camera is ordered!

And I went with the Panasonic Lumix FZ20. I went to Henry's, one of the local good-rep shops, to handle the Canon g6 and make sure it was right for me. I mentioned, casually, that I'd been considering the Lumix and the salesguy [also a photographer, which is why I go to this shop] brightened and rushed me over to the Panasonic counter.

Sure, the Lumix doesn't have that nifty tilty viewscreen. But it has everything else I want, and more. I thought it was heavy; it's not. The lens is unbeatable [12x optical zoom, LEICA], it takes SD cards which I prefer, it's mac friendly, it has a RAW format and on and on. The man took off his ring and placed it on a cordura bag, set the camera to macro, got within a quarter inch and took the most amazingly detailed shot you can imagine. That was the clincher.

The only trouble is that this camera is way more expensive up here than in the US. So I found Borderfree.net, a service of Canada Post, which told me how much I'd pay to ship the camera, all in [including Canadian taxes] in CDN dollars. I saved almost $300cdn.

What about the really nice guy from Henry's? I was honest with him. He just can't match the US prices. So I bought my case and a new 2nd generation superfast SD card from him.

Curious. He told me they have to pay extra duties which is why their base prices are higher than in the US, but when I checked out with Borderfree, the duty rate was zero. I don't think he was lying to me, so what is the deal? Are they charging retailers more to import the same thing? How the hell are they supposed to compete with our blessed internet?

Once again I state: I love the internet.