When the X100 was announced a year ago, some people accused Fujifilm of ripping off the look of Leica’s rangefinder cameras. The retro look worked though, and retailers have had a hard time keeping the camera in stock. Now Fujifilm is making another Leica-esque move by releasing a limited edition version of the X100.
Only 200 units will be sold in Hong Kong, and it looks like the only difference is that the black covering has been replaced with light brown leather. Maybe the next special edition will be wrapped in ostrich skin…
If you’re looking for a fun photography-related way to invest some money, you might want to look into photobook collecting. The Guardian writes that prices have been soaring in recent years, and not just for expensive rare editions:
Photobooks are expensive to produce and, while demand is too small to warrant long print runs or multiple reprints, it is large enough that the books remain desirable, soon become scarce and can eventually be very valuable. This means new editions costing between £20 and £60 can double or triple in price in as little as two to five years. In 10 or 20 years – and if the work of the photographer becomes particularly fashionable – the price may increase even more.
[...] one of the great things about photobook collecting is discovering the work of emerging photographers whose early books may become sought after. A good place to look is among the current boom in self-published titles.
They also list a number of currently in-print photobooks that can help you get started.
With a suggested retail price of £19,800 (currently about $32,000) and only 500 units in existence, Leica’s limited edition M9 Titanium probably isn’t a camera you’re ever going to lay eyes on in real life. When it was announced back in September of last year, we predicted that most of them wouldn’t see the light of day and would be placed immediately into collectors’ vaults. Luckily for us, someone decided to actually unbox (gasp!) one of these babies (camera #164), allowing us to see what it’s like to receive such an absurdly expensive camera. Read the rest of this entry »
Most of the time we come across an absurdly large and expensive lens on eBay, it’s some sort of lens with focal lengths in the thousands of millimeters (e.g. this 5200mm Canon lens or this 2000mm Nikon lens).
The lens shown above is the Kilfitt Zoomatar 250mm f/1.3 and is currently for sale on eBay. It doesn’t have an absurdly large focal length, but is pretty standard at 250mm. See the little box handing off the end of the lens? That’s the Hasselblad medium format camera this lens is designed for.
The price? A cool $33,751. Needless to say, walking around doing street photography with this lens would earn you some pretty strange looks.
We featured a Nikon belt buckle here last month, and now here’s one by Canon. It’s a limited edition Canon F-1 belt buckle made by Lewis Buckles in Chicago for Canon in the 1970s. Charles Eves won the one above for $3 in an eBay auction. The seller was a former Canon salesman that was awarded the belt buckle for his high sales.
I wonder what Canon is awarding their employees nowadays…
Thanks for the tip, Lloyd!
Image credit: Photograph by Charles Eves and used with permission
Looks like the Canon 70-200mm might not be as “collectible” as we all previously thought. Perhaps after seeing how the mugs went viral online, for the next two weeks Canon will be including a collectors mug with any purchase in its Canada eStore over $200 CAD. In the promotion they state that the value of the Canon Lens Collectors Travel Mug is $39.99 CAD. If you’re in Canada and were planning on buying gear anyway, now might be a good time.
The web has been abuzz the past couple days over the collectible L-lens look-alike coffee mugs Canon was passing out at the Olympics. Everyone is asking whether they’ll be available to the general public.
One of our readers, Chris Wilkinson, has sent in photos of the Canon EF Lens Collector Cup he actually purchased from a local camera store in Canada. He tells us,
I saw the photo via Petapixel’s link to PDNPulse, so I emailed the photo to Carsand Mosher in Truro, Nova Scotia. A store I’ve purchased every piece of photo equipment to date, and they know my obsession with Canon branded promotional items. The subject line was “Just one question” the body was “Can you get this:” and the mug photo in the body of the message.
To my delight, The reply was “Yes…and I thought of you when I saw those this past Monday. We ordered some, and we have a sample here fresh in the box. They will sell for $29.99 (cad). A few minutes later, another reply came in that they have two samples on hand. I bought both. One for use, one that will remain wrapped for my collection. They arrived in the black gift wrap complete with the red ribbon, perhaps cleverly imitating the red ring. These samples may have been special, or maybe even an add-on from my camera shop. Either way, I can’t see the regular stock wrapped in black paper and a ribbon.
According to my sales rep, they are taking pre-orders for the mugs now, many colleagues of mine have placed pre-orders for the regular stock when (if?) it arrives.
Wow. If these things actually go on sale to the general public for $29.99 CAD (currently about $29.13 USD) I’m sure there going to sell like hotcakes. Here’s a video Chris uploaded showing his mug:
Yup. It’s obviously real.
PDN Reporting the Opposite
Don’t get your hope up TOO much though. PDNPulse is reporting that the mugs may not be available anytime soon:
Despite rumors that the mugs would be offered as free swag to those attending the WPPI Convention in Las Vegas next week, a Canon spokesperson tells us they were created by Canon Canada solely as a giveaway to photographers at last month’s Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
They also received another photograph of the mug from Josh Weisberg of Microsoft:
24-105mm f4L IS Coffee Cup Giveaway?
DSLR News Shooter is doing a giveaway for a… 24-105 coffee cup? We’re not sure how real this is, but the photographs they have in the post sure look real:
They’re asking that you register on their site with your name and email, and then leave a comment on the post for a chance to win the mug.
How much do you want one of these things? If one of them was being auctioned on eBay, how much would you bid?
