okay here go my experiences so far: grandseller is not really recommendable, as he for one uses generic pictures, and you cannot judge the quality of the offered item. apart from that, i once bought a fed-2 from him, but he delivered one with a different serial number, reasoning that i had paid rather late (true) and that he had sold the advertised camera to someone else. no problem here, except that the camera which i received did not have a working rewind lever, the take-up spool was jammed and therefore i had to extract the film manually after shooting the pictures (go figure). the best part was that i found a letter of complaint from the previous buyer still inside the package! haha, but i decided to leave it at that and buy a new one.
then, i bought a zorki 4 (first type) from someone else (but i do not remember from whom) whose finder is blurry. other than that, the camera seems fine, but i will consider mailing it to famous repairman oleg for a complete overhaul.
lens wise, i have had good experiences: i bought so far two jupiter-12, two jupiter-08, and two industar-61 l/d, all in very good or excellent condition and as described on ebay.
confdntart, kassiapeya, alex-photo, nago60ru are fine in my book. redjoe is too pricey for my taste, but his pictures | presentations are awesome. delivery sometimes is slow (i am in germany), but communication works well with all the gals | guys, they are responsive and informative in regard to questions.
i normally ask before bidding or buying instantly, and depending on the replies i decide for or against a purchase. just today, i received a cool soviet polarization filter for my jupiter-12 lens from netsend_uk. good condition, will let the local ophtalmologist clean the filter and then it should be nice.
polarization filter
i also bought a zorki 4 k with cyrillic inscription from ruscamera, and anxiously await its delivery, yay!
zorki 4 k
the best thing however, was an image manipulation | ebay con attempt that i stumbled over yesterday evening, see attached picture. it was a fed-5 that the guy sold, together with a so-called star-6 lens that i had never heard of (and for good reason). i googled, but did not find anything, until i noticed that the picture had been postworked (i highlighted the two areas). the company logo was removed and industar was shortened to star. unfortunately, i did not bookmark the auction, otherwise i would have linked to it -- it either already ended or he took it down. i just wonder what kind of lens this really is.
so much from me.
