Heading to Hawaii soon and will be buying a camera, duty free or get one over there for the best price?
Not sure how Hawaii goes, but it's cheaper to buy in America and shipt it over than it is to buy duty free from Australia...
Bought a camera in Hawaii when I was over there in may, as my camera broke. Wasn't anything super flash, but price was not really better than Aus.
It's more expensive to buy in Hawaii than in mainland USA, but I think they probably mark up cameras a little higher, as the is no shortage of awesome places to photograph.
My favorite of the trip. Taken on a crappy 8 megapixel, 3x zoom camera from walmart.
I wonder how many "support your local camera shop", post's this thread will attract, from all the usual suspects that jump on when it's a kite gear thread.
And I agree that Hawaii is generally more expensive for goods than the mainland.
Buy from amazon or b&h photo and have it shipped to an address in Hawaii before you leave so it's waiting there for you when you arrive. You'll save HEAPS over the prices here-it's a race to the bottom in the US at the moment.
^^^ Agree.
You will save far more (generally) than you will recoup in GST.
Only gamble is on warranty returns etc you usually pay for the freight.
Apart from the warranty when buying from those Ebay stores you can sometimes get gear that is made in taiwan or china instead of the US. Generally the US made gear is better quality (even though it's still the same item). For example Canon may have a 1.4 50mm lens selling for $150 on ebay for a product that's made in China, and the exact same 1.4 50mm lens will be sold at B&H for $200 but it's American made and will generally shoot a better quality picture.
Just something to keep an eye on when buying from OS. And another thing to think about when weighing up the options of whether it's worth the extra $$ for a bit of extra quality.
You'll find a lot of the stuff you buy from the big Aussie stores are US built.
Buy online - HEAPS CHEAPER! I'm going to buy two of these bad boys shortly
www.dwidigitalcameras.com/
You can buy them cheaper from sites like dwi, but they are grey inports from hong kong and do not come with an aussie warrenty, There are other sites that do come with an aussie warrenty such as ryda.com.au, you dont pay too much more. Another option with the recent release of some new DSLR's is to buy a out of season second hand camera which lots of people are selling to upgrade, some forum, even US forums are good places to find some farily unused second hand cam's. It all depends on what you are looking for though.
Just do what I do... I travel alot.
Go and haggle your best price at the local electrical shop(always cheaper than Duty free stores anyhow) and then claim your 10% back at the airport.