Camera Deals

FAIL Award: Pentax's Find Authorized Online Dealer page

We have a #FAIL award now. It goes to whoever are the idiots who designed the Pentax Find an Authorized Online Dealer page. Instead of showing all authorized online Pentax dealers, that idiotic page only shows online retailers that have a specific item in-stock (as of whatever time they last checked - which does not appear to be particularly accurate either). As a result of this stupid thing, there is no simple way for someone to deterministically figure out whether a specific retailer is an authorized online Pentax dealer.

I find it fascinating how camera manufacturers manage to self-sabotage in the stupidest of ways :)

On the other hand, the "find a local dealer" Pentax page is very functional and practical, you enter a zipcode and you see the local stores.

PS: This mini-rant did not fall from the sky - it was triggered while updating the K-01 stock status page and trying to figure out which retailers are authorized Pentax dealers.

Caution: Hurricane Irene hitting the East Coast

We have a severe weather alert! Hurricane Irene is starting to hit the East Coast of the USA, so be sure to pay attention to your local and regional reports for updates. The hurricane will likely impact online purchases/shipments from East Coast retailers, so please be patient.

UPS shipping delays due to severe weather in Louisville/KY

UPS has issued an alert, severe weather in Louisville, Kentucky is causing delays to shipments. (via @bandphoto).

(Something WRONG!) Fuji HS20 superzoom drops to $455 [updated]

UPDATE (Apr-17-2011 8:34pm EST): There is a long discussion on this in the dpreview Fuji Talk forum!

It looks like the warning at the Amazon page may not show with Firefox 4, but it is there when visiting the page with Chrome, Opera, Safari, and Internet Exploder 9. A couple of other parts of Amazon's site seems to have issues with Firefox 4 as well (eg lightning boxes in product sub-categories).

Needless to say, it is a good idea not to buy the camera now until things get sorted out!

Original Post
As of a 6:53pm EST check, we noticed that Amazon has inserted an "Item under Review" warning on its Fuji HS20 product page, and Amazon itself temporarily does not offer the camera for sale (but 3rd-party sellers continue to do). It says:

"While this item is available from other marketplace sellers on this page, it is not currently offered by Amazon.com because customers have told us there may be something wrong with our inventory of the item, the way we are shipping it, or the way it's described here. (Thanks for the tip!)

We're working to fix the problem as quickly as possible."

We have no idea what the issue might be but we have seen this type of a warning for other cameras in the past.

While the message says it is not offered by Amazon itself, if you look at the "More Buying Choices" on the right sidebar of the page, Amazon is indeed listed as one of the sellers. It is probably a good idea not to buy this until they get it sorted out!

Original Post
We have the first sizable discount on the superzoom Fuji HS20! You can now get it for $455~ with free shipping, sold and shipped by Amazon itself.

Trouble Report: Amazon flags their Pentax K-5 w/18-55 kits

Thanks to one of our readers for the alert! It appears that Amazon's own inventory of Pentax K-5 w/18-55mm kits is suffering from the sensor stains issue and Amazon has flagged their own inventory and is not offering it for sale while they investigate. They are still available from third-party sellers at Amazon, but not by Amazon itself. Here is a screenshot crop of what appears on the page:

Consumer alert: West Palm Beach Best Buy shoppers

Best Buy has posted an alert on the front page of its website, alerting consumers who made purchases at their West Palm Beach, Florida store that payment card information was stolen from their store during November and December 2008, the two busiest months of electronics shopping. They have a toll-free number to call and a notice in PDF form for those who may have been affected.

A now-former store employee was responsible for this crime and according to the PDF file he was taken into custody in early January 2009. Yikes!