The Amazing Sony A1/A7/A9/APS-C & Anything else welcome Mega Thread!

gman said:
It was this article in particular I looked at. The Sony bokeh at 1.4 actually looks nicer to me than the Sigma's 1.2

I suppose now the big question is to Panamoz or not to Panamoz? I've never used them before, so I don't know how they handle import taxes - unless they are using a UK distribution facility or sorts?
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Panamoz service is excellent, if you’re happy buying grey.
 
snerkler said:
Panamoz service is excellent, if you’re happy buying grey.
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Thanks, they do seem to be well respected. I don't have an issue with grey, although can this not affect second hand resale? But the price difference doesn't seem as much as I would have thought. £1,100-£1,200 yes maybe, but only about £100 less, I'm not so sure.
 
gman said:
Thanks, they do seem to be well respected. I don't have an issue with grey, although can this not affect second hand resale? But the price difference doesn't seem as much as I would have thought. £1,100-£1,200 yes maybe, but only about £100 less, I'm not so sure.
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Its never affected what i got when selling my lenses why would it, its the same lens after all. Id rather use Panamoz than most UK based places, there's also E-Infinity, used them a fair bit as well, often cheaper but with slower delivery.
 
gman said:
Thanks, they do seem to be well respected. I don't have an issue with grey, although can this not affect second hand resale? But the price difference doesn't seem as much as I would have thought. £1,100-£1,200 yes maybe, but only about £100 less, I'm not so sure.
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I probably wouldn’t bother for £100 difference but YMMV.
 
gman said:
It was this article in particular I looked at. The Sony bokeh at 1.4 actually looks nicer to me than the Sigma's 1.2

I suppose now the big question is to Panamoz or not to Panamoz? I've never used them before, so I don't know how they handle import taxes - unless they are using a UK distribution facility or sorts?
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In the past say 5 years or so I have spent about 40k with Panamoz.They have always been great and the warranty is very good. Like any supplier sometimes stuff goes wrong, I trust them more than any other supplier to deal with any issues well and they are generally much bettter than most U.K suppliers. Panamoz is usually ship direct and avoid import duty by falsely declaring the value of the product but all the grey importers do that.

The 35GM is expensive because stock is so difficult to get the hold off would expect it to be around the £1200 mark grey import once it is more readily available. I paid nearer the £1200 mark for mine as Panamoz owed me a favour because of delivery issues with a previous order. Digital Rev were originally selling them for £1220 but then increased price because of high demand and low stock availability.

I would say though that WEX is my favourite U.K supplier because I have a great relationship with my local store.
 
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Aye WEX is handy for me as well as there's one fairly local (used to be a Calumet). Well, let's see if they've still got it in stock first and go from there.
 
GyRob said:
I've had it a couple of weeks now and very happy with it - it is a good upgrade to the a9mkII a little faster more accurate AF and MPs for bird cropping .
Rob.
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Thanks rob, so should be decent upgrade to my a9 mk1 and a6500 which will be gone by Sunday.
The a9 was fast enough for me I just wanted more MP
 
gman said:
Aye WEX is handy for me as well as there's one fairly local (used to be a Calumet). Well, let's see if they've still got it in stock first and go from there.
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Unlikely to get it within a few months from WEX they took a huge amount of pre-orders, a guy in my local WEX told me it’s one of the biggest preorders they have ever had.
 
gman said:
Ah, I wasn't sure if they had some legal loophole. I guess that the "showing in stock" on their website may not be true then. For a little over £100 compared to WEX it doesn't seem overly appealing all things considered, I might just wait for UK stock to come in.
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It's probably in stock and they have increased the price quite a bit too!

gman said:
Thanks, they do seem to be well respected. I don't have an issue with grey, although can this not affect second hand resale? But the price difference doesn't seem as much as I would have thought. £1,100-£1,200 yes maybe, but only about £100 less, I'm not so sure.
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IME it can affect resale value sometimes. I can generally sell UK stock lenses for a higher price than grey ones. I change lenses more often than my underpants, if you mention your lens is grey people are obviously going to decrease the price based on the grey market price instead of the UK price plus some people plain refuse to buy grey lenses. Places like wex reduce their quotes by 10% on grey items.

Personally I try to avoid it grey importers as much as possible. Sometimes UK shops just suck at sourcing items. 35GM is a good example. Somehow is quicker to grey import one than get hold of a UK copy!!
 
gman said:
Ah, I wasn't sure if they had some legal loophole. I guess that the "showing in stock" on their website may not be true then. For a little over £100 compared to WEX it doesn't seem overly appealing all things considered, I might just wait for UK stock to come in.
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If it is showing in stock it will be in stock.

I ordered mine on a Monday and received on the Friday,
 
f/2.8 said:
They don’t.

When you trade in to WEX they give the same price regardless if grey or not.
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May be they don't for you since you have a good relationship with your local store manager but I enquired this from thier customer service.

Any one and everyone is welcome to double check with them. I am only quoting what wex told me.

Here's the email I have from wex:

"for goods the manufacturer did not produce to be within the UK this can effect what repair centres will then take the item on for repair as well as what conditions the item has been stored and transported in, this does mean that if the item is grey import stock, this can then affect customer confidence in buying a grey import item. As a company we do not stock grey import goods from new.

For trade-in this then equates to 10% being deducted from the offer price as a flat rate deduction we apply for any grey import goods being sent to us for trade-in, which would fall under section 11.5 of our T&Cs listed on the website:

"11.5 We reserve the right to amend or cancel any quotation or to offer a revised quotation following inspection of the products. If we offer a revised quotation by phone or email, you will have the right to accept or reject the revised quotation. Such quotations will be open for acceptance for a maximum period of seven days. We will require acceptance of a revised quotation to be in writing (i.e. by email).""
 
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nandbytes said:
May be they don't for you since you have a good relationship with your local store manager but I enquired this from thier customer service.

Here's the email I have from wex:

"for goods the manufacturer did not produce to be within the UK this can effect what repair centres will then take the item on for repair as well as what conditions the item has been stored and transported in, this does mean that if the item is grey import stock, this can then affect customer confidence in buying a grey import item. As a company we do not stock grey import goods from new.

For trade-in this then equates to 10% being deducted from the offer price as a flat rate deduction we apply for any grey import goods being sent to us for trade-in, which would fall under section 11.5 of our T&Cs listed on the website:

"11.5 We reserve the right to amend or cancel any quotation or to offer a revised quotation following inspection of the products. If we offer a revised quotation by phone or email, you will have the right to accept or reject the revised quotation. Such quotations will be open for acceptance for a maximum period of seven days. We will require acceptance of a revised quotation to be in writing (i.e. by email).""
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Wierd, they have never mentioned this to me, I have traded in both via my local shop and via their website quite a few times and not once have they ever mentioned that. I once traded them 2 x D750's via the website one was grey, one was not and they gave the same trade in valuation on both.
 
f/2.8 said:
Wierd, they have never mentioned this to me, I have traded in both via my local shop and via their website quite a few times and not once have they ever mentioned that. I once traded them 2 x D750's via the website one was grey, one was not and they gave the same trade in valuation on both.
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Your trade in was while ago for D750s may be this is new policy
The email above is dated 1st March 2021.

I was trading in an used A7RIV which was bought in the US (according to wex anyway). I bought it from eBay so I didn't really know any better. I spoke to my personal contact and he managed to only have it reduced by £50 instead of the 10% which would have been £190!
 
nandbytes said:
Your trade in was while ago for D750s may be this is new policy
The email above is dated 1st March 2021.

I was trading in an used A7RIV which was bought in the US (according to wex anyway). I bought it from eBay so I didn't really know any better. I spoke to my personal contact and he managed to only have it reduced by £50 instead of the 10% which would have been £190!
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What did you replace the A7RIV with?
 
f/2.8 said:
What did you replace the A7RIV with?
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I have another :ROFLMAO:
But it was replaced by A7C.
it was a second one I grabbed last year just before the pandemic took off. I was looking for cheaper A7III or A7RIII but I made a silly offer on a buy-it-now and buyer made a counter offer that wasn't far off my offer so I accepted it.
I went on a holiday before the lockdown and I had 2-3 more trips planed after it (we all know what happened to those). So I felt it was better to travel with two bodies instead of one.
 
f/2.8 said:
They don’t.

When you trade in to WEX they give the same price regardless if grey or not.
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I've never had an issue selling grey either, all that's ever been stipulated is that cameras come with a UK plug.
 
f/2.8 said:
Same here, maybe a recent change based on @nandbytes post
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I saw that, but I sold my A7RIV recently and although that was a UK camera none of the shops asked whether it was grey or not or where I bought it from (y)
 
snerkler said:
I saw that, but I sold my A7RIV recently and although that was a UK camera none of the shops asked whether it was grey or not or where I bought it from (y)
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Wex didn't ask either, they contacted me after I had sent it in with a revised offer. I was surprised and questioned their decision. The body was in mint condition and with just 2K shutter count which they had agreed on after evaluation. when I questioned their revised quote they sent the above response.

If you have a good relationship with their staff then you can may be work around it a little but that's not an option for everyone.
 
snerkler said:
I don't think I can see a difference between f1.2 and f1.4 either.
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This is my thinking these days. These days I've convinced myself that for me f2 is probably wide enough for dof with the options for dof becoming less as I get to f2.8 at which point I find the aperture limiting with the differences between f1.2 to f2 maybe not being all that significant to me. I can see why people will want f1.4 and even f1.2 lenses, they're just not that necessary for me, not for dof anyway.
 
nandbytes said:
Wex didn't ask either, they contacted me after I had sent it in with a revised offer. I was surprised and questioned their decision. The body was in mint condition and with just 2K shutter count which they had agreed on after evaluation. when I questioned their revised quote they sent the above response.

If you have a good relationship with their staff then you can may be work around it a little but that's not an option for everyone.
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Interesting. The only thing I have in mind to move on at some point (although I’m not sure I will) is the 24-70mm in favour of the 24-105mm but all my lenses are UK anyway (y)
 
snerkler said:
Interesting. The only thing I have in mind to move on at some point (although I’m not sure I will) is the 24-70mm in favour of the 24-105mm but all my lenses are UK anyway (y)
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Sometimes when buying used its hard to tell where the lens or camera came from.
of course you can ask but sometimes people just say they don't know. Well I would since I buy used a lot and I really don't know.

I seldom buy new lenses but when I do its normally in the UK when on offer.
 
snerkler said:
Interesting. The only thing I have in mind to move on at some point (although I’m not sure I will) is the 24-70mm in favour of the 24-105mm but all my lenses are UK anyway (y)
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Just sell it to MPB instead. They've taken all my old gear no issues. Even took the body with no charger, or strap and didn't change the offer.
 
nandbytes said:
Sometimes when buying used its hard to tell where the lens or camera came from.
of course you can ask but sometimes people just say they don't know. Well I would since I buy used a lot and I really don't know.

I seldom buy new lenses but when I do its normally in the UK when on offer.
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Not so hard with Sony says on the box.
 
Yesterday I boldly wandered into the next parish with the Voigtlander 21mm on the A7C. The day had earlier been very grey, but it lifted for a couple of hours.

A7C00338-Edit.jpg by Stephen Lee, on Flickr
 
robj20 said:
Just sell it to MPB instead. They've taken all my old gear no issues. Even took the body with no charger, or strap and didn't change the offer.
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MPB certainly doesn't care but the difference between MPB and Wex was a good £200. (after the grey import price knock £150 for me)

But normally I use mpb because Wex only offer cash for certain popular lenses and bodies
 
I emailed Panamoz the other day about stock for this lens but I've still not had a reply?
 
nandbytes said:
you should have tried asking for £1320 as that's what it was advertised for last week
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I actually logged in to Panamoz when they had stock at £1300. Serves me right for dithering.
Was gonna wait a few more months. But I’m planning to use it over Easter. Not the worst £80 I’ve ever spent..
 
f/2.8 said:
Not so hard with Sony says on the box.
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nandbytes said:
does it?
I clearly need to pay more attention to the box :facepalm:
what is the differentiator? I imagine it doesn't say "GREY IMPORT" on the box :ROFLMAO:
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I didn’t know this either, shows you how much I look at the boxes (I assume mine will say EU/UK then?)

What I don’t understand is if selling on what is the difference (other than ethics) moving on a grey import vs equipment you bought yourself whilst on holiday for example? I’m not convinced many people who buy equipment abroad declare it on their way back into the UK ;)
 
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