Quote Originally Posted by Dr Croubie View Post
One thing I've noticed when browsing (i've never bought lenses from B+H, only about $1k of tripod gear), is that whenever they have rebates or sales, it's only on the genuine USA stock, and with the rebate they end up cheaper than the grey-imports. So if you want something, and you don't need it straight away, it seems to be worth waiting to get the genuine stock cheaper-than-grey in the next sale.

That said, for me it's a non-issue, because I'm buying from Australia, so if I did buy from B+H I get no warranty anyway. There's a shop over here called JBHifi that have just started doing grey-market importing, and they're offering the same deal, no Canon warranty but JB warranty for a year. I can't comment on service here, but when my 7D needed fixing in The Netherlands, I called Canon and they said I *had* to go to the shop, so whether it's a shop-warranty or Canon warranty, it wouldn't have made a difference to repair turnaround-time.

Canon Aus CPS also won't recognise it for membership, you have to provide local-shop receipts for everything (ie, you can't even buy a few second-hand bodies to qualify, it has to be full-price over-inflated-Aus-price from a registered dealer), plus having to provide business details and whatnot. In short, CPS Aus is *only* for the top of the top pro photogs over here, no hobbyists allowed...
Dr C
Was only just reading about this subject (we call it parallel imports), so here is the state of play.

http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-and...l-imports.aspx

I hope that they free up our market so that Aus stops getting screwed.