$40.00 versus $1.70 ... Strewth!!!

[Ezookiel]

I've lost the foot that my 430ExII sits on when you use off camera flash.
I asked our local camera store if they sell a replacement item. The poor lady searched on the counter computer for ages. Then she went into their office and searched for even longer. In the meantime I sent my daughter out to get us a couple of take away coffees, and she went and bought them and got them back to the store, we had almost finished the coffees when the poor lady finally gave up on the computer and told me she'd keep looking and ring me when she had a result.
After a whole day of searching, she rang me to tell me that they are called a "mini stand" and to tell me she has found them, and that she will be able to get one in as a special order, but I'd have to give her my credit card details to prepay for it, because they're $40.00 ! ! !

I thought it seemed a bit ridiculous to pay that much for tiny plastic foot, but assumed that if she'd looked that hard, they must be really really scarce, so I told her I'd come in the next morning in person to pre-pay for it.
Thinking it over that night, I decided to jump on ebay and look for a 430ExII stand. It took me about 4 seconds to find a HEAP of different types, and they were as low as $1.70 with FREE DELIVERY!!

What the HELL?
That's a stupid price difference.

I honestly want to support my local camerashop, if I don't support them there won't be one to go to when I really need information, knowledge, experience, and a physical item to have a look at to try out. But it gets really hard to support them with that kind of a difference in price. Not to mention how hard they apparently found them to locate when they took seconds to locate on ebay. Hell, they could buy stock for their own shop on ebay, and then sell me one for $10 and still make a nice markup. Can it really be this hard and this expensive for a shop to locate a simple item at a sensible price?

I rang them today to tell them not to bother with the order, and will have no real choice this time but to the item online
I might even order a couple of spares in case I lose another. Hell I might order some for my local shop and take them in, tongue-in-cheek, and donate them to the store for the next poor soul that loses one and goes there to buy a replacement

[ameerat42]

Didjer letter know about them?

[JM Tran]

store probably had to source it from Canon, which has ridiculous accessory pricing - probably not her fault for the price though.

[Ezookiel]

Definitely not her fault in any way, and I'll make sure I tell her how much I appreciated her efforts when I am in there next, which won't be long if my previous history of browsing the store is anything to go by.
I agree. She probably had to source a genuine Canon one. Only they could charge that kind of price for a plastic foot. Considering they charge $90 for a battery that ebay has for $15.

As a kid I had a software game called "Lemonade Stall" or something like it. In that game you had to decide if it was better to sell one glass of lemonade at $100, or sell 100 glasses at $2.00
Maybe the head of Canon ought to have played that game. I'm sure they'd make more money in total if they sold their accessories at a price more people are prepared to pay.

[arthurking83]

Yeah! they probably have to sell genuine stuff .. or else!

I haven't lost my Nikon SB800's foot, but I did want another for semi permanent mounting to a tripod for quicker and easier flash mounting, so I also found one on ebay(by chance .. looking for something else)

You got a better deal than I did, where mine cost me $1.80 with free delivery but at the time the AU-US exchange rate was lower

Have to say tho, I have a very strong feeling that this cheapie foot is going to break if due care isn't taken with it.
It's sturdy enough to hold the SB steady on a flat surface, but when mounted to the QR plate of a tripod, it feels flimsy and more likely to snap somewhere .. where the Nikon foot is a much more solid feeling plastic material.
I just hope that any snapping of this weaker material is not at the shoe slot itself tho!


Still good value these cheapies foots .. but don't expect it to be as solid feeling as the genuine thing .. the 'cold shoe' slot may also have a wee bit more slack than the genuine item has(had) ..
On my Nikon foot the connect between foot and flash is rock solid and slack free, but there is just a small amount of freeplay between cheap foot and SB. Flash still locks down onto the cold shoe tho.
(the SB800 has a shoe locking tab for locking the flash tightly onto any shoe slot).

[I @ M]

Have a look through all the listings for flash stands.

In your case it doesn't have to be make or model specific as Canon, Nikon, Metz etc all share the same size foot and the stand is only a "cold shoe" so no electrical contact points need to be taken into consideration.

I bought a couple of knock off Nikon stands for about $5.00 each a couple of years back and they have a brass tripod mount screw in the base, are slight larger than the genuine Nikon one ( more stable I guess ) and the flashes fit them like a glove. Overall a better quality product than a genuine item.

[Bennymiata]

Same deal with things like lens hoods, straps and even battery grips.
The prices on some of the Chinese sites are so cheap it's ridiculous!

[Kym]

But!! Gerry Harvey reckons its the importers not paying the 10% GST

[bricat]

I'd pay the GST on $1.70.

[Ezookiel]

Yeah, the $1.70 was the cheapest of them. There were several versions, all of varying looking quality.
One odd one had three different slots to mount the flash (wouldn't you just turn the whole foot rather than take the flash off and put it in the other mounts?).
But noticeably they nearly all had tripod mounts under them, whereas I'm not sure the original did. I may be wrong, but just never really looked.

Stupid thing is, I can't post a letter to Hong Kong from here for $1.70, but they can sell me the item and the postage to send it to me, for that price.

Not sure what Canon acheive by such high accessory prices though, other than sending people elsewhere. $90 for a battery when they're $15 online, means that even if they're crap, I can buy FOUR of them for one locally Canon battery. Surely it's worth Canon's while to sell at much lower prices and sell a great deal more of them? It seems sensible to me, but then I don't own or run the company, so what would I know.

[Bennymiata]

The original foot does have a tripod screw on it.
I use mine all the time.

The one that comes with the flash is in a slim pocket inside the nylon fabric case they give you with the flash, so it might still be there and it is easy to miss seeing it.

I was taking some pics with my brother-in-law one day and I pulled mine out and mounted it on the tripod, and he asked me where I got it from.
I told him it came with the flash unit.
He had the same flash, a 580EXII, and he said that his flash didn't come with one, so I opened up his case and pulled it out!
He was amazed as he had the flash for a couple of years and never knew it was there!

[KeeFy]

But noticeably they nearly all had tripod mounts under them, whereas I'm not sure the original did. I may be wrong, but just never really looked.

Stupid thing is, I can't post a letter to Hong Kong from here for $1.70, but they can sell me the item and the postage to send it to me, for that price.

Not sure what Canon acheive by such high accessory prices though, other than sending people elsewhere. $90 for a battery when they're $15 online, means that even if they're crap, I can buy FOUR of them for one locally Canon battery. Surely it's worth Canon's while to sell at much lower prices and sell a great deal more of them? It seems sensible to me, but then I don't own or run the company, so what would I know.

Originals had tripod mounts on them.

Ahh the wonders of the chinese economy. International postage from China/HK is not cheap. But if you have a backdoor, or something along those lines, it's "free". Anyway items in China a cheap! You can pick up a 600W 3 strobe studio kit with stands, softbox, wireless trigger etc for $200 AUD. I bought a 100cm reflector 5 in 1 type for $5 and a softbox 60 x 80 i think for $8. Lens cap for 50 cents. Imagine.... these are shops with markups!

Canon ensures that their items are of quality and the 3rd parties are not exactly great quality. I have loads of 3rd party stuff.. to me it's whatever does the job. Anyway people do pay for the originals as what i'm told by friends who work at camera shops. People generally have the idea original = better.

There are times when a original is really much better than the 3rd party. I purchased a lens hood for my 17-55 f2.8 IS and got the 3rd party... after 2 months of using it started getting loose when mounted. I bit the bullet and bought the original. After a whole year of use it was still decently tight. So Quality does play a bit.

[arthurking83]

......

There are times when a original is really much better than the 3rd party. .....

And there are instances where original manufacturer items, are just so stupidly designed that it beggars belief!
Nikon MC-36 remote/intervalometer. Unit works well enough, but has no on-off switch.
Batteries drain after a day or two as it's always on.
Who on Earth would design a battery powered device and not design in a power switch!

I have to chop mine up to install a small micro switch( ...... one day).

[KeeFy]

And there are instances where original manufacturer items, are just so stupidly designed that it beggars belief!
Nikon MC-36 remote/intervalometer. Unit works well enough, but has no on-off switch.
Batteries drain after a day or two as it's always on.
Who on Earth would design a battery powered device and not design in a power switch!

I have to chop mine up to install a small micro switch( ...... one day).

I agree. I had a phottix battery grip for my 500D that had better ergonomics than the original. I was surprised as well when i tried a friends 500D with his BG. We both came to a conclusion that the build quality of the original was slightly but negligibly better, but the ergonomics of the phottix was slightly better. He would have saved the extra $100 bucks and bought the phottix if he knew better.

[KeeFy]

Canon ensures that their items are of quality and the 3rd parties are not exactly great quality.

Oops... I have a problem with trying to form coherent sentences when I am too hungry! LoL. What i meant was that 3rd party items are not always of great quality but most of the time they are really good enough.

As for the feet, i have 2 non originals and 2 originals for my 4 strobes. Other than the missing Canon logo, they are pretty much the same and does the same job, in fact one of the 3rd party ones comes with a metal thread instead of plastic. You can look at it both ways where it has a higher risk of seizing due to dirt or lower chance of breaking, I prefer the latter.

[Ezookiel]

It's definitely not a case of it being in the case and me not knowing it's there. Firstly my flash in now in my camera bag, not the original bag the flash came in, secondly I removed the foot and added it to a pocket in the camera bag when I put the flash in there.
I used the foot at a shoot where I had the flash set up remotely, and somehow seem to have misplaced the foot when packing up and didn't notice it missing till the next time I went to do some remote flash work. Mind you, I don't doubt that some would miss it in the original pack, or not realise what it's for.

[dulvariprestige]

I bought a foot from yongnuo for $40, although they did throw in a free flash with that

[achee]

I was taking some pics with my brother-in-law one day and I pulled mine out and mounted it on the tripod, and he asked me where I got it from.
I told him it came with the flash unit.
He had the same flash, a 580EXII, and he said that his flash didn't come with one, so I opened up his case and pulled it out!
He was amazed as he had the flash for a couple of years and never knew it was there!

[achee]

Back on track... regarding the OP, yes, that is a ridiculous price difference!

I bought my first SLR body and lens new from a shop; since then I've always been buying 2nd hand bodies / lenses and 3rd party accessories. For small things (like the speedlight foot) the price differences are mind-boggling!

[Bennymiata]

It's definitely not a case of it being in the case and me not knowing it's there. Firstly my flash in now in my camera bag, not the original bag the flash came in, secondly I removed the foot and added it to a pocket in the camera bag when I put the flash in there.
I used the foot at a shoot where I had the flash set up remotely, and somehow seem to have misplaced the foot when packing up and didn't notice it missing till the next time I went to do some remote flash work. Mind you, I don't doubt that some would miss it in the original pack, or not realise what it's for.

I'm not calling you anything untoward Ezookiel, I was just trying to point out that it is easy to not realise the foot is hidden in the original case.
I doubt my brother-in-law was the first to find this out!