As a treat for having survived two AS examination papers I was particularly worried about, I took the day off. Started my day pretty early and was browsing through the great collection of UK magazines (pictured above) at the British Council before long. Practical Photography, as always, was inspiring.
Not knowing how best to waste the hours, I went for White Chicks. Sure, it got me laughing out loud, but it wasn't that great a comedy flick. Resorting to flatulence jokes to tickle the audience's funny bones was just lame. If you need a good laugh, skip White Chicks (if you haven't already wasted time on it) and mosey along to The Ellen DeGeneres Show's official site. Check out Ellen's Daily Monologue in the video gallery; those are the real comedic gems.
Since I was already out and about in the city, I decided to hop to this mall to do a market survey of sort; I needed to know how much Nikon D70 is going for now. Went to all the photography stores to ask around; the salespersons- some were nice while some just didn't know nuts about marketing and sales. A rather nice salesperson at this particular store (it has a similar name to the Shangri-La chain of hotels) quoted me the lowest price: RM3000 for the body. Now, that's the kind of money I'm willing to part for what doesn't even qualify as a passion. The fact that the saleperson was polite and didn't look at me like I couldn't even afford a point-and-shoot film camera made me want to make the purchase there and then. Not that I did though.
The point is, this other store I went to had the nastiest piece of scumbag as its only salesperson. The moment I asked him how much D70 was going for, he countered it with "Cash or card?", rather brusquely, if I may add. Perplexed, I replied, "What's the difference? You're giving me a discount if I choose one over the other?". "Yeah, so, which will it be?", he asked like some bigheaded game-show host. Since I don't carry that much cash around, I chose "card" as my preferred payment (not that I have a Visa or a MasterCard, for that matter). After punching some buttons on his calculator, he quoted me a price, "RM3750 for body and lens". He then tossed the calculator, rather impatiently, aside as if to say "Hah! No way you can afford that!". At that point, I was pretty pissed off but I thanked him for his time anyway. Just as I was walking away, he tried (repeat- tried) to make a sale one last time, "When are you going to buy?". From you? Not ever!
From that little survey, I would assume that the price will drop a little bit more in the coming weeks. Amazing how D70's value depreciates that much over the year. It's still a great camera (according to numerous reviews) anyway, so the susceptibility to depreciation doesn't really bother me. When I do make the purchase, you can be sure whom I'm not buying from.