I've never dealt with Adorama. For some reason, they've always seemed a rather odd outfit to me. The folks at B&H get most of my business.
Godfrey ----- Adorama are honest, but definitely odd and frequently inept. Often the right hand does not talk to the left. In recent years, Adorama has been early to post new Pentax gear, and make it available to order. Then they are often among the last dealers actually to have the new stock to ship. B&H get the gear for sale sooner. This has happened to me several times when I have ordered forthcoming Pentax lenses from Adorama. It happened again when the K10D came out. I ordered early, then waited in frustration while everyone else was getting their camera. If you call Adorama's customer service, you get a canned reply something like "It's backordered" (for an item they haven't yet had any of!), or they'll say they don't know when they'll receive it. In the case of the K10D, I called and pointed out that apparently every other photo retailer in the U.S. had the camera. That got the customer service person's attention. My camera shipped that day. It had been in Adorama's warehouse, but no one on the sales or service side knew it. For me, that was the final straw. I'll never again place an early order for new gear with Adorama. I bought both DA* lenses from B&H. I paid more for the 16-50 than Adorama's price, but thanks to a short-term mistake, got the 50-135 at a nice discount. The the prices averaged out. Adorama initially advertised the 16-50 at a price lower than B&H's. I suspect they got a lot of orders--so many that they took the listing down and haven't put it back up. I suspect that Adorama is receiving shipments of the 16-50, but are using what they receive to fill their original orders. They still don't have enough to offer it for sale on their web site. I do business with Adorama--just placed a large order with them this week. But it was for stuff already in stock. Joe -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
