The Consumerist writes that a guy named Nate recently had a negative experience with Amazon’s Trade-In program. After sending in his Canon Digital Rebel and not being satisfied with the quoted trade-in value ($62), he asked for it back. What he received was “an invisible camera”:

It was all the manuals and CDs for my camera. There was NO CAMERA. The reason I didn’t connect the dots when UPS came was because the box was not even large enough to hold the camera! [...]

Luckily for me, I was able to get [Amazon] to give me the $97. I felt bad for Amazon since it’s a third party company who takes the trades and stole my camera. But what would have happened if I would have been trading a MacBook or iPad worth several hundred dollars? Would they have been as willing to give me the credit? I’m afraid to trade anything in now!

The original Digital Rebel was released back in August 2003, and was the first DSLR to have a price tag under $1,000 (it cost $899 for the body only). Amazon is willing to buy them now for $97 if in “Like New” condition, $62.25 if “Good”, and $20.50 if “Acceptable”.

Amazon Trade-In Trades My Camera For Invisible Camera [The Consumerist]

Thanks for sending in the tip, Phil!

If you do any darkroom work, you probably regularly print contact sheets to peek at the positive versions of your B&W negative film strips. Did you know that your iPhone can be used as a quick an easy tool for this same purpose?
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Here’s something that’ll blow your mind (sorry that it’s an ad): stare at the colored dots on this girl’s nose for 30 seconds, then quickly look at a white wall or ceiling (or anything pure white) and start blinking rapidly. Congratulations, you just processed a negative with your brain!

(via eject via Rob Sheridan)

P.S. Next time you’re in the photo lab, try doing this trick with your loupe and lightbox to save yourself some test prints.