Bronica for Leica

[mickey_turner]

Hi All,

 

Went to my local camera store here today in Australia with my Bronica

GS-1 Outfit, wanting to trade for a Leica kit. I've used Leica before

and wanted to move back into an R - Series camera outfit (R7 plus

lens etc).

 

I have the GS-1 body with 50/100/250 PG lens, 120/220 film back, also

polaroid back, speed grip, AE rotary finder, plus a few other bits

and pieces with the kit all in mint condition with orginal boxes. The

whole kit for trade would only just buy the R7 body only, without a

lens, I couldn't believe it. My whole Bronica kit just for the R7

body, how times have changed. Guess I'll be keeping the Bronica for a

while yet.

 

All I was after was an R7 body plus the 60mm Macro lens, but they

wanted my whole kit plus an extra $1000 change over. My whole kit

cost over $8000 five years ago, sad really.

[chris_henry1]

Ebay.

[paul_chan4]

Yeah, very pitiful. Keep the Bronica set. You may find yourself living through another regret when you decide to trade in the R7 later. There's still a place for medium format in the film medium.

[peter_evans4]

<p>You could get an SLR with a different brand name on it.</p>

[craig_zeni]

Prices of medium format gear have cratered. Last December I bought a Pentax 67-II with

a 90mm lens and the metered prism for $1300...three years ago that would have been

almost double that price. A local shop had a Mamiya 645 kit with four lenses, extra film

inserts, and other stuff for $850...and it say for weeks before somebody bought it.

[rod g.]

It is a camera store Micky. I recently perused old Leica stuff in one of our well known shops and was a little taken back at their used prices. They only had two DS M3 bodies representing M stuff and a tiny selection of R lenses. My kit, including an M3 SS and two lenses cost less in total than their cheapest DS body. This is a store that's devoted a relatively speaking, huge amount of floor space to retailing used photographic equipment. To top it off almost everything they sold used seemed grossly overpriced, on the other hand just try selling them something and it's a different story. Camera stores need to clue in to the fact that they are no longer the only game in town and that consumers are not the sheep of yesteryear! It seems some still haven't got the message yet.

 

The consensus here is about right, much better to hunt the web until you find what you want at a price you can afford. The auction site is no bad thing either as long as you deal with reputable sellers for the big ticket stuff.

[jorn ake]

Anytime you try to trade in, the camera store is going to want something for their time and shelf space, plus they recognize that you are trying to trade them something you don't want for something that you do - a mirror of perhaps the rest of their clientele. And Bronicas also do not maintain their value as well as other medium format cameras. If you are surprised at the limited selection of used cameras and their prices at your local retailer, that situation isn't in spite of Eb@y, it is because of Eb@y. All the good stuff gotten at good prices goes directly to bid where the profit can be maximized.

[john_shriver]

A friend is selling off his MF equipment, and is startled by how much the price (on eBay) has cratered in the last year. I suppose Bronica gear is taking an extra hit, since Bronica is discontinuing all their medium format SLRs, so they are "orphans".

[johnmarkpainter]

You should be able to get an R8 and the macro from www.keh.com for around $1,500 ( I

was shopping around recently)

 

jmp

[Aoresteen]

ebay. Break it down and sell each item by itself. You will do ok.

[dan flanders]

The whole camera sales industry is in flux right now and it is no wonder they wish to avoid acquiring stuff that will just sit on their shelves, and some of them seem to assume that because of Leica's financial situation that they are sitting on a gold mine with their inventory of Leica stuff. On the other hand there is no reason you should take a beating on your stuff just to give them a comfortable margin. You can sell your stuff at auction and most likely get the current fair market value. Your friendly local camera store has probably been bought by a chain and is no longer friendly toward the neighbors. Despite their shortcomings eBay has helped root the good stuff out of the closets and attics and driven the prices to more realistic levels. All you have to do is take on the selling chores yourself instead of paying someone else an exhorbitant margin for doing the same work.

[johnmarkpainter]

Mickey,

 

More gloom and doom for you....I just sold a Fuji GX680 with 150mm lens, Back, 3 inserts,

3 batteries/charger, Polaroid Back, Compendium Shade and Electronic Cable release for

$800!

 

I was selling it for a friend...had it been mine I would have kept it. Saddest thing is he sold

it to buy a Nikon D70. The bright side is that he gets paid to shoot the D70.

 

jmp

[simonpg]

Mickey, while we often have to dig deep into little used gear to fund new gear, I suggest you don't dump the Bronica outfit. MF and 135 formats are not interchangable and you'll only regret it.

[fotografz]

MF prices may have nose dived from a year or two ago, but any desirable Hasselblad piece

I've bid on recently has inspired a feeding frenzy that defies that $ trend ... and goes like

hot cakes... maybe others have discovered what I have (?).

 

Mickey, the R7 is a semi hot item because it was the last version with a lot of functionality

before the "fist full" R8 and R9. The Macro 60/2.8 has always been a desirable choice, and

some R lenses may be holding their own to a small degree because some pros are

adapting them to the big Canon digitals... a phenomenon that has driven the price for

certain Contax SLR lenses through the roof ...( if only I had bought up a dozen Contax 21/

2.8s a couple of years ago). The Contax 35/1.4, that once sold for $1,100. new full retail,

is fetching up to $1,500. on e-bay since Kyocera pulled the plug on Contax production.

 

If I still had a R7 and a Macro, I'd trade you even up and feel ashamed for the con I pulled

on you.

 

Mickey, just keep the gear. There is no substitute for that huge film for many applications.

 

I kept all of my MF gear despite heavy involvement in digital, and recently have returned to

using it for a lot of work. It's now back as a center piece because I love to use it , and I

love the results more than from digital in many cases ... I just scanned a RZ 6X7 image my

wife wanted a big print from using my new Minolta Multi Pro MF scanner. The resulting

300 dpi file @ 100% was a 35"X45", 800 meg tiff after cropping !!! The final print will be

70" X 90" so it will only be a 2X enlargement.<div></div>