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Amazon Accidentally Sold $13,000+ Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day
Amazon discounted a wide range of camera gear for Prime Day this week, but some photographers scored what may be the best deals of their lives. Thanks to a pricing error, many people were able to purchase high-end camera gear bundles, some worth over $5,000, for just around $100.
It all started when someone noticed that the $550 Sony a6000 and 16-50mm lens bundle was being listed at just $94.50 on Amazon, and the person shared the “deal” on Slickdeals, where it hit the front page.
Many users were able to see the same price and place orders, while other users reported still seeing the normal price of $550. And it wasn’t 3rd-party sellers that the $94.50 price applied to — the gear was being sold and shipped by Amazon.
But then people noticed that other cameras and bundles were also being sold for $94.50, and that’s when the real frenzy started.
“Literally everything is $94.48,” one member writes. “I have bought like 10k worth of stuff that was like 900 dollars total.”
[...] Other members spoke to Amazon customer service about their order and were told that the order would indeed ship. Others also reported that they successfully price matched gear at retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 19 2019, @12:21PM (7 children)
Digital photography is one of those technologically imploding markets... my $150 cell phone has better (by many measures) cameras in it than were available at any price 15 years ago...
Also, like life vests, the camera you have with you is infinitely more valuable than the one in a drawer at home.
*Yes, yes, better lenses, better lighting, it does make a difference. However, if you took today's cell phone cameras back to 1999, people wouldn't believe that they can do what they can do - not just the megapixels, but also light and focus from such small lenses.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday July 19 2019, @12:30PM
You can buy adapters to use fancy lenses with cell phones.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aim on Friday July 19 2019, @01:27PM
Sure, cell phones have gotten better, to the point of replacing the simpler cameras for "good enough" point-and-click pictures.
Yet, cellphones, even helped by digital filters, cannot come close to what decent higher-end gear can deliver.
If you're even somewhat into photography, it's worth it. Even if you've some experience with entry level DSLRs, you might
be quite surprised by what pro-level gear is like.
I seriously doubt the situation will be any different 15 years from now. Unless those flat lenses get into production, good
luck integrating a decent telephoto lens into a cell phone - and that's only the start of more serious requirements.
As to who does "high end photography" - there may not be that many professionals, but there's plenty serious amateurs around,
who won't hesitate getting serious gear.
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Friday July 19 2019, @02:28PM (3 children)
It doesn't really change your argument, but the only thing better is raw resolution and literally every other spec for phone cams are worse than even cruddy dedicated cameras. You can get crisp sharp bright low res images from 15 years ago or blurry dark blah super high res today.
USB webcams are 50:50, there's some $50+ ones where the optics are better than anything you can find in a cellphone and some that are literally junky cell phone cameras in a USB case for less than $50 mostly. There's plenty of cheap Logitech webcams older than 15 years that outperform any cellphone today in every spec but raw resolution.
Non-technical consumers really like high res bitmaps of dark unfocused blurs, so its all about the megapixels. In the really old days like more than a generation ago, digital cams were pixel limited but for oh at least a quarter century most digital cams are now glass limited. I have no idea when or if the marketplace will ever catch up with that technical observation. Its possible I'm wrong in small details (well, actually, with the release of the nikon xyz exactly 31.4159265 years ago...) but in general my statement is accurate.
Kinda like in the old days you could tell a consumer grade telescope was crap if they advertised the theoretically possible max magnification (people in the know buy based on aperture), you can tell a camera today is junk if the marketing leans heavily on the megapixels being 10% more than last year.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 19 2019, @04:59PM (1 child)
Fully acknowledged, as the new telescope in Hawaii confirms: there's no replacement for aperture.
However... the things that they are doing with digital sensors today with the tiny little apertures on cellphones would have been deemed impossible in 1999, even with the best chemical films available. I suppose it's mostly in the sensitivity of the sensors, but they're also doing really impressive things with the optics, including some very practical mechanical stabilization (like the DSLRs got a few years earlier...)
I carried a 35mm film camera all around Europe one summer, have a nice photo album (that gets looked at maybe once every 10 years now) as a result of all that effort. The next summer I opted for a cheap point and click because: vacation is more fun when you're not trying to work as a professional photographer - though, in that day (1989) the better camera really was quite a bit better.
Today, I carry my cellphone, and get images that are 90% as good as my SLR got on chemical film. Maybe 3 pictures out of the 1000 I took on the SLR wouldn't have come out as good on a cellphone, and I would have easily gotten 30 more good ones just due to the convenience of the form factor.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 19 2019, @08:53PM
Not to be pedantic, but if we're talking telescopes then location replaces aperture. Specifically, any location outside the atmosphere is going to make up for a lot of aperture and space-based scopes are going to do things that no scope of any size on Earth can do. Of course that's out of reach for everybody except large organizations and states so it is kind of a pedantic point.
(Score: 3, Informative) by darkfeline on Saturday July 20 2019, @06:57AM
>the only thing better is raw resolution
Nope, what's better is the software. I can point and click with shaky hands my smartphone and get vibrant, clear photos that, even ignoring the resolution, would have taken years of experience, expensive equipment, and careful execution during the shot in the past.
>blurry dark blah super high res today
Have you seen HDR+ or Night Sight on Android? It takes no skill to take impressive photos now. Yes, an expert with the equipment can still take better photos, but at what cost of time investment? It's like comparing a longbowman who has trained for life to peasants with matchlock firearms. A longbowman is no joke, but boy do I have a fuckton of peasants I can just hand guns to and train them to point and shoot.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday July 20 2019, @08:18PM
> Digital photography is one of those technologically imploding markets.
Because smartphones, but also because 5 year old cameras take perfectly good photos, and high end stuff must be repairable, and planned obsolescence tricks are going to be harshly publicized by the guys who lost wedding or travel photo occasions.
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