Gimmee One'A Dem - Part Five -The Hot Wash-Up

Okay, your friend has come with you into the shop - or perhaps it is the other way round. You may have the whole fam damily in there as well, and that can make for distraction and pressure - better to just keep it to two customers and one sales person. Note: the sales person does not have to be the owner of the shop. The staff are perfectly qualified to help, teach, and bargain, and you gain nothing by waiting for the boss. In fact, you lose time...and if you are not careful you lose standing in the eyes of your mate. Word to the wise...

Assume the best. A comfortable day, room to move, and the sales assistant has had coffee. Let your friend see the three kits on the counter in front of them. If the kits are matched as to lens capability and other general specifications, you can move to the next most important measurement: what does it feel like when they pick it up? This is the point at which the buyer is as expert as the sales assistant or the mentor...because they can feel what feels right or wrong for themselves.

It may be a matter as simple as the weight. Or as complex as the shape of the body grip. Few of these small-frame cameras have a grip big enough to take a full western man's hand with all four fingers engaged. You inevitably have one curled around the bottom of the grip. The other hand can hold the body if you do not have the screen swung out, or at least rest on the zoom ring of the lens. Thankfully, all three have on/off switches that re easy to access and shutter buttons that fall easily under the forefinger. The Nikon has the best two-pressure grip, if you are an old Enfield shooter. ( and less recoil...).

The eyepieces are similar, and as most modern cameras include a dioptre adjustment, they can be quickly brought o the individual's needs. The nose clearance is different for all three, so get your mate to try that out. Funny thing to mention, but noses are individual items...

Are they all reliable? Yes. Is one more reliable than the rest? No. Does it make a scrap of difference in which Asian country the camera or lens was made? Probably not - they have all passed through the cattle race of the Australian importer and that is who you would deal with for any issues.  They are all three reliable, and what is better, that means you are off the hook as far as your mate is concerned.

Some final thoughts: Why did you and the shop hit upon selling a DSLR kit to your mate instead of a compact camera or a mirror-less camera or a waterproof camera?

Well, partly because that is what they asked for...and there is no commercial sense in refusing to sell someone a hamburger when they ask for a hamburger...

Partly because it is the sort of purchase that can grow to greater things in the future. It's happened before. The entry-level buyer goes off and has a whale of a time and comes back and starts to haunt the internet, camera clubs, and shops. The initial little camera purchase becomes a a five-camera system with more long lenses than NASA. More and more gear is sold - more and more new things are tried - and it all ends either in a AIPP fellowship or a messy divorce. Either way our accountant is comfortable.

Partly because to give a person a smaller camera - waterproof or not - is to encourage sandy beach-side disaster. As much as we may want them to carefully ensure that there are no sand grains in the rubber seal or near the extendable lens system, we know what is going to happen. Every summer brings a crop of crunchy cameras back to the shop. The DSLR commands more respect from the user and promotes a bit more caution. Of course when they come in asking for a tiny action camera you can throw caution to the winds and look out the health insurance...