What happened to resale value?

Just like you have your pixel peepers in the photographic world, cycling has its "weight weenies", who spend time and money fretting over the weight of everything they put on their bike, - far beyond that point that it matters for 99% of them.

I'm not a bike rider but I know a few people who are, and from what I can tell, most people who love cycling do not actually care about stupid crap like saving a few grams of weight. They do care about handling a lot, though. They usually ride steel framed bikes.

 

My brother has a really beautiful Fuji track bike - single speed, and you have to add your own brakes (there's no need for brakes on a velodrome). He did put a brake on it so he could ride it on the street.

 

You do see a lot of podgy middle aged men who ride super expensive bikes purely for social signalling, but they are not the majority.

A lot of gear just doesn't hold its value well. Great if your buying used, not so great if you are selling. A newer and better version of cameras and lenses are coming out all the time making your 5-year-old lens or camera just not as sharp or not as good of ISO and noise and dynamic range and focusing not as fast. There is enough people that love the latest and greatest and many times don't care enough to hold out because they need to sell that old gear to buy new so they sell it cheap. I even see the same lens I bought new two years ago selling for a couple hundred less and it is still new, but there is something better out so it's price dropped, so my used lens is worth even less.

 

Price drops so much you would think we were all shooting with junk 5 years ago. Which we know is bull. I picked up some nice used stuff like the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 L version 1. Sharp, built like a tank, yes the new version 2 is slightly sharper, but I only paid $800 for the lens. It is still a great lens.

 

Craigslist is great around me and I have a couple local shops that sell used gear. I have a mix of new and used lenses and done my share of selling old to buy something better. Even trying to sell something at a reasonably set used price can leave you with no responses on Craigslist in Philly, not sure if people are strapped for cash and it takes a really fantastic deal to motivate them, or they are just conditioned to sit and wait for that amazing deal. It's just the game today.

I buy my stuff second hand now for the pass 10yrs, I wished I got my Nikon D600 used also.

 

I don't know if New Zealand has a smaller population and therefore lower cost. Often things sell for under or they just remain unsold.

 

I picked up a Nikon 70-200mm F4 AFS VRII for $800US here, and a Nikon 18-35G for $400US. The things that still is expensive are things like cult cameras like the Contax T2, Ricoh GR film , the digital GR is not bad it is holding its cost well and now and then someone still snap it up, the GR1 goes for $350US and the II goes for $400US. A used D800 Nikon or a D600 either could be had for $700US. These are local online auction prices. Sure, shops selling used would cost more but ....

 

As how good cameras are now I also don't see a need of getting new. It's more for lifestyle changes like a smaller one to go out with normal non photographers and just enjoy life or that time with friends and family. If I cannot go to this great photography place or if I cannot stay out to do the sunrise or sunset with the golden hour .... there is more to life than that.

Value is based upon emotions besides facts. - There seem to be 2 independent markets. - Old stuff holds it's value pretty well, sometimes even gains more. I happen to own a few items of the latter kind: A K1000 and some discontinued lenses I bought used.

How fast would a business write something new off? At whom is a certain offer targeted? - Why buy, planning to resell? - The big difference between old days and now were longer model cycles and (ir)relevance of offered novelty. - My Spotmatic or M3 take the same films as latest models. - Did AF mature at all before the dawn of digital? If we had motordrives, did we really utilize them and gain a benefit?

When I look at my 3 generations of DSLRs, pixel count doubled between each and low light performance buffer size JPEG quality etc. got increased too. - So we have some kind of tech inflation, where new models offer a bit more at the same price point. People are digitally minded; "champagne or table water / black or white" and not much in between. Good enough seems worth carrying, something else does no longer + all the less rational fashion trends.

How do cameras get bought? - Are they like race cars, i.e. "mine has to be better than yours or I am doomed"? Or more like commuters? Why should there be a market lusting as much after a previous generation as others are after the very latest and greatest? Isn't buying used zooms a bit like gambling? - I expect a Leica M lens to last but a stabilized AF zoom will most likely wear out during my life time.

About 1/6 of camera retail price is VAT in the EU. Combine that with missing features or performance of later models, wear & tear plus the value of warranty and used prices seem not too unfair.

Is other stuff you are buying and reselling better at holding it's value? - DSLRs look comparable to daily commuter cars in my eyes, am I off? Don't the world's most popular cameras i-Phones drop even faster?

Model cycles seem predictable (Sony's aside). - Either preorder stuff before it is even rumored and resell with a win during the run on short supplies or lean back and wait, to be the guy fetching things at a fraction of their original price. It is your money and if you have to spend a year or more doing overtime to get a camera after reading it's reviews, you are either justified by your existing lens collection or maybe doing something wrong. But who cares, as long as you are happy?

A very large number of my "classic" film and digital cameras have cost less than a couple of supreme pizzas. On the whole, I have had to pay higher prices for "obsolete" digital cameras than for most top-line film cameras (but non-Leica - a different story FWIW). The rhetoric and exaggerations of the web 'received knowledge' do not approximate the actual market on eBay and elsewhere.

I'm not a bike rider but I know a few people who are, and from what I can tell, most people who love cycling do not actually care about stupid crap like saving a few grams of weight. They do care about handling a lot, though. They usually ride steel framed bikes

 

I'm not a bike rider, but do have a bit of an interest in British sports cars, and specifically in MGs.

 

One of the things we talk about is saving weight, but it's mostly in two critical areas-reciprocating mass in the engine and in unsprung weight. Lightening engine components makes the engine more responsive, and reducing unsprung weight does improve handling.

 

I have a not-yet-started engine in my garage that's going in my MGA. Unfortunately, I was stubborn in picking an engine type where I'm "stuck" with heavy pistons and connecting rods. Still, it's actually fundamentally a better engine design in some ways. The guy who sold it to me(I put out a general call for one of these engines and he just happened to have one for a reasonable price that he was willing to deliver) actually explained something to me that I never would have considered(air movement through the crank case) although he usually uses later engine blocks for complete engines coming out of his shop.

 

In terms of reducing unsprung weight, the easy route is changing wheels. Putting on wire wheels are the classic choice, but a lot of folks go to alloy wheels as they are lighter and aren't the maintenance nightmare of wires.

 

Reducing the overall weight of the car actually doesn't come up that often, although many folks will avoid things that ADD to it. Still, cutting a few ounces of reciprocating mass or a few pounds of unsprung does make a MUCH bigger difference than shaving 50lbs off the total weight of the car. It's also why I roll my eyes at putting a carbon fiber hood on a Honda Civic when it probably cost more than the car and doesn't make much difference :)

Ben, that is absolutely right: a lighter piston (or conrod etc.) is much, much more useful than a lighter panel. I still would like to shave 50% off the weight of the block though. I do have an idea of how to do that, but it's very crude, and I'm not an engineer.

Karim,

 

At least when it comes to the MG engines, you knock off ~20lbs with aluminum front and rear plates, but that's about where it ends on block weight.

 

Had I been sensible and gone with a later 5-main bearing engine, I could get each piston+con rod assembly down to about 600g, or 1.3lbs. On the 3 main bearing engine I have, the piston+rod is nearly 1kg(2.2lbs)

 

The guy I bought this engine from is a retired engine engineer with GM, and he did actually explain something interesting to me about the two "missing" bearings on the early engine that I'd never considered. With the pistons moving up and down, they are also displacing as much air below them as they are above them. On a typical 4 cylinder engine, piston 1 is going down while 2 is going up, and 3 is going up while 4 is going down. The 3 main bearing engine has a clear path to shuttle displaced air between piston pairs, while the 5 main has a big blockage in the form of the extra bearings that stops this.

 

It's just a shame that we can't get all the fancy racing parts for the 3-mains as are available for the 5 mains-otherwise we could probably cut the reciprocating weight on them plus the inherent advantage I mentioned above of the earlier engine. I think that the 2 1/2 year production run of the 3 main vs. 16 years for the 5 main(at least in MGB trim) probably has a lot to do with that.

I've seen gear obsessed cyclists pay half their gold for bicycle anti matter. - It seems a way to throw your hat over the gym's fence. I respect commuters on unspectacular low maintenance tech more. - What is a light bike practically worth when it takes ages to lock it? - Pumping up tires twice a day sucks and starving off love handles seems cheaper than buying carbon fiber. If I'll ever get a bike going, it will be a photo gear carrier.

The whole reason I'm back into film is because the equipment I dreamed of owning when I was in high school now costs pocket change.

 

Michael, c1966 and 2016 by Michael Darnton, on Flickr

Michael, that's as good a reason as any! :-)

 

Ben, you have probably seen this:

 

Boeing has made a metal structure light enough to sit on top of a dandelion

I'm not a bike rider, but do have a bit of an interest in British sports cars, and specifically in MGs.

 

One of the things we talk about is saving weight, but it's mostly in two critical areas-reciprocating mass in the engine and in unsprung weight. ...

 

The same applies to bicycles. Weight on the wheels matters more than weight in other places. But since most road racing bikes have no real suspension, all of the weight of a bicycle is "unsprung". The rider, - if they are riding correctly, isn't. Legs and arms act as suspensions for the body, which is why it isn't quite correct to say that riders would be better off losing a few pounds than worrying about the weight of their bikes. Assuming the rider is in decent shape, their weight is needed for propulsion and endurance.

 

Anyway, some people take pride in making their rig the best they can make it within the constraints of time, money, and effort. Whether that rig is a bike, an MG, or a camera. Even if in the end it doesn't make that much difference. How often do the people who worry about their wheels actually race their bikes or their MGs? Some do. Lots don't I'd imagine.

I am still riding my 1966 BSA Lightning I purchased in 1968. It is probably now worth about 5 times what I paid for it then. I am still using my Nikon and Nikkormat cameras I bought in the early 1970's. They are probably still worth as much as I paid for them. If you keep stuff long enough it becomes "vintage" and becomes fashionable again.