Ever feel “They saw me coming?” I usually do after a photography related transaction.
The other day I was looking for an extended shutter release, say 5m or so. Canon’s own brand for my EOS 5D was about £40 for the nice handy one one uses in conjunction with the tripod, — about 0.8m in length. to extend it Canon offer a 10m cable with appropriate plug and socket at either end for a mere £80. This certainly feels like the Mickey is being taken somewhat.
Slightly better, EOS magazine are offering a wireless (radio not IR) remote for £50, with a good long range, but it really is a case of E-Bay to the rescue, as it cuts out most of the middle men between Chinese manufacturer and consumer. Even when you add in £11 handling charge by the royal mail for paying the duty, one can still win massively.
In this case I got a wireless remote, with pre-release focus and bulb mode, for £12, no shipping, and it was under the duty threshold (£18) At the same time I indulged myself in a macro focusing rail — you know — one of those bits of precision metalwork that the tripod makers want about £200 for? From the same supplier in China it was a mere £32 and offered side-to-side as well as in-and-out adjustment.
And the delivery only took 5 days.
Shopping around the globe is now trivially easy. Where there is no good reason to go with the original manufacturer’s accessories, it really pays