These prices for good used MF gear are getting ridiculous

I can't believe the degree to which some of these quality MF cameras

are cratering, even though I know people are moving to digital. I

just picked up the following GOOD LOOKING MF SLRS on the bay - which

I'm going to be giving to some young camera students that I know -

except for the Nikon FM, which I'm keeping for myself:

 

fully working NICE BLACK Nikon FM body: $62 + 7 ship

 

fully working Olympus OM-1 w/50mm f1.8 Zuiko: $41 + 10 ship

 

fully working Minolta SRT-202 w/50mm f1.7 MD Rokkor: $26 + 10 ship

 

fully working Pentax K1000 w/50mm f2 SMC Pentax: $33 + 10 ship

 

These prices are just silly. None of these cameras was thought to be

broken, or mis-described in their listings. They were all accurately

described as fully working by sellers having better than 99% feedback.

Laws of supply and demand. There is a large supply, and the demand is fally sharply, so the prices will decrease. Basic economics there.

 

Salt and sugar used to be incredibly expensive, because there was a large demand and a low supply. Now there is a huge supply, and the prices are quite resonable.

 

It happens with all goods.

More than a million D70 cameras sold, since launch. Should have an effect on these, don't you think?

It's not really happening to Canon FD though. I've been looking for a 1.2 50mm or a 1.2 85mm for cheap and you can't find it in Canon FD. I'm willing to go with Olympus or Minolta but I can't find any 1.2 lenses there...I'm just looking for a low-light camera.

Personally at those prices I don't know why people are selling. Seeing as there's no chance of getting a reasonable price for my MF equipment at the moment, I'm keeping it. I may not be using it much, but there's no point in throwing it away.

Except that the cameras I've listed above ALL have one feature that no current digicam, such as the D70 has - every one of them will work without batteries, except for the light meter. And each of them makes a great tool for a student to learn photography on - arguably much moreso than any current auto-everything camera - even one with manual overrides.

 

I agree, it's supply and demand. But I can't see why a perfectly working high quality instrument like these all are would ever sell for much under $50, as they all are now. For $50 I can't even buy a piece of junk AF film SLR at Walmart or Costco.

I bought a Fuji GW690ii for $80 from the camera store. The sales guy thought it was broken, it works fine. (the front shutter lock was engaged and stiff) Now I can sell it, but I won't.

 

Cheers.

I only wish that the price of the Nikon F6 would come down or have a sizeable rebate.

Ben, it's always been possible to get deals on stuff that the non-knowledgeable owner thought was broken. I recently got a working Konica Auto S2 35mm rangefinder camera for $1 that way.

Yes, but none of these cameras have a high-eyepoint viewfinder or a spot meter, which means that they're not attractive to me. In other respects, manual focus cameras are nice to use.

"Except that the cameras I've listed above ALL have one feature that no current digicam, such as the D70 .."

 

Douglas, Though I have no knowledge of the break up of D70 sales, I strongly suspect that many previous Pentax, Olypus, etc owners transitioned to digital through D70. It ought to have a very strong impact on any 35mm film SLR (except the obvious rarities)price.

No diopter correction either. I was out last night doing light painting with my FE and remembered why I used my F5 for focusing the last time, battery drain and all. I'd grab a used F3 in a heartbeat at comparable prices.

 

In the list above, I wonder if the lenses or the camera bodies are thrown in for free?

Carl, a good looking Nikon F3 (non HP finder) with a functionality guarantee from the seller AND WITH a 50mm f1.4 lens just went on ebay for $169 + shipping. I couldn't get my higher bid down on time.

MF.... manual focus? - I guess so - normally MF is the abbreviation for Medium Format. I just dont understand why people are selling good prime lenses when they get a digital SLR - the manual focus nikon primes still mount on the D bodys and many of them are optically superior to the AF versions.

If I had several film bodies sitting at home doing nothing, I might be willing to sell some of them at a cheap price. Their value can only go further down. One might only be able to get $100 out of it, but that is better than nothing and certainly better than, say, the $50 you'll get from it a year from now.

 

Part of the problem is that film and processing cost has been going up. I used to be able to get Velvia at ~$4 a roll; now it is over $5. The Kodak slide mailer PK-36 was ~$4.5 for years; suddenly it has jumped way up to $8.99 at B&H. A&I slide mailers have gone from $5.5 to $6.6 recently also.

 

So even though your film SLR is free, well, my F5 is "free" in the sense that it was all paid for many years ago, it costs more and more to shoot film.

How do you focus the manual focus primes with that tiny viewfinder? I can't really do that in most situations. But then I don't have a fancy D2.

 

Shun, what you're describing about film and processing prices is called inflation. The value of the dollar is not what it used to be, and ultimately these are reflected on the prices of imported photography equipment. If you compare the price of a house like yours in 1995 and 2005, I bet it has increased more than the 25% you are describing. In contrast, film and processing price in Finland honestly hasn't increased one bit (in Euros) during the time I've been into photography (11.5 years). In fact, the price of film and processing in the US hasn't increased as much as the value of the dollar has decreased relative to other currencies.

 

The reason the prices of the bodies go down is that many people are buying digital cameras and for some reason selling their film equipment. Now, when a 5-year old F5 sells for $650, how much can you ask for a 20 year old beat-up FG? Not much. There are more film SLRs than there are film SLR users, which creates the current situation.

Of course I'm not denying that the increases in prices is partly explained by reduced sales. Maybe people in Finland use digital to a lesser extent than people in the US, which would explain why the prices haven't increased? I am not sure about that.

it is kinda like you being able to buy a fully working car cheaply, but there is no point in buying it if you are not willing to spend the money on fuel, insurance etc. (representing the cost of film, development etc in my analogy).

 

people simply wants to shoot digital. that's it.

Ilkka, fortunately, with a few exceptions such as housing and gasoline prices, inflation in the US is not bad in the past many years. The bottomline is that the cost of using film is going up pretty quickly, at least for slide film. Meanwhile, the cost for shooting digital is going down, in fact way down. Not only are DSLRs getting cheaper, memory card prices have gone way down in the last year and even computers are getting cheaper and more powerful quickly. There is clearly no "inflation" if you shoot digital.

Yes, it's true that in digital cameras you get more and more every year in some sense, but a D2X costs as much as pro Nikon DSLR has always cost. So the good hardware is still more expensive than it is in film cameras.

 

But film does take a lot more work to use to get the best results than digital.

<i>Ilkka Nissila , jun 22, 2005; 07:27 p.m.<br>

...<br>

But film does take a lot more work to use to get the best results than digital.<br></i>

<br>

But isn't that the (a) challenge??

The "challenge of film" comment should go in the philosophy forum. I'd love to see it. Many of us are interested in getting the shot, and putting a technical obstacle in front of us is unwelcome.

 

But I digress. I wanted to mention that a) inflation in the US has been about 1.5% per year for the past five years. b) My local pro film processor just went from $6 to $12 for processing. They said it was due to materials cost increases, etc., but finally got around to admitting in the memo that it was due to the dramatic increase in digital shooting and the resulting changes in economies of scale of processing.

You mean E6 processing? Or C-41?

 

E6 costs about 3-4 euros (without mounts) in Finland, including in some cases return mail. It could be going up though.

Well, film isn't an obstacle really, is it? It's a means to an end. If you don't like the digital result, you can try to edit it or use film, and vice versa. I happen to like both for different ends, and frankly film isn't still expensive enough that I'd plunk $10k to have a D2X and a backup. I am getting towards it though, with a recent purchase of a 14 mm lens ...

 

Some might say that using prime lenses is an "obstacle", but it all depends on what the photographer wants. I haven't got the slightest problem with either (using film or primes ... ), in fact I enjoy both a lot. What I do have a problem is the ridiculous prices of serious DSLR viewfinders.

In the past 12 months, I have purchased a Mamiya 645 super and a F3hp w/md-4. I thought I got a good to great prices on this equipment until I got my prints and slides back. Needless to say, my eyes are not what they were and almost 1/2 my shots were out of focus. I also purchased 4-5 lenses too , all MF and I wound up with 2 pretty damn good MF systems. ...which I sold. Maybe it my age or my shooting style but MF are basically useless to me now. Thank goodness I was able to sell off that equipment for basically the price I paid for it. I suppose I will always be a AF fan. I still shoot film for my *keepers* or paying gigs but shoot digital (formerly with my D70 and in a two days my D2h finally arrives :),for times that premier quality is secondary to quantity and getting * the shot* for sports and band shooting).......

 

I shot a Pentax SP1000 for 20 yrs and never really had a problems until I touched a AF Nikon and Nikkor lenses. I suppose there is no sense in regressing for me back to MF cameras and lenses, no matter the pricing.