Buying digital camera - here or in the US?

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laragh

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My wife and I got a voucher for €450 for a local electrical shop as a wedding present which we thought we might use to buy a digital camera. The shop in question just sells Panasonic cameras- I'm not sure how they rate compared to all the other camera makes out there. Anyway we are heading to New York in February and would like to have a camera for that but I'm thinking we might get better value if we waited and bought the camera over there.
Would there be savings to be made by buying in the US?
Would we be better having a greater range of camera brands to choose from?
 
more choice and cheaper in the us. main hassle would be if it was faulty and you had to return it.
 
I wouldn't want to spend the first day of my holidays looking for a camera so I had one for the rest of the trip. Also I'd like to be familiar with it before going on holidays. The panasonic lumix models look nice, have a look at http://www.dpreview.com/ for reviews of lots of models.
 
more choice and cheaper in the us. main hassle would be if it was faulty and you had to return it.
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Yep bigjoe_dub, this would be one of my worries but I suppose if the savings were considerable it might be worth the risk.

The panasonic lumix models look nice, have a look at http://www.dpreview.com/ for reviews of lots of models.
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Thanks, tiger, thats a very good site.
I like the idea of a fairly compact camera with a decent zoom- the Panasonic TZ1 seems to fit the bill. It will only really be used for holidays, weddings etc. Might use some pictures in presentations at work the odd time.
If I was going to buy over there I'd have made up my mind on the make and model before I went and then just go and buy it- I don't particularly want to waste time shopping for it.
 
recently I ws going to buy a sony diigital camera here but waited until I went to the states.

Camera here was €300 plus memeory card would have brought it to €375

Got everything in USA for €250.
 
would probably be cheaper than buying locally and nearer the US prices (although the low dollar helps right now). Some people have reported bad experiences with them but I've always found them OK. My sister was complaining that they never delivered her order but on checking into it it turns out that the delivery and the credit card names did not match and they were waiting for her to send some additional identifying info as part of a security check that this situation triggered.
 
Know before you go !! Customs & Excise will be looking for VAT and possibly duty if the camera you buy in the U.S. is over Euro 22, and of course if you are stopped !!
 
For compact digital cameras Canon simply cannot be beaten!

Their entry model is currently a 6MP with 3X optical zoom. It's about €300-€350 here, you'd get it in the US (or on pixmania) for about 230.
 
I bought a 8 pixel camera on purelygadgets.co.uk with memory card included for EUR320 there in october, it also has an LCD screen..
It was for great value
 
dickvandyke said:
For compact digital cameras Canon simply cannot be beaten!
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I agree. I like the PowerShot range - excellent optics, nice features for casual snapping and more advanced use amd easy to use interfaces/software. The main drawback is that they are not the most compact of devices but that's not a showstopper for me.
 
buy in the US with the weak dollar. Just make sure you get the correct power for charging it over here as the US work on 110v and we are 220v. But you can buy the necessary things out there.
 
Thanks for the advice folks. I was wondering about the charger and whether a US set up would work on our power supply but I presume an adapter will sort that out.

As regards the make of camera - I have a Canon Powershot old style camera for a number of years and am happy with it. I would like to try a digital at this stage and would consider Canon again. As I said at the start of this thread the only reason I have been looking particularly at Panasonic is that the shop where I have the voucher only stocks this particular brand.
 
Canon have digital cameras in the 'Powershot' range but the real nice compact ones are the IXUS range, go for one of these. Have a look at canon.co.uk or the argos cat.

However, over in the US they are all Powershot, they don't use the IXUS name.

On the adaptor, as far as I'm aware these days the batterys can be charged by 220V or 110V, all you need is the right plug, my canon, bought in '03 came with both.
 
dickvandyke said:
On the adaptor, as far as I'm aware these days the batterys can be charged by 220V or 110V, all you need is the right plug, my canon, bought in '03 came with both.
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I don't think so - depends on the charger. Some will be 240V only, some will be 110V only while some will be 240V/110V. Plugging a 240V charger into a 110V supply will probably not work. Plugging a 110V charger into a 240V supply will probably result in a loud bang and smoke!
 
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