What Photo Gear

We’re all guilty of it - we lust after all those shiny new gear at the camera store just like a 6 year old inside a candy store. Problem is, photography can be quite an expensive hobby. But at the same time, it is this lust for new gear that has also created a huge thriving used gear market for photographic gear.

One of the best places to look for gear is still of course the world’s biggest mall - eBay. Not only has it been around for years, with a proven system - it’s probably the place with the best selection of gear and one of the best places to start.

KEH.com is another popular marketplace for photographers. Unlike eBay and most other marketplaces, KEH is your seller here. You’re not buying directly from another individual selling his gear - you’re buying from KEH. The prices are competitive with current used market prices and they have their own grading system in determining the condition of equipment.

Local buy and sell websites are also great places to get great deals on used and not-so-used gear. Check if your city has a hub on sites like Craigslist ; Kijiji or Buysell.com. Some cities have very active ‘boards’ where dozens of items are posted by sellers every hour. The key to these sites though, are that they are local. The idea is, you’re supposed to drive out to the sellers place, or arrange a place to meet. Inspect the goods and pay in cash.

Now, sometimes on these local sites - you might run into deals that sound really good. So you contact the seller, then he tells you, oh, he just moved out to the UK and could you please send him payment by Western Union or something and he’ll be glad to ship you the item. Don’t! This is most likely a scam. Sites like Craigslist and Kijiji were designed only for local transactions, there are no feedback systems, no buyer protection systems unlike places like eBay. So the key is, if buying from sites like craigslist and kijiji, buy local only!

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You’ve probably heard of the term ‘grey market’ before. Whether they be grey market camera’s, grey market lenses or other accessories. So what exactly are grey market items?Well first, we have to understand the way the likes of Canon and Nikon and all the other manufacturers distribute their products all over the world. See, you’ve got the mother company, Canon, Inc or Nikon Corp in Japan somewhere, then they manufacture and assemble their camera’s and lenses in factories out in Thailand or the Philippines but then you also have your official distributors for these different products in different regions.

So these distributors would be your Nikon USA or Canon Canada, or Fuji Hong Kong or it may be some other company, for example, Gentec Intl is the official distributor for Sigma Lenses and products in Canada. Grey Market products on the other hand - are the products that are imported to your country by someone other than the official distributor.

So for example, it’s entirely possible that a US retailer may choose to purchase units of the Canon 450D XSi DSLR from the Canon distributor in Hong Kong. The reason for this is, the retailer may get them cheaper from a distributor in another region compared to the official distributor in the US.

Now, it is important to note that not only is this legal in most countries, but these products - camera’s, lenses, flash guns etc.. are the exact same units you would get had they been purchased from the official country/region distributor. In fact, they most likely came off of the same production line.

But, the important difference though is that since these are not officially imported units by the official distributor, they would not qualify for the official warranty being offered by these distributors. So if you purchased a grey market digital camera that was imported from Hong Kong, then you won’t be able to send it to Canon USA or Nikon USA if you need warranty work done! You have to send it all the way back to Hong Kong.

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