i was just looking at ebay and found a place called cameta camera they have a ton of what they call factory demo nikon lens's. going for what i feel are very good prices just wondering if i should bid on some. Right now i only have the kit lens with my d40
Well the first thing I would do is take a look at the sellers feedback and see what people thought of the product. Does the seller look legitimate? (proper pictures of what is being sold, good descriptions, etc.)
If you're going to ebay, why not straight away look at a second hand seller rather than a store. Btw 9 times out of 10 ebay stores sell Grey market lenses. No problem for canon users, just be aware that if you have a problem Nikon may refuse warrenty replacements. You get what you pay for.
Canon covers grey market lenses under warrenty. Nikon do not. Mind you this was last I heard of it about one year ago. Things do change.
Cameta Camera is a respected and reputable dealer. They have a brick and mortar business in New York. They're not one of the rip-off stores that are so common on ebay. I researched them a lot before buying a refurbished "factory demo" D80 from their ebay storefront. I paid, they shipped and shortly thereafter I recieved Nikon D80 that looked as brand new. And it's not grey market. I recommend them.
And don't confuse factory demo with gray market. Store front business have products available for customer touch and feel which may be fondled, dropped, dirtied, otherwise used but aren't preowned and hence keep the full factory guarantee. In many cases, they are sent back through the factory service program to assure proper operation. Gray market comes in several flavors. When a product is sold in country A and it is taken to country B for resale by someone other than the factory distributor, it is gray market. The product may or may not be manufactured with slight differences for country A, even carry different numbers than products provided for country B. Companies discourage gray market schemes as the circumvention costs profit, distorts sales figures and wasted time dealing with abnormal situations so a penalty of warranty loss is often imposed. Warranty complaints on gray market products are always statistical higher than for regular stock. Sometimes products require aftermarket modifications to meet country standards, a cost not figured into buyers initial decision. Both schemes are activated by the human greed instinct to get more than you pay for. Most of the time it works, but not always. Buyer beware. My first Nikon outfit of one month's salary was bought mail order from Switzerland when I worked in Brazil. No problems. At one point the San Francisco Nikon dealer had the whatsis fixed for me gratis from Nikon. Just know what you are doing and the risk for what could be a very small savings and the long term rewards and satisfaction which comes from dealing with a local store.
Cameta Camera is located in Amityville, on Long Island. Its about 20 minutes away from me, and I've been there a few times. I can't speak to the products that come from them through eBay, but in their Brick and Mortar store, the people are super nice and really knowledgeable. Being a B&M store, they actually have (imagine this!) a phone number! =) So if you want to, give 'em a call and ask about it before you bid on it. (The number is on their website, http://secure.cameta.com/index.cfm) or just google "Cameta Camera").
