Black Friday/Cyber Monday: Got Gear Requests?

For the last couple years I scoured the BF and CM sales and posted deals here on NPN, and this year I'm planning to expand the search by subscribing to several webcrawlers plus using a couple iPhone apps I came across. This year seems to be a volcano waiting to go off for good deals (WalMart is opening at 6pm on Thansgiving Day which really stinks for their employees), so if you are in the market for new gear, this year looks to be a good one. THEREFORE, if anyone has a specific lens or body or whatever that they are planning to buy, leave a reply and I'll add it specifically to my search algorithms. I have my own goal, I want a Canon refurb'ed 7D for under $750 and I think it's doable.

So, post your wish list, and I'll see what we can find!

Sounds like a good plan - I'm becoming more and more interested in Go Pro cameras and I'm sure there are several other people who would be interested in it. Maybe an algorithm for the latest gen of Go Pro's??

will do!

I have fun with my little go pro, easy to use. I got the hero silver 3

I refuse to participate in anything that adds to the religion of consumerism in this country by regarding Thanksgiving ()remember Thanksgiving?) as merely a run-up to, or head start for, so-called Black Friday. Isn't it ironic that we who should be thankful to the Creator for the marvelous scenery, animals, etc. we photograph are instead tossing over the day set aside for this purpose in favor of worshipping at the cathedrals of consumption?

a very light, small "travel" laptop with good memory, able to run CS6, do usual web search and email stuff, GPS-capable, and capable of holding 6 weeks of Africa images (25,000 or so) as the first copy (back up to portable hard drive) for our trip this spring. Or maybe I need 2 external hard-drives.. Not a MAC, sorry..

Sandy

DOH! Nancy, this will probably sound odd, but I actually completely agree with you. I think I now understand how stupid Abraham felt after he told Pharaoh that Sarah was his sister and it got pointed out to him (by Pharaoh of all people!).

And I'm sure there will be a few scratching their head wondering what THAT reference was all about, lol!

But jsyk,it does sicken my wife and I to see the original reason for Thanksgiving fade away and to see people literally stampede into WalMart at 4am (and tragically have killed an employee doing so a couple years back) just to buy excessive junk at 30 cents on the buck, with no regard to the person next to them or the child they are spoiling. So much for "love your neighbor". My intent was basically this: being that the gear we need is so expensive with any decent lens or body is a four-figure investment, if I can find which camera store has that special price where all of a sudden one of our members can afford the thing they've been needing, then it helps that shooter/artist be a better steward with the gear investments they make. The big names like Target and WalMart and Amazon will be doing nothing but running metrics on the rate of purchasing solely for the crush and kill of the sale, but the smaller camera stores and online stores will be just trying to compete, albeit at a lower profit margin. I've made the promise to help find the best price for NPN'ers who ask so I need to keep that promise, but I will keep it targeted in the realm of true photographic vendors and definitely not send anyone to the big guns. We need to support the smaller places (like Tempe Camera here in AZ for instance).

Seriously, I appreciate you not being afraid to speak your thoughts on this, a bit of a good reminder about what's important.

Sandy, good and bad news: Lenovo makes a 14" laptop called the Carbon X1 which is pretty much what you're looking for. The laptop is Carbon Fibre just like our tripods and it is nearly as thin and light as a MacBook Air. Because it's an i5 with an SSD and 8GB or ram, it is really fast, super light, and battery lasts about 6 hours. It also has USB 3.0 so if you buy a 3.0 external drive it will be quite fast for doing backups. A buddy of mine saw my son's MacBook Air and said he needed that for travel but has Windows-Specific apps, so he got one of these Lenovos and is totally happy, especially when travelling. THE BAD NEWS: expensive, probably $1400 once the smoke clears. We can look for discounts but because this is considered a "business" laptop it won't have the price cuts that the consumer line enjoys. And JSYK, I do build my own PCs custom, but if I had to buy one off the rack, it would be Lenovo over Dell and all the others in a heartbeat. Very well-made stuff.