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DL Cade

Target’s New Year-Round Price Matching May Make it an Attractive Camera Shop

The war between brick and mortar stores and online retailers ended a long time ago -- online retailers won. "Showrooming" was born and the B&M store became no more than a place to try before you went home to buy online. Worst case scenario you needed something right away that you would then return once your online order arrived. It's not pretty, but that's the reality of it.

This last holiday season, in an attempt to win back some traction in the fight, Best Buy offered to match online pricing on any item. This offered a great "have your cake and eat it too" scenario for consumers; but now the holiday season is over and people are back to shopping online. Well, Target is looking to change that, and not just during the holidays.

Michael Zhang

Beware Counterfeit Memory Cards Being Shipped From Amazon Warehouses

Check out the two memory cards above. One of them is a counterfeit card while the other is a genuine one. Can you tell which is which? If you can't, we don't blame you. Japan-based photography enthusiast Damien Douxchamps couldn't either until he popped the fake card into his camera and began shooting. The card felt a bit sluggish, so he ran some tests on his computer. Turned out the 60MB/s card was actually slower than his old 45MB/s card.

While it's not unusual to come across counterfeit memory cards -- it's estimated that 1/3 of "SanDisk"-labeled cards are -- what's a bit concerning is how Douxchamps purchased his: he ordered the cards off Amazon -- cards that were "fulfilled by Amazon."

Michael Zhang

Best Buy Says It Will Match Online Prices This Holiday Season

Best Buy has been struggling in recent years as consumers have increasingly looked to the Internet for their gadget shopping needs. It's quickly gaining a reputation of being a place where people "try before they go home and buy online" (known as "showrooming") If you've been using the store as your personal camera showroom and are in the market for a new camera, you might want to bring your wallet the next time you visit: Best Buy is planning to extend its price match policies to online retailers this holiday season.

Michael Zhang

Time To Buy That Camera: Amazon to Start Collecting CA Sales Tax in a Week

If you live in California and have been eyeing some camera gear on Amazon, you might want to bust out your wallet and make the purchase this week. On September 15th, 2012, Amazon will start collecting sales tax for purchases made from California. The tax rate ranges from 7.25% to 9.75% depending on where you live, so the cost difference could be quite significant depending on what you buy. For a $1,500 camera or lens, the tax could be as heavy as $150.

Michael Zhang

Hilarious Customer “Reviews” for the Hasselblad H4D-50 on Amazon

If you look at the product page of any "exotic" piece of camera equipment on Amazon, there's a good chance that you'll come across some humorous fake reviews left by photographers looking to poke fun at the product's features. Last September, we shared some funny reviews left for the Sigma 200-500mm, which looks more like a bazooka than a lens. Another one is the Hasselblad H4D-50, a medium format DSLR that costs $19,000... as an open box demo. You can probably guess what the reviews poke fun at.

Michael Zhang

Amazon Glacier Lets You Back Up Your Entire Photo Library on the Cheap

The number one reason for data loss is human error, and one of the other major reasons is the failure of storage mediums. When examining ways to store digital photos for a lifetime back in 2009, we noted that entrusting your data to the servers and engineers of major cloud companies (e.g. Amazon and its S3) was a better option than trying to back up your data yourself. Even though Amazon's S3 has long been an attractive option -- after all, many online photo sharing services use it for storing your data -- its pricing of around around $0.14/GB/month means that storing just a terabyte costs $100+/month.

That changes today with the introduction of Amazon Glacier. It's a new uber-low-cost storage service for people who just want a place to dump their data without having to worry about it. Pricing starts at a crazy-low $0.01/GB/month.

DL Cade

PureView Arrives on Amazon, Coming Soon to Lumia Phones

There's good news coming out of the Nokia camp if you live in the US and you've been wanting to get your hands on the 41-megapixel camera in the company's 808 PureView smartphone. Not only is the 808 itself now available to purchase on Amazon unsubsidized for $699, but the camera technology inside it may soon be available without the hefty price tag.

Michael Zhang

Aputure Gigtube: A Shutter Release with Live View

Here's a little DSLR accessory that might be a great Christmas present for a photographer you know. The Aputure Gigtube is a "remote viewfinder" that allows you to use the "live view" functionality of your camera off-camera. You can either mount it on your hot-shoe, or use it separately as a remote shutter release.