Guide to digital photography, part 1

I really appreciate the comments. A lot fall right in line with what I had in mind for the series and some good ideas for future content that I had not considered. Just a heads up. The next chapter will be about how to find the right camera for you based on such elements as: features, price, size, accessories, etc.

BigTBird, I really appreciate your testimony and welcome to bit-tech.net I hope you stay. I would really like to avoid this thread being a slagging thread. I would actually really like to hear your stories, your experiences are invaluable but let's all try to keep individual business names out of it. I know this sounds counter productive when we are discussing chosing a safe place to buy from but it could get ugly. If you have a story of a happy purchase, by all means list them here too.

I'll start the ball rolling. A prime example of some of the principals of what I covered and a true indicator of how business has changed is where I bought my new camera. I found a pretty good deal (not the best but close enough) at a website for a national retail chain here in the States, Circuit City. Now, I've had my problems with them in the past and pretty much stopped shopping there. But they were the ONLY local retailer that carried the Panasonic FZ20 camera... at full retail. But, I checked their website and they had a sale that was available only on their website that knocked $75 off the price of the camera for web purchases only. The great thing was that I could opt for picking it up at my local store. I saved a lot of money had got it right away.

To further prove my point about the benefits of brick and mortar, I noticed two dead pixels on my LCD screen. I took the camera back and they were more than willing to exchange it but they were out of stock. But they had them at another location that was actually closer to my home. They took the original cam back and reserved one at the other store location. On the way home from work, I picked up my new replacement with no issues.

I got my original camera quick and at a fair price and even had it replaced the same day when I discovered a problem. Circuit City does a lot wrong in my experience but they did everything right in this case.

 

Is part 2 coming soon?

 

Yes, very soon. I have some new stuff coming in that I wanted to include in the next two chapters.