"David J. Littleboy" writes:

I thought you'd say thatg. For 15% (which is what I thought VAT was), I'd
rather spend that day seeing something NYC (with an already tested camera)
other than the inside of a camera store. But 30% is seriously painful.

Our VAT is 22%, customs tax is something in the order of 3-5%, and
shipping charges are also included.. the formula is something like:
(price + shipping)*1.05*1.22, making 1.3 a very good approximation..


I ended up buying a Mamiya 7 + 65mm from Japan, the price was slightly
cheaper than in Adorama, but I'll be paying a lot more because of
customs and taxes. The good thing is it'll maybe arrive at the
beginning of next week and I'll have some time to test it before I
leave. In the worst case, it'll arrive while I'm already in USA, in
which case I'll take my eminently usable but heavy Pentax 645 system
with me and get aching shoulders (again)


That's an issue I keep forgetting: I only make prints.

Me too, but sometimes I fantasize about wonderful, magnificent projected
slides on my living room wall. Well, no 6x6 slides this time, either...


Yep. This gets into lottery ticket territory quickly.

I returned the ticket, so tomorrow evening we'll see about buying some
additional lenses - and whether I have to go back to work after vacation


When I got the M7, it was a toss-up between the GSW690 and the M7. The lack
of interchangeable lenses on the GSW690 put me off, and I got the M7. But
I've never had enough spare change since then to get the 43/4.5, the
availability of which was the reason for choosing the M7.

I've been considering the Fuji GS/GSW 670/690's as well.. but I guess I've
made up my mind now.


The embarrassing thing is that I've done this before. Many years ago, I
bought a new Hassy 500C (which means you can compute the value of "many"
here), but never had enough money to buy another lens for it. I had the
stick shift focusing handle and the meter-in-the-knob meter, and dragged
that thing all over the place; from the Green Mountains of Vermont to
Daibosatsutoge, Yatsugatake, and Mt. Fuji.

Even that isn't going to break one's neck like a loaded Pentax 645 kit

It's funny that nowadays if you want a quality camera with a
waist-level finder and Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm optics, a Hasselblad 500
C/M kit will cost less than a Rolleiflex, perhaps even significantly
so. I wonder what those cost when they were sold new?