Should I Sell

I have a lovely Leicaflex SL with a 200/f2.8 and 2x converter that I bought

specifically to get photos of a kingfisher at a local Nature reserve. I also

have an M4-2 in super condition, a Minilux with with 40mm lens, and (non-

Leica) a Mamiya 7 II, with an 80mm lens that is the sharpest and most

distortion/abberation free I have ever used. There are a few other odds and

ends, e.g. a Nikkor 35mm shift lens left over from the days of F3s and F100s.

 

Trouble is, I have not used any of this stuff for over a year. The only

cameras I ever use are my Leica M6 with 35mm f/2 and 75mm f/1.4 and (less

often) a Minolta Dimage A2 digital bridge camera which produces 8Mpixel images

via its 28-200 equivalent lens.

 

So should I simplify and sell the unused stuff. I keep making the decision to

sell, but when I get the equipment out to prepare the ads I think, this is as

fine as photo equipment gets, and I won't get much money for it, and put it

all back in the case! A few months later I STILL haven't used any of it, and

the cycle repeats ...

 

I am sure that many of you have faced this situation!

 

Any and all advice welcomed.

So, here's an idea:

 

Step One: Fetch one of these cameras.

 

Step Two: Load film.

 

Step Three: Go somewhere and expose said film.

 

Step Four: Process and print the usual way.

 

Step Five: Repeat with different camera.

 

Step Six: Repeat until you've worked with all of the cameras (including the ones you usually use), then start over.

 

You can also go out shooting with more than one camera in your bag, just in case.

 

Anyway, it'll become obvious pretty soon what a gold mine you're sitting on.

 

Hope this helps!

Do what I do Tom.<br>

You buy a bit of photo gear that you absolutely must have but absolutely cannot afford. You are then forced to sell some of your existing gear to finance the new purchase. Simple. <br>

Some people may see a small flaw in this logic but I say never feel guilty about having more cameras than you can actually use as long as you enjoy them as objects in their own right. This is because:<br>

A) You do not know what direction your future interests may take.<br>

B) Camera gear is not an investment; it is a love object<br>

C) You are a long time dead.<br>

Cheers, Steve

I made the mistake of selling all of my R and M gears years ago, when I moved into a DSLR and HQ digital point and shoots. All of my film gear just sat in their bags or cases.

 

I realized that I can better archive, store, find and display film than digital files - 30 years from now, my slides and negs should still be here in good shape. So, I've recently re-bought new and used M gear to replace what I sold.

 

The gear you already have is already paid for. You have not stated that you "need the money" - so, don't look at the gear as money on the shelf. The gear is, it sounds, also part of remembrances and memories as the photos you took with them.

 

The gear was not an investment vehicle. It was a tool as a means to an end. The images made are the result, but the tool, for me, is tactile and also part of the process of remembering and capturing.

 

Keep the gear. So what if you haven't touched it in a year. You know you have it when you want it - and one day you will.

Buy everything; sell everything; buy everything -- and so it goes. But always keep a little Leica II nearby!<div></div>

Keep the gear. It's much easier to take the old stuff out of the bag and fondle it in front of

the fireplace than to settle on one camera and take photos. If you get rid of all the stuff you

don't actually use, you may be forced to be a photographer. ;)

Repeat after me, 100 times: "NEVER SELL ANYTHING!" Eventually you'll be sorry if you do.

One of my own problems is that I have some equipment that I keep saying I will use

some day when such and such photographic project or approach regains my interest.

Sometimes such plans have been since replaced by other photographic interests.

 

 

Analyze what you really want to do and what equipment that will require. I would sell

what you are not using.

 

 

It's just equipment and you can always re-buy it sometime if you really do need it

(unless film disappears, which I doubt). Perhaps once you have sold what you are not

using you will end up using more the equipment you have kept. If you don't, then at

least you will have redirected your well-earned money to something else that may be

more useful to you.

 

 

Having said that, some of my own equipment is coming dangerously close to

becoming personal museum pieces and I will be selling again and buying lenses or

other items that will beter complement what I am keeping.

Forget logic ....keep it. One day your executor can sort it out.

Don't use it = sell it.

i can only speak about the leicaflex sl and the R lense(s)

you can get a 4/3rds adapter, and use your R lenses on a Leica/Panny?olympus digital SLR NOW!

 

newer, better, cheaper 4/3rds digital SLR's in 4/3's format are constantly coming out.

 

i am currently using R glass on a digilux3 and i find it pleasurable and fun.

 

i know you can mount the R glass on other DigiSLR's as well, including some full-frame ones.

 

you will probably be able to pick up a very capable, dirt cheap digital camera (4/3's or full-frame) in the near future, that will accept your R lenses...how bad could that be?

 

as for the Leicaflex SL..you won't get much for it, and personally, to quote C. Heston "you will have to pry it out of cold dead hands"

never sell anything. but if you want a tender loving home for your mamiya, where it can take

it easy with some other medium format and 35mm gear, send it to me.

Tom, Your problem is that you don't have enough gear. You should have more than just a 200mm for the Leicaflex. Having only the one lens limits you. I think you should have some shorter lenses so that your SLR will augment your M kit. How about a 90 Summicron or Elmarit to start with?

 

Come to think of it, You could use some wide angle lenses for the M6. 35mm is really just a wide-normal. I think you need a 24mm Elmarit, or 25mm Zeiss ZM. And it's a shame not to have a wide angle lens for the Mamiya. Are you sure you don't want a 65mm?

 

I just don't think you have enough gear yet to be ready to make wise choices about what to sell. You ought to double your outfit first, before you start paring it down. Before you start selling, you should start with a large enough kit so that you will adequate equipment left after you have thinned it out.

 

This approach has always worked well for me. ;<)

Since your "main "camera is the M6, keep the M4-2 as a backup body. Sooner or later the m6 will need service, then you still have an M body to shoot. Also, you might try shooting with both cameras, 1 lens on each camera. The Nikon equipment although great , will not sell for enough to make it worth while seling.

I all ways say "The camera`s of today are the Antique`s of tomorrow"

 

We all have an emotional attachment to our cameras, so look at them, love them, and keep them.

I'm 100% in the folks who recommend <b>"Never Sell! Eventually you'll be sorry if you do."</b> camp.<br>

Long ago I sold off all my Leica R and M equipment and it took me years to get back where I was.<p>

I was recently looking at what my current equipment sells for on eBay, and what it could bring in in a trade.<p>

Based on what I paid for it, I'll be keeping it if for nothing else but to fondle!<br> :0)<p>

Cheers!

NO! I still have my leica and other gear from years ago. Four years ago I went to Eqypt, shooting black and white. Just for fun, along with my M6 and newer lenses I took the Summar off my 111f. The results prove why leica lasts!

 

I once sold a half-plate Gandolfi camera at auction, thinking I'd never use it again; two weeks later Fred`Gandolfi died and the price went though the roof! Since then I've bought more LF cameras to replace it. Susie

Tom, I have a similar problem. I won't begin to bore you with all the Leica M and R equipment lenses I have bought, and sold some, since my introduction to this fine equipment around 1965. STill have way too much of it.

 

The R lenses I have keep mainly because I had hoped to use them on a DSLR. Well, I bought a Canon DSLR about two years ago, after about 6 years with Digital P/shoots. And the R lenses were a little disappointing because of trouble focusing.

 

Which brings me to a factor you did not mention. How is your eyesight? I am getting much sharper pictures with ANY autofocus camera that I now use. I am 74, and I think the focusing ability of my eyes waned without my realizing it. I just hate to admit it. Having said that, I still haven't sold anything!! So here I am.

 

Be interesting to see what you do!!

 

Tom

A few years ago I bought a used Nikon FA on ebay. Not that I needed it, just read how fantactic the camera was so I wanted tested myself. The second I put my hands on it, I fell in love with it.

 

Later when I bought an FM3a and an FM2 I felt I did not need the FA anymore and since Nikon no longer serviced them in Prague, I sold it.

 

Now I really regret. As someone wrote above, the gear (and I trust I am more stuck to the cameras than to the lenses although it is the lens that makes the image) is part of the process of creating the image. The camera was around when my daugter went to school first time, when we went to the coast, when ....

 

I have couple of Leicas today, a Canonet QL17, D200, F100, FM3a and others and I still miss my FA ;-( Anyone seen my silver FA? :-)

 

Don't sell.

 

Pavel

They say the third divorce is easier than the first. I wouldn't know about that, but I do know that the it was easier the second time I sold a Leicaflex SL than the first time I did it. The first time was because I needed the money to pay rent, and that hurt like hell. I bought the second one because I wanted an SL again, plus the 90mm and 180mm lenses I used with it. But I eventually moved into shooting 6x7 on my view camera and fell in love with the larger negative. That made it much easier to sell the Leicaflex, so I could fund the purchase of a Pentax 67 and lenses. I still have the Leica CL with 40mm and 25mm lenses, and they serve another area of photography that I pursue. I'm not really giving you advice here, am I? Just telling one person's story, so you can compare to your situation and use that as one data point. If I did have advice to give, it would be to think about the photo projects you want to pursue in the next 2-3 years, and then sell/buy gear to get the perrfect setup for that work. And then readjust the inventory in a few years. Like I implied at the top, once you get used to the work being what drives the equipment, it's easier to let go of what's not a match for you and move on to the right stuff.

Someone really interested in photography focuses all available resources on the minumum needed to make the types of shots they like making, because to them gear is a necessary encumbrance . Everyone else is a collector disguised as a shooter.<p> For some this philosophy may mean spending a lot of money on high end gear for a purpose - for others it may mean buying a Pentax Mx with a couple of lenses for next to nothing.<p> Figure out which type of person you are - and this will solve a lot of yoru gear problems. if you are a collector - never sell it will go against your natural instincts. If you are a shooter my comments are already redundant.

"Someone really interested in photography focuses all available resources on the minumum needed to make the types of shots they like making...Everyone else is a collector disguised as a shooter."

 

Ansel Adams was a collector. Gene Smith was a collector. Jeanloup Sieff was a collector. This would be a very long list.

As i recall, P. Apos is a collector of fine machines, as well, not just cameras..good on ya! 8>I

<<Someone really interested in photography focuses all available resources on the

minumum needed to make the types of shots they like making, because to them gear is a

necessary encumbrance . Everyone else is a collector disguised as a shooter.>>

 

This may be part of your personal mythology, Mr. A., but to throw it flatly out there as a

truism (and implicit taunt) is foolish and arrogant.

 

None of the cameras/lenses Mr. Rose writes about is particularly a hot commodity, or rare

in the second hand market (I might be wrong about the 35mm shift lens). If he gets a fair

price in selling them, he can always buy back into those pieces he finds he misses.

 

For me the actual 'need' I have for a given piece of equipment may be measured in the

amount of patience I am willing to exercise in waiting for it to turn up used, at a good

price, somewhere readily within grasp.

Keep everything, but you have to work all the mechanical shutters at least once every 2 months! Else the shutters will lose their accuracy, or even lock up.

 

I was about to suggest that you sell the M4-2 but then someone suggested it as a back-up, which I have to agree. But I must emphasise that you have to release the shutter through its whole range at least once every two months, and each time you work it, you must cycle through the whole range at least twice. For the slower speeds it's better to work them 3 times.

 

A confession: I haven't done it myself for 8 months!

 

Another thing. I have a Mamiya 7II. I didn't use it for two years and then on one occasion I used it with flash. The flash didn't fire! Some knowledgeable guy slid the flash in and out of the hot shoe several times and it fired fine. He whispered to me "next time you used some long-not-used equipment, test it first!" Seems some deposit had gathered either on the flash hot shoe or the flash shoe itself. I guess that guy has similar experience himself.