Originally posted by Freak I'm talking AUD, which at the moment has parity with the USD anyway, so either way. But ironically, perhaps we all shouldn't think USD is the end all and be all, because not everyone lives in the USA (to the surprise of most Americans it seems) hell perhaps i should quote the Yuan, as it's likely to be more important than USD in the future in terms of global currency. History and politics aside.
I've lived on three continents, so I'm pretty familiar with perceptions of different currencies around the world.
I think it's safe to say when you make a statement in dollars without mentioning the currency, few members of this forum who aren't already aware of your location will assume you're talking about Australian dollars -- and that most will likely assume you mean US dollars, if they try to make a guess.
Quote: Well i guess that's assuming we all live in the USA, which only a very small proportion of the world, actually does. But in my case from Australia, and it seems Sakura is from the Netherlands, so perhaps it's only you Americans that get it so good, the rest of us can save the amounts suggested by Sakura.
US population: 307,006,550
Australia population: 21,874,900
Netherlands population: 16,531,294
Mythical "Netheralia" combined population: 38,406,194 ;-)
"Netheralia" size compared to US population: 12.5%
This is, by and large, an English-speaking forum. The United States is -- far and away -- the largest population of native English-language speakers in the world. (It's still the largest even when you consider people speaking English as a second language, although India isn't too terribly far behind, apparently. Australia just barely scrapes into the top ten.)
Yes, I'm sure there are a few places here or there which have price disparities for the official Pentax grip. I'm equally sure there are places where the cheap knock-offs aren't as cheap as they should be. I can't confirm the validity of your claimed price, because I don't live in Australia, and hence don't know which retailers offer good values there, and which are gouging. Could be you're right and Australia is charging double the typical price for that grip. From my point of view, though, it could equally be that you don't know where the official grip is best priced in Australia.
That's all beside the point, though, which is that given the populations above, most forum members likely don't have anywhere near as large a price differential as a few members here seem to, and for most people, it's not even remotely close to the truth to claim you could afford a lens for the price difference.