What is an old camera worth?

I sell cameras and photography equipment. Mostly on eBay these days since I closed my retail store in 2007. I occasionally have vintage and collectable cameras available. They’re usually from a client for whom I’m selling on consignment or cameras I pick up in my dealings. Once in a while, I go into my own collection and offer up one of my own cameras. I never really want to sell out of my collection but I’ll decide to see what I can get for a piece and if the price is right, I’ll part with the item.

I recently put a cool little camera on eBay. It’s a Pentax Auto 110 Super SLR camera. Pentax made this camera in 1982 and it was an interchangable lens SLR camera that was miniature and took 110 ‘Instamatic’ cartridge film. Pentax made an entire system of lenses and accessories for this camera. At the time most of us who worked in the camera business thought it was a joke but it was impressive how technically advanced the camera was for its size and price.

So it’s 2009 and I’m going through a cabinet and there it is, a pristine Pentax Auto 110 Super with its basic lens. I wonder what it’s worth? Looking at my reference books, magazines and the Internet I draw the conclusion it could be a desirable camera to a collector. Not only a camera collector but someone interested in miniatures or industrial design. OK, up it goes on eBay. I often utilize an eBay feature called ‘Make an Offer’. It lets me set a desired price and give buyers the chance to make their best offer on the item. I put the Pentax up for $249.00. Within 2 days I get this email.

Dear traderjims,

$249 ? are you out of your mind !

Don’t insult and don’t get insulted

This is hardly the first time I’ve been challenged about an asking price. And this was nicely worded compared to other comments I’ve heard. Of course, the knee jerk reacion is to fire back something like ‘mind your own business’ but for two reasons, I suppress the urge to do that. First, this is someone who took an interest in the camera and perhaps can become an ally and a future client. Second, I can answer the challenge in a manner that doesn’t express conflict. In this case, here was my answer.

“Fair question. I have always been amazed at how much someone is willing to pay for something they want. I have no urgent need to sell this item. It is a pristine example of a special piece of photographica. If someone is'nuts' enough to make me an offer on it then I can use the money. To sell it for 50.00 or 100.00? Why? It's too cool! You can ask, why pay thousands for a faceted shiny rock that has the sweat & blood of oppressed people on it that is worth half of what you bought it for after you've paid for it?
Because it means something to someone who always dreamed of wearing a diamond. It's all perception my friend. You've inspired my next blog entry.
Thank you. Jim

-traderjims”

And so he did. Please know that the line about diamond miners seems a bit self-rightious to me on re-read but, I’m sharing so forgive me.

And my new friend’s reply?

“Dear traderjims,

that was great ! and good luck to you.”

I’m not trying to rip anyone off. It’s wrong and not good for business. When I sell anything new or common, I try to have the lowest price. When I sell on consignment, I often have to bow to the demands of my client and try to get a price that isn’t realistic. I always feel though, I ask a price. I’m not demanding and certainly it is the buyer’s choice to buy, make an offer or move on.

I had been planning to write about what I feel is the proper way to ‘Make an Offer’ on eBay. I put something on eBay for say $29.00 and I receive offers of $1.00. I’ll follow up soon about how that kind of situation is handled.

Color correction. Pre vs. Post. Filters vs. Photoshop

There is an old adage in photography that if you get the exposure right when you take the shot, the image will have a quality you’ll never achieve trying to create it afterwards, in the old days in the darkroom, these days using an image editing application i.e. Photoshop.

What is a good photograph?

A good photo is first and foremost subject. How the subject is framed within the rectangle that is the photograph is the image’s composition. How the subject is lit supplies the character. The tonal and color quality completes the story by bringing the subject into the viewer’s eye in the most satisfying manner.

I think it’s fair to say that we have all become somewhat reliant on letting the camera do all the ‘thinking’ for us in regards to exposure. Cameras do a hell of a good job too. My newest camera, the Nikon D300 is phenomenal in how it reads a scene and delivers a superb exposure. However, a recent assignment showed me how much variation could occur over the course of shoot as I went back and forth between low and high ISO settings, flash and ambient light changes and the variety of skin tones of the people who were my subjects. I spent an enormous amount of time leveling out the 300 plus photos of the event. They all looked fine as individual photos but as a set of images, I couldn’t show them to my client without tightening the consistency.

Last week I had a personal shoot where I went back to the most basic form of photography I know. I set the camera’s ISO to 400. I set the white balance to daylight. I set the exposure mode to manual. I used color correction filters for the first time in years. I am a fan of the basic UV filter for lens protection. The polarizing filter has always stayed in my kit too, as well as a few others of the standards. What I experienced in using the correction filters though was a consistency of quality that resulted in my being able to enjoy the photos with no tweaking post shoot in Photoshop.

Color correction filters

These filters are subtle in what they do. I’m not talking about color conversion filters, the type that compensate for the lighting conditions compared to the color setting (or type of film) in the camera. A correction filter adds a quality to the exposure. It can be a slight warming up or cooling down of the color. It can be an enhancement of a part of the color spectrum such as red or green intensifiers. There are filters that help to even out skin tones and decrease the harshness of flash highlights.

What I saw was that by capturing the image with the quality optimized as it was being taken made for a better image. The benefit of not spending five to fifteen minutes with each image in Photoshop was cool too.

Some things never change

My exercise also satisfied me in that it’s nice to know that all I gleaned in school and by learning photography through hard knocks still has validity in these days of evaluative metering systems, face detection focusing and now even where the camera will tell you when someone blinked when you took the shot.

I began by saying a good photo is subject. The great thing about taking photos with highly advanced cameras these days is, you get more of ‘good results’. If what you took a picture of was interesting, chances are you’ll have a photo you and others will enjoy. However, it is when you get back to controlling what’s going to result when you make an exposure that brings you to the level where you’re master of the art and you can always anticipate how your image will look. The practice of doing this will result in your being able to give yourself over to the technology because a synergy will develop where you’ll know how to interface with the camera so that you get as close to the desired result as you can while still taking advantage of what your state of the are camera has to offer.

I have many friends and clients who turn to film cameras to experience ‘real photography’. I understand the allure. I recently ran a few rolls of film through a Nikon F5 I have and honestly, at first I forgot not only how to load the camera (and it’s auto-loading) and was perplexed for a moment when the camera stopped working…after 36 pictures! Now, there is a quality about film that is unique unto itself. I wrote of this in a previous blog entry. But whether it be film or digital…or oil painting for that matter, subject, composition, lighting and tonal quality make an image work. Playing with the light in real life is the way to go. It’ll show in your work.

What can a digital SLR do a compact camera can’t? And vice versa.

Digital SLR cameras are really affordable now. When you’re buying a camera it is again like the days when 35mm cameras were sold. You would buy a camera based on your needs. When I had my store a customer would come in looking to buy a camera and ask me to make a suggestion. One of the questions I’d ask them was what was more important to them, portability or versatility.


What you're committing to

An SLR is a bigger camera that can be easily adapted to be what you need for your particular interest. It can take lenses that can be extremely wide angle all the way through to powerful telephotos. An SLR can use accessory flashes that can give a better quality of light and can be powerful enough to light up a large room. An SLR can be built up into a system that you can put together to do the kind of photography you want to do. The SLR is a larger camera and a system can fill up a camera bag. It can be a lot to carry but as I said in my last article, for me having my camera with me is my way of enjoying what I’m doing. I don’t consider it a burden at all.

What's better about an SLR?

One thing all the manufacturers craft their SLRs to do is be very responsive to a photographer’s commands. They typically do not ‘lag’ when you take a picture as many compact digital cameras do. They allow their user to take control of how they work. Where most compacts are used completely automatically, SLRs are at their best when you control them to work with the parameters set for what your taking pictures of. An example I’ll give you is that usually a compact taking a portrait will take a picture that’s sharp throughout, both the subject and the background. With an SLR you can more easily make sure the subject is sharp and the background is thrown out of focus so it’s not distracting. Photography is a technical art. There are techniques you can learn to make your photos look really professional but you need a camera you can apply these techniques to. An SLR is such a camera.

Another benefit to an SLR is since it has the architecture to house more technology, the sensor that captures the image can be larger and therefore grab more light, which means more detail in the photo. The lenses can be designed for performance as opposed to being designed to be as small as possible.

Does price matter?

Every SLR can enhance your photography. There is nothing an inexpensive SLR can’t do as far as taking a picture goes. As they get more expensive they merely get more performance and are built for more use. As an example using the Nikon line. The under $500.00 Nikon D40 takes as good a photo as a $5000.00 D3. What the D3 gives for the price is it captures the image in a bigger file and on a larger sensor. Its also built like a tank because a D3 could find itself in a war zone or traveling with its owner around the world every day. The resulting picture will be no better though because that’s still the result of the photographer’s eye.

Now…what about the compact digital?

I have to admit, if I take 100 photos, 80-90 of them I take with a compact camera. My little Canon Powershot Elph has taken THOUSANDS of photos in the two years I’ve had it. They’re mostly snapshots of my family but these are the pictures that mean the most to me. That little camera goes almost everywhere with me. It even has its place in my SLR camera bag so when I travel and there’s a day when I don’t want to haul the bag, I have the ability to still take great photos.

The same rule applies to a compact digital as it does to a low price SLR. The photographer makes a photo great. The only thing you have to deal with is to understand the limitations of the camera. The more you know what it can do, the greater the chance you can take a picture you’ll include with your best work.

why blog, why now?

I have had an interest in cameras and photography for 37 years. I've been a photographer. I've sold cameras and taught photography to hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. I own cameras...a LOT of cameras. Too many! I love how they're made, the better ones I mean. I owned a camera store for 23 years. I closed it in 2007.
I'm attending a meeting to improve my skills in selling on the internet and on eBay. What impresses me are the people selling on the net who like talking to those with like interests and use blogs to do so. I'm told it helps with sales and creates relationships. This is what I did in my camera store for years. I know much about photography and camera equipment. Not everything but it is my forte. I have spoken to people who've said I communicate how much I enjoy photography in a special way. If I do, I'll try expressing it here. I'm gonna blog my way through it.