Good used Photographic gear

[Chucaro]

I was talking with a friend who is very active member in an American bird forum regarding purchasing used cameras and lens for USA.
He recomended to me KEH.com from where him and other members get lens inexcellent condition for very good price.
I just have a look for the used Nikon camera bodies and there are some Nikon D200 in excellent+ condition for U$A 695 and almost new for U$A 100 more .

There are few D80 for about U$A550 or less.

The link is HERE

[dullbird]

Chacaro that site is fantastic......

my next lens in Australian is due to cost me 2,600. if i brought it from there NEW I would save over a 1000

I'm pretty sure its the lens I was saving for

[abaddonxi]

Bought some good s/h medium format gear from them years back.

[Chucaro]

My friend saved U$A 3000 on a Canon 600 f/4 IS

[DeanoH]

Went down the big smoke today and had a look around Cash Converters.
They had a Nikon AF Nikkor 70-300mm, 1:4-5.6 G lens for which they were asking $799. The shop assistant indicated that this was negotiable.
Kayes birthday is coming up shortly and a 'bird' lens would make a good present. She has already has an AF-S Nikkor18-135mm, 1:3.5-5.6 G ED Nikon DX lens on her D80 and I thought this might be suitable.
They also had a D100 body in immaculate condition with soft carry bag and Pelican case for $899 which I thought was a bit expensive for a 6Mp camera.

Followed Chucaros link to KEH which was excellent, but are these $USD relevant to the Aus market? Cash Converters have 3 months warranty which seems more than fair on second hand goods.

Any thoughts or suggestions as I'm not really familiar with the second hand camera market ?

Deano

[Chucaro]

Went down the big smoke today and had a look around Cash Converters.
They had a Nikon AF Nikkor 70-300mm, 1:4-5.6 G lens for which they were asking $799. The shop assistant indicated that this was negotiable.
Kayes birthday is coming up shortly and a 'bird' lens would make a good present. She has already has an AF-S Nikkor18-135mm, 1:3.5-5.6 G ED Nikon DX lens on her D80 and I thought this might be suitable.
They also had a D100 body in immaculate condition with soft carry bag and Pelican case for $899 which I thought was a bit expensive for a 6Mp camera.

Followed Chucaros link to KEH which was excellent, but are these $USD relevant to the Aus market? Cash Converters have 3 months warranty which seems more than fair on second hand goods.

Any thoughts or suggestions as I'm not really familiar with the second hand camera market ?

Deano

forget about Cash converters, What they are asking for a D100 is the money that you pay for a D200!!
Have a look THIS link and look what it is in offer in all the locations.

A Nikon D200 with less than 8000 shots is a very good deal for about $ 900
The lens is way to expensive as well

[DeanoH]

Thanks Chucaro

Guess I got a bit ahead of myself. Had a look on e-bay and theres VRII 70-300's for around $700 from Hong Kong which is within budget. The issue here is warranty and reliability of vendor.

Looked at the site you suggested and came up with this.............

Nikon 70-300mm f/4-5.6D ED AF-D
In mint condition both body & glass elements Comes with Hood, Rear & Front Cap Much better quality with ED lens & metal mount compared to cheaper Nikon 70-300G (without aperture ring ... $250.00

A bit different to the Cash Converters option. Talk about variation in price. Looks too cheap even. Makes it a bit hard when you're not in the know. I find sorting out the alphabet soup that goes with the lens description makes it difficult for me to compare lenses.

One of the reasons I liked the D100 was battery compatability with the D80, and it had the extra battery pack. I thought perhaps put the 18-135mm lens on the D100 for general photography and the 70-300 on the D80 for bird photos. Don't know if I can stretch to a D200, which also uses EN-EL3 batteries, and a lens, but if the above can be got for $250 who knows. I'll keep looking.

Thanks again

Deano

[Chucaro]

Very careful with lens and bird photography if you are going to take serious your hobby!
1) bird photography is adictive, it is like hunting but without the kill
2) It is expensive because requieres good long reach glass. Cheap lens are not good, they are soft @ maximun focal lens and slow in aperture.
3) You need in the future a good flush with abooster to be able to have the light on the side of the bird
The Nikkor 70-300 it is way too soft at 300.

If you go on the Nikon way and have a D80 on hand, forget about new body and save for the excellent 300mm f/4 for under $2000 or used for about $900

If you do not have heps of money to invest in the future and like to do bird photography with a VR or IS lens go Canon way with a used 40D and the excellent Canon 300 f/4 IS ( The Nikon it is not a VR)
The advantages of a IS, VR or OS is that you can bring down the shutter speed and therefore take the shots with limited natural light.
Photography with harsh light it is not good, loose details and colors.

Other option is keep the Nikon and use couple of the Sigma lens which are reasonable good.

I do quite a bit of bird photography with one keepr in 200 shots if I am lucky.

Here are 2 examples of bird photography with a cheap lens.
The first is a Ple Head Rosella to be able to take the shot I have to use f/5.6 and SS of 1/250. The shutter speed it is low for hand held shot and the F/5.6 is not good for a cheap lens which was what kill this shot
Result: Image too soft. Not aceptable
Second shot it is a Blue Faced Honeyeater
Aperture @ f/9, much better shot! But can be better at high shutter speed
If you like excelence good glass and tripod are the only way to go

[DeanoH]

1) bird photography is adictive, it is like hunting but without the kill

Yoy're right about it being addictive, but for me the kill is when you can get something like this with a camera like the Coolpix 5700.



But the frustration comes with the lack of sharpness. At first I thought it was just me. No tripod, not braced properly, too slow a shutter speed and all the other things you can mess up when taking photos. My mum used to say 'a bad workman blames his tools' so to give Kaye a fighting chance when she started to get serious about her photography I bought her a Nikon 35mm camera when the Pentax M series died. Graduated from there to the Coolpix 5700 ($2k when new) and from there to the D80 (also $2k when new). So whilst its can be an expensive hobby, there is nothing more frustrating than working with second rate equipment regardless of what you do. But also very rewarding when you get that 'killer' shot.

What's funny now is that we tend to 'fight' for the 'good' camera and compete to see who can get the best photos.

Yesterday I thought I would try and take a "Spring" photo for the competition. This pair of Eastern Rosellas had been flitting around but can be difficult to photograph as the are quite timid. Finally got a sequence of shots late in the day that I thought would be OK.



D80 / 135mm / f5.6 / 1/125 sec. / ISO 400

I was very disapointed. Slow shutter speed I know but I was hard braced in the doorway and expected better. The time has come I said to buy SWMBO a new lens for her birthday and perhaps a good tripod too (and just perhaps she'll let me borrow them sometimes).

I used to be a fairly avid photographer many years ago. Had an old Exacta and a 35mm Voitlander and then graduated to Pentax; a Spotmatic F and then M series. As I lost interest Kaye developed an interest and is now an avid photographer. Now that I've retired I plan on getting more involved.

I like the idea of image stabilisation as we travel and walk a lot and carying a tripod is not always practical, though I suppose a unipod could double as a walking stick. I take your point about the Canon setup and agree with your logic here. Personally I find the Nikons engineering excellent but the ergonomics and menu system apalling. I reckon I'd have Buckleys of getting Kaye to change from Nikon to Canon and to have one of each.......................what a mess.

One problem we do have with the Nikon(s) is dust ingress. Impossible to keep out in the outback and expensive to send cameras back to Nikon to clean. This is one reason why I wanted a separate 'bird' camera to minimise dust ingress with lens change.

Pentax advertise a 'dustproof' camera, K7 or K10 I think but I don't know much about modern Pentax's. Have to do a bit of surfing. Could possibly justify change here due to dust issues any comment ?

I take your point about photos you discard. We usually do a bird callendar instead of Christmas cards. Last year we didn't do one, though we had several hundred new bird photos. We didn't have twelve good enough. There is no harsher critic than the photographer.

Thanks again Chucaro for your input, much appreciated.

Deano

[SteelNerve]

The rule of thumb is to not exceed the shutter speed by the focal length. i.e.
200mm = 1/250s
if you have
200mm = 1/125s you will most likely get blur from hand movement. You then need a tripod for this combo to work successfully.

And the Coolpix 5700, I'm sorry I had one, it was the most frustrating camera I have ever owned. It would not focus in a screaming fit. Yes it was professionally checked out twice. I had about a 20% success rate for clear images.