Chris Pirillo: So here we go number three, go see the camera if you can. So you see the camera of your dreams and it looks great, however, just because it looks great on paper or on the web doesn't mean you will love it in real life. For example, if the camera is too large or too small for your hands, doesn't really matter how great its specs are, you are never going to be comfortable with it. It's very true. Had I gone out to a store and played with the TX1? I don't know if I would have gotten it right away and so that's one of the reasons why I sold my TX1.
Number four, watch out for scams. This is out of all the tips that Ben's got here and these are great tips, by the way, general tips, but awesome tips. Watch out for scams especially with digital cameras. There are popular bait and switch online scams. If you see a deal that looks too good to be true, well it probably is. Do a search for the seller and see what comes up. Last time I was looking for a camera, I saw three retailers selling at an unbelievable price.
When I searched for their names, I got multiple blog and forum post for each saying how they were scam. Some even had pictures taken from their addresses listed on their sites where they were found bordered up or abandoned buildings. Just because a site list a phone number, it may not be enough. Also, make sure you know where the camera is from, not just where it's shipped from, the camera's origin. The camera might end up being from Japan in which case there will be no warranty. Examples of good online sellers are B&H Photo Video and Amazon.com, they really do have good prices.
I recently purchased mine through I think BuyDig.com. My experience was okay, they were relatively uncommunicative and they used a shipping process that didn't have great tracking, so I didn't know where this thing was for like a week. It did come to me and it came in good condition and I got a really good price on it. If the camera is listed like substantially lower, like hundreds of dollars lower than you are seeing it anywhere else, I guarantee, I guarantee that at some point during that order process even if you do it online, you will have to take a phone call, you will have to either call someone up and talk to them on the phone, that's where the bait and switch happens, it happens all the time.
I am almost been blurt by these things, I call them like, yeah I have seen your special for this camera blah, blah, blah and they say, oh yeah, that's a special and we got, do you want this camera accessory kit and this lens and this special system and blah, blah, blah and pretty soon all these add-ons that they sell you that are absolutely worthless will end up costing you like twice as much as the original camera itself or they will take your order and they never deliver. You got to be really careful. Digital camera's big, big scams out there. In fact, and I am sorry Ben, I am not to interrupt your list here, but I got to tell everybody this.
I was in San Francisco a couple of years and I was looking into getting this new digital Canon camera and I found one and I was like wow! Like this price off the shelf was amazing. So I went to buy it, I was like yeah this is great, this is great price, I can't believe. Do you have this? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But they only took cash. I was like alright well okay, so we go down to the ATM, pick up some cash, here you go. He said, here is the whatever. I said, okay, and they told me after I poked it over how much it was, they say, okay so the battery is $200. I said, excuse me. He said, the battery is $200, I am like, give me my money back, the battery is not $200.
Be very, very, very, very careful, very careful and I am being very adamant on this point because you can save yourself a lot of time, energy and frustration if you don't save money. Well it's good to save money but don't -- there is such a thing that's too good to be true, Ben, thank you so much for that point.
Number five, pay attention to the small details. When buying a camera a lot of tiny things you might not notice when researching a camera, here are some of the more important ones as Ben listed. Media types, so remember to check out what kind of digital media it takes; SD, CompactFlash etcetera. File format, most of them are going to shoot in JPEG, see what kind of movie formats it takes. One of the reasons why -- and again, I am not trying to be a salesman for any of these brands, but I will tell you the reason why I got the Casio Exilim and one of the reasons that I am happy with it, is it does video in MP4 format, which means it's ready for YouTube, means it's ready for the iPhone or the iPod or the Zune or the PSPE, MP4 video is the way to go. It does it all on camera, no extra software needed, big selling point from here.
Number three, view finder, very handy thing to have on your camera. If you don't carry, you can ignore this. After I started using the LCD screen where you have got the picture on your LCD, I have never used this anymore. You never see this, it's always this, you never see this anymore, so is that. I don't know, view finders are only good if you got a digital SLR, a single-lens reflex camera because what you see is what you get, it's not the same for these point-and-shoots. And number four, he suggests here the battery type, look for chargeable lithium-ion battery cameras, as the camera will go longer than one --
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services