Rob Dunlop, creative director and brains behind PrettyInWhite.com, just posted an interesting and also somewhat humorous account of his purchase of a Canon 5d Mark III through DigitalRev.com. Rob, spurred on by a series of bizarre coincidences, ended up doing some research on his new camera, only to find that it had not only been used, but used somewhat extensively by DigitalRev to create a review.
Rob, excited to get his hands on a new release, ordered the Canon 5d Mark III through DigitalRev (yep, that DigitalRev, beloved by everyone for their humorous, candid reviews) a few months ago, and immediately noticed a few things wrong with his purchase. The body came in a box that was designated for a camera and a lens, and the body had somehow been used to take roughly 60 images. While not an exorbitant number of pictures, Rob notes that it was a bit fishy, but chalked it up to Canon perhaps testing the body before sending it over to be sold, which would be a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Not really thinking too much of it, Rob continued on his merry way for a few months. It was just recently, however, that he discovered the website www.stolencamerafinder.com, which allows you to input your camera's serial number in order to prevent and track occurrences of theft. StolenCameraFinder works by comparing the serial number in your cameras metadata with other images on the internet, and if a positive match is found, it will notify you of where that image is located.
Just looking to kill some time, Rob punched his cameras' serial numbers into the website. On his first camera, there was no fuss. But his second camera's serial number came back with, strangely, one positive match. Which was, lo and behold, a shot taken by Kai of DigitalRev while putting together their 5d Mark III video review. Check out these action shots of Rob's 5d Mark III being used around the streets of Hong Kong with the protective LCD cover still on the camera:
Rob started to piece together the puzzle, and before long, he knew more than he ever wanted about his camera's previous owner, including its 'history' of being used in the rain, being far too close to private parts, and the specific scenes that it was used to shoot and film.
To check out the entire exposé, which is rather humorously put together, head over to Rob's blog, which can be found here. We are eagerly awaiting a response from DigitalRev regarding this whole situation, and will update the post as soon as we learn more.
via r/photo
Reading this is like Fox News grasping at straws to report. Who cares. 60 exposures. That's about 3 rolls of film back in the day. Move on, forget about it.
"...and also somewhat humorous account of his purchase..."
It's kinda funny. It's not going to sink a company or ruin lives.
I hate to break it to you, but B&H and Adorama have been doing this for decades.
B&H rubs cameras against their balls?
Funny, but no, they've been reselling returned items as new for decades.
Bh and adorama have been doing it for so long .. just never get caught on video
bullcrap... its still used . If id payed that much for new, I'd expect it to be new. Have you seen the show and how they handle all the gear?
Yeah! And what about this kind of "used": http://youtu.be/v3YpiFCGZRY?t=1m8s
It's USED, YOU are an idiot. Comparison to Fox News is nonsensical. You'd be fine with shelling out full money for a 5DmIII and it having been used? And not just in a studio.
GRRRR, YOU ARE MAD. GRRR IDIOT AND OTHER INSULTS TO YOU.
woah! now that's gonna leave a mark...
or III
haha :)
well played
I just wasted 2 minutes of my time reading this.
And wasted 2 more writing this shitty comment...
stop wasting time and fxxx off
The screen shot of the DigitRev product list says "New Arrival"....NOT new product. Maybe Mr Dunlop should pay more attention to what he's buying....
I reckon we'll prob see a reply from DR after Chinese New Year.....
Rob can piss off. He ordered something from China and he got mostly what he ordered. Damn crybaby.
lol DAMN! All the haters are out in force tonight!
Mike, good find of a story rob, :) keep them coming
All you hater trolls shut the hell up! :)~
People like to hate... its not new.
This is a crazy story, and really want to hear the explanation for it. thats NOT OK do to!
I TRULY love the fools that think this is no big deal. I'll tell you what, that next car you buy, I'll sell it to you, as new. First I'll TEST DRIVE it though, my way.
Not new or not when something is sold as new then it MUST BE ACTUALLY UNUSED AND NEW. This should have been sold as a demo, not as brand new.
every new car does not have 00000000kms
they have 1-2kms on each car, this is about the same as 60 frames imo, u think the cars on the showroom floor that u take for a test ride are sold as demo stock?
ya, but the point being, he said i'll test drive it, "MY WAY"... lets say you are about to buy a car.. and wait, someone is in line before you.. he test drives, revs it up to 70mph.. cuts corners like nothing, you can hear the TIRES screeching.. the ware on the axle is in your head.. he comes down the straight away, pushing 100mph..you hear the wear on the engine, comes to a complete STOP BURNING THE BREAKS... he gets out.. "nah i dont want it..but its a cool car" the salesman goes to you.. ,"Hello sir, are you interested in this car, we do not have anymore in stock but we still have this one at full price still".
would you still buy it at full price? didnt think so.
believe it or not, people in the world expect to buy something at full price new... a product that actually is brand new
One last thing though. When you order a camera from a non-authorized seller or from an overseas seller you are going to get a gray market product. In the case with DR you get that and a used one to boot. We learned this many years ago and learned it during the shipping of our camera. When it arrived we confirmed the Nikon to be gray market and not covered by US warranty. We contacted seller, insisted upon refund upon the return of the camera to them which we did not use at all. We informed them that if they didn't agree and cover return shipping we'd force chargeback via the CC company. They agreed, we never purchased from them again. Since they agreed I don't drag their name thru the mud. Used is used. Gray is gray. Buyer beware.
That's not how it works, you should read the warranty info on their site which explains it all.
That IS how it works. I'm in US, when I buy from them I don't get a US market camera, I get a HK, or Asia, market camera. I've PERSONALLY lived this gray market crap. Yes, DR will warranty your product and we've seen right here in this story how that all works.
i buy everything gray market as it is about 45% cheaper then australia, they all come with 1 year warranty and my credit card extends the warranty by another year
Fn Lame! Shame on you Digital Rev!
I'd be honored.
At least it wasn't the 7d they set on fire.
I actually ordered a 7D from them and got that one.....
Umm.. When you go to a store, and buy a "brand new" camera off the shelf, it has many shots taken from it.. As ppl come in, and test it.. Sometimes only 10-15.. Sometimes a lot more.. But seriously 60 shots is NOTHING to be a crybaby about on a dslr these days.. If it was 600, sure, but even that isn't a lot... When you consider that these cameras are good for hundreds of thousands of shots.. Get over it.. It's 60 shots..
Erm, not if you're buying new they don't. The one in the store is called demo stock and when sold it is marked as "ex-demo"
This is just incorrect. Unless you're specifically buying the demo model, which is usually reduced, none of the cameras that are fresh out of a box should have any exposures taken with them.
i do not think its the shutter count that is the problem here.. I believe its the mere fact that you bought a product as new that was not.. and taken out.. water over it.. touched by someone's.. body fluids... and basically. ya. been used before. same thing applies here as it were to if you were to buy a tv.. im sure u dont want to buy a tv knowing it was used before from someone else..
Got my 5d off this site, super cheap compared to other places. I wouldn't knock em. I reckon people want to shut them down because they do actually sell things cheaper than most other places. Back to the new/used thing though - meh, for what you pay I reckon it works out. And when they test 'new' cameras before shipping you could say that's USED haha. Though I do worry sometimes watching their show they don't use camera straps and Ki is always dropping shit the clumsy bastard.
And what I want to know is - why is the woman in the 2nd picture not wearing any pants?
good eye :D
Not sure of the logic here. If I buy something new I expect it to not be used. If it has already been used then I expect it to be labelled as such. Like if I buy a beefburger I expect it to contain beef not horse....oh wait...
Are you sure it wasn't painted pink and then repainted black. But seriously, this may not be a bit deal for people who are currently not the owner of this camera, but this signifies a betryal of trust that the DIGITALREV #digitalrev has created for themselves.
I'm not surprised that douchebag from digital rev would do something like that. Just check out one of his videos on youtube and you will find out fast what a tool this jerk is.
I agree 100%. I don't understand like people like him- he's not funny and a giant bore.
I can offer some more first hand experience. I ordered some pocket wizard products from them months ago, supposedly usa models, and they were not! Their return policy is an obsolute nightmare and it took weeks for me to get them to accept the return and even more time to get my money back. For insurance and shipping back to hong kong cost me over $60 and I only had a few small items that added up to less than 1 pound. You could imaging what a camera, or camera lens combo would cost you. I highly encourage everyone- Never buy from these guys if your in the US!
I would demand lok and kai to sign that camera. i don't understand some people, i work in a camera store. i put a camera from a brand new box to show them just because we don't have a demo. and after they decide they want it. they will refuse to buy the one you just show them which has no shutter count on it. all we did is put it in you hand so you know what it feels like holding that camera.
that sound like a open box item to me now
I ordered some stuff from them a year ago. A couple of Nikkor FX Lenses to begin with. The way the order was handled was a nightmare from beginning to end. I sent them an email saying that I was budgeting £112k for a professional equipment list and if they were not interested in my business to say so as they had the personal skills of a bad Anime character!
Nothing changed. Order took weeks. I said in a follow up email, "Thanks and kiss the rest of my budget being spent with your company."
Now I see this, I am sooooooo glad I went with companies in the UK and Italy. Pleasure to do business with. Personal hands on service. Not a question of anything being "dodgy", or misrepresented.
I hope you are well compensated and have a new camera at the end of this.
And let it again be said, as we all know it so well....Caveat Emptor.
Plain and simple when I'm spending money on something that's marketed to me as new I expect it to be unused. That means Kai didn't rub it with his balls, set it on fire, threw it down the stairs in a crumpler bag on a manikin. I don't care about grey markets,warranties and return policies new is new and if it's not new it's used and should be priced as such.
Maybe now less sites will feature the (never) funny "Kai" and his dull insipid videos.