(no subject)

[miraje]

Fuck. It's decision time boys and girls. I called the local photography place to get an estimate on repairing my camera, and he told me it would probably run about $100 to fix it, but it's $20 just to send it in and get an actual estimate. I can purchase a new body for the camera for around $100 off of Ebay. The interesting thing to note is that I can purchase a complete camera (body and lens, some with other accesories) for between $50 and $80 off of Ebay as well. The cameras just appear to be well used, but still work. Then I could sell my camera body for $20 or so as is and bring the expense down even more.

I could also just do some looking around on the net and fix it myself with a little bit of help from people who know what they're doing. Anyone know someone I could send it to who could fix it for cheaper than $100?

Here's where the real decision comes in. I've been wanting a digital camera for some time now. If I were to sell every camera accessory, lens, filter, body, flash, thing I have seperately on Ebay and somehow managed to get the going rate out of them all, I could make between $175 and $200 total. Since I'm a new seller, I'd probably make no more than $140, but since I got the original camera body and lens for free, I don't think I'd be losing much compared to what I paid for everything else. I can get a decent digital camera for between $180 and $200. I'm not talking about the $800 digital SLRs with all the bells and whistles (although that would be nice). I'm talking about the small Sony Cybershots and Nikon Coolpixes and whatnot. I'll probably greatly miss the ability to do long exposures and to use filters and other fun gadgets, but I'd be saving a hell of a lot of money on developing film that doesn't turn out the way I want. There's a problem with digital cameras, though. They depreciate in value far FAR worse than the manual film stuff I have now. There's no way in hell I could ever sell it for what I buy it for, and I'd have to constistently spend $200-$300 dollars to upgrade to the newer, better cameras every couple of years. My little K1000? Yeah, it'll probably worth the same 5 or 10 years down the road that it is now, and there's always a huge plethora of accessories and parts for it on Ebay.

So, here are my choices:

a) Send my camera body in to be repaired for $100.
b) Buy a new camera body off Ebay for $100 and sell mine for $20.
c) Buy a used, complete camera off Ebay for $50-$80 and sell mine for $20.
d) Fix the damn thing myself.
e) Sell the whole shebang and get a digital camera.

Hm?

Comments

[dvisions.livejournal.com]

I have a Nikon Coolpix 2100 that about 3 friends have told me they want to buy it, but nobody has followed through. If your interested, it's going to the first person with money.

If you can spare the $100 for my digital, you could hold onto your pentax to see if you can fix it yourself, or get a body when you've got a little more money to burn.

[miraje.livejournal.com]

Money's the problem right now, though. That's why I only offered that as an option if I sold everything else. If you still have it three weeks from now, I might be interested in buying it from you. Is 2 megapixel still pretty good quality? I know the new ones on the market are all between 3 and 5, and I think I saw one that was 30.

[dvisions.livejournal.com]

2 mp is bottom of the totem poll. It's good for 4x6's. It'll do larger, but you can tell it's digital for sure.

More people are going for the 3 mp now as a starter unless they are dirt poor. But the res of a 3 mp isn't really that much different than a 2 in terms of print quality.

I used to sell cameras, and I stay very up to date on prices, the good, the bad and the ugly. If you want, I have my number posted somewhere in my journal, and on my site, you can either call me to talk about it, or text message me with your digits, and I can call you and advise you on what might be the best choice as far as doing the digital thing, or what to do with your camera.

[miraje.livejournal.com]

I think I might sit on this for awhile and see if any really good deals pop up anywhere. I also just perused a local site that I like to buy things from, and there's someone selling their Pentax K1000 for $60. That includes a strap, flash, and I assume a lens. I don't really need any of the accessories, but I could always sell them off for a little extra cash. ;)

In the meantime, I'm still going to keep my eyes open for good digital cameras. The 3 and 4 mp cameras could be a little cheaper by the end of the summer. I can also still use my camera if I absolutely have to, even if I am shooting blind.