Buying Cameras
in Japanese Shops
Buying Cameras in
Singapore (street prices..)
Avoiding
Pitfalls when Buying Equipment
There are four main sources for buying camera and photo equipment
online:
The first step is so obvious that you will probably omit it. Do your
homework!
Start out by envisioning what you really need (film) and want
(everything else). Now make a written list. For example, I would like to
get more lenses for my Nikons. Should I get AF, AIS, AI, or non-AI
lenses? Nikkors only, or high quality third party? Faster or slower
f/ratios? Super-range zoom, multiple zooms, or single focal length
lenses? Which lenses should I buy first?
You may even decide to be inconsistent when you have a good reason to do
so. For example, I decided to buy Nikkors when the price difference was
only $100 more than a used third party lens. So for the really wide
(21mm vivitar) and long (500mm mirror) lenses, I opted for third party
lenses. I have gone for faster wide angle lenses, but slower telephotos
and zooms. With this listing of my reasoning in hand, I can make cooler
headed decisions and know why I should wait for the desired items on my
list.
Do the same for your darkroom and film needs, your fantasy medium format
or view camera setup, and that decent tripod you keep meaning to buy.
Rank the items by your own priorities, but consider their overall impact
on your photography. For example, I suddenly realized that I really did
need a faster normal lens than my two-stops slower macro normal lens to
do available light photography. Until I did this review, I didn't realize
how much I was missing. So now I have two normal lenses, one for
macrophotography and the other for available light work. Now that I am
shooting a lot more night photographs, I suddenly need a better CDS light
meter. Be alert to such side effects too, and factor them into your
updated listings.
Take into account how much you have to spend. Using your prioritized
listing, and ballpark cost ranges, list out what you can probably afford
to buy in the next six months and again over twelve months. These
listings aren't iron-clad. Chances are you will make many changes in your
priorities over the next year, depending on what bargains you run into.
For example, I found a Bronica S2 camera with extra 200mm lens for only
$250 and a 4x5 monorail view camera for under $150. Both purchases have
altered my priorities radically, and new listings had to be drawn up
accordingly. But I continue to peruse listing of nikon lenses in the
hopes of finding bargains to fill out my wish-list. On the other hand, I
have gotten all the tripods and strobes I need for now, and that 500mm
f/8 lens I always wanted too. So your wish list will be a dynamic
listing, reflecting your latest purchases and changing directions as a
photographer.
Now prioritize and cluster your items. If you decide to get a used 4x5
view camera, you will need to consider buying the related items you will
need to make it work sooner rather than later. That is what I mean by
considering clusters of items. For example, I am working towards a
darkroom setup, but use the one at school for now. So a darkroom item
has to be very cheap for me to buy it now, over a higher priority item
like a 4x5 polaroid holder or tripod. Conversely, I suddenly have new
high priority items such as film holders and a loupe for view camera work
to buy. These items are more needed than a 200mm telephoto that I can
cover for now using my 85-250 nikkor zoom.
Now you have a starting point to begin pricing out your desired items.
Check to see if your library has a copy of McBrooms latest
camera pricing guides. Use these guides to develop ball-park ranges for
what you want to buy. You can also develop your own pricing guide by
looking in Shutterbug ads (online) or reviewing some of the larger
camera dealers listings online. You will use these pricing guides to
identify real bargains from lesser buys generally being offered by
dealers.
Personally, I find these steps to be interactive. Sure, I want the
faster f/1.4 version of the 35mm, but is it worth twice as much money to
me? Maybe I will buy the cheaper and faster 50mm f/1.4 for available
light, and be happy with the 35mm f/2 for now. Yes, the 105mm f/2.5 is
ideal for portraits, but the highly rated Vivitar 100mm lens at the same
used price offers great macro capability too. In the end, you should
have a listing of lenses or other photo items with a reason of why you
want each. Develop a price range for each item in various cosmetic
conditions. Such a listing should be prioritized in a logical order,
such as alternating buys of wide and telephoto lenses. Ask yourself
which you would buy if you only had $X to spend right now. Now assuming
you have bought that item, which one would be the next one to get?
Now you are ready to seriously review the online individual ads, auction
listings, rec.photo groups, and camera dealers offerings. Take great
care to review each dealers rating system, as not all use the same
standards. One dealer rates items as EX in their ads when their
definition of EX would equate to a 7- in most other dealer ratings. So
don't be misled into thinking the dealer ratings are the same. Read the
fine print!
However, I will say that I have found most dealers substantially
under-rate the condition of their items. They want you to be
pleasantly surprised when you get the item. Conversely, most individual
sellers have no idea how to rate their items. They do so with nostalgia
and optimistically over-rate their equipments condition. Similarly, most
dealers provide faster service and better warranties than the average
individual seller. Few individuals take credit cards or have 800
numbers. So I prefer to buy from dealers even at a somewhat higher price
than individual sellers for these many reasons. If you are an
individual, the usual expectation and rule of thumb is that you have to
reduce your prices by at least 20% relative to a dealer for the same
condition items to make it worthwhile to take these extra risks for most
buyers.
You can always trade off time versus money. Prices vary over a wide
range, so you can eventually find items at the lower end of their selling
range if you look long and far enough. The WWW helps a lot, because you
can look very far and wide for ads by individuals and dealers online.
Auctions online give you the chance to get items at bargain prices. But
you have to know and recognize a bargain for what it is and also avoid
the overpriced junk being offered too. That is why it is critical to
have your shopping list and price ranges drawn up in advance.
Online Auctions
Some 95% of online auctions feature only twenty or fewer photo items.
Most of the action is on the handful of larger auction outlets such as
EBAY (http://www.ebay.com/). Auctions offer a wide variety of photo
equipment for sale by both individuals and photo-dealers. Since these
same dealers also peruse these ads, your chances of getting a super-buy
on a mint camera are limited. Individuals without a used camera pricing
guide in hand, such as McKeown or McBroom,
are at a disadvantage too.
EBAY is one of the largest online auctions, with roughly a thousand photo
items offered for sale at any one time. Most EBAY items are sold to the
highest bidder after a week of being online. In other words, you have to
check these listings at least weekly, or you will miss out on many items.
Actually, it is worse than that, as many sellers opt to short-list their
items for a 3-day or 5-day sale period. In practice, you may need to zip
through these listings almost daily to catch these short-listed items.
EBAY offers a lazy persons way to review photo sales items, by featuring
the "ending today" auction listings. Items on the "ending today" list
will be sold within the next 24 hours. Many lazy bidders just review
this one listing and make their final bids. This approach means most hot
items jump up in price during the last 24 hours of the auction, usually
by 100 per cent or more. In the excitement of online auction bidding,
with you have been OUTBID!!! messages egging you on, it is easy to
end up paying much more than an item is really worth.
I find several disturbing trends in EBAY and other online auctions. Many
sellers place a secret reserve price on their item. If the final
bidding price is below this price, they simply refuse to sell to the
highest bidder. Then they relist their item for auction again, using the
convenient links provided for this purpose. Eventually, they are sure to
get a bidder for their item who will pay the higher reserve price to get
the item. Over time, more and more of the same overpriced items are being
offered for sale at higher and higher prices.
A second problem is the prevalence of broken down junk being offered for
sale. Many items are sold for prices that only near mint condition would
justify. But the item descriptions list many expensive to fix problems,
sometimes downplayed, which should dramatically lower the price of the
item. Not all of this junk is from dealers, but these online auctions do
offer a way to clear out problem or non-working items. Many items are
described as working and so on, but then the seller says the item is sold
AS-IS. Which is it - as described, or as it is and may not be
working? The bidders are at a great disadvantage, as many items are not
shown, so description is all they can go on.
This latter point explains why I suggest that you review the new items as
well as the ending today item listings. If you see an interesting
new item being listed, email the seller with your questions. Ask about
specifics, condition, and functioning of the item. Those bidders who
wait until the last day give up this option, there being too little time
to email the seller for details and more information.
So what are these online auctions really good for? I suggest you will
find bargains, often below half the cost for similar items from a
dealer. The more unusual the item, the better the buy you might expect.
At the low end, many darkroom and off-brand lenses sell for half or less
of prices for similar used equipment. At the high end, package deals may
sell for much less too. But beware the near mint collectible or current
model cameras, as these often sell used for much more than condition and
rarity would normally justify.
Many filters and strobes end up costing more to ship than to buy. Be
sure to check for such a got-cha, as I have seen sellers specify
that the winning bidder shall pay $8 or $10 or even $15 to ship modest
sized items. I have paid $10 to ship a 6x9 slide projector that sold for
under $4 where I was the only bidder. Remember that you may be able to
buy similar items at a local camera show and avoid having to shell out $5
to ship every item. Factor in the shipping costs to your calculations to
ensure you want to pay the full price of the item including shipping.
REC.PHOTO
The various rec.photo groups are great places to lurk and learn, with the
chance to pick up the odd-item at sometimes bargain prices. However, my
experiences are that these groups have a heavy component of professional
photographers dealing with other dealers and professionals. Many of the
items offered here by professional photographers are much more heavily
used than similar amateur owned equipment, even if the brands and prices
are nearly the same. In other words, prices are often fair but you will
rarely find amazing bargains. On the other hand, folks who offer their
used items at more than new prices often get the message that they are
wildly overpriced in rapid and often sarcastic messages. You may find
some relative buys in superfast lenses or specialty photo items at the
high-end, but you have to respond quickly!
You will also see items offered repeatedly by the same individuals, often
at weekly intervals, usually with slight declines in prices. Sometimes
you will find real buys buried in listings of items that may extend for
ten or more screens in some messages. I am always glad and amazed to
discover these folks who have even more photo junk than I do! Other
individuals are clearly borderline businesses offering closeouts on their
older used professional gear. Some camera stores and dealers
inadvertently violate the rec.photo group charters by posting blatantly
commercial ads on these groups, usually resulting in many irate
counter-postings.
One of the uses for these groups is WTB or wanted to buy listings. Since
so many professionals and dealers are on these lists, you are much more
likely to find a seller for that odd wide angle medium format camera you
have than on any other source. Conversely, you will find many such
messages cluttering up these listings. In my experience, these listings
are great for getting semi-professional equipment, especially medium
format and large format items, as well as high quality lenses and light
meters at fair prices. I have also gotten a lot of accessories very
inexpensively, such as filters and adapters, from some of those ten
screen long listings posted by various semi-professionals to clear out
their dust gathering collections.
You will also find pointers to information sites and resources, plus lots
of information that you will need and use over time. With experience,
you will quickly come to skip the many threads of arguments over Canon
vs. Nikon questions, and find the meaty nuggets of information that
makes it so worthwhile to monitor these lists.
Camera Dealers Online
Thanks to J. Albro and YAHOO, you can readily get listings of over a
hundred camera stores online. It is barely possible to visit all of them
in a long evening, if you have a fast network connection. Using
bookmarks, you can build a listing of links to your selected hot spot
sites. Note that netscape and other browsers make it easy to convert
these bookmarks into HTML page listings that you can just jump too. Once
you have the preliminary listings in place, you can revisit and add to
these listings at a more leisurely pace. I find it useful to do another
grand tour every month, as well as checking for new listings.
I break up camera dealers into four mental categories. Some dealers have
great prices on generally available items. Others have items that are
hard to find for my various older camera systems. Finally, some are
useful for items like buying film. The last group is a catchall, into
which I put everybody from manufacturers outlets to specialty items and
magazines and books. For example, I located the foreign source for $100
Kiev prisms with Hasselblad 500 c/m body mounts online. A bibliofind
site locates Ansel Adams books I want that are now out of print by
scanning hundreds of used book store inventories online.
Taken together, you can get practically anything you want new or used
from online sites.
Individual Ads
Individual ads are probably the greatest bargains but highest risk
transactions on the WWW. You suddenly have access to online versions of
newspaper ads and bargain sheets from places like California to Utah.
One such resource alone (recycler.com) provides some five hundred or more
photography related listings at any given time. These listings run the
gamut from overpriced used systems being offered by professional
photographers to raving bargains by photography dropouts and estate
sales. In short, if you are looking for major bargains on packages
including a camera, you need to monitor these listings.
Individual ads are rarely placed for accessories, although I have bought
a few from these ads (e.g., three 67mm polarizers for $7 each used by
somebody in a darkroom, I kid you not). The big sellers are lenses and
camera bodies, with a bit of darkroom items on the side. The real
bargains are in packages. Unlike professionals or camera stores,
individuals want to sell you the whole package. They don't want to be
stuck with a 200mm lens for a Bronica and have to find a very rare buyer
for such a single item. So you will often get entire packages for prices
that are little more than the cost of the individual body and normal
lens. If you don't have these accessories, you will get them for
virtually nothing as part of the package.
Dealing with individuals has its perils. Mail-order fraud is a
possibility, but relatively remote one. More likely, you may have to
wait for weeks to get delivery of your item. Money orders and a request
for fast shipment, along with paying for shipment, can help prevent
delays. Use of the U.S. mails, especially for delivery, helps invoke
U.S. mail fraud inspector protections. Check out the escrow agents
listing on Ebay (http://www.ebay.com) who serve as brokers providing a
short checkout period with return privileges. Be sure to send enough extra
money for shipping so that the items are sent insured for full value.
Out of maybe fifty packages this year, one arrived with a damaged camera
resulting in a claim. The amount at stake is more than the cost of
shipping the other fifty packages, so the insurance monies are definitely
worthwhile!
As noted above, individuals are usually unable to properly evaluate the
condition of their equipment. Many times they aren't the original
purchaser, as in irate former spouse divorce sales or estate sales.
Often they can only tell you the cosmetic condition of the equipment in
vague terms. Try to get a return privilege if you can. In general, the
overall bargains being offered are acquired at the significantly greater
risk of getting a camera that is not working as expected or advertised.
But when an ad offers a "hasslebad 500 centimeter" camera, you can't
expect a lot of on-site expertise, now can you?
Conclusions
End of Page
Broken Links:
was at http://photo.net/photo/japan-buying.html - for "Buying a Camera in Japan" from Philip Greenspunwas at http://photo.net/photo/where-to-buy.html for "Where to Buy a Camera" by Philip Greenspun