Castanet

Sounds like Canon is trying to keep the sticker price low. Even my Canon S5 came with a 32MB memory card. DSRL's have really come down in price until you start adding extra lenses -- $650 for the T3i Telephoto Zoom Lens! I like my S5 12x zoom but I wish the camera body wasn't all black because it's really hard to see the buttons in low light.

NCIX is great, I've bought loads from them and they will price match but my last three online purchases were from Future Shop because they have free shipping and the price was the same as NCIX! I ordered from FS on Dec 18th free shipping ground from their Ontario warehouse and got it to my door in Kelowna on Dec 24. Now that's service!

DANSPEED wrote:Even my Canon S5 came with a 32MB memory card.

Well, that's good for about...5 or 6 photos at high quality.

The new Nikon D800 36.3MP DSLR camera priced at $2,800 (Best Buy body only) doesn't come with a memory card. Best Buy suggests the 32 GB SanDisk for a mere $499! Imagine opening the D800 Christmas morning and not being able to take a family picture because it's got no memory card or lens! Try explaining that to grandpa.

My first digital camera, a Kodak CX something had 16 MB internal.

Got the FS flyer today - they have a 32gb card for 21.95 (class 10). Will check that tomorrow as it's only a buck or two more than NCIX - and you are right - we were expecting to take some pics on Christmas Day - what a letdown.

It is the Rebel EOS T3i model with zoom lens and such - and no stinking memory card! It was a gift, but when our son gave us the bill in case we had any warranty problems I almost had a heart attack at the cost.

One would think that a camera that costs that much that Canon could spring for the extra $20 to put in some type of card. I went over the camera box carefully and nowhere on that box did it say that a memory card was not included. Keep the doggone strap - give me a card instead.........

Oh well, if we have informed others that they need to check this out when buying a camera, then this thread has done some good. I've learned a few facts about types of cards and where to go on line for reasonable items for cameras. I think some printer manufacturers did that too - some came with the ink cartridges and others didn't.

Which brings us to customer service and salespeople that should know their products. Cameras and printers we don't go out and buy evey day, so if they change what used to be normal (memory cards and cartridges included (or not), even batteries), they should let us know. If that had been me buying I would have assumed everything was included and wouldn't have thought to ask. Both of my previous cameras came from FS - a Kodak and then a Canon - both came with memory.

I'm getting too old and cranky for this but will let everyone know what happened when I go down there with my camera and ask some questions.

Have a good evening everyone.

When I bought my cameras from Lens and Shutter, I also purchased a memory on the spot because they make it pretty plain about the camera not containing memory. As has been alluded to already, there is good reason for not including memory. In addition, advertising a camera for $20 more than a competing business simply because yours contains memory and theirs doesn't is a recipe for losing business to that competitor. This is not something any business wants to do at Christmas time.

Whenever I buy a gift for someone I always purchase batteries for it (or whatever else it needs to function). It's always nice to receive a gift that works without having to fork over your own money.

I too prefer to purchase from Lens & Shutter. The knowledgeable personnel there are very helpful and our DSLR purchase last year was an in-house bundle which included a case and class 10 memory card. The card is only 4GB, but never fill it because I move the photos off it right away to mess around with them and see how they really turned out.

Again, the Lens & Shutter staff are helpful and actually take photography seriously. I recommend going there for the memory card and the other accessories you may wish to purchase.

If you have more than one lens, you need---and I mean NEED a bulb because dust on the sensor is not cool at all. We transitioned just last year to DSLR from old school film and in our first week of experimenting with our vintage lenses (that still work on the new Nikons in full guesswork manual without metering or auto focus), we got schmutz on the sensor.

Well with all the snow this AM, almost had to plow my way down to FS.

Spoke to the manager to vent my frustration about no card to take Xmas pics with.
We chatted for a bit - explaining things back and forth and she took my flyer and offered to go back and get the memory for me. She came back with a sales person from the camera dept., who had two types of memory for me to choose from.

After listening to her explain the cards to me - it was obvious that this was not the sales person that sold the camera we got for Xmas. She knew her products - very well I might add. They explained that most of the newer cameras do not come with memory cards any longer. Also most of the people buying higher-end camera equipment would have already known that or choose to purchase higher memory/speed cards.

Apparently a lot of the average price-range cameras no longer have memory included either. If this same sales person from the camera department had been the one to sell our son the camera - I have no doubt he would have also come away with a card for the camera.

Lesson learned and for anyone thinking of purchasing a camera - make sure you ask if it comes with a memory card, or get someone who knows something about the products they are selling!

I left satisfied with the explanation and their apology for the misunderstanding. Thanks to everyone for all your help on this topic. Remembering what some of you had said about Class 6-10 and the speed - we got a SanDisk 32 gb SDHC UHS-I card - Class 10 for photos and video. It's supposed to be good for full HD video even in 3D (I'm a long ways from even trying that).

Also in closing, the sales person even offered to spend some time with me to show me some of the features, or if I had any questions about the operation, etc. Now that is good customer service.

Happy New Year everyone - thanks again for all of your input.

godfatherI wrote:Remembering what some of you had said about Class 6-10 and the speed - we got a SanDisk 32 gb SDHC UHS-I card - Class 10 for photos and video. It's supposed to be good for full HD video even in 3D (I'm a long ways from even trying that).

SanDisk might not be the ultimate brand to buy in terms of bleeding-edge speed, but they’re a real quality product. I would trust them for rock-solid performance over at least a decade or more of moderate usage.

Activists also prefer SanDisk because of that quality construction -- few other cards can put up with travelling through a digestive tract or getting stuck up a woman’s for weeks on end and still come out working perfectly in the end.

All this talk about memory cards and different classes got me curious.

My SD card in my camera was a class 4 so I went to FS and got a class 10 on sale. Came home a tested it in my camera on continuous mode.
It made no difference when shooting RAW photos. The camera would still only get 3 pictures before stopping. A wee bit better in JPEG but not much. Now this could be a limitation of the camera as it is an older Pentax K100D DSLR.

Oh well it was worth a try and now I have (another) spare card. Wasn't expensive either.

All of my gear is from Lens & Shutter, they are awesome. I also took the courses to learn how to use my camera, I highly recommend them. Costco has two packs of 16 Gig Class 10 cards or 1 32 Gig card for around $20.

Always carry two cards in case one crashes, because that will never happen right?

jennylives wrote:Costco has two packs of 16 Gig Class 10 cards or 1 32 Gig card for around $20.

Are those CF cards? I need some new ones.

grammafreddy wrote:
Are those CF cards? I need some new ones.

http://www.costco.ca/CatalogSearch?stor ... mory+cards

Nope