
£93 for the head, and £120 for the legs.
I'd barely started internet searching before Warehouse Express came back at me through google with a price of £68 & £99 respectively. That's £168 as opposed to £213. If I buy them at separate internet shops, I can get it about another £15 cheaper.
So. Whilst I want to keep the high street shops going, and I do appreciate the advice and service, do I appreciate it to the value of £40-£50?
I don't think I do.
Do you have a moral stance on this? Would you pay extra if given a good service in a shop, even though you know you could get it cheaper elsewhere? If so, how much extra would you pay? 10%, 20%, 50%?
I'll speak to the shop next week and see if they can get a bit closer to the internet prices. They may have a "computer says no" policy - which would be a shame as I thought the service was excellent.
Ian.
I have a Velbon somethingorother that's plastic construction and requires a total of about 4 knobs to be tightened before the camera is fixed. It doesn't hold the weight of a 50D + 24-105 lens very well and as I'm planning on a 70-200 I figured it would finally be time to get a decent tripod.
The guy in the shop was dead helpful. He started out with cheap tripods but when I started talking about wanting decent stability, fewer knobs and more sturdy construction we started looking at Manfrotto stuff. Quite quickly I could see the build quality improvement over the other stuff in the shop. He unpacked a Joystick 222 head and set it up with a 190xProB trio of legs and after messing about with it I realised I wanted it. Not being an idiot though, I walked out of the shop to have a think before slapping down the plastic. But not before the guy had written down the specs of the legs and head and telling me to check the website to make sure what I was thinking of would be able to handle the weight I wanted to put on there.
The problem is, that he wrote their prices down there too.
£93 for the head, and £120 for the legs.
I'd barely started internet searching before Warehouse Express came back at me through google with a price of £68 & £99 respectively. That's £168 as opposed to £213. If I buy them at separate internet shops, I can get it about another £15 cheaper.
So. Whilst I want to keep the high street shops going, and I do appreciate the advice and service, do I appreciate it to the value of £40-£50?
I don't think I do.
Do you have a moral stance on this? Would you pay extra if given a good service in a shop, even though you know you could get it cheaper elsewhere? If so, how much extra would you pay? 10%, 20%, 50%?
I'll speak to the shop next week and see if they can get a bit closer to the internet prices. They may have a "computer says no" policy - which would be a shame as I thought the service was excellent.
Ian.
