Ever scored an awesome deal on gear?
As I grow older, I start learning the value of a buck and realize there are things I want in life more than toys. So I started shopping around, for gear that was a pretty good bang for the buck and did something different for me. The way I saw it was instead of spending $1700 on a shiny new nikkor lens (i've got nothing against Nikon btw)..I realized; $1700 could be a month's mortgage payment. Having my own house with a yard, gets so many more points than the lens...IMO.
Well recently I had a bit of good luck of buying gear on ebay. I came across a vivitar 135mm f/2.3 Manual Focus lens. Judging by the specs...it seemed to be an awesome piece of glass that I scooped up dirt cheap ($115)...amazed by it's value; I started looking for more vivitar glass. About 3 weeks after; I saw a $150; 100-400mm f/4.5-6.3 AF lens...figured why not. So I bought it. Genius me; I thought the lens was a manual focus lens. Used it a few times as one; didn't even realized I turned off the internal AF motor on my camera. Bored one evening; I decided to play with it. Realizing then the lens was an AF capable lens. Talk about a DOH moment. AF turned out to be a tad slow; but I couldn't argue the additional range for the price. One downfall though, lens was silver.
As Art always told me, real cameras have to be black. So I kept my new found lens tucked away. Being curious again; I decided to find a silver nikon d50 body to mount that silver lens on. I guess I'm anal about certain things. So I browse around for a few weeks on "the bay" as we frequent bayers call it. I come across a "broken but repairable" Nikon D50 silver. Added it to my watch list. Time comes around, I bid like a nut job for it.
Talk about a win; All said and done $78 shipped. Woohoo I thought, can get the body repaired by nikon & I have a spare body and one to match my weird piece of glass.
USPS slowly delivers my package on wednesday...not paying much mind to a broken body, I toss it up on the shelf in my closet. Figuring I'll get to it when I have not much to do.
After dealing with a crappy day at work, with hectic weather and an inconsiderate DME unit. I come home with not much to do. No one feels like heading out, so I'm stuck home solo. I see the package on the top of my closet looking at me with it's shiny blue USPS label...wanting to be opened. I decided why not... So I open the package.
Physically the camera looks great. Broken plastic around the viewfinder. No worries, Nikon can take care of that. Other than that...body appeared to be in acceptable condition. So I decided to investigate this said damage; of a blown shutter. I throw a battery in; camera starts up normally. Hmm, interesting...
Then I toss on a normal 18-55mm DX lens...Camera takes pictures normally too. But everything appears black. After a quick inspection; turns out the dial was on manual with a setting of 20. Okidoki I said; throw it on auto. Take a picture... "Oh ****; camera works!"... Well i'll be damned, turns out user error.
Paired up with my silver 100-400mm; it looks to be an awesome combo. Heck I thought to myself...I just assembled a cheap plane spotting setup for under $250...with pretty good capabilities.
So now I'm wondering; have any of you guys come across awesome steals on any of your gear...? If so; share a story & thanks for reading mine.
Re: Ever scored an awesome deal on gear?
Camera Body
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In 2001 my old Canon AE1 P http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography...pgrm/index.htm broke down and could not be repaired, I needed a new camera spent ages looking at many including the Nikon F100, Pentax.
None of these cameras could auto focus with a x 2 teleconverter + zoom lens bolted on at F8, F11 or F16, the Canon EOS1V could but the body alone cost close to £3000 ($4,780) there was no way i could justify spending so much on camera body.
Then I saw the Canon EOS 3, saw what features it had and I fell in love. it had all the features the EOS1V had but none of the EOS1V features I would not use, So i bought the EOS 3 and to this day i love it, its the best camera i ever got and gets me photos I only dreamed of in the past, Its brilliant brilliant.
It was an awesome deal as EOS 3 was 2/3rds of the price of EOS1V but had 98% of the features of the EOS1V.
In 2001 there was a digital SLR Canon D30
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http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canond30/
But that was not as good as the EOS 3, the EOS 3 had features which the D30 could only dream of. Even my current cell phone has better camera than the D30, but no camera i have ever used, not even the one in my cell phone can ever match the EOS 3.
Motorwinder
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In 2001 when i got my EOS 3 i wanted the motor winder with it (as i wanted to catch Concorde rapidly on 35mm film), but that winder was another £300 ($480) on top of the price of the camera body.
A few days later looked in a photography magazine and heard Canon had a special offer where they where giving away either a motor winder or a pro spec x 2 teleconverter if you had bought a Canon camera within the last 30 days.
I had and wanted the motor winder so i followed the instructions, sent my warranty card off to Canon and got the motorwinder.
That motor winder + the EOS 3 helped me get photos of Concorde I only dreamed of in the past, It was brilliant and the best photographic deal i ever got in my life.
Other good thing about it was i could use AA batteries, so i could go any where in the world and not worry about running out of batterys as every one sells AAs.
Tripod
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In 2002 i started to get interested in night time photography, but every time i tried to take decent photos they came out blurred so I needed a tripod.
Went to a few local camera shops, one place had a sale and was selling a good tripod for £50 ($70), before the sale it had been $140.
Got my credit card out and bought it. To this day that tripod has allowed the EOS 3 to get the kind of night time photos I dreamed of with out.
Remote control
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Wanted one of these for the EOS 3 to help take photos on the B setting.
Canon where selling theres for $70, on e-bay there was Hong Kong firm selling compatible ones for $20, bought this and it worked.
Its never let me down and is a great bit of kit.
80-400mm zoom
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In 2001 when i got my EOS 3 i wanted a 80-400mm zoom lens (as i wanted to catch Concorde on 35mm film).
Wanted the Canon 100-400mm IS, but could not afford it as it was $2400, saw a Tokina 80-400mm zoom for $1120, that had the same range as the Canon but was half the price.
Got it and again it got photos of Concorde I only dreamed of in the past, It was brilliant and good deal.
28-100mm zoom
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In 2001 when i got my EOS 3 i wanted a 28-100mm standard zoom lens.
Had a look at many and found the Tamrom 28-100mm had the best optics for the best price, it was good deal.
