P10 Unit Stuff

[Tom Caldwell]

Hi Tom. I hope the recent high winds didn't affect you too much.

I had a call from a really nice guy at Tasco yesterday arvo and he confirmed the retail in Australia from proper Ricoh dealers at $749 which is just as Margaret Brown reported in PR. Due in at Tasco soon.

Not sure whether to buy a CX3 or GRX-P10 for my trip to Europe / Austria next month.(Yeah still not left these shores mate). I have the Nikon D200 for real work photography I need to do and I just need a shirt pocket Camera.

Bit too pricey for me - not that it is 'to dear' but that the price has been loaded up a bit compared to the prices overseas on considering the AUD$ is strong. Cannot remember my estimate based on US$ pricing but there was no '7' in front that much I do remember. Maybe they will sell some here but I will be checking out the overseas price first. The street price might be better anyway. I prefer to buy locally but I have the same pet perversion that most of us have on being ripped off. If I think this is the agenda I usually simply don't buy - but if the price differential is high enough and I am desperate enough I just self import. If the local distributors can come fairly close to world parity pricing then everything is rosy. But I believe that Ricoh does not set the pricing - in which case on first look it looks a bit like Tasco is having a bit of a lash at us.

I would have to see the CX3 and the P10 kit side by side to consider which I might best like to travel with but the extra technical grunt of the P10 might swing the balance. On the other hand the CX2 is pretty cheap at the moment and you could get two for the Tasco price of a P10. Even a CX3 looks a good price compared to the P10 so one might wonder how well the P10 might go at the asking price.

Sorry I missed the first post - no wind here we were too far north to get that one and too far south for the Lennox Head tornado - which was pretty localized anyway.

--
Tom Caldwell
I am always trying ...

 

[tolomea]

considering the AUD$ is strong.

What AUD$ are you looking at? The ones I see collapsed from 93c down to 82c in the first half of May and have since only managed to claw back up to 86c.

--
See my photos at http://www.tolomea.com

 

[Roger Knight]

You are correct about the AU$, but the reality is that it is an artificially low price especially when compared to other currencies.

I predict that the US$ will have fallen to parity by the end of December unless Prime Minister Rudd continues along his present self distructive course of action on the Australian economy with the so called Mining Super Tax and causes the AU$ to become worrisome in "Sovereign Debt" terms which would be tandamount to an act of socialist treason.

He may continue. (He is incredibly vain and stupid), but if he does not, I see AU$ and US$ parity by calendar years end and the Euro down to AU$0.85 (Today about AU$0.70), if by then indeed the Eurozone and Euro currency has not already begun to actually self distruct. Spain is already today, a more serious problem for them than Greece. Ireland is not far behind and Portugal and Italy are in some trouble also.

The US economy is about to take a double dip try at recession because they still have not cleaned up the first one and they are just not bothering to listen to their primary creditor Nation (China) who will continue to hold all the cards and for decades to come. Thankfully. even China needs customers for it's ever increasingly good products so they will protect the US to some level.

The Financial World as we Knew it is seriously changing very, very fast.

 

[Tom Caldwell]

considering the AUD$ is strong.

What AUD$ are you looking at? The ones I see collapsed from 93c down to 82c in the first half of May and have since only managed to claw back up to 86c.

--
See my photos at http://www.tolomea.com

Even 75 cents is pretty strong - people seem to have short memories - how long ago was it when it went under 50 cents?

Take my word for it - it is strong.

--
Tom Caldwell
I am always trying ...

 

[Tom Caldwell]

You are correct about the AU$, but the reality is that it is an artificially low price especially when compared to other currencies.

I predict that the US$ will have fallen to parity by the end of December unless Prime Minister Rudd continues along his present self distructive course of action on the Australian economy with the so called Mining Super Tax and causes the AU$ to become worrisome in "Sovereign Debt" terms which would be tandamount to an act of socialist treason.

He may continue. (He is incredibly vain and stupid), but if he does not, I see AU$ and US$ parity by calendar years end and the Euro down to AU$0.85 (Today about AU$0.70), if by then indeed the Eurozone and Euro currency has not already begun to actually self distruct. Spain is already today, a more serious problem for them than Greece. Ireland is not far behind and Portugal and Italy are in some trouble also.

The US economy is about to take a double dip try at recession because they still have not cleaned up the first one and they are just not bothering to listen to their primary creditor Nation (China) who will continue to hold all the cards and for decades to come. Thankfully. even China needs customers for it's ever increasingly good products so they will protect the US to some level.

The Financial World as we Knew it is seriously changing very, very fast.

Miner's advertisements working Roger?

Been listening to Malcolm Fraser recently or reading that red-rag Australian Financial Review? But big Mal is not really a Liberal - he resigned did he not?

I can assure you that our Tony was reading from notes when he put up the budget reply. Once elected he will be happy to let the miners keep everything they earn, be perpetually in thrall to them for the leg up and preside in the biggest quarrying effort we have ever seen and just pay off the devil-debt of the Rudd government by taxing the family home (or my super fund). Frankly the mine owners can afford it but claim otherwise and Rupert will get more government advertising revenue as a reward for his efforts in disseminating propaganda.

Seems pretty logical to me.

But let's not get overly political as this is merely a camera site.

--
Tom Caldwell
I am always trying ...

 

[Roger Knight]

Well no Tom. Actually I pretty much agree with you but I was really simply replying to the other bloke and comenting on where I see the AU$ being at in relation to the US$ and Euro as I have been following it quite enthusiasticaly lately because I have to give a speech in Vienna on the subject to a bunch of Bankers and Pollies soon and why the Euro is a spent force and the Eurozone too and should be abandoned. The EU is probably a good thing but mixing Politics and money is hard enough in a federation like ours. Imagine for a minute how difficult it must be to get agreement when sovereign countries are involved and all at very differing achievement levels!

 

[Roger Knight]

Yes Tom. The AU$ is around 15% stronger than the current rates might suggest and as I mentioned in a post yesterday it will reach parity by calendar years end because the US as a nation are in for a huge new rude awakening on the economy front.

Hopefully for them they will not just tinker this time around. They need some banks to go broke just as they need to allow the same in Europe before this World Financial Crisis is likely to equilibritize and become reality.

Europe will re-emerge faster than the US though because Europes problems are there for all to see. The Us 's problems are being hidden by false balance sheets of banks, non banks and hedge funds which are still alowed to operate, seemingly and alarmingly with immunity.

The Pom's were smart not getting into the Eurozone even though they may loose some banks and perhaps before Europe and the US. Sooner the better for their economy actually I would say.

We should thank our lucky stars that we are in a much better position even if we are very much subject to what happens in China.

 

[Tom Caldwell]

Well no Tom. Actually I pretty much agree with you but I was really simply replying to the other bloke and comenting on where I see the AU$ being at in relation to the US$ and Euro as I have been following it quite enthusiasticaly lately because I have to give a speech in Vienna on the subject to a bunch of Bankers and Pollies soon and why the Euro is a spent force and the Eurozone too and should be abandoned. The EU is probably a good thing but mixing Politics and money is hard enough in a federation like ours. Imagine for a minute how difficult it must be to get agreement when sovereign countries are involved and all at very differing achievement levels!

Best of luck - I agree it is hard with enough vested interests in Oz (smile)

btw Adorama has the GXR P10 kit for sale at US$499 translated at a 'fair' current AUD$0.85 to the US$1.00 plus 10% GST this equates to AUD$645 equivalent retail of about AUD$100 less than Tasco's RRP. Considering that Tasco like all good importers would have sensibly bought their currency when the AUD$ was in the mid-90 cents their margin over Adorama's is that much higher again.

Consider again that the Asian direct sellers usually cut a further $100 off what Adorama can do (have not yet looked) and Tasco's RRP looks like a deal killer to me.

Price the camera at (say) $625 RRP and they will sell a whole lot more I am guessing that they think retailers can hoodwink lay customers into thinkin they are getting something akin to m4/3 at a lower price and not a CX3 in a big box.

As a CX3 in a big box AUD$745 is something I have to ponder my navel about quite seriously.

With distributors like these one might wonder if Popflash might like an Australian branch?

So do they want to get the GXR body in lots of Aussie hands or are they just playing at it?

btw at AUD$0.95 to the US$1.00 we have the GXR P10 at $578 including GST.

Equivalence for US$499 to AUD$745 would give an exchange rate of AUD$0.74 to US$1.00 taking GST into account. Things ain't that bad.

Can't blame the Chinese currency either as that is where the GXR comes from - things form China are so cheap that one wonders how they cover the cost of materials sometimes. So one can't help get the feeling that our wings are not being ripped off - just gently at AUD$745.

Hope Tasco is overstocked.

--
Tom Caldwell
I am always trying ...

 

[Tom Caldwell]

Yes Tom. The AU$ is around 15% stronger than the current rates might suggest and as I mentioned in a post yesterday it will reach parity by calendar years end because the US as a nation are in for a huge new rude awakening on the economy front.

Hopefully for them they will not just tinker this time around. They need some banks to go broke just as they need to allow the same in Europe before this World Financial Crisis is likely to equilibritize and become reality.

Europe will re-emerge faster than the US though because Europes problems are there for all to see. The Us 's problems are being hidden by false balance sheets of banks, non banks and hedge funds which are still alowed to operate, seemingly and alarmingly with immunity.

The Pom's were smart not getting into the Eurozone even though they may loose some banks and perhaps before Europe and the US. Sooner the better for their economy actually I would say.

We should thank our lucky stars that we are in a much better position even if we are very much subject to what happens in China.

The US has been in deficit for quite a while and perhaps you can hold such a virile economy into reasonable standard of living level as we used to do by tariffs and subsidies and still maintain deficits but ultimately we either have a war or a reckoning - as the full scale wars of today are not something we should think about I suppose a reckoning is better. The US$ has been allowed to slide and this has a way of making the US market more competitive. Ours is up because we have so much to sell that is in real demand at the moment - we are lucky but the wealth is going into to few pockets meanwhile the cost of living means our kids cannot afford houses.

Yes I worry about the helter skelter opening of new mines - heading for disaster and I wonder why it is now the perceived wisdom that all mining is good and the more we extract and the quicker is great (pardon? - I thought we were talking about a huge but finite resource). One would have thought that supply and demand is going to kick in sooner or later and the ore prices will fall. That is if the Chinese boom economy can hold up without superheating and going into melt down.

If it is left in the ground it will not go bad and is there to be mined another day.

But that is the agenda that the government could not ever admit to.

So if we are heading for an inevitable mining disaster is it not better that a tax slows things down a bit and the general public gets some of the current super profits as tax paid that otherwise we all have to pay instead?

The mining companies should be thanking the government for this wake up call (duck).

Sorry did to mean to drift off into politics and economics.

But with the strength of out dollar there is no excuse for importers profiteering because of it. Cameras should be cheaper here than they are.

--
Tom Caldwell
I am always trying ...

 

[milano22]

Yes Tom. The AU$ is around 15% stronger than the current rates might suggest and as I mentioned in a post yesterday it will reach parity by calendar years end because the US as a nation are in for a huge new rude awakening on the economy front.

Hopefully for them they will not just tinker this time around. They need some banks to go broke just as they need to allow the same in Europe before this World Financial Crisis is likely to equilibritize and become reality.

Europe will re-emerge faster than the US though because Europes problems are there for all to see. The Us 's problems are being hidden by false balance sheets of banks, non banks and hedge funds which are still alowed to operate, seemingly and alarmingly with immunity.

The Pom's were smart not getting into the Eurozone even though they may loose some banks and perhaps before Europe and the US. Sooner the better for their economy actually I would say.

We should thank our lucky stars that we are in a much better position even if we are very much subject to what happens in China.

The US has been in deficit for quite a while and perhaps you can hold such a virile economy into reasonable standard of living level as we used to do by tariffs and subsidies and still maintain deficits but ultimately we either have a war or a reckoning - as the full scale wars of today are not something we should think about I suppose a reckoning is better. The US$ has been allowed to slide and this has a way of making the US market more competitive. Ours is up because we have so much to sell that is in real demand at the moment - we are lucky but the wealth is going into to few pockets meanwhile the cost of living means our kids cannot afford houses.

Yes I worry about the helter skelter opening of new mines - heading for disaster and I wonder why it is now the perceived wisdom that all mining is good and the more we extract and the quicker is great (pardon? - I thought we were talking about a huge but finite resource). One would have thought that supply and demand is going to kick in sooner or later and the ore prices will fall. That is if the Chinese boom economy can hold up without superheating and going into melt down.

If it is left in the ground it will not go bad and is there to be mined another day.

But that is the agenda that the government could not ever admit to.

So if we are heading for an inevitable mining disaster is it not better that a tax slows things down a bit and the general public gets some of the current super profits as tax paid that otherwise we all have to pay instead?

The mining companies should be thanking the government for this wake up call (duck).

Sorry did to mean to drift off into politics and economics.

But with the strength of out dollar there is no excuse for importers profiteering because of it. Cameras should be cheaper here than they are.

--
Tom Caldwell
I am always trying ...

 

[Calvin Palmer]

Actually, I found this discussion between Tom and Roger rather interesting. It is good to see a view of the world economy away from the usual Europe/US axis.

There is more to life than just Ricoh cameras.

The cameras may bring us all together in this forum but I don't see anything wrong with talking about other subjects within a camera-related thread. It's all part of the communty spirit.
--
http://calvininjaxfotos.wordpress.com/

http://www.blipfoto.com/calvininjax

 

[Roger Knight]

Yes Tom, By and large Cameras should be cheaper than they are now here.

It's always the middle man and the tiny size (relatively), of our Aussie market that hurt us there.

Interestingly, if you want a large flash unit for say a DSLR the real McKoy Metz Mecablitz are quite inexpensive in Europe by comparison with the Jap units.

I always used Metz TTL units in the pre digital age and I loved them. Perfect Control.

Unfortunately with a Ricoh camera one really needs a Ricoh Flash for true TTL.

I think I will end up with a CX3 when I walk in the shop next week. But who knows! I certainly don't know my own mind. I would also like a GRD3 but for what I want it for the CX3 may be a better choice overall for a second/travel camera.

 

[rube39]

The CX3 (I have the CX2) is a great choice for a 2nd/travel DC. The range alone makes it worthwhile, plus the color and of course the superb user interface.
Fairly cheap now in Japan (¥24,000), not that that would do you any good.
--
Rube
http://www.flickr.com/photos/71881102@N00/

 

[cgarrard]

a couple more additions to the review-

Carl