I live in China. I just bought a camera in Shanghai and I'd compared prices with various things elsewhere, so it seems worth posting some details here for others.
An old Flickr post http://www.flickr.com/groups/theshanghai/discuss/72157600342357250/ gives directions to one Shanghai place. I'll add detail on that and give directions for another. The other is 2nd through 5th floor of a building near the Shanghai train station. Come out of station into South Square, building is diagonally left. Burger King on ground floor, KFC, ... Second floor is mostly camera shops. When I was there, 3rd and up were mostly empty and many shops undergoing renovation, but a few interesting used stuff places on 2nd & 3rd. Looked like it might be quite good when it is finished. My guess would be March 2010, after the upcoming Spring Festival holiday. Things I compared to were B&H (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/) for new US prices, KEH (http://www.keh.com/) for used, prices from the Pentax Forum lens index (http://www.pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/index.php) one Hong Kong shop (http://www.tincheungcamera.com.hk/), and a Hong Kong price index site (http://www.ygdragon.net/). For a black K-X with 18-55, B&H want $550 US, an extra 50 for the blue one, no price shown for body only. All the Hong Kong prices I've seen were significantly higher. Two dealers in Shanghai quoted me 4150 and 4200 Chinese yuan for the black + 18-55. I ended up paying 4000 (about $585 US) for the blue body, somewhat above US price but not disastrously so. Below what I'd been quoted in HK, and for me, having a Chinese warranty is a large plus. New lenses were generally comparable to US prices. e.g. I was quoted 2400 for the DA 16-45 F4 and 4400 for the DA * 55/1.4, a tad higher then US in both cases. The only non-Pentax item I checked a price on was Panasonic G1. None of the Panny dealers had those; they were offering GF-1, GH-1, Oly EP-1, EP-2, ... Two shops that were mostly used cameras, with much Leica stuff, did have G1, apparently new. One quoted 3900 (about $570 US). The Flickr post says Luban Lu and Xietu Lu. In more detail, take the subway to Luban Road South, go out exit 1, turn left onto Luban Lu, and you are walking North. Xietu Lu is the first cross street. The camera center is on the NW corner. 7 stories. The top one is offices, bottom two mostly new cameras. One floor (4th?) is mostly studio equipment -- lights, reflectors and so on. Another (5th?) is mostly wedding studios, wedding clothes rental, etc. Used equipment anywhere from 2nd to 6th, and dominating a couple of floors. One camera repair shop, a few accessories shops -- memory, bags, tripods, ... Just N of that building is a new one, still under construction (as of Jan 2010) that looks like it might eventually connect to it, perhaps offer more of the same. NW of the main one (inside the block, no street frontage) is another new one, only 1st & 2nd floors open so far, all either bridal stuff or printers. Back to the main building. Bottom two floors are nearly all new camera shops. Much specialisation by brand. At least one shop with nothing but Canon, some only Sony, one only Nikon & Manfrotto. Olympus & Panasonic fairly common, but no shops selling only those. Voigtlander visible here and there. Two shops with mainly Pentax along N wall, ground floor. I bought from the more Easterly of those because they were willing to sell me body only; other was not. Lots of 17-70 and 55/1.4 SDM lenses in stock, 31, 43 and 77 Limited but not 21 or 70. They were quite busy. I took my time, asked a lot of questions. While I was there, they sold two other K-X, one white & one red, both to women, and I think one K-7. Not bad for a weekday afternoon. Somewhat to my surprise, much medium & large format equipment on offer. Quite a few panoramic cameras, 6x17 or some such. Two stores that were mainly 4x5 or pano gear, apparently new. Quite a bit of Pentax 645, Hassleblad, Mamiya, Fuji, among the used. Also somewhat to my surprise, many TLRs and folders. One shop (3rd floor, new place near train station) had three entire display cases full of mainly those cameras. Quite a variety of used stuff. Much Leica and Contax. Some of almost everything else, including entire shelves of things I'd never seen before like Alpa cameras, Leicas so old they did not have rangefinders, and medium-format Contax. Prices on used Pentax stuff OK, but generally not great. XE.com says 1000 yuan is 146.50 US. From here on, all prices in yuan. I bought two used zooms, 1500 for DA 16-45 F4 and 850 for A 35-70 F4. For M 45-125, I was quoted 1250 and M 75-150, 850. No-one had either A 35-105 F4 or M 20-35/3.5. Most expensive Pentax item I saw was the boxed set LX, 50/1.2. Asking 24000. Other than that, I saw no used 50/55/58 fast lenses. New DA 50/1.4 2400. Screw mount Pentax 55/1.7 or Russian 58/2, K-mount Ricoh 1.7, even some screw mount Zeiss. -- 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.
