Selling equipment/difficult

[Benjamin Marks]

Ha! LOL - John - no offense taken, and I certainly see how you could come away from my posts with that impression. I tend to walk around only with what I can put in one camera bag (small Domke satchel or a Little Bit Smaller Bag). For a friend's wedding or other big event, I'll pack two bags (a big one and a little one) and use the larger as "home base."

But the part that made me laugh is that I often do spend more time deciding what cameras to take on a trip than I do on deciding which clothes. I can't think of how many times I've said to myself, "A weekend in NY -- I'm taking just one camera and one lens, dammit." I usually wind up with one bag, three cameras, five lenses and a split between either film and digital or 35 and MF. Then most of the gear stays at the place we are staying and a light bag comes out with me for a day. So - No time at all changing lenses in the field, or minimal . . .

But your perspective is definitely the right one. And so the less-used equipment goes.

Ben

 

[tetrisattack]

Ben,

I can guarantee that at least one of your old cameras is still in service.

So you can imagine that there's some sort of post-ownership afterlife for your used gear if it makes it easier to cope with the loss. 😉


C

 

[Gid]

Hey, it sounds like you have enough gear to open a shop🙂

I have an M8 and an R-D1 and find they work well together. Most times, I just take one or other. I've slimmed down my gear significantly over the last three or four months. Having less works for me, but I still struggle sometimes deciding which camera to take - a lot of the time that I take two cameras and a selection of lenses I end up using just the one camera and one lens. One camera and one lens really is liberating. Must sell more gear.

 

[Robert]

I've just bought a new M8 after many months of indecision.
I bought from an Austrian firm Cameramate and saved £430 of the English price of £2990.
All I lose out on is the first year passport. I still have the two year guarantee and will be registered with Leica UK very soon.
I was hoping to sell My Contax G and M6ttl but feel I can't part with them especially with the very lowprices I would get so I will keep these cameras and buy Voigtlander lens like the 28/1.9 and a 16mm.
I don't think my eye would be critical enough to know the difference and the prices are 15-20% less than Leica and 50% less than Zeiss

 

[Benjamin Marks]

Ben,

I can guarantee that at least one of your old cameras is still in service.

So you can imagine that there's some sort of post-ownership afterlife for your used gear if it makes it easier to cope with the loss. 😉


C

Conor - is that the M4-P? I'm embarrassed to say it, but I've forgotten which cam I sold ya! Nice snap, by the way. - What lens?

Ben

 

[swoop]

Hope you enjoy it. I did the same thing recently, putting my entire DSLR setup on sale to get the M8. :bang:

Same here. I got ripped by adorama. But the M8 is an investment for me. Just got a job at a magazine and I'm hoping the digital workflow will go smoother. Also, I work better with a rangefinder than an SLR, so I'm hoping it'll convey my style better. They had no problem with me working with film. Which I still intend to do. But the developing and scanning and touch up process has just been too much of a time eater. Also, I have a crap scanner so the quality suffers.

 

[tetrisattack]

Ben,

The M4-P, of course! I shot that one with a pre-asph summicron 35.

Here's one that'll jog your memory.

C

 

[Benjamin Marks]

Ben,

The M4-P, of course! I shot that one with a pre-asph summicron 35.

Here's one that'll jog your memory.

C

I think it's teriffic that you're out there using the camera. And from the looks of things, using it well.

Hopefully, the current crop of selling items will find homes as good.

Ben

 

[tbarker13]

I sometimes think I have absolutely lost my mind, buying and selling gear during the past year or so. I think I may be addicted to the pursuit of lenses. I keep reading these forums and finding new lenses to try out. So I'll off one lens to buy another. Then sell that one to buy another. And on it goes.
But I am vowing to change my ways. As soon as I acquire a 75 lux, I'm swearing off buying and selling.
Except for the canon 28 f/2.8 that I regret selling. I'll keep searching for one of those.

 

[BillBingham2]

Ben,

I'm cutting way way WAY back myself. I'm keeping both Leica Ms as I got them new, a Nikon S2, a Bessa L or two and two Nikon F2s. I am keeping all the 4x5 stuff from my father, but the my Bessa Ts and other L are going to go, several Nikons have already gone, a newly CLAd Apollo FTn has to go and a few lenses too. I OM-1 and first Nikkormat will be handed down to my sons when they get to high school or there abouts.

It's like sending away friends, never to see them again. I do not mind that for the most part, they are going to very good homes. And a few items I've even made a very good return on them ($11 lens hood brough in $175, $620 lens brough in $1300) which make up for the items I've lost money on (e.g. Nikon F plain prism body).

I have a feeling that this rangefinder niche will continue to grow slowly and ebay or craigs list will be around for quite a while, so there will be product to find. DAG and Sherry will be replaced by other greats now just starting up. If I really need something, I will be able to find it.

Perhaps it's because I work with computers and need a new one very four years or so that I do not feel that attached to them. If push came to shove, I could part with the M6 and one of the F2. While I love built in metering, the M4-P I worked long and hard for.

The M8 is a wonderful camera. I would say keep the Epson as you have a bad weather day body.

B2 (;->

 

[jaapv]

I would hang on to that tele-elmar 135 if I were you. They wont be giving you anything near its value and you will find yourself buying one back for more within a few months.

 

[sepiareverb]

That's how I got into my Leica- traded a huge amount of Nikon SLR lenses and a F100 for it. Kept the F4 bodies- they were too beat up to get anything, and kept the close-up stuff. But I haven't looked back, and haven't shot with the Nikon since.

I too was scared- or something, but went for it. If you think the 8 is for you then go for it. May you be as lucky as I feel!

 

[SolaresLarrave]

On second thought...

There's a line, phrase or underlying idea that annoys me a little in these posts. Do I detect that you just "cannot justify" having so much gear? As in "you cannot afford it"?

Justify having gear? To whom? 😱

Afford it? Do you pay them a monthly check? 😕

Sorry, Ben, but you don't have to justify the stuff to anyone. And you can afford to keep it all. In fact, you can simply buy your M8 without going through the agony of playing God and selecting which pieces go and which ones stay. Phrase it any other way if you want to sell, but don't say that you "cannot justify" having that gear, of that you "cannot afford it." Both lines sound like bad excuses to me.

Mind you... I was in the same boat at one time (and if you search my posts you'll find my "dilemma" back in 2003). A while after purchasing my first Leica M6TTL I noticed it had a light leak. I contacted the seller and he told me to send the camera to DAG. Don worked on it, sent it back and, voilà, the leak was still there. I got despondent, irrational and dumb, and while the camera was in the shop (invoking Don's warranty this time), I went and bought another Leica.

Problem: I only had one lens.

I posed the question i this forum and got a number of replies, many of them leaning heavily to the option of selling one because "I couldn't afford two Leicas." That particular line came to irk me: how come anyone uses it if I don't have any further financial obligations to the camera? And what if I want to keep it? I'll have to go through some lean months or years, but heck, in the end, it's me and nothing but me (fortunately, my wife never has said a word about my camera buying habit).

In the end I chose to keep both cameras. Later I got the Leica repaired in NJ (another story), and slowly built my lens arsenal. Granted, within my current 7 lenses I have two duplicate focal lengths... but I'll never give in and say that I cannot justify keeping them because I don't have to justify anything to anyone.

Now, if you feel you want to sell... go ahead, and enjoy! I did come to sell some of my stuff at one time simply because I wasn't using it and I didn't want it any more. No love lost! 🙂

Have fun shopping for an M8! I'd like to have one now, but I'm so invested in film gear and I have to do so many things that cost money this summer that an M8 is more like a small castle in Spain to me... But hopefully, not for long! 🙂

 

[venchka]

50mm DR Summicron & M8

50mm DR Summicron & M8

If this has already been covered, I apologize.

For reasons known only to Leitz & Kodak, the Dual Range Summicron won't work on the M8. Reason enough to keep the R-D1 or any other M body you may have.

Last year I was buying M bodies from folks who were liquidating film bodies to buy the M8. I still haven't figured out who got the right end of those deals. Perhaps it's a 50-50 thing. I got my first Leica and they got M8's with some of my money.

Hmmmmmmmmm...

 

[John Camp]

I suppose the psychology of this is only interesting to me -- it's basically that of a 17 year old who can't afford the wheels he wants without selling the baseball card collection. Oh and the comics too.

Blue,

Ben

Nobody ever got laid on a baseball card.

Metaphorically, at least, this applies to your old camera gear.😀

JC

 

[ray_g]

I just went through the same thing, Ben. In fact, I am still going through it. Hard to sell excellent examples that you painstakingly acquired over many years. Someone else mentioned the memories - photos made with these.

I didn't sell of my equipment to buy an M8 though. To sell off my stuff WAS my end point. I felt that, not only could the money (and equipment) be put to better use, but that having too much "choice" was getting in the way of my improving in my photography. This was more important to me than the nostalgia and the equipment, I decided in the end. I wanted to keep things simple, so that I could go on and hopefully master the equipment I had decided to stay with.

Don't worry, once you get started, it gets easier.

As I said, "still going through it." I am happy with the RF's I have left. Now I will need to sell the SLR stuff. I find this more difficult - at least with the RF's they were all pretty much either LTM or M mount. My problem with SLR's is that I like the 50mm of one brand, the 85mm of another, and so on.:bang:

 

[Benjamin Marks]

>>Sorry, Ben, but you don't have to justify the stuff to anyone. And you can afford to keep it all. In fact, you can simply buy your M8 without going through the agony of playing God and selecting which pieces go and which ones stay. Phrase it any other way if you want to sell, but don't say that you "cannot justify" having that gear, of that you "cannot afford it." Both lines sound like bad excuses to me.<<

Francisco - I suppose you are right. But it is to myself that I must justify the purchase. You know 1) family, 2) kids, 3) mortgage, 4) food [many other items/obligations] . . .n+30) hobby. Thanks for the booster, but bad excuses and all, I'm buying that M8 and definitely selling some gear. Yeah my posts=self indulgent. However, it is not surprising, given the forum, that several of the responses to this thread tend to show that the basic attachment to tools that have helped make satisfying images; nice to know that I am not the only one.

Ben

Ben

 

[Thomaspin]

A fine exposition

A fine exposition

Ben -

I greatly enjoyed your exposition of the eternal dilemma. The 'what to keep' question.

Over the past 18 months I sold off all my film gear and bought just one DSLR and lens. While sales of old friends were painful, indeed, I justified them on the grounds that it would be a crime to have all those Leicas/Rolleis etc. sitting around unused. Like so many undriven Ferraris.

On the big ticket items, emotionally speaking, I consoled myself that the M2 and M3 went to incredibly loving homes, where they continue to be used regularly.

Yet, for all the trauma, I confess this was the best thing I ever did photographically. Not having to decide what to take - I have a choice of one - is insanely liberating, and you return to basics, taking snaps of this and that despite all the electrons swilling around. Or maybe thanks to them. And while my 'one size fits all' gear approach may not rest well with many, it works for me.

Absence may make the heart grow fonder for the dear departed, but it's human nature to remember the best experiences; all those film jams, all that lens flare, all those blurred pictures .... those we forget as we dwell in self pity and nostalgia. Fun, nevertheless.

 

[Terao]

Nobody ever got laid on a baseball card.

Metaphorically, at least, this applies to your old camera gear.😀

JC

I seem to recall it worked for Brendan Fraser in "Blast from the Past" 🙂

 

[Terao]

Doing the same thing here. Bunch of Nikon SLR gear, a Canon P, my Bessa R2S, 2 or 3 lenses and possibly my Coolscan are all off to the classifieds/eBay.
But then again I just picked up a Chiyoko Super Rokkor 🙂