Does anyone know whether retailers like BestBuy or Circuit City carry higher end camera models such as the Nikon D200? Did they ever carry the D100? the most expensive model I have seen in store is the 20D at $1600 and online the 5D at $3300. I want to get the camera but would prefer to purchase somewhere I can buy a warranty and 0% interest for a year sounds nice too. Any insight?
Those retailers you mentioned don't carry the higher end models. Ritz Camera does and you can put it on their charge card. I would be very careful with Ritz, I have had 5 bad experiences with them and their prices are usually higher. Their credit card has a high interest rate too. You might be better off getting a Visa or Mastercard credit card and buying it from a reputable dealer like B & H.
Oh, and the reason I had 5 bad experiences with Ritz and continued using them for a short while was because I had photo emergencies that could not wait 3 days for shipping. (1 was a bad D70 that malfunctioned the first day out of a box, 2 was an F100 that was sold to me as new but had signs of wear and missing parts, 3 was one of their equipment bags that fell apart in two months, 4 was a bad Sigma lens that had a lot of dust on the interior lens elements, and 5 was really sloppy developing of 35mm film. Note that these bad Ritz experiences were from two different retail stores on opposite sides of the state and one from their online store).
I wouldn't avoid Ritz just because someone got a couple dirty or defective products from them. You're going to get something defective from everywhere from time to time -- whether or not they back their product, and the ease of fixing the situation would sway me to make my choice.
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I bought a minitrekker AW from Ritz, a zipper inside was broken at which time I went, they swapped it out right then and there. My first d70 had a huge dust spot on it after a week and I thought it was a bad pixel or something (this was a while ago...I didn't know any better). I went back and they swapped it in the store for a new one.
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The reason I bought my d70 at ritz was because I also got a 5-year warranty on it. You can basically run your camera over with your car and it's covered...now I don't see how you can go wrong there. And they can order the d200 in. Just don't go there asking questions because they don't seem to knowledgeable (at least at mine anyway).
...check out at Samys, as what I have heard on forum last weekend Samys had a sale "no tax" , regarding warranty .... you get what you pay for, the same coverage that Ritz provides
