Canon 50mm f/1.8 II

elroberto · 14 Jun 2006 at 19:09

Damn. Ordered one of these from Hong Kong on the 'bay and it arrived today, plus £24.74 import tax! I haven't actually saved anything by ordering from over there. Does anyone else who orders gear regularly get stung by this or am I just one of the unlucky ones. Luckily I'm ordering my 350D from Blighty next week so at least I'm safe with that one.

elroberto · 14 Jun 2006 at 19:23

Don't know if I can name them as they're probably classed as a competitor to here. From what I've seen they are one of the big HK outfits on ebay. They were very quick and even threw in a free handstrap for my camera body but that tax just nullified the point of importing it. Surely such a low cost item shouldn't have been taxed so highly though. Unless imort tax includes the delivery charges too.

elroberto · 14 Jun 2006 at 20:38

Yeah, £11 handling fee with UPS. Perhaps I should have asked the supplier to mark the item as a gift or possibly a Warranty Return. (That's assuming this company would do this for me).

elroberto · 15 Jun 2006 at 22:15

starscream said:
How are you finding the lens though?

350D Camera body is coming on a week monday, so I'll be champing at the bit to go and shoot the nuts off it. And of course will post some of it here. Bare in my mind, I haven't really touched an SLR in about 10 years, since my 30 year old 3rd-hand Praktica gave up the ghost! Hope I haven't forgot much.

elroberto · 16 Jun 2006 at 21:59

I'll probably shoot like mad with it as soon as I get it. I've got a 30 mile hike coming up next month that should be a good opportunity of shooting the Welsh Countryside and it's going to the V festival with me too. Can't afford a big enough lens to get stage closeups so it'll have to be big wides of the area, unless my mate manages to do the business and gets me the magic backstage pass he's supposed to be sorting out.