We covered a source for cheap visualist miscellany last week. It included cheap NTSC CMOS cameras, but unfortunately DealExtreme doesn’t seem to stock much PAL gear.

I had gone looking and placed an order with another site, but didn’t want to recommend it until that order had arrived intact.

That order has arrived intact.

The source for these cameras is DHGate, which is a “marketplace” rather than a direct merchant. DHGate provide a database of products and act as an escrow for payment, it feels a little like eBay. Terms are set by the individual seller, so it’s not a free-shipping wonderland like DealExtreme, but the prices are still finger-tinglingly low. I ordered 16 of these little cameras, which seem to be the PAL version of the NTSC ones at DealExtreme. 16 cameras cost me US$219 including shipping ($13.70 each) and they arrived in about a week. I’ve unpacked and tested them, and they’re all working perfectly.