This is not a troll post 🙂 Black Friday is happening earlier this year (November 24), so many of the usual Black Friday things will be shifted earlier. The trend is to start earlier every year after all.

The first thing in our Black Friday coverage is the Black Friday 2017 Ad Digest which I just started! This is where we summarize the various leaked and official BF ads, and group them by product category. Right now we have just two stores, but more will come out in the next few days. Once we have about half of them out, the patterns emerge of what to expect.

The next step in our Black Friday coverage is to create a new Price Charts Series. With new cameras announced at Photo Plus Expo, and new prices rolling out with the new month, I am planning to run this new series from November 5-11 in 2017.

If you have any feedback, suggestions, preferences and such, this is a good time to let me know in the comments here or using the online contact form, because it’s easier to make changes before the madness begins 🙂

This is Phase #1 of our attempt to bring back a permanent “Latest Deals Summary” post. With 20+ posts per day on many weekdays, things are flying fast off the front page, making it harder for y’all to keep up if you are not checking on a regular basis. So the “Summary” posts will serve a summary of the best (subjective of course) available deals.

Phase #1 of this experiment is the Labor Day 2017 Camera Deals round-up post. It will be updated throughout the Labor Day holiday weekend. If you have any feedback on it, this is a good time to leave it as it can help shape the future “Summary” posts. You can leave a comment on any of the post or use the online contact form.

The Summaries are intended to be a compliment/complement to this blog. The latest deals will always be posted here as they happen. The Summaries are best suited for keeping track of the surviving deals that have fallen off the top of the blog.

The live-stream and live-tweeting expired. You can relive the live-stream on LG YouTube channel and you can relive the live-tweeting using the live-tweet thread. Twitter’s recent threading feature is handy for events like this because you can read all of them together in the future without going through everything else in a Twitter timeline…

[Read more…]

The bold-o-vision blog-post titles are now smaller-ized. I decreased the font size from whatever it was [40px on full desktop] to 24px. It saves up space on the page, both in terms of being able to fit more text in a single line, and in terms of the actual size of the font. I will check on various devices and make minor adjustments.

If you have any preferences or observe any issues, please leave a comment here or use the online contact form.

PS: if you have a WordPress website and want to do this to your website, and you are using the WordPress Twenty-Sixteen default theme, the change is simple, add this under “Additional CSS” in the Customizer:

.entry-title {
font-size: 24px;
}

You can change the number to make it smaller or larger.

Now that we are posting 20+ deals on most weekdays, things are flying off the front page much faster, so the return of the “Latest Deals Summary”, aka, an on-going “Situation Room” (like those we have during Black Friday, Prime Day and the Holiday shopping season) is in order!

I will also tweak the website to fit more posts per screen since the giant font style is not very effective when there are posts flying left and right 🙂

As usual, please feel free to leave feedback in the comments or using the online contact form.

This is a meta update! The (35mm) Full Frame Deals blog tag has now been updated with the latest 35mm full frame camera offers. I had forgotten that I actually started using this tag. I have now tagged the relevant recently posted cameras with it. This only includes 35mm full frame cameras of all kinds [see 35mm Full Frame Price Chart to see which cameras are these], not lenses.

And now we have the final installment in the July 2017 Price Charts series, it is another DSLR vs Mirrorless Price Comparison, this one focusing on cameras with 35mm full frame sensors. In this particular chart, mirrorless includes only the made-for-digital 21st-century systems, not rangefinders.

JULY 2017 SERIES

+ 35mm FULL FRAME digital cameras
+ APS-C dSLRs
+ Mirrorless Cameras
+ Fixed Lens Cameras
+ APS-C dSLRs vs Mirrorless
+ 35mm Full Frame dSLRs vs Mirrorless

The bonus “Price Charts” installment that was promised is here! It is a DSLR vs Mirrorless edition! I merged the data from APS-C DSLRs and APS-C Mirrorless cameras into the APS-C DSLR vs Mirrorless Price Chart. How do they stack up? Are there more DSLRs or Mirrorless cameras in this segment? Try to guess before looking at the spoilers 🙂

You can find all the previous editions in the list below. But wait, there’s more! Since this APS-C comparison turned out to be a fun thing to do, there will be another bonus installment, using the same data set. You can guess what it will be, 35mm Full Frame, DSLR vs Mirrorless. Coming soon to a Noisy blog near you 🙂

JULY 2017 SERIES

+ 35mm FULL FRAME digital cameras
+ APS-C dSLRs
+ Mirrorless Cameras
+ Fixed Lens Cameras
+ APS-C dSLRs vs Mirrorless
+ 35mm Full Frame dSLRs vs Mirrorless

The Revision that was Promised is here! The Mirrorless Cameras Price Charts post has just now been revised with the three missing cameras, the Sony a6500, Fuji X-A10 [CORRECTED!], and the YI Technology M1. Thanks to our readers for the corrections/alerts! The original/previous post without those three was preserved as a separate page for historical reference.

You can find all the current and previous installments of the Price Charts in the Price Charts Archives, going back to December 2014.

To make up for the delays, there will be a bonus fifth chart using data from the previous ones. You can probably guess which one it is if you think about it for a couple of minutes but I won’t spoil it. I won’t promise a date to be on the safe side 🙂

Since the data was captured, the YI M1 with 12-40mm dropped from $350 to $300, just in time for the Prime Day festivities. Because the Price Charts are snapshots in time, and not live price-trackers, that’s why you see a $350 price over there. Also dropping is the YI M1 with 12-40 and 45/1.8, currently going for $379.

It was delayed by the Prime Day madness, but not defeated! The Fixed Lens Cameras has just been posted. It goes through Fixed Lens Cameras, with this year, removing 1/2.x” cameras from consideration. It’s 2017 🙂

To make up for the delay, I will launch a brand new fifth installment in the series by the weekend. This will be based on existing data. You can probably guess what it will be if you think it through but I won’t spoil it ahead of time 🙂

TIP: these can get long, but you can send them to your favorite “read it later” / bookmarking service for undistracted reading.

JULY 2017 SERIES

+ 35mm FULL FRAME digital cameras
+ APS-C dSLRs
+ Mirrorless Cameras
+ Fixed Lens Cameras
+ COMING NEXT: NEW Installment using Existing Data

This note is for those of you following on RSS news readers and services that depend on RSS. The Prime Day Situation Room tracker-style mega-post will be continuing with Prime day coverage until Wednesday AM. I will be posting some hot deals as individual blog posts (which you’ll see through RSS), but I can’t post everything as an individual blog-post, it will create blog and RSS overflow.

Your RSS reader may be able to automatically refresh the Prime Day Situation Room post. You can put it in a folder or bookmark it or favorite it if you want to check throughout Prime Week. Unfortunately there are too many RSS readers and services and each use various apps of their own along with 3rd-party apps, so testing which ones refresh and which ones don’t would be a big project in its own right.

If you find our non-stop coverage of Prime Day 2017 useful, then please consider telling all your friends who are interested in camera and photo shopping and madness! This is one of the best ways to help support this blog, the more interested people, the merrier 🙂

You can point them to the Home Page or the on-going Prime Deals Situation Room (a goofy name for an on-going round-up). You may also point out to them that we have a free full text RSS feed.

Thanks 🙂

A new installment is out today in our Price Charts series of July 2017, it is the Wild West of the Mirrorless Cameras, with three charts! Next up in the series will be the (serious) Fixed Lens Cameras…

JULY 2017 SERIES

+ 35mm FULL FRAME digital cameras
+ APS-C dSLRs
+ Mirrorless Cameras
+ COMING NEXT: Fixed Lens Cameras

Do you find this blog useful and want to help support it and keep it alive and kicking? This new post is one of the best ways to do so: simply begin your online shopping adventures with this post, using the various affiliate links below. The various retailers and services below pay a small advertising fee on purchases/transactions and they can go a long way towards funding this poor blog.

Why Should You Do This?

We have been running this website with very minimal advertising. These are forms of advertising you see on most other websites out there, but we don’t use them here:

+ NO ad boxes everywhere you look (we have only one ad box in the Sidebar)
+ NO ads that make you wait 15 seconds before you can see the actual page
+ NO double underline ads in the blog text
+ NO clickbait viral nonsensical “around the web” boxes below individual posts
+ NO ads that expand and takeover the page
+ NO sponsors (specific advertisers that pay a flat amount to be featured)
+ NO advertorials (aka paid blog posts or articles)
+ NO auto-play video boxes
+ NO pop-up or pop-under ads (yes, they still exist)
+ NO annoying “give us your email” boxes within seconds of visiting the page
+ NO 3rd-party commenting systems that are basically data harvesters for the ad networks
+ NO one-line RSS feed (we offer free full-text RSS feeds)

BIG INTERNET MARKETPLACES

+ Amazon.com – also Trade In Your Gear
+ eBay.com – check also eBay Deals

WELL-KNOWN CAMERA AND ELECTRONICS DEALERS

+ Adorama
+ B&H Photo
+ KEH.com – also Sell Your Gear
+ OneCall

MORE RETAILERS (alphabetical order)

+ All 4 Cellular (aka A4C)
+ Buy.com = Rakuten
+ Dell Home
+ Dell Refurbished
+ Game Stop
+ Groupon
+ MacMall
+ Meritline
+ Microsoft Store
+ Monoprice
+ Office Depot / Office Max
+ Sears
+ Tanga
+ YES Asia

BOOKS and LEARNING

+ Barnes and Noble
+ Creative LIVE
+ eBooks.com
+ Kobo
+ National Geographic
+ Zinio

CELL PHONE / WIRELESS COMPANIES

+ Republic Wireless
+ Sprint Wireless
+ Verizon Wireless

MEDIA and ENTERTAINMENT

+ Roku

WEB SERVICES

+ Name Cheap (domain registrar for less)

WHY ARE SOME RETAILERS MISSING?

Unfortunately not all retailers have affiliate programs. Some retailers may have affiliate programs but only invite or accept a small subset of websites (eg famous websites or ones with high traffic). Some retailers have affiliate programs that are restricted by State because of the various Internet sales tax laws. Some retailers have affiliate programs but their advertising fees are very close to zero for cameras/electronics.

MORE WILL BE ADDED

More retailers will be added over time. If you have any suggestions or recommendations, please leave feedback (see section below)…

IDEAS? OPINIONS? SUGGESTIONS?

Please leave a comment below or using the online contact form.

More chart-mania 2017 action! The The APS-C DSLR Price Charts of July 2017 are UP at the main blog. The price-checking of these did not produce as many deal-posts as the full framers did yesterday, but there is one notable APS-C deal, the used Sigma DP1 Merrill for under $700.

All the new installments are in the Sidebar of both this blog and the main blog, so you can easily access them as needed.

Previous Installments
+ Part #1: The 35mm Full Frame Digital Cameras (DSLRs, Mirrorless, Fixed Lens, Rangefinders)
+ NEXT UP: Mirrorless and then Fixed Lens Cameras

It is finally here! A new “Price Chart” series has began! We just posted the 35mm Full Frame Digital Cameras Price Chart for July 2017, with prices taken today (July 3, 2017). We will have about one of these per day for the rest of the week. Next up are APS-C DSLRs, then Mirrorless cameras, and finally Fixed Lens Cameras.

To celebrate the launch of this brand new new Price Chart, we created a new Full Frame Deals category here at this blog [see unnecessarily long explanation]. This explains the number of 35mm FF camera deals that got posted earlier today 🙂

Since we have now a rather robust selection of 35mm full frame cameras, in DSLR, mirrorless, rangefinder and fixed lens cameras, and since 35mm full frame has a historical significance in the world of photography, I created a brand new blog category (WordPress “tag”) for fans of 35mm full frame. The Full Frame Deals tag will be used on all cameras that have a 35mm full frame sensor.

PS: I am not going to go back and tag every single camera mentioned through the years. This new tag covers cameras since the Canon 6D Mark II announcement last week.

PS2: errors and miscategorizations are expected given the volume of posts, so on occasion some cameras may not be tagged or some non-35mmFF may get accidentally tagged. If you see any of those, please let me know (I love corrections!). If you see a blog error, the chances are that I don’t know about it. And if I don’t know about it, the chances of it getting corrected are zero 🙂 Thanks! 🙂

PS3: “full frame deals” is easier to type and easier for the WordPress tag auto-complete to find it (without the need to use the keypad or the numbers row), that’s why it’s not the full (no pun intended) “35mm Full Frame Deals” 🙂

PS4: I am not sure how I managed to complicate a one-sentence blog announcement 🙂

A blog remodeling is coming. Now that the default WordPress theme has been “burned it”, it is time to start adding more utility to it and fix some of the issues (for example, those GIANT blog-post headlines). This will happen in the next few days on a time permitting basis.

This is a good opportunity to change and fix things, so if there are any things that bother you or you want to see changed or updated or tweaked and such, please feel free to leave a comment or use the online contact form.

I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought of that before, but epiphany sometimes takes centuries 🙂 I added a link in the Sidebar of the blog pointing to the latest Lightning Deals round-up post (this is the live link if you are reading in RSS or on mobile and want to bookmark it). This is using a WordPress Tag, so it automatically shows the latest active update. The previous posts are after-the-jump.

With two hours left before the self-imposed deadline, this brand new reference mega-post is ready! If you were curious to see a comprehensive list of benefits you get with an Amazon Prime membership, this post is ready for you, the Comprehensive Guide to Prime Benefits. This will be updated over time as benefits get added or get changed or on rare occasion get removed.

So, how many of these were you familiar with before reading or skimming that post? Opine in the Comments below or on Twitter…

All apologies for the slowness and performance issues of the website. I am trying to figure out the problem with the help of the hosting service’s support. As part of the troubleshooting I am switching to the default WordPress 2016 theme, which is a known entity and removes one possible unknown variable. The Categories and Tags are now on the left of each individual post, instead of below each individual post. This is a responsive design, so the website shrinks as you make the window/viewport smaller. The Sidebar eventually goes to the bottom of the posts if you are at phone/tablet viewports. The Menus converge together into a Menu hamburger type thing (without the hamburger).

In the meantime, if the website is down or slow to load, here are two alternatives:

+ The RSS Feed – it is hosted by Feedburner and does not depend on the website’s performance

+ our main Twitter account @1001noisycamera (without the final “s” – because of Twitter username max character limit) will be posting time-sensitive deals in case of technical issues

I went through the first two pages of this blog (100 posts) and marked all the expired offers as ENDED, and I also updated the Holiday Shopping 2016 Situation Room by removing all the expired offers. Its name has morphed as well, it is now “Holiday Shopping” since Black Friday and Cyber Monday are already in the rear view mirror timeline-wise. The “Situation Room” will continue until 12/31/16.

I will also begin some experimentation on how to do things in this post-MAP world. This blog was/is optimized for market-driven changes in prices. But manufacturers are controlling pricing more and more, so there are fewer market-driven deals, at least on the cameras and lenses many photographers are interested in.

Posts are getting posted here fast and furious! If you are just now getting started, you can get a summary of the current situation with the Cyber Monday 2016 Situation Room.

For more tips on how to quickly catch-up and keep-up, check the How to Make the Most of this Blog post.

The Cyber Monday Situation Room (née Black Friday Situation Room) has now been updated, with all the expired offers removed (if I missed any, please let me know). This will continue to be updated until the end of the year. After “Cyber Monday” ends, it will be renamed “Holiday Shopping Situation Room”.

I am keeping them all in the same post to make it easier for people who have bookmarks, so they don’t have to keep changing their bookmarks. Instead, the same link will work Black Friday to December 31st.

Do you find our Black Friday coverage useful or entertaining or practical? Then please tell your friends about it, online, by email, word of mouth, on social media, and so forth! The more the merrier! Here are some places to get them started:

• summary of the latest deals at the Black Friday Situation Room
• breakdown of the Black Friday ads in the Black Friday Ads Digest
• deals one by one as the happen, here at the Camera Deals blog
• short post on how to make the most of this blog

The Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2016 Situation Room is now LIVE. It is a rolling summary of all the latest deals, a companion to this blog which will continue to post deals as they come out one by one. So if you want to get a summary or if you haven’t checked this blog for a few hours/days, you can quickly get up to speed with the “Situation Room”… See also the How to Make The Most Of This Blog post for more tips…

I just noticed that some of the links in the blue Menu bar at the top of the blog were broken, eg the “Manufacturers” and “Camera Types” menus. They are now fixed. If you spot any still broken, please let me know.

Reason they were broken: when I switched from Typepad to WordPress, I used redirection from the WordPress categories to the old ones to make it easier with the transition for people with bookmarks. Eventually I removed the redirection, but forgot those links were in the Menus.