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Good point that BF are not always the only deals. I just bought a second hand but brand new/never used Lowepro bag for 30€. They are over 80€ new. So there are great deals to be had in the second hand market too.

I have taken advantage of some BF deals, A Crucial 2TB SSD with 23% off and a compact pair of cob lights with 20% off. Every year I need more hard drives and it was time to replace my lightweight leds with I've had for years but offer way less light for the size compared to the latest on offer. As my aim is to make everything smaller and lighter I'm happy to change now.

lensrentals.com has their BF sale going. Use code LRBF2024 for 20% off any of their used gear. It brought the Ronin 4D 6K down into the $3k price range where I always thought it made sense - so... I guess that in a week or so, a Ronin will be at my door. Now the hard part comes where I try to figure out which of my existing cameras I should sell...

Same here in Spain.

The talk around this camera is quite bonkers out there on the internet. Complaints of it being $6.5k with a 4 year old sensor and no 8k/60p It's designed to compete with the lowly EOS R1, and it outperforms it in just about every way. It's priced to compete with the existing $6k rivals, whilst being smaller and lighter than them. It's not designed to appeal to enthusiasts in the $3.5k range or a7s III users. In terms of the spec, it's the pinnacle of what a camera can do pre-generative fakery era. It will take a complete change of concept for the a1 II to be surpassed. The only mirrorless camera that out-does it in terms of ultimate image quality and resolution is the GFX 100 II. But not in terms of speed or autofocus or sports. Meanwhile the a1 does 95% of it as well... for soon to be $2.8k-ish on eBay. What's not to like about that? Panasonic need to get those new cameras out, otherwise Sony and Nikon will really kill the market for future high-end Lumix cameras.

My little wrestling organization is looking to do more social media related content, so we decided to get a wireless system for it. Because it's professional wrestling I didn't want to spend a ton of money on it, as it could easily get damaged. I also didn't want to waste money on a system that had internal batteries, so that limited my options a lot. In the end I set out to accomplish a couple of things: Spend as little money as I possibly could while still achieving decent audio quality. Find a system that didn't feature internal non replaceable batteries. Find a system that had a decent enough build quality. Again, spend as little money as I could! With the focus being on small systems like the Rode Wireless Go and the dozens of knock offs, I knew that it was going to be difficult to find anything new under $200, which was my initial spending goal. Still, I looked and there were systems from Movo and Comica with so so reviews on YouTube, but as with most YouTube reviews these days I had to take them with a grain of salt because they were from smaller channels who I suspect will praise anything that is sent to them for free or channels that I feel have proven themselves to be biased. Regardless, these reviews weren't thorough and were essentially just someone testing them in their bed roo... er... "studio" and then, sometimes, going out into a field to do a range test. There isn't really much you can learn from these folks if they aren't putting the system through its paces. I started to think about spending a little extra and getting a Sennheiser or Sony system, which I could use for my non-wrestling work, but then I remembered the old Rode Rodelink systems that were the rage back in the day. Surely they'd be under $200 by now! I had experience with them and had also watched dozens of videos about them back in the day when YouTube wasn't just the marketing arm of all these companies. So I went to eBay, and typed in "Rodelink." Yeah, they were definitely under $200! Indeed, most of them were well under $100! There were lots of "Buy It Now" listings for $50, $75 and $100, most listed as being in "excellent condition." I scanned the listings and found one that was 5 hours away from ending. It had a "Buy It Now" price of $50 and a starting bid of $25. The pictures of the item looked like it was in pristine condition (it even still had the plastic screen protectors on the screens) and the listing said it was in "excellent condition, like new." It came with all the accessories. The seller was reputable, with 100% positive feedback and hundreds of reviews. So I said "eff it, I'll bid." What's the worst that could happen? Someone would probably come and snipe the auction at the last second anyway! They didn't. 5 hours later, as I woke up to go to the bathroom, I looked quickly at my phone and saw I'd won the bid. The winning bid? $25, shipping included. The Rodelink Wireless Filmmaker kit was still selling for $399 new as recently as 2022. On Monday mine arrived. I've pretty thoroughly tested it and I'm almost certain this unit was barely used. It has no scuffs on it, and like I said it still has the protective film on the screens. The sound quality is more than adequate and the included mic doesn't seem to have the RF interference that some folks used to get when using it. I could not be happier with the purchase, and short of one of the wrestlers destroying a receiver or transmitter I think this will last for years; certainly longer than any of the super small wireless systems with internal batteries will, anyway! Not bad for $25! Let this be a reminder that we don't need to always get the latest and greatest. There's a lot of great old gear out there that is more than adequate and will cost you a fraction of what you'd pay for new. The latest Rode systems aren't appreciably better than the old Rodelinks, at least not when you compare the prices. Is the $219 for the Rode Wireless Go II really have that much better sound than a Rodelink system you can get for 1/4 the price? And when the batteries in the Rode Wireless Go II die in a couple years and you can't replace them, the cheaper used Rodelink will still be going strong with replaceable AA batteries. Seems like a no brainer for me!

The cash rich working pros will buy the a1 ii and a9 iii is what I said. The not so rich working pros are better off not upgrading. As the existing models are so good, even the a7 iv.

The greatest thing about the A1II is that Sony didn't replace an amazing sensor for video with a higher megapixel sensor that would create rolling shutter problems and downgraded video specs. That was my biggest concern. You can also see the advantage of the A1II's new AF for wildlife, sports, and motorsport video:

I also bought a set of the Comica WM100 Plus dual transmitter and receiver kits for $55 that runs on UHF. They were in "like new" condition. They have decent reviews, so for that price I figured "why not?" We'll see how they work, but we really don't need anything fancy. As long as the audio is ok we'll be set. I looked at both the Sennheiser G3 and Sony UWP-D11 but I couldn't find any in what I thought was acceptable condition for under $300 and was trying to stay under the $150 price point if I could, since these are for a particular project (pro-wrestling) where they could get broken pretty easy. I'll probably end up buying the UWP-D11 for my own professional work, but these will do for now.

Not a Black Friday deal but a deal none the less: i needed a wireless mic system but refuse to buy one of those ones with non-replaceable batteries, so decided to see how much the old Rodelink Filmmaker Kits were going for on ebay... I bought one from a reputable seller that is listed as in "excellent" condition for $25 with free shipping. I bid, thinking it would probably get higher than that but nope, I won it for $25 and it'll arrive Friday. I'm quite happy!