Canon 5D Mark II Price Increase – Canada

I fully agree. I repeat: I FULLY agree.
So buy a D700 everyone, don’t wait for Canon to take your hard earned $$ to cover their own Q3 losses. So what if Nikon’s manual is 400+ pages? It just means you get more features AND you pay much less for more features.

If someone gave me a D700 for free, I would still buy a 5D MK II. So Nikon, stop trying and go read something on Nikon instead of hanging around Canon folks all day long.

That sucks… To be honnest, I might finally wait a couple of months. $300 more than the original price + $200 for a 2nd battery + $300 for the grip… that is $3600 + tx !!! I wish “nikon” could give me a D700 for free, I’ll resell it to finance part of my 5D MKII :-)

Even if I’m a Canon lover, I still beleive that they have the worst market strategy… do they realize that they are loosing ground ?

richard, where did you get that price? on b&h website D700 is 2999.95, 5D2 is 2699.95.
at henrys 5d2 is 2799.99 D700 is 3299.99

Well it seems aden is already listing it at that price now… 3099.99 and now they don’t offer any sort of rebate… I still find it odd that they are still the only canadian online retailer making adjustment like this while the others are still taking pre-orders at the old price. Right now i’m not too concerned about the price hike and it’s certainly not making me cancel my order.

PS. The intention behind the previous question is guessing whether or not the price will go back down by 1st quarter of 2009.

I called Henry’s around 3 PM. Ron, from customer services, said the pre-order price will not be honoured for “high-end” products. There will be changes to price due to the rise of Japanese Yen, US Election, rise of USD, etc.

If you haven’t ordered a 5D MKII yet, you wont get it until end of Feb 09.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7b3rx_tokyo-reality-canon-5d-mark-ii-fina_travel

more new 5D MK2 footage

Simple:

The Nikon D700 has 51 AF (autofocus) points, with 15 cross-type sensors. This layout makes it more flexible for event photography, or any kind of photo-taking where you don’t wish to focus and re-compose. In contrast, the Canon 5D Mark II has nine selectable AF points, clustered near the center in a diamond layout, with only the center AF point being a cross type.

The Nikon D700 allows Auto ISO to be flexibly set up the way you want it, in any shooting mode. For instance, you can specify what the lowest shutter speed should be before the ISO starts being increased, and at the same time, cap the ISO to an upper limit.

The implementation on the 5D2 is less configurable, for instance, in M (Manual) mode, Automatic ISO is fixed at 400, with no automatic adjustments being calculated by the camera (you could of course, still manually select the desired ISO).

It’s not possible to setup the 5D Mk II in such a way as to allow for a fixed shutter speed and aperture (say for fast shutter speed to reduce motion blur, and a large aperture for subject isolation), and have the camera automatically set the optimum ISO for changing light conditions. Also, in AV (Aperture Priority) mode, the range of automatically-calculated ISO values is fixed to comply with a 1/focal length shutter speed formula

The D700 allows you to shoot at 5 fps (8 fps if you cheat a bit – see Nikon D700 tips) or 8 fps with the MB-D10 battery grip, plus offers you the ability to define a bracketed exposure range of -5 to +5 EV. You can also specify whether to take between 2 to 9 (inclusive) bracketed exposures.

Pop-up flash: as a commander flash, this just saved me around $300. I don’t have to buy a remote transmitter, or another flash. I can just buy 1 flash and now have the ability to creatively light a subject.

Get the Nikon D700 is you need professional-grade autofocus, fast operational speed, shorter shutter lag and viewfinder blackout, 8 fps (with the optional MB-D10 battery grip), Nikon CLS, excellent build and weather sealing.

Well, rent a D700 and try it out. If you like it, buy it.
Get a fast lens if you’re worried about low light. Use some commercial photoshop plug-ins if you’re fanatic about clarity, and skin tones. I honestly don’t see a point to shelling out $3000+ for an amature camera like the 5d2.

Hello, I am also very upset about price increase 334$ tax including make for me a very big difference.
I have a very bad luck to preorder this camera and also everybody else has same options and none of them is very bright.
I ordered 5D mark II. from Adorama September 24th. and was lucky to fit into 914people (within 4-5days! they had it online) after they stopped taking orders. Than Canadian Dollar experienced worst month in whole history and late October the price difference was 700$ because of the exchange rate drop.
So I canceled my order and ordered in local Vancouver store.
Now they as well increased price to 3099$. So it looks like there needs to be something done.
Canon versus Nikon? I like to do photographs not to lament about details about one or another. But remember Nikon best camera has only 12mpx and as you said not clear results. Canon 5D mark II. has 21mpx and images better than Nikon can ever dream! Also has a high quality video and uses so much better lenses than Nikon. So please stop veining about focusing and automatic ISO – those features are truly designed for amateurs who doesn’t know how to set up camera manually. Forget times of the film and Nikon dominance, wake up!

is there any way a poll can be added here to see how many people will be canceling their pre-orders due to the price hike?

Can we make an online petition ?

my feelings since i received the letter attempting to opt out of my already deposited contract – the preorder.

So I agree with Rob and Joubex.

Somewhere elses some people mentioned that this exact same thing nappened last year with the Mark 1D ??? and suggested that it was actually driven by Vistek and Henry’s and not Canon,

Okay, this is just getting silly. I work for one of the companies that you’re all talking about taking legal action against, and we’ve already looked into this. Rob, I take it you’re quoting section 6 from the Sale of Goods Act which is as follows

6(1) A contract for the sale of any goods of the value of $50 or more is not enforceable by action

(a) unless the buyer accepts part of the goods so sold and actually receives that part, or gives something in earnest to bind the contract or in part payment, or

(b) unless some note or memorandum in writing of the contract is made and signed by the party to be charged or the party’s agent in that behalf.

(2) This section applies to every contract referred to in subsection (1) notwithstanding that the goods may be intended to be delivered at some future time, or may not, at the time of the contract, be actually made, procured or provided or fit or ready for delivery or that some act may be requisite for the making or completing the goods or rendering the goods fit for delivery.

(3) There is an acceptance of goods within the meaning of this section when the buyer does any act, in relation to the goods, that recognizes a pre‑existing contract of sale whether there is an acceptance in performance of the contract or not.

(taken from the Alberta Sale of Goods Act)

While this works, as does section ten, which regards price, the obligation of the retailers goes out the window when you consider section 11, subsection 1

11(1) When there is an agreement to sell goods on the terms that the price is to be fixed by the valuation of a third party and the third party cannot or does not make the valuation, the agreement is avoided.

Therefore, any petition, or argument, or whatever is not valid. We can simply cancel your order, refund the deposit, and move on with our lives.

Listen, guys, I understand. Its a shitty thing to do, but you have to understand that Canon is screwing the retailers just as badly. If we sell these at the original prices, we barely make anything (at the top of this thread someone said about 150$ to 170$. That’s a pretty liberal estimate), and as much as I enjoy seeing customers walk away with a deal, I’m more motivated by a need to pay my rent. We have to make a profit on these.

The basic fact is we cannot take action against Canon regarding their unwillingness to honor our orders, because we’d be rather screwed if we didn’t carry their products. They hiked our cost, so we have to raise our prices accordingly.

Sorry folks, but no matter what amount of bitching and complaining you do is going to solve this. The cameras are being sold at a reasonable market price, according to our costs. That’s life.

LL Lozeau at Montreal just told me that there’s a rumor that Canon Canada will do as much as they can to keep the initial price for preordered 5D MII, but it’s only a rumor….
Another problem is the stock: I understand that there is a lot of preordered camera in Canada and a chance that all the preordered cameras won’t be delivered at the same time.

Canon should use promotional strategies to encourage long time “satisfied” customers, i have spent over 12,000 on canon products in the past 5 years from cameras, lenses, to printers and paper and all i get is coupons for 1$ off ink!!!! what are these marketing geniuses doing!?

First that large deposit I paid came off my company credit card, it is not only the cost of the deposit, the interest the charge carried for the last few and the opportunity lost in ways that I could have spent that money elsewhere….If canon considered this, the cost of small claims with three legal issues that I can see, the loss of income and thus available equity to Canon for a few months while everyone waited till March to buy, (retailer should consider this too), the fact that the price will eventually come down, that we are talking of current sales orders, not all the future sales orders, that this is a reputation thing amongst their best customers – the ones who adopt early and deposit for delivery prior to product even being available (that is a damn good client if you ask me). As a company owner I would take responsibility to deliver the product at the promised rate and learn my lesson.

Sorry Anonymous, my legal experience differs, and is more in line with Rob, I came to same conclusions on my own just using common sense and past experience at first and then investigating it further found the same position. You lost your own case with section 11 (1) Both Canon’s website and all reseller’s websites valuated the product for sale, so it does not matter who you call the third party, they all promised to deliver the same price, and the reseller’s were authorized by canon (not an arm’s length relationship) to sell product, and in this unique case, Canon promised a delivery price upon release for the resellers to take on contractual obligation…right now it is just defining which of the two is going to take responsibility with the customer, as far as our lawyers are concerned, and then they can go about fixing their own problems between themselves that allowed this to happen in the first place. They made a mistake, in business when you do that you often experience a loss…you don’t charge your mistake to the clients who already paid you, suck it up Canon. They are already planning to fix their finances by increasing prices on all their future product sales to us.

I would like to start calling a purchase order with a substantial deposit a “purchased order” because that is how the law sees it – it is purchased, and whether you want to interpret the law one way or another – all law is subject to challenge in a court, based on specifics and things like due diligence and fairness come up.

Lets not forget the false advertising that led to these “contracts where money was exchanged” being drawn up. Hello….Bait and switch…”Eveyone look at us, we’re Canon and we have a Full Frame Camera that is amazing and just to get your attention, it is sub $3K…Order now…” Everyone Jumps on board, they see the numbers, they want another $150,000..00 that they figure very few will challenge, because they haven’t yet made enough profit on us and figure it is a small amount not worth complaining about, heck most will just adjust their P.O., I had some larger plans with this camera and I now have investors asking me …”isn’t there another camera manufacturer we can look at – we do not like these practices no matter how good they think their reputation is”…Not Yet I tell them, but there are some definite up and comers….and if Canon keeps this up someone will eclipse them. BTW my partner feels that sometimes taking a good picture is better than not taking a great one…maybe we should start thinking that we don’t need to keep feeding Canon Gluttony by buying every release immediately on hype and just trust that we are doing a good job with what we have.

And Anonymous, try to get out of a wedding contract where you have received a deposit two weeks before the wedding because the economy is bad…see what the bride does to you legally and reputation wise via word of mouth.

Everyone file a complaint with the BBB and the Ministry, then do a small claims action, doesn’t even require a lawyer, everyone donate $25 to the first hearing, hire a great lawyer, set a precedent, to which all the cases will follow suit…teach Executive Boards everywhere to honour their commitments and not try to pinch post sales income from already obligated deals…

I think canon should stop biting the hand that feeds them – the people who give them guaranteed projections by being early adopters and depositors…and not just sticking to Canadians because they feel we are a peaceable take it up the — clientele…

I spoke to a top canon exec in Canada yesterday, they returned my call within an hour, he was from a different division, but picked up the call on behalf of the guy in charge of the camera division, who was not available – they do have the fine print on pre-ordered sales orders in the corporate division – for office and industrial products, and with the retail tags on some of those items it is understandable – they probably learned this lesson before (exchange rate on pre-deposited “purchased” orders.

Again do not agree to cancel your purchase order, it is what is required to break this agreement legally, your compliance is necessary, without it you have no case.

As for Vistek, I have had great representation from them, even with my troubles with Epson, who are in my opinion a little short on backing their product line, (i received a top end scanner, bought it opened it in store and found it had a machined scratch on the inside of the glass, we called Canada and they would not allow Vistek to exchange it on the spot, Vistek did anyway at a $1000 risk to them…fortunately it worked out later and Epson did take the manufacturer’s defect).

My feeling from the sales rep at Vistek and the Head of Sales in the pro department is that this is a new thing for them….that they have never had to do this before and they seem not to know what to do yet, and after emailing them the last I heard yesterday is that they are holding meetings and looking into resolving the issues i presented in my email to them. So Vistek is still good in my books, I am waiting to see how they handle this one though, it is a doozey…exciting times we live in

I agree with Lou, oh and buy the way $25000.00 in equipment last year, 30% more projected this year…at least until this fiasco, if they do not honour their commitment, I will wait till the price drops and let canon do without the equity from me for awhile…and continue to use all the great equipment I already own as it still works great and does the job well enough to more than satisfy needs.

Thanks for the suggestion to visit the site JCS
(http://www.stoppriceincrease.blogspot.com)

I’m looking at creating an open letter to be sent to distributors and Canon Canada and would like to hear what sort of content pre-order holders would like to see in it.

I think JCS made a good point and something that everyone should be doing right away.

– When your distributor contacts you to notify you of the increase tell them that you DO NOT accept the cancellation of their invoice / bill of sale / contract.

If enough people refuse to accept the re-invoiced prices combined with threatening legal action the distributors will be forced to honor pre-order pricing.

I’m going to write a blogpost right now outlining a few points I think should be in this open letter. Please check it out and leave some comments of points you’d like to see included.

Kind Regards,
Rob

I think retailers are just waiting for Canon.
I planned also to buy lens, but I’m waiting now. Video is great but not an issue for me, so may be I’m gonna switch to Nikon (D700), if it’s become ugly with Canon…. 5 years warranty for Nikon’s lens instead of 1 year with Canon! The body will depreciate, but not the lens.
If it turns like that I will be disappointed anyway…. but learn the lesson with Canon!!!

Charles, please see my response to your above comment on the other Canon Rumors post (http://www.canonrumors.com/2008/11/05/henrys-policy-5d-mark-ii-price-increase/)

The frustration regarding this pre-order price increase has nothing to do with the economy, or IMF.

I understand the principals of supply and demand with respect to goods and international currencies. I’m not denying that the price needs to increase because of the decrease in the Canadian dollar. I know that if they don’t increase the price Canon will end up losing money to people who will buy grey market cameras and sell them for profit in places where the price is higher.

The frustrating part of this situation has everything to do with the fact that distributors are breaking the agreement they had with everyone who pre-ordered the camera at a specific price. That breach of trust, and the lack of communication or dialog between customers and distributors with respect to an amicable resolution is absolutely infuriating.

I think at the very least a 50/50 split between distributors and customer for the price increase should be attempted to resolve this conflict.

As someone who placed a $700 deposit with Henry’s the day after the Mark II came became available on their system I totally agree with Rob. This is nothing to do with whether it’s Canon’s fault or Henry’s fault and all about customer service. There isn’t a person on this planet that enjoys being taken for a fool and that’s what all these dealers have decided to do – and to hell with their customers.

Okay – they can do that and I for one will still buy the camera as I want it before a planned trip – but after that I will never, and I repeat NEVER, step foot in Henry’s camera again. Nor will I EVER buy a new piece of Canon equipment – I will never give them another original sale.

Now consider that just like every other photographer with an endless list of equipment desires I would have probably spent around $5000 a year with Henry’s for the next 10 years, and most of their customers, whether we admit it or not, would probably spent about the same. Then potentially in order to just gouge the 100 preordering customers $300 each plus tax, they may have instead lost around $5 million – I ask you is that a good idea? No – it’s idiotic. Just terrible customer relations. Particularly when I also intend to implore every photographer I know not to give them another cent either (and I encourage you to do the same.) Wake up and smell the goodwill Henry’s. All you have to do is split your loss between Canon and the Dealer, $150 each, and honour your deal with your customers as you absolutely know you should and bingo – customer loyalty and yes, SALES, for life.

Henry’s and Canon – you have lost a loyal customer. If this was your plan for surviving the economic downturn – go away and revel in your success. If not – please reconsider your treatment of your customers – honour your deal – it’s the right thing to do – and for all your whining and finger-pointing – you know it’s the only right thing to do.

Rob

I think Everyone calling Ian McFarlane would also be a good idea, while letters are great and documentation is good, sometime a phone call is faster –

For complaints within the BBB or through Canada’s and Ontario’s government agencies, a first step is to contact the other party in an attempt to allow immediate opportunity for response and to quickly resolve if possible any issues that have cause the complaint. If the outcome is unsatisfactory or there is no reponse within a reasonable time. then you can file a complaint usually, this initiates a form of mediation process. if still no resolve then legal action.

You can always jumpt straight to legal action. In this case I would make it a small claims court lawsuit, where lawyers are not required and also you cannot be made resposnbile for the other team;s legal fees if you lose. I would sue for the difference and the opportunity lost (time spent on this and not on earning money witht he equipment you already should own (a fair price is an hourly rate) as well as any expenses arising from pursuing this course of action – like long distance clals to canon etc.

C’mon Canon, is $300 really worth the reputation lost and the aggravation of all this….

An interesting story – At future shop on boxing day, I watched a man return an item that he was told he could not by the store staff at the customer service desk. He persisted, repeating the same thing over and over again, finally themanager came out and granted him the return. it was rather comical. Many large business put polies in place that are more driven by the bottom line than anything else, and theya re not right morally ethically or sometimes even legally, but they calculate how much they wil make when they get away with it versus how much it will cost them in time and settlement for the few people with awareness and a backbone to not get suckered.

I love the internet – it has the potential to make almost everyone aware.

Do you know that I was sold a 1-800 for my business and told it would never cost me anything by the big B phone company. A year after i made them put in writing and agreed to have the 1-800 number, they sent me a letter saying that ll 1-800 numbers will receive a monthly flat fee. I told them except mine, They tried to pressure me, i just kept my position and still do not pay the fee….

BTW check your bills from them if you use them, my bookkeeper calls it the “Bxxx Penny” they err in calculations on every bill one cent in their favour.

A very large associated company with advertising directory pages of yellow discontinued their most sought after small business ad size and instead offered the next size up at a “discount” – whcih was actually more money…they sold it like it was a discount to the smaller size, but it was more expensive than the smaller size and in acutallity was slightly a discounted price for that ad size…”I was sold you get a bigger ad and pay less….” after a very big screw up on their part, and 6 months, I have gotten a few years of pree advertising out of it, mind you a paid through aggravation of having to deal with them….

Moral: they do not want to be your friend, they want to be friends with your money….don’t feel guilty or ashamed holding them acocuntable. It might take a bit of squeking but they will eventually cave on their positions of taking advantage of you.

If everyone made this a habit, companies would stop calculating how much they could get away with, and start being accountable. but if you allow them to screw you repeatedly, then you are an enabler, and somewhat selfish or egotisitical – taking the easy least painful way out for the short term goal of not being bothered.

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David : Profitability smoffitability.

if the price was tied to the exchange rate that closely, then the price of the camera should fluctuate daily

Again, everyone who uses the market as an excuse forgets the fact that these cameras were already sold at an agreed upon price, with a promise to deliver. Money has exchanged hands, the reseller has had my deposit in their hand for a few months + now.

They have broken laws, consider bait and switch, profiteering, false advertising, breaking an agreement without both parties involved in the decision and contract law. When you actaully look at it, the market scenario flies out the window, and I have yet to have anyone tell me why the arbitrary increase of $300 to boththe camera alone and the camera with the 24-105 lens kit – why isn’t the kit even more of an increase? Because the priceincrease is not tied to exchange and market, Again it is an arbitrary number based on cameras already paid for, they expected to just cash in.

Anyone who has deposited has completed a sale, on the books stores consider the rest of the paymoent on a sales order as income, myself as a business, it is a debt or liability.

Yes, you’ve made your point about the legal and/or ethical dubiousness of the price change perfectly clear. I have no interest in arguing that because I am not a lawyer and don’t bring any new or useful information to the table. I’m sharing what I’ve learnt about worldwide pricing info as a separate point that many people may find interesting and relevant.

CORRECTION –

I hope you all are not taken for your hard earned money –

One other point that I should emphasize is that all of my calculations are based on currency exchange rates relative to the Japanese Yen, because Japan is where we’re effectively buying this product from. The USD/CAD exchange rate doesn’t seem as relevant as the USD/JPY and CAD/JPY rates, from what I can tell.

Stop the BS on the currency exchange. Any reasonable size of importing business would have currency hedge. I run a large importing business and most of our stuffs come from the US. However, we are still able to hold all our quoted price from 3-4 months ago. The reason is because we buy 6 months forward contract. For example, if we expect to bring in 100 unit of product X in the next 6 months, we would actually buy a future contract for that amount. Basically, I am still get 96 cents per dollar of us until my contract runs out. If Canon doesn’t do that, I just think they run a very poor business. If they know they will be sending in 5000 units of the 5D, they should had a currency hedge contract to ensure the price. I like to find out what the wholesale cost for the camera is, if anyone knows, please comment!

It appears that people are getting the pre-order price there is talk of people who have complained and were charged the deposited price.

Canon is shrugging responsbility:
http://stoppriceincrease.blogspot.com/

Leaving the resellers holding the bag,

who are talking of and honouring the pre-ordered price…

the resellers are not allowed to rock the boat with Canon? at least at the salesmanager level, it appears as though a gag order was implemented?

My suggestions – demand the pre-order price, with compassion for your reseller who is footing the difference – and if they do not honour the agreement, pay the imposed illlegal levied price increase and then you will have an infraction against you, name the reseller and canon in a small claims suit. You will win. and maybe if they force enough to pay the new price, a class action will ensue (and the only part I am not 100% sure on – damages and opportunity lost can be sought).