R4A Pricing

[ncd_photo]

Can anyone tell me what has happened to the price of the bessa cameras of late?

I was reading through a copy of B&W photographer from about 12 months ago and the R4A was retailing for around £390 inc VAT.

Having got hooked on the 20mm lens on my FM3A I've been contemplating a Bessa R4A and 21mm skopar as a light weight kit, but was shocked to find the price for the R4A had risen to over £700 in the UK, making the whole outfit the best part of a grand!

Has this got something to do with the Yen exchange rate?

Looks like I'll have to make do with the slightly bigger Nikon Kit for a while yet

 

[principe azul]

Dunno. But the Zeiss stuff has gone up as well. What was £600 a year or two ago is now just short of £1,000. And as for Leica...

So I just came to commiserate.

I think the R4A was a bit dearer than what you say, but still south of £500.

 

[sojournerphoto]

Exchange rates have severely impacted the prices of all the Japanese imports - a shame really. I'm not sure if there's any additional profit being taken, but the stock levels on these things is probably kept low (and no-one discounts heavily) so prices are very responsive to market movements.

Mike

 

[bennyng]

Yup. Exchange rate. Yen went up, pound came down. Double whammy. Quite a few of my European friends were shopping in London, especially during the early part of this year. It used to be the other way round.

Cheers,

 

[Keith]

Tough situation for people in parts of Europe and GB I gather ... I was lucky to be able to buy mine from our head bartender for $670.00 US including post and didn't have to pay any taxes or duties because we dont have them for items under a certain value here in Oz and the R4A came in well under that threshold.

Same for my Ikon ... I bought that from Matsuiya in Japan when they were a little over a grand US which meant about $1300.00 AUD or less at the time from memory ... the Ikon sells for over $2000.00 AUD here and the Bessa for over $1000.00 😱

My commiserations!

 

[Thardy]

I know about exchange rate pain all too well. I spent 2 weeks in Europe in the summer of 2007 when the pound equaled TWO US dollars, the Euro was up and prices were at vacation rates.

 

[jonmanjiro]

Having got hooked on the 20mm lens on my FM3A I've been contemplating a Bessa R4A and 21mm skopar as a light weight kit

A Bessa R4A plus CV21/4 kit may weigh a little less but there's not much difference in size. The FM3A is probably marginally smaller than the R4A though an AIS 20/2.8 is a fair bit larger than a CV21/4.

A smaller and lighter wide angle option in F-mount is the older AIS 20/3.5 (with the 52mm filter thread) or the new Voigtlander 20/3.5 from Cosina. Either of these lenses on an FM3A would make for a compact kit.

 

[Tuolumne]

Buy a Bessa-T and use an external view finder. Classic look - cheap price.

/T

 

[JohnTF]

Hear the dollar is down to the pound, might be a good time to buy here?

My friend in Cleethorpes bought a bunch of dollars which he did not use when the trip was canceled, so I told him to dump them at the right time, which was a few months ago.

Regards, John

 

[peter_n]

I know about exchange rate pain all too well. I spent 2 weeks in Europe in the summer of 2007 when the pound equaled TWO US dollars, the Euro was up and prices were at vacation rates.

I was in London for a wedding in the first part of last year then went to Berlin for a couple of weeks and the exchange rate was terrible, particularly in England. Then in the fall the £ crashed and I was buying photo gear from Ffordes in Scotland for a fraction of what I could get it for here.

 

[ncd_photo]

Thanks for the info guys

Looks like I'll be holding off for a while then.

Tuolumne - I had thought about the bessa T and external VF, quite like the idea but I've never seen one in the flesh.

jonmanjiro - I didn't really consider the FM3A being similar in size to the R4A. I have the 20 3.5 AIS so I guess I'm ok there, its just a little difficult to focus at times.

 

[Tuolumne]

Thanks for the info guys

Looks like I'll be holding off for a while then.

Tuolumne - I had thought about the bessa T and external VF, quite like the idea but I've never seen one in the flesh.

jonmanjiro - I didn't really consider the FM3A being similar in size to the R4A. I have the 20 3.5 AIS so I guess I'm ok there, its just a little difficult to focus at times.

I was looking at buying an R4m but decided that for wide angles the accuracy of a built-in finder was unnecessary. Who cares about parallax error with a 21mm lens?

/T