Saturday, November 13, 2010

Watch Carefully - Ebay Sellers

Ebay is a fantastic place to purchase used camera or photographic equipment.....IF YOU ARE CAREFUL.....the novice photographer might get burned and when they do they always scream it was EBAYS fault.
It is not ebays fault at all...they simply host the auction you are bidding on and they place all kinds of guidelines that sellers are to adhere to...but that still doe not stop the unscrupulous seller from lying to you or asking dang near or actual retail price for used equipment.....so it truly is a buyers beware situation on Ebay.......
Just this morning I was looking to price some studio lighting.....my current set of 5 Paul C Buff white Lightning 5000's still work fantastic but I have been needing more power than they can produce a few more times than I like and renting is ok if I won't be doing it a lot...but there comes a time when I would rather just own...and now is that time......so I went looking for used Paul C Buff lighting, either White Lightning units or Alien Bees both are great units...Alien Bees being much lighter and smaller and I do a lot of location work......
So I found some of the upper end Alien Bees and the price was a mere $14 less than BRAND NEW from the factory and of course being used NO WARRANTY....I have sent the seller an email asking why so high priced and it is described as having dents and dings and scratches.......the sad thing is that some one new to photography will see this auction and not go to the Alien Bees website to investigate prices and such...then they will hear some other photog talk about the great deal they got from the manufacturer and be kicking them selves in the tail for the ebay purchase and they will tell people to not buy from ebay as they rip you off...again it is not ebays fault...it is the consumer for not investigating the items they want to buy first.............



Borrow Lenses is a great place to Rent from and they also have good sales on some items.....great fast service.........................

Rent Photography Gear Online

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