Digital SLR. Buy now or wait til sales?

nottingham13

Hi

I am thinking of buying a DSLR, I am in no rush, but do I wait til the sales after xmas, or is it unlikely that DSLR will have offers on them anyway?

Thanks

DKLS

I picked up a good deal on a Nikon D90 a few weeks back at comet, took an hours haggling and some checking of over online sites for price comparison, but came away with a package deal I was very happy with.

isofa

Cameras and lenses have been going up in price, in general, for the past 12 months, new models will arrive and obviously after a while settle into a lower price bracket (7D is a prime example, high launch price, now much lower "street price"). However a lens I bought 2 years ago for £800 new is now retailing for over £1000!

I can't see prices dropping much more, plus as Leopard points out, there is the addition 2.5% VAT to take into consideration.

For the best prices (and to see how they have changed over time) use: www.camerapricebuster.co.uk

daveyjp

Have a look at Amazon, although camerpricebuster does highlight their offers.

custardy

depends if you can wait,i recently went DSLR from my bridge camera
wish i had done it from when my son was born(2 in feb) as the pictures are miles better

totalsolutions

Running out of stock to take into consideration too.

MX5huggy

Nikon are offering cash back, aslong as you buy UK stock it does not matter where you buy

http://www.europe-nikon.com/news_room/news.html?locale=en_GB&bandwidth=broad&id=2442&type_index=2&universe=[universe:xx]

There is also a offer of a Free SB900 (£350 flash gun) when you buy a D300s (£1000 camera its an email voucher but if you wanted to take advantage pm me. http://photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00V6jm
(if only I had the £1k around to take advantage)

http://www.camerapricebuster.co.uk/ is a great site for looking at price trends

timmmers

How about finding a place with no VAT, going there, and using up that % as a trip or holiday?

17.5% of a decent camera plus lenses pays for a good weekend away.

A weekend in Gib was las time I did this..unsure if that is worth it now though.
Anywhere with no VAT works though.

t

Leopard

custardy wrote: »

depends if you can wait,i recently went DSLR from my bridge camera
wish i had done it from when my son was born(2 in feb) as the pictures are miles better

With respect, that could be pretty dangerously misleading advice, financially, to dispense as a general rule, nowadays.

You don't give any indication of what make and sophistication of bridge camera it was.

I understand where you're coming from on this: I had a 2 MP bridge camera some years ago (it was pretty much state of the art, in those days) and, looking back through my photographs now, wish that the digital cameras available inexpensively these days had been available then.

But things have changed rapidly.

A modern Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ38 bridge camera takes remarkably good photographs and, for many people, will be more than adequate. It's a lot lighter, a lot less bulky, 12 MP, 18x optical Carl Zeiss zoom and very seriously cheaper than a DSLR.

custardy

Leopard wrote: »

With respect, that could be pretty dangerously misleading advice, financially, to dispense as a general rule, nowadays.

You don't give any indication of what make and sophistication of bridge camera it was.

I understand where you're coming from on this: I had a 2 MP bridge camera some years ago (it was pretty much state of the art, in those days) and, looking back through my photographs now, wish that the digital cameras available inexpensively these days had been available then.

But things have changed rapidly.

A modern Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ38 bridge camera takes remarkably good photographs and, for many people, will be more than adequate. It's a lot lighter, a lot less bulky, 12 MP, 18x optical Carl Zeiss zoom and very seriously cheaper than a DSLR.

sorry i should have added,i wasnt just referring to the picture quality but also the speed of the camera
with kids a difference of a second can mean a lost picture
DSLR's are not for everyone but the OP is looking to buy one
the lumix was £300 reviewed,i paid little more than that for my DSLR

isofa

On the note of "bridge" cameras. Many professionals I know are buying the Canon G11 as a secondary travel camera (and I will as soon as it drops in price a bit, it's around £450 at the moment), to save lugging around their DSLRs and lenses. The picture quality is much improved over the G10, especially in low light, since they dropped the resolution to 10MP (just reinforcing that large megapixel resolutions are a complete waste of time on compacts and consumer DSLRs). It has full RAW capture and all the modes and manual overrides of a DSLR, complete with a good zoom lens. In fact I suspect it is capable, even considering the smaller sensor, of taking better quality photos than many consumer level DSLRs in the right hands.