Archives for August 2017

New Free Shipping Offer at Groupon: Make $50+ purchase, unlock Free Shipping for the next 14 Days (without minimum purchase requirement)

There is a new development in the world of Free Shipping at Groupon Goods. In addition to their existing on-going offer to get free shipping with a $34.99+ order, they are introducing a new limited time free shipping promotion as follows:

IF you make a purchase of $49.99+ in a single transaction, for the next 14 calendar days, you will get FREE shipping on all your purchases, without the need for a minimum purchase amount. Items have to be sold and shipped by Groupon itself, not 3rd-party sellers.

Think of it a 14-day Prime-like membership, except you get the slowest Super-Saver No-Rush shipping, instead of 2-day shipping 🙂

The fineprint of the offer, cut and paste from their website:

“For a limited time, when you spend $49.99 or more on eligible Goods deals in one purchase, you’ll get free standard shipping ($3.99) on that order and on all eligible orders for the next 14 days with no minimum purchase requirement. No limits on number of uses. Eligible orders are for deals sold by Groupon Goods, Inc. that are not large, oversized, or delivered by a special or white glove carrier. Orders from third party sellers that sell on the Groupon Marketplace do not qualify. U.S. only.”

It is nice to see retailers try new things. Shipping is definitely one thing that is holding back some people from making Groupon purchases, so this offer may …unlock temporary impulse buys 🙂

Nikon 55-200mm f4-5.6 DX VR II with FREEBIES for $147

The value of free accessories may be diluted when you are buying a $2000 camera or lens, but when you are buying a $150 item, the free accessories are a much higher percentage of the value of a product. Case in point, the new condition Nikon 55-200mm f4-5.6G ED AF-S DX VR II is on sale for $147 at some authorized Nikon authorized dealers.

At Adorama, you can get it for the same price, with free shipping with FREE accessories: the Corel software bundle (five titles, including AfterShot PRO 2 and Paintshop PRO X9 and VideoStudio 9), a 52mm Pro Optic Filter Kit (three filters and a case), and a lens cap tether.

If you don’t want/need the free accessories, you can instead get 4% promotional rewards at B&H Photo for the same price of $147 with free S&H.

VPNSecure for $40 after coupon (lifetime service)

For a limited time, coupon code VPNSECURE20 gets you 20% off a lifetime subscription to VPN Secure, a VPN service, for $40 (price before coupon $50). You pay only once. Updates are included. Check under the “Specs” to see device compatibility.

Speaking of Stacksocial, the following offers continue:

+ 2TB of Zoolz Cloud Storage (lifetime service) for $50

+ Premium PC Power Bundle for $29 includes Corel Paintshop Pro X9

+ Wpbasin WordPress Power Pack Bundle for $39 includes 42 WordPress Themes, 23 WP Plug-Ins, 25 HTML templates, and a 1-Year of Web Hosting (SSDPage)

+ Hollywood Art Institute Photography Course & Certification for $20 with lifetime access

(SOLD OUT) Refurbished Olympus E-M10 with 14-42 for $200

UPDATE 8/18/17 at 2pm ET: it is OUT of stock!

UPDATE 8/18/17 at 10:14am ET: it is back in-stock!

UPDATE: as of 8/18/17 at 1:49am ETT recheck, this is sold out and cannot be ordered. I will monitor the situation on Friday to see if it returns…

If you are looking for an affordable entry into Micro Four Thirds, the official Get Olympus USA store is offering the factory reconditioned silver Olympus E-M10 with 14-42mm II R black for $200 with free shipping and a 90-day Olympus USA warranty.

PS: this may sell out quickly. The black version of this sold out fairly quickly.

PS2: this surfaced as the Olympus USA Outlet store got reloaded with more items.

(ENDED) 2-Day Monoprice coupons: 20% off $200+ or $5 off $25+ [updated]

This 2-day coupon expired…

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Thursday Lightning Deals: Feiyu, Usual Camera/Photo accessories

There are over 40 items listed in the Camera & Photo lightning deals (old format) or Full Page format (faster to navigate on Desktop) of the Amazon Gold Box. Due to time constraints I cannot create a detailed listing of them all. The usual assortment of accessories are running throughout the day.

UPDATE: over 140 textbooks in e-book are participating in a back to school e-textbook sale. There no photography e-books but there is a variety of other topics.

2TB Cloud Storage for $50 (lifetime service)

If you are looking for an additional storage and backup option to integrate into your strategy, for a limited time, Stacksocial is offering 2TB of Zoolz Cloud Storage for $50. This is a lifetime service. You pay $50 once and you continue to use the service without any additional fees.

This includes 1TB of instant Vault storage, and 1TB of cold storage. This runs on the Amazon AWS. You can use two different computers to make backups. This offer is for new customers only, it cannot be stacked with additional promotions like this to get more storage at the same price.

Tamron SP 70-200mm f/2.8 Di VC USD for $949 [Canon EF]

If you are a Canon EF shooter, the new condition Tamron SP 70-200mm f/2.8 Di VC USD lens in the Canon EF system only, is on sale for $949 with free shipping and with 4% promotional rewards (around $38 to be spent in future purchases) at B&H Photo and Adorama.

Great Off-Topic Deal: Snack Sample Box (Prime only)

This is an “off topic” deal but it’s a very good deal if you …eat food 🙂 The offer is for Prime members only. Amazon launched a brand new Snack Sample Box with a minimum of ten different items (the one I got had 11). You pay $9.99 for this box with free shipping (not 2-day, it is standard/slower free shipping).

After your box ships, Amazon sends you an email informing you that a $9.99 credit has been added to your account automatically. You can use this credit to buy any of the 140+ eligible food/snacks in any combination and in multiple orders. You can tell the credit is in your account when you see it deducted at the top right corner of the Checkout page. You don’t have to enter any coupons. You can filter using the left sidebar (eg non-GMO, GF, Kosher, Vegan, Organic, etc).

PS: if you like the way this promotion is structured, they have many other Sample Boxes as well. If some eligible products belong to multiple sample boxes, credits from all eligible sample boxes will be applied to your order.

Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG OS HSM Macro with Lots of Extras for $569 (Canon EF)

The Canon EF version of the Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG OS HSM Macro is bundled with a boatload of free accessories while still going for the same price of $569 by Beach Camera through Amazon. Prime members get Prime-like shipping speed but it ships directly from Beach Camera (East Coast).

The free items are:

  • Bounce Zoom Slave FLASH
  • 64GB SDXC C10 card
  • Vivitar 62mm Filter Kit with case
  • Corel PAINTSHOP Pro X8
  • 8″ neoprene lens pouch
  • card wallet, cleaning kits, card reader, lens cap tether, etc

Benro TAC008ABR0 Active Aluminum Tripod with BR0E Ball Head for $30 w/free S&H

Doorbuster time at B&H Photo, they are offering the new condition Benro TAC008ABR0 Active Aluminum Tripod with BR0E Ball Head for $30 with free shipping. If your order total is $49+, it gets upgraded to free expedited shipping.

you are looking for something else to add to your B&H order to get to $49+, check their Featured Sales and Back to School sale.

YMMV: 8% back in eBay Bucks [no minimum amount]

This is YMMV ~ I do not know if eBay offers this to everyone or a subset of their registered users. Good until Friday 3am eastern (8/18/17), you earn 8% eBay Bucks on your purchases This particular promotion has no minimum purchase price, so even a $1 item will get you bonus bucks.

First you have to manually activate the offer from the eBay email or your eBay messages (if invited/selected to participate). Some exclusions apply as usual and the maximum rewards you can earn is $100 per transaction, and $500 during the promotional period. The email title announcing this promotion is not as clear as previous ones, but it has “eBay Bucks” in it, so look for that if you are skimming or filtering eBay emails.

A good place to look for ideas are the eBay Deals along with the Trending Deals (shows only 100 trending deals, less overwhelming to look at than their main deals page). There’s also a dedicated search box there that searches only the Deals, not everything else on eBay.

Another way to look for ideas is our eBay Category posts.

UPDATE: speaking of eBay, PayPal Digital Gifts is offering $25 Peets emailable gift cards for $20 with a limit of five per customer. This is a 20% off discount. If you max out, you pay $100 and get $125 worth of Peets e-gift cards. Peets has launched a rewards program now with iOS and Android apps as well.

10% off Hudson Albums with coupon at AdoramaPIX

If you are interested in the Hudson Albums (custom photo books), there are two new coupon promotions running at AdoramaPIX until 8/20/17 PM.

+ coupon code PXAGHUD10 gets you 10% off all Hudson albums

+ coupon code PXHUDSON164 gets you a 10-page 10×10-inch Genuine Leather Hudson album for $165. The regular price is $190, so this is a slightly better discount than 10% off

+ free shipping with orders of $49+
+ additional pages, add-ons, rounded corners, etc cost more

Zhiyun Crane 3-Axis Handheld Gimbal Stabilizer for $500

Back to the eBay Deals we go where the official Best Buy eBay store is offering the new condition Zhiyun Crane 3-Axis Handheld Gimbal Stabilizer for $500 with free shipping. Limit three per buyer.

Meanwhile the Zhiyun-Tech Crane-M 3-Axis Handheld Gimbal Stabilizer that works with action camera, smartphones and lightweight cameras (up to 1.4 lb) is on sale for $359 at B&H Photo and Adorama.

Dell Refurbished: 50% off Dell Precision M4700 or M4800 Laptops

Another coupon is born at Dell Refurbished, you can get 50% off Dell Precision M4700 or M4800 Laptops with coupon code SAVE50NOW and free ground shipping. Offer ends 8/20/17 at 11:59 PM CST. Dell Refurbished carries off-lease computers and it is operating in parallel to the main Dell Home website.

(ENDED) FeiyuTech G5 3-Axis Stabilized Handheld Gimbal for $195

This daily deal expired…

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(ENDED) Vello Softbox for $20; Moment phone lenses for $55; Etc

These daily deals expired but for more action, check their Featured Sales

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(ENDED) Wednesday: Union of the Two eBay Towers Opportunity: eBay Bucks AND Coupon

This window where both promotions were active expired…

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Three MacBook PRO deals ($1249 to $2099)

This offer is NOW LIVE! B&H Photo has three MacBook PRO laptops on sale with free shipping. It started on Wednesday at 12:01am ET.

+ Apple 15.4″ MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (Late 2016, Space Gray) for $2099

+ the ones below get a FREE 1-Year Office 365 subscription
+ Apple 13.3″ MacBook Pro (Silver, Late 2016) for $1249
+ Apple 13.3″ MacBook Pro (Space Gray, Late 2016) for $1249

FREE Choice (Dolica Tripod or Manfrotto Bag or Yongnuo Flash) with purchase of select DSLRs and iLCs

For a limited time only, Adorama has a new promotion that lets you pick ONE serious accessory for FREE with the purchase of select DSLRs and iLCs.

There are two sets of offers. Here is the first group:

PICK ONE BUY ONE
  • Dolica Proline 68″ 4-section Aluminum Tripod with Ball Head
  • Yongnuo YN560-III Manual Speedlite Flash
  • Manfrotto MBSB390-5BB Stile Veloce V Backpack
Canon D-Rebel T5i w/18-135
Canon D-Rebel T6i w/18-55
Canon D-Rebel T6 2-Lens Kit
Nikon D3400 2-Lens Kit
Nikon D5300 2-Lens Kit
Panasonic GX85 w/12-32
Sony a6000 2-Lens Kit
Sony a68 w/18-55

The second set of offers is at the bottom of the promotional page:

PICK ONE BUY ONE
  • Dracast LED160 Pro Bicolor 3200k-5600k On Camera Light
  • LaCie 1TB Rugged Thunderbolt USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive, 5400 RPM
  • Tascam DR-10SG Camera-Mountable Audio Recorder with Shotgun Microphone
Nikon D7200 w/18-140
Sony a7 II w/28-70

HOW TO GET THE FREE ITEM
Go to the individual product page of one of the participating cameras from the promotional page. We’ll go to the D3400 2-lens kit page.

Expand the “Special Offer” are by clicking on the blue link next to the yellow button:

This will bring out the eligible promotions. If you don’t see them here, it means the promotion expired…

Refurbished Olympus 75mm f1.8 for $560 [updated]

The Olympus 75mm f1.8 goes for $800 in new condition at authorized dealers (eg B&H Photo and Adorama), but if you are comfortable with manufacturer refurbished…

… you can get the manufacturer silver Olympus 75mm f1.8 for $560 with free shipping, with a 90-day warranty from Olympus USA.

UPDATE: the black Olympus 75mm f1.8 for $600 is currently sold out as of 8/19/17

Wednesday Lightning Deals: Nixplay, Usual Camera/Photo accessories

There are nearly 40 items listed in the Camera & Photo lightning deals (old format) or Full Page format (faster to navigate on Desktop) of the Amazon Gold Box. Due to time constraints I cannot create a detailed listing of them all. The usual assortment of accessories are running throughout the day.

Refurbished Olympus E-M5 II Body for $650 [updated]

The Olympus E-M5 II body only currently participates in a promotion that gets it the Olympus EZ 12-50mm f3.5-6.3 lens for FREE at authorized dealers.

But if you don’t want/need the 12-50mm EZ lens, and you prefer to pay a lower price, you can get the E-M5 II body only in manufacturer refurbished condition with a 90-day warranty from the official Get Olympus store for $650 with free shipping in the silver color scheme.

UPDATE 8/19/17: this is sold out as of this recheck: The Olympus E-M1 II body goes for $2000 in new condition at authorized dealers. The first generation E-M1 body only is no longer available in new condition, but if that’s the camera you want among the various M43rds options, you can get it in manufacturer refurbished condition with a 90-day warranty from the official Get Olympus store for $600 with free shipping in the silver color scheme.

Two Echo Show devices for $360 with coupon

The addition of a touchscreen to the Amazon Echo Show means you can view pictures on it (eg Prime Photos) as well as do many other things ~ including take advantage of some Alexa-exclusive deals and discounts.

For a limited time, coupon code SHOW2PACK drops $100 off the total price if you purchase TWO Echo Show devices at Amazon by Amazon itself. They go for $230 each, minus $100 with the coupon, you pay $360 instead of $460. In other words, they average to $180 each after coupon. You have to buy two of them though.

Annual Adorama Lens Sale (Sigma, Tamron, Oly, Canon, Nikon, Filters)

Adorama is currently running their Annual Lens Sale featuring a variety of lenses from Sigma, Tamron, Olympus, Canon, Nikon as well as a vast variety of lens filters from Tiffen, B+W, Hoya, Benro, Xume, Schneider, Lee, and …Wine Country.

PS: to mys surprise, I did not imagine it, Wine Country lens filters are real 🙂

Photo Studio PRO for 99c [Google Play]

A limited time offer at the Google PLAY Android app store has the Photo Studio PRO app by KVAD Group on sale for 99c instead of its standard price of $4.99. Per the Play page, they offer a full refund if returned within two hours.

The app averages 4.6 out of 5, and it has over 100,000 downloads per Google Play. It is currently #31 in the Top Paid apps over there.

Pay $85, Get $100 iTunes Gift Cards by email

Back to the eBay Deals we go where the PayPal Digital Gifts e-store is offering $100 iTunes e-Gift Cards (email delivery) for $85 each. This is a 15% off discount. Not the lowest ever, but if you don’t want to wait for a better discount, or don’t want to deal with store gift cards (instead of cash discounts), then this is better than full price 🙂

Limit four per customer. This is a limited time offer that returns every few weeks on eBay.

Of camera and photo interest are the various photography iOS apps, a variety of photography ebooks and camera guides in iBooks, any photography-related documentaries or biographies or profiles under TV/Movies, and so forth.

PS: if you are a fan of Walgreens, every few weeks they have a promotion that gets you a $10 Walgreens store gift card if you buy $30 in iTunes plastic gift cards. That’s a 33% bonus on the purchase.

Premium PC Power Bundle for $29 includes Corel Paintshop Pro X9

It’s not just Mac software bundles at Stacksocial. They also have Windows 10 software bundles. The ten software title Premium PC Power Bundle goes for $29 and includes among others the Corel Paintshop Pro X9 software. Most of the other apps are computer security and utilities, along with a speed-reading class. All these are digital redemptions.

Sony 70-200mm f4 G OSS (E) with FREE Focus Shifter and more for $1398

The Sony 70-200mm f/4.0 G OSS for the E-mount goes for $1398 at authorized Sony USA dealers. For the same price, Adorama is including the following FREE items:

  • FocusShifter DSLR Follow Focus & Rack Focus (goes for $49 on its own)
  • Corel software bundle
  • 72mm Pro Optic Digital Essentials Filter Kit
  • cleaning kit

Canon EF 16-35mm f2.8L III USM with FREE Platypod Max Plate for $1999

The Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L III USM lens goes for $1999 at authorized Canon USA dealers. At the same price, Adorama is including for a limited time a FREE Platypod Max Plate Camera Support which goes for $99 on its own. Just add the lens to the shopping cart and proceed. There’s no coupon or rebate. Free expedited shipping.

If you are not familiar with how these work, the free items are mentioned prominently on the top of the product listing. As long as you them mentioned, the promotion is running. If you don’t see them there, it means the promotion expired. Here’s a screenshot:

PS: if you don’t want the Platypus creature, they also have a bundle with more conventional free lens accessories like a 82mm filter kit, tether, cleaning kits, and of course the Corel software bundle.