Canon EOS350D at Luton

[DeepC]

Folks,

Can anyone tell me if Dixons or anyone else is selling the Canon EOS350D Duty Free at Luton? If so, can someone tell me the price.

Thanks

DeepC

[King Pong]

Dixon's have a website for their airport shops at http://www.dixonstaxfree.co.uk where there is a phone number for ordering products and picking them up at the airport.

[Conan the Librarian]

if you have the urge for a duty free retail spree and already have a bucket of Canon lenses, I urge you to look at the 20D. If no Canon lenses, I urge you to look at Nikon.

Best regards,

Conan

[DeepC]

Conan,

Thanks for the input. Surely the 20D is going to be replaced soonish. The new 350D is 8MegaPixel and somewhat cheaper than the 20D

Can you expand on why you think I should be thinking about the 20D. (I do have a Canon Speedlite, 28-80, 75-300USM etc)

A colleague of mine enquired at Dixons at Luton Airport and they were only selling the old 300D at £550.

King Pong,
Thanks for that. I will give them a bell later. The website is not fully operational until August.

Many thanks.

DeepC

[Conan the Librarian]

In fact the 20D has only just been released recently. Think you are confusing it with the 10D which is now available for as little as £575. The 20D? Far better made piece of kit with a higher spec and regarded by many as a fairly bulletproof piece of kit as opposed to the "prosumer" 300/350D.

I would heartily recommend that you have a look here at DP Review (link at bottom) as presumably, this purchase is going to have to last for a few years.

My own choice last year was the Nikon D70 which is absolutely superb and amazes me yet more, each time I see its pictures.


Good Luck,

Conan

http://www.dpreview.com/

[King Pong]

Picked up the Dixons tax free catalogue at LTN today. They are selling the EOS350 with two lenses (18-55mm and 75-300mm) at £765.86

[DeepC]

Conan,

I am having a bit of trouble persuading my other half that the 350D is affordable. The 20D is a step to far!

King Pong,

Thanks, Are they selling it with just the 18-55mm lense and at what price? I already have a 75-300 Lense.

Cheers

DeepC

[King Pong]

It is only shown in the tax free catalogue as a 2 lens camera but the catalogue is not a comprehensive guide of what is on sale. The catalogue shows the phone number for the airport shop as 01582 456767. They recommend ordering in advance and picking up the goods as you pass through.

I would recommend making a slight detour to Stevenage old town when coming to Luton as it is only 5 minutes from junction 8 of the A1 which is the turn off for Luton Airport seeing that you live in Tempsford. Canon EOS 350D is on sale there for £539 including VAT https://secure.hitech-uk.com/acatalog/Canon_Digital_SLR_s.html

[FJJP]

I have just bought the 5Mpix Canon Ixus 50. Outstanding little camera, recently reviewed by Which?

A couple of years ago I bought the Canon Powershot G2 which was then the definitive machine [4Mp] - I think it's up to G6 now, with every feature you can think of.

Also get a big memory card. I recently bought 1Gb cards for both cameras - the G2 will take 880 pics at best resolution; 7500 at worst!

I bought the cameras after asking here for advice - I was directed to www.steves-digicam.com, who turns out to be the definitive and top camera expert in the world. Known throughout the retail camera world - when I discussed the subject with the Jessop's expert prior to purchase, he immediately identified Steve as such.

[Conan the Librarian]

A very much shrunken advert for a Digital SLR might go something like this....


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y192/zorbathegeek/Kemble2005/DSC_5598small.jpg

Cheers,

Conan

[Kestrel_909]

It is only shown in the tax free catalogue as a 2 lens camera

I think they might be getting confused with the EF-S lens? There only is two, or maybe three? of the EF-S series that fit the 300D and 20D and I'm guessing also the 350D, but the EF series fits all bodies, so to speak.

Either that or just a silly misprint.

[DeepC]

The new luton shop number is 01582 487296 as given by the dixons helpline. This puts you through to the warehouse who then put you through to the shop floor.

They only sell the EOS350D as the twin lens kit. Annoyingly. That shop in Stevenage looks promising. I go past Stevenage every day on the way to and from work in Welwyn Garden City.

Thanks for all of your help so far.

DeepC

[Conan the Librarian]

If you are looking to drill prices down, suggest you try one of the following, to ensure that you indeed have the best price.

7dayshop
Pixmania
BestCamera

Not sure, but I think the Canon kit lens has a plastic mount which is a bummer, however, it is cheap. 7dayshop are doing the 350XT body for £524 and with Canon 18-55 lens for £599. Don't know how that is comparing with prices you already have.

Remember that with a digital SLR you have the "Crop" factor. This means that because of the narrower field of view, due to the smaller sensor, that it has the effect of making all your lenses around 1.5-1.6 times more powerful. the 18-55 is kit lens is equivalent to 27-80mm focal length and your existing 75-300 will miraculously become approx 105-450mm compared to those same lenses on a film SLR. (Which in fact gives you quite bright lenses. My 500mm Sigma becomes a 750mm at only F6.4)


Happy hunting,

Conan

[King Pong]

I can recommend that shop in Stevenage. They advertise in camera magazines and even in the national press. I have bought three cameras from there over the years with no problems. They even sent one camera off for repair which was out of warranty after I had dropped it.

[FJJP]

Conan, awesome photo!

I did consider optical-digital when I bought the G2, but at the time, the cheapest was £1500! I really couldn’t justify the cost to myself, never mind She Who Must Be Obeyed! [At that time, the G2 was around £650].

A BIG word of warning about Pixmania. Very efficient, and the best price for the Ixus 50. However, the manuals were in French. To be fair, it does say so in the camera spec section. It’s a French company, and all their goods come from France [returns are sent to France as well].

Customer services pointed me to download the manuals in English from the Canon site in Australia! However, I was not about to download and print 500 pages of A4. I sent it back under their 7-day money back terms [I await the refund].

I bought the Ixus 50 in the end from John Lewis, but £30 more expensive. Ce la vie…

[DeepC]

I don't believe this!

Yesterday I went through all the suggestions on this thread and saw £579 for the EOS350D + 18-55 at Pixmania and £599 at Digital Depot in Stevenage.

Today I just about convinced Mrs DeepC that it was money worth spending. I checked again and low and behold Digital Depot has gone up to £649 and Pixmania has gone up to £594.

Unbelievable!

DeepC

[Conan the Librarian]

Try 7dayshop! Failing that, talk to me :-)

Cheers,

Conan

[ORAC]

£589.99 (http://www.camerabox.co.uk/product.asp?ProductName=Canon-350D-SLR-Kit-Inc-EF-S-18-55mm-Lens&ProductID=1158)

£599.99 (http://ukdigitalcameras.safeshopper.com/8/663.htm) with free delvery and 256Mb CF card.

[DeepC]

Eventually I bit the bullet and got Jessops in Cambridge to match the Cameras2U prices. Cameras2U had the 350D +18-55 + 1GB Sandisk UltraII Card for £661. Jessops said they would accept that price but were out of stock of 1GB cards. I then asked the price with two 512MB Cards. £671, Done Deal, perhaps not the keenest price I could have got on the net but still a substantial saving on buying the kit at Jessops standard pricing. £699 for just the camera and lens!

Now a proud owner of a 350D which has been extensively used over the last 3 Hours! My old 75-300 and Speedlite 380EX seem to like the new mothership. Been experimenting with both and the results are seriously impressive. Having two decent cards (and another 256MB freebie from Canon) should give me a bit of slack from malfunctioning cards.

Thanks to all for the help given. Hope to be able to post some pics on some of the airshow and rotorheads threads soon.

DeepC

[FJJP]

Congrats, DeepC! I found the beauty of the bigger card is that it changes the way you manage your hobby. I have had a Canon AE1 programmable with a number of lenses for many years, but I tended to spend a lot of time considering manual settings before taking the shot. Thinking about it, it was all about wasting film and the limitations of having a limited number of shots left before having to load a new film; then there was the processing costs...

Since buying the Canon Powershot [G2] two years ago, I have got into the habit of taking more photos more quickly, only taking the extra time to alter settings for special effects type shots. It quickly became the practice precisely because it is easy to delete the rubbish and edit the remainder. The hobby has taken on the new dimension of photo manipulation on the PC!

I'm now training the wife to alter her slow habits now that I have bought her the Canon Ixus 50, complete with a 1Gb card.

Actually, it is a good point about having several cards in case of failure - it's a point that I have not considered, since with 880 shots available on best resolution, I considered the need for another card unlikely. I was thinking in volume terms rather than failure... Ah well, back to Jessops to get another!

I recently spent the contents of my piggy bank on a new printer - settled on the Epson Stylus Photo 1290, which has given fantastic results on Epson photo quality glossy film.

Still an expensive hobby, innit?!!

[DeepC]

FJJP,

Regarding Printing. I spent a fair a mount of cash a year back on the Canon i9100 A3+ Photo Printer. Not used it much but fear that it is significantly more expensive to run than getting digi photos commercially printed at Jessops etc.

Still, the convenience of being able to run off a top quality A3+ print is something. I will endeavour to use the printer a bit more now that I've got a decent digital camera.

DeepC