Ebay bundle offer. Any suggestions?

[NecroBolt]

Hey guys. I am in the market for my first DSLR. So I have a tight budget and started looking online and found a few of these bundle packages. I've gotten mixed reviews on them from friends and family, so I figured I'd ask you guys what you think about this offer and if I should be wary.

The company, Pyxis_Camera, has a very high seller rating with over four hundred positive reviews for the year. They've got about 50 or so negatives though, but from what I've read, they resolved most of them. The majority were shipping issues, where the buyer didn't realize that the address had to be the same as what was on their paypal account.

So anyway, I know the lenses are bargain lenses, but I've heard that they can be very good as well. The package comes bundled with a lot of accessories that I would love to have from the get go.

So here's the link, please tell me whatcha' think.

NEW CANON EOS Rebel XSi 450D Digital SLR Camera +5 Lens - eBay (item 290292250215 end time Feb-26-09 07:58:24 PST)

Thanks folks.

 

[Lyncca]

Generally I find those packages just have mostly junk to make it look like a good deal. BTW, there are technically 3 lenses, not 5. The telephoto and wide angle are screw on filters to put on an existing lens. I hear the quality of doing that is fairly poor.

The camera also comes with screen protectors.
Someone else will have to tell you more with specifics for the Canon since I am a Nikon girl

 

[Atlas77]

yeah i agree with what has been said above, there are only 3 lenses. Look for something with a real picture or that isnt a package like that. Usually i wouldnt trust the packages on ebay

Plus you could almost get a D90 body for that price!

 

[JerryPH]

eBay or any other bundles are 75% crap and 25% content. Without even looking at your link, I bet that the 3 real lenses are nothing more than low to mid level kit lenses or standard low cost lenses.

Buy what you need individually and buy quality... not junk.

 

[potownrob]

Wow, those lenses must be 10 years old, 90's styling, aperture rings and all.

 

[blash]

90% of all Tamron lenses are crap. I bought a 28-80 Tamron lens for my film camera for photo class and it was the lightest, most plasticky crap I had ever felt in my life and color reproduction was poor (it rendered my blue blankets in a test shot purple for chrissakes!).

The rule in photography is pretty much, either get it right the first time or you will be buying the same thing again in the future - just starting out, you may not know if you're really going to need that telephoto, if that suits your kind of photography.

Avoid teleconverters like the plague unless you're broke and would rather have some kind of image than nothing.

Also, skip the DSLR and get film - it's much cheaper and with flatbed/film scanners you can get many of the same benefits of DSLR's but at a fraction of the cost. See here: Why We Love Film

 

[TheOtherBob]

I'll second the others' comments. Let's take the bundle apart:

450D -- B&H sells for $575

50mm 1.8 -- $90

Tamron 28-80 -- Bad choice for a crop camera, so who cares what it costs. (But $60 at B&H, if you're wondering). Buying the Canon 18-55 kit lens from B&H only costs $80 with the camera, and is a much better choice.

Tamron 75-300 -- $110. (This isn't going to be a great lens, but it's probably not the worst lens ever made.)

Wide angle adapter -- junk

Telephoto adapter -- junk

Tripods -- junk (and dangerous junk -- you won't want to use it with your new camera). Spend $20 to buy the cheapest tripod B&H offers, and you'll still be better off.

Filters -- junk

Bag -- you're better off buying a regular old $25 backpack (if you don't already have one).

Cleaning solution -- you got slightly soapy water at home, right?

Memory card which LOOKS like a Sandisk on the ad, but probably isn't -- hard to say, but probably untrustworthy junk.

So add up the parts that are worth getting, substitute a 18-55 kit lens for the 28-80, and we get a total of around $855 from B&H. Add in a 4GB memory card and a cheap tripod, and you're right at what the eBay seller wants to charge -- except with a better kit lens, a more reliable memory card, and a tripod that can actually hold the camera. Oh, and by sticking with B&H or Adorama, you know you're buying it from a seller that you can trust.

 

[anubis404]

The 50mm F1.8 is the only decent lens in that bundle. IMO, the 28-80 and the 75-300 are complete crap. If you want a telephoto, the cheapest lens I'd go for is the 55-200 IS. If you are in desperate need of a cheap lens, the kit lens 18-55 is the way to go. Don't bother with the Tamron cheap lenses.

 

[NecroBolt]

Thanks folks. I heeded all your warnings and went to my local Ritz Camera. I got the Rebel XS 1000D with a Canon 18-55mm IS lens. It came with all the necessary stuff. I picked up a Quantary 70-300mm F4-5.6 AF zoom. I know it's cheap, but could not afford a higher end zoom at this point in time, and have some work to do requiring a zoom in the coming days. So I will upgrade my lenses as cash allows. I did purchase a 4GB SanDisk eXtreme III SDHC card. I figured I'd need the speed of this card to do some of the outdoor work I want to do. They threw in a Quantary 58mm UV filter.

With all that, and Ritz's 5 year extended warranty (which I only purchased two years of, for now), I spent just over a grand. They said to keep the reciept and when the price goes down in the near future (probably Valentine's Day), they will honor the sale price.

Along with our film Rebel, and my FuJi S5200, and a few other compacts, I think we're set to start taking some pics huh? LOL We've been making some money on the side with the other cameras, so I figured it was time to upgrade to DSLR. Maybe a few weddings will come our way.

Thanks everyone for all the help steering me clear of making a BIG mistake. You folks are great. :hug::

 

[beni_hung]

I'm sure most of it is junk, but I'm not going to hate as much as everybody else I bought my current Canon 20D this way, but have sold all my crap lenses since then. I guess I'm not hating because that's how I got started with DLSRs.