interesting, adorama may pay pretty decent for the used equipment. Their initial estimate is just under what I'm asking for on craigslist. They're paying for shipping and insurance to send it to them for a full quote.
even if get their initial quote, I should be able to swing a full kit replacement to Pentax (which is what I'm hoping)
@DLambert if they pay just a lil' more...I'm tempted to not do a full kit replacement (one 50mm 1.4, a 18-55, 55-200, and a flash), but buy the K-5 and a low cost prime then start saving up for a f/2.8 midrange zoom
@EvanKrall ok...why?
ooo...i wonder if i could haggle with store credit
From craigslist
"Hello seller, Good to hear back from you i live in Brooklyn ,N.Y and i will be leaving for the united kingdom in the next 2 days for a rugby coaching course. i want to buy your item for my only son that just traveled to the western part of Africa(Nigeria) to study photography in a university. i will pay you $550 for the item and $150 for the shipping of the item to my son. i will pay you through my paypal account. Please get back to me with your paypal name and paypal email account so that i can make the payment asap.And also if you don't have
@rfusca Lol. You just lost out on a big opportunity, sucker! I actually have been in correspondence with a Prince from Nigeria who wants my help in getting some money out of... Well, I don't really understand all the details, actually, I just know I'm gonna be rich!!! That must be a wealthy country because I'm always getting contacted by Nigerian Princes. Gonna be able to retire by 40 at this rate. Oh yeah!
Nigeria is in, like, Northern Europe, or something like that, right?
So how the hell would a Nigerian prince actually buy anything if he wanted it? Must be a rough life, man. "No, really -- I really am a Nigerian prince!"
Moire Fringe Method
Use Bart van der Wolf's moire fringe method (also explained here and here, and archived here):
It works by exploiting the
interference patterns or moiré between
the R/G/B LCD elements and the
camera's LCD elements when directly
viewed with Life View [sic]. With go...
so, i keep hearing the advice of "dont worry about the camera, spend the money on lenses" ....after owning an entry level and playing with a K-5 at my last astro meeting....i'm just not so sure I agree with it. There's a pretty good value in a decent camera
@rfusca I think it was you the other day that was saying something about in-camera stabilization and how that applied to all of your lenses -- body upgrades are nice that way.
@rfusca Completely agree. My lenses can fit on the most entry-level Canon body, or the most expensive... But the camera body brings a whole lot of features (both convenience and necessary) to the party as well.
I think once you get to the mid-point of the product line, you can really take advantage of higher-end lenses, and at the high-end, it's ridiculous to put a cheap lens on the camera, but there's a lot of overlap in the middle where you want to weigh your use against the equipment.
@DLambert ya, i mean, its great to have an amazing piece of glass on a cheap camera - you still get good pictures. But i always found myself fumbling to change basic settings and I'd miss some shot
When I bought mine, I was looking at used equipment, and for stuff in my price range, Canon was pretty good compared to other stuff. Nikon's really been coming on strong the last few years, though. Canon's due for a little spurt of innovation.
@rfusca I pushed up the saturation a bit more than I normally do (with in-camera raw development) because the inherently bright colors at the playground seem to ask for it. :)
I think part of the justification is that digital allows a lot more latitude with ISO — if you can go up to 250k, it's not as vital to have a fast lens. (Still nice of course!)
Based on the discussions here earlier, I decided to get a Nikon D90. I am looking on sites for used camera. I contacted one person and here is the response I received:
All gear is in mint condition with less than 2500 photo shutter actuations and the D90
body just over 2 years old. The len...
@mattdm I know the question was worded that way, it just never seemed to me as it it had been fully thought-through. This is just another indication that the original question wasn't a simple question at all -- it was the opening to a conversation.
@DLambert That's why I kept the title as I did: I didn't want to rewrite the question, just to capture what they were saying more succinctly. It's still reasonable to contradict the question in the answer. (In fact, it often is the right thing.)
Oh man. It is so nice out here. But I have already taken a two hour lunch.
@rfusca If you feel like getting into the editing business :) making the title "How do I decide if a used camera is offered at a fair price?", and add a "for example" to the specific one.
thanks @rfusca, I have ordered Understanding Exposure, 3rd Edition: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera...so I guess I am on the right track
@user495402 we've got a pretty wide range of people in the hobby/biz too - so don't feel like you're the only beginner - i've only been at it for about 7 months
I find a lot of the Peterson book to be like the triangle explanation: attempting to convey things in a simplified, superficial way, with no real underlying theory or basis. Clearly that's helpful to a lot of people, but doesn't fit my learning style.
It's not just a hate of triangles. It's just not the approach for me. :)
One might argue that you should have the technical basics down first, but as someone (@JayLancePhotography) said in here the other day, you really only have to worry about the technical if your pictures suck. :)
@rfusca This one is pretty much the supreme book on photographic composition...amazing info here. Probably my favorite photography book.
@rfusca I think we can manage him. Handy Andy has apparently been all over the net for quite some time, and still seems to troll other places...but, he gave up on us. Says something about SE.
Based on the discussions here earlier, I decided to get a Nikon D90. I am looking on sites for used camera. I contacted one person and here is the response I received:
All gear is in mint condition with less than 2500 photo shutter actuations and the D90
body just over 2 years old. The len...
If he asked a full equipment recommendation, I think it would have been fine. But just asking about price, about a specific piece of gear, based on a single example from a single site...
@jrista That's an example of a question that could be made much better by restating it. There are different ways to buy "used" equipment, ranging from refurbs to CL to ebay, and being able to evaluate tiers of sellers could be helpful to a buyer.
If one of you guys wants to seed @DLambert's question that he just described, I think that would be valuable.
I kind of agree with @JayLancePhotography there...I think seeding useful questions like that can be very useful, and can help attract more experts to our community.
I'm looking to make some upgrades in the next couple of months (new camera body, new lenses, new tripod); and will no longer be needing some of my equipment (old camera body, some old lenses).
I'd like to sell the stuff I'll no longer be using in order to lessen the economic impact of the new pu...
So, some of what @DLambert mentioned isn't really in either of those two. Such as the differences and nuances of selling to say Adorama, vs. selling via eBay, vs. selling directly to the buyer, etc.
@DLambert's answer on the first covers the "watch out for", but what are the benefits of each type of sale? Are there benefits to selling via Adorama? Are there benefits to selling via eBay?
For example, this Craigslist ad is selling a Nikkor 105mm f/2 D/DC for $800; on the other hand, the same lens is available from KEH for $890 - a discount of about 10% for Craigslist.
What you give up for this $90 price discount is:
return period
(short) warranty
ability to pay with a credit ca...
We've got this incredible body of knowledge accumulated, but it's fractured into all these separate questions. Is that part of the ramp-up time for new users?
""Technique is important only insofar as you must master it in order to communicate what you see... In any case, people think far too much about techniques and not enough about seeing."
—Henri Cartier-Bresson"
2
I don't think a more important statement about photography can be made than that.
@DLambert I promise to shut up soon. But this is why I want to make sure that questions have good titles, and that every title uniquely identifies that question (ie no "How do I get this effect?", let alone "What camera?"), and that questions which are duplicates are marked as such.
@DLambert The search backend actually doesn't — it's mostly based on tags. But titles are what you see when you're skimming through search results. Therefore, it's important for them to be informative.
'get the art right, and the technical will fall into place.' and 'you only have to worry about the technical side of photography if your pictures suck.'
@mattdm I did see that. Thanks for the link. I actually ordered that book a while ago and I haven't had a free moment to do more than flip through it since it came in. I'm hoping I can get a couple days to go through it and inform a relatively comprehensive Miksang answer... If someone doesn't beat me to it, that is. :-)
I've been wanting to start taking photos for a while so I am looking to get a camera.
I don't want to get any kind of Point-And-Shoot.
I was awaiting the coming of the Fuji X100 as I travel very very light and don't really want a full on DSLR.
The reviews seem mixed on it. Lot of good points l...
@mattdm It could be salvaged by trasforming it into a "What are the available options for a camera that is smaller than a DSLR but still a real camera?" type question, as long as we don't already have one of those.
Recently companies like Sony have released relatively compact cameras that use DSLR-like lenses. Two of my friends have a camera like that (They're beginning photographers). I know eight other people who use DSLRs.
I'm not that good right now but I would like to improve in the future — would an ...
@jrista Just weird (weird cool) to get a random Stephen King reference out of left field when I'm actually reading the novella... Not even a full-on novel... Only the 'sorta serious' King fans bother with his short stories. :-)
@mattdm: "have some helpful inform useful" .... ???
@JayLancePhotography Yeah, King is an oddball for sure. I've only read a very few of his stories, and the rest I only know via the movies or TV miniseries.
@JayLancePhotography only if your wife catches you in the dark one night in kitchen holding a secret meeting with them all, plotting world domination....THEN it would be wierd
i can just see Jay sitting at the kitchen table holding a Hitler shaped piece of toast and speaking with a German accent with this deer in headlights look
@JayLancePhotography those lowly 450D people get rounded up and strip searched every once and awhile, while all the 5D'ers eat caviar off plates made of ground Nikon lenses?
Moire Fringe Method
Use Bart van der Wolf's moire fringe method (also explained here and here, and archived here):
It works by exploiting the
interference patterns or moiré between
the R/G/B LCD elements and the
camera's LCD elements when directly
viewed with Life View [sic]. With go...
Based on the discussions here earlier, I decided to get a Nikon D90. I am looking on sites for used camera. I contacted one person and here is the response I received:
All gear is in mint condition with less than 2500 photo shutter actuations and the D90
body just over 2 years old. The len...
For example, this Craigslist ad is selling a Nikkor 105mm f/2 D/DC for $800; on the other hand, the same lens is available from KEH for $890 - a discount of about 10% for Craigslist.
What you give up for this $90 price discount is:
return period
(short) warranty
ability to pay with a credit ca...
I've been wanting to start taking photos for a while so I am looking to get a camera.
I don't want to get any kind of Point-And-Shoot.
I was awaiting the coming of the Fuji X100 as I travel very very light and don't really want a full on DSLR.
The reviews seem mixed on it. Lot of good points l...
