Canadian 5DII Price Drop

[DavidEccleston]

elmo, if you're shipping something expensive to Toronto from B&H ship with FedEx. You pay more up front for the shipping than UPS but there are no brokerage fees charged by FedEx. That way you only pay taxes at the border so it becomes way cheaper.

The UPS options used by Adorama, and likely by B&H, have brokerage included for up to 5 items. All you'll pay during delivery is Canadian taxes. When I ordered my T1i, I got the kit + 85mm + 50mm + extra battery + memcard + memcard reader + soft case for 85mm (ie: more than 5 items) and wasn't charged any additional fee, but that may have been luck.


If you want to verify B&H's UPS option is free of custom fees, check this page:


http://www.ups.com/content/ca/en/shipping/cost/zones/customs_clearance.html

[mikehillman89]

If you want to verify B&H's UPS option is free of custom fees, check this page:
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Thanks David! I was looking for that page on their website!


I have this random relationship with my local UPS driver and he said that he isn't even sure how the duty and bonds thing works.


But every time I've ordered from the States i've always had to pay duties with UPS. I've never had to pay with FedEx though I just discovered this.


Let me know if you can dig up more info.

[canon-ball]

i have been thinkin about getting the 5d mark 2, but would you suggest getting just the body or the 24-105mm lens with it? is that lens worth the money?

[Jon Ruyle]

I got the kit. I was getting ready to buy the 24-105 anyway before the 5DII was announced. When I first heard about the 5DII knew I wanted one. I jokingly told a friend, "maybe the 24-105 will be the kit lens." Guess I lucked out []


Obviously it depends on what you want and what you already have. But IMO the 24-105 is a very nice "all purpose" lens on the 5DII and easily worth the money.

[DavidEccleston]

But every time I've ordered from the States i've always had to pay duties with UPS

Brokerage and duty are twoseparatethings.


Brokerage is a fee shipping companies charge for dealing with crossing the border with goods. Some places offer you standard UPS shipping, which looks cheaper, but then you'll get hit with larger brokerage fees. For example, my camera+lenses order would have incurred a $72.50 brokerage fee on top of the cheaper shipping, and when I ordered a 24-105mm, I would have been hit with a $67.95 brokerage fee on top of the cheaper shipping. The cheaper shipping options can turn out to be the more expensive. Anywhere reputable dealing with high cost items like cameras and lenses will likely only offer the shipping options that include brokerage, but you're best to double check. I hate Amazon.com because they've renamed the shipping options, so you don't know if you'll be hit for brokerage or not.


I'm sure FedEx offers shipping that doesn't include brokerage too. When I made my orders, at Adorama the UPS options would be $40-50, while the FedEx was $70-80. Since I knew the UPS had brokerage included, I took the cheaper UPS shipping option. It's not slow either, with the package arriving a day or two after it shipped.


Avoid USPS (US Postal Service), as high value cross border packages apparently disappear frequently, and there is no record of whether it reached you or not.





Duty on the other hand, is not affected by who's shipping or which shipping option you choose. It's a government mandated fee to help protect local industries, or to deter trade with countries the government has a beef with. Lenses and cameras are duty free. Filters have a 2.5% duty. There are dozens of long confusing PDFs over at the customs website take break down the fees for everything you could imagine.


Photoprice.ca includes the duty in their prices... see the pocketWizard here:
http://www.photoprice.ca/product/031...non-price.html
Click on the ? next B&amp;H's final price. You'll see the 5% duty included.


Photoprice.ca has a page dedicate to duty/brokerage issues, which pretty much repeats everything I just wrote, but with phone numbers to customs and links to the relevant websites.
http://www.photoprice.ca/article/tax-duty-brokerage-demystified


And the final thing photoprice.ca takes into account for you is that credit card companies charge around 3% to do currency conversion, so they use that inflated conversion rate to show you what you'll really be paying. They mention that here:
http://www.photoprice.ca/exchange-rate/


In other words, for Canadians, photoprice.ca lists what you'll pay, including shipping, duty, currency conversion and taxes.


http://www.canonpricewatch.com/is the US version of photoprice.ca, but it only lists US stores, so it doesn't cover the case here of US people importing from Canadian retailers. It's new, so they may expand into that one day.

[StapledPhoto]

Do you not still have to pay sales tax on B&amp;H's $2399 price?

As far as I know, usually the listed price on B&amp;H is the final
price. Tax and Shipping included. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but
every time I order from B&amp;H or Adorama for that matter I've never
had to pay anything additional. (Unless I add in 2-day shipping because
I'm impatient like that [img]/emoticons/emotion-5.gif[/img])


I'm glad to hear that you guys are getting this discount!! [img]/emoticons/emotion-2.gif[/img]I wasn't aware of
all these additional taxes that were imposed upon up north...seems
pretty unfair to me [img]/emoticons/emotion-7.gif[/img]

I
just did a little test out of curiosity. It looks like you're right that
the base price ends up being your all-in price, but only because they
ship for free and there happens to be no tax for you. I tried plugging
in a New York zip code (Where B&amp;H is located) and all of a sudden it
added a couple of hundred dollars worth of tax. So it seems to
me like you guys have the same out-of-state tax exemption that we do,
except you get no sales tax at all and we get 5% instead of 10% or 12%.
Good thing you never tried to buy from a store that was located in your
state before []

i have been thinkin about getting the 5d mark 2, but would you suggest getting just the body or the 24-105mm lens with it? is that lens worth the money?
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I have the 24-105 but not on FF, but it's a fantastic lens and I think it'll be even better for me on a FF body. Whether it's worth the money or not is up to the individual, but I'd say that if you're buying a 5DII and want a general purpose zoom (most people would) you aren't going to go wrong with this lens.


As a side-note, check your local CL if you're in a big town or city. At least where I am, a new or even used 24-105 in good condition sells for more than what you'll pay extra to buy the kit instead of the body. So buy the kit and use it for a while. If you don't like the lens, you're unlikely to lose any money on it. Consider it a free rental with an option to buy at a very discounted price [:P]


I already have the 24-105 but I plan to buy the kit if I buy a 5DII anyway. I'll do some comparison tests and if the new lens is at all better I'll just sell my used one (I've taken good care of it). Either way it'll cost me less to buy the kit and part one of the lenses out than to just buy the body. It's bizarre that the used price here of the 24-105 hasn't dropped more since the 5D kit came out, but it still hasn't dropped to the kit cost. Go figure.


Looks like if i sell the brand new kit lens for $1000 - not unrealistic - I'd end up paying a final price of $2235 Canadian for a brand new 5DII shipped to my door. This is getting scary tempting, especially when you consider that my local CL doesn't see them listed for under $2400 used. I'm sure that'll change soon though.





-Yoni

[mikehillman89]

i have been thinkin about getting the 5d mark 2, but would you
suggest getting just the body or the 24-105mm lens with it? is that
lens worth the money?

You can ship the lens to me []

At least where I am, a new or even used 24-105 in good condition sells for more than what you'll pay extra to buy the kit instead of the body. So buy the kit and use it for a while. If you don't like the lens, you're unlikely to lose any money on it. Consider it a free rental with an option to buy at a very discounted price [img]/emoticons/emotion-4.gif[/img]
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I agree. It's worth the money. I know in Canada it's the kit has the lens included for $800 whereas by itself the lens is $1400 so whether or not you end up using it much you can always resell it for almost 50% profit.