[ripit]

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I bid and won an LX FA1 finder having stumbled on it with 20s to go. I'd bid before reading the comment that it was for parts only and won with a $15 bid - for a prism and both halves of its casing (no diopter adjustment mechanism or screws). Still might come in handy on day though.

On the other hand I also stumbled upon a lens described as 'Takumar 49mm lens', turned out it was an SMC-Tak 50/1.4 with a 49mm filter thread - it's now sitting in my SP bag courtesy of a low winning bid.

The 70-210mm ver 2 that I got was described as a 62mm vivitar lens. It had 1 slightly blurry pic. The seller was very nice but didn't have a clue about lenses so asking questions did no good. I printed an 8x11.5 pic on photo paper from the listing for close examination, lol. I could just make out the shadow of a button on the mount so I was thinking olympus mount at that is what it was. It was in excellent shape and I paid $15 shipped. Seems that was a very easy conversion if I recall right. I used a donor lens mount, thinned it a little and it dropped right in. I needed a spacer ring to keep the aperture ring down. I use a big white ugly plastic insert from the bottom of a filter case. It was meant to be temporary, by it works fine and I never changed it.

I have seen more than a few where it was described as the filter on it.

[ripit]

I bought what I thought was an MX, thought I was brilliant for finding the listing ("Pentax camera"), was really excited right up to opening the box. Then I was angry at the seller. Then I figured out who the idiot was, clearly a K1000 in the photo, anyone could see it.

I admit to having two of those Vivitar 70-210/3.5s too. The thing about that Vivitar, it's not cheap to ship. And for a while it was just everywhere, looking like it was only $9.95 but really $23 when you pay. I remember actively ignoring listings for a long time, then I got a broken one, then I had to buy a parts lens to fix it, then the parts lens (MD mount) is impossible to disassemble. Then reality hits - this is a lens that I will never travel with. It has no useful features that I don't have in another lens. It's really heavy. I can't sell it for a profit. I probably can't give it away without paying for shipping myself.

I don't use mine much (I have af lenses in the same range). I just bought on a whim to get a proper mount. Had I actually and looked at the pictures I would have known it was the wrong one. Serial number would have given it away too.

[calculator01]

I've never bought anything stupid on eBay (yet), but I have sold some!

I recall an mp3 player I was selling on eBay as parts only. I had clearly listed many, many times that it was parts only and had an image of a document from the manufacturer quoting the cost and details needed for repair. Surprisingly had a few people bid it up to the cost of a new item (Went for ~250 and ~300 was new). So, I shipped the item to France and within 2 weeks had a very angry buyer threatening legal action and he went through the Paypal process. Needless to say, Paypal/eBay took a look at my ad and said... "Umm...it says for parts only in 18 places and has a quote for repair..." So end of story, people don't read ads (Me included!)

With that in

[RKKS08]

No; not yet.

[panoguy]

No; not yet.

Try this then: Novoflex Auxiliary Viewfinder for Exakta 50mm 105mm | eBay

[boriscleto]

Almost forgot, back in 2006 I bought one of those screw on 2x tele-extenders for my Panasonic FZ5

[ramseybuckeye]

One of the first 50s I bought was a Kalimar 1.7. The listing said K mount but the picture was something grabbed from the web. Turns out it was Minolta MD. Good thing I didn't pay very much.
I paid $4.50 for a new Kenko 58 58MM UV Filter, obviously a fake. I should have known a new filter wouldn't be sold that cheaply.

My worst purchases have been from shopgoodwill. A S-M-C Tak with a dented filter ring on a broken Zenit E and an AF280T flash. The flash had corrosion on the battery contacts and the battery door broke as soon as I tried to put batteries into it...I also bought a broken Z-1, the mirror actually fell out, and the 28-105 that came with it had a broken power zoom selection button...

I have actually got some good deals on shopgoodwill, but not in the last several months. For some reason the auction prices have become ridiculously high, higher than new for some items. I always calculate the shipping cost as part of the price, and obviously those people could benefit by finding out about priority mail. They always use an oversize box, fill it with heavy packing materials like newspapers, and then send it UPS. I always try to look closely at the photos, because the descriptions are clueless.

I bid high on two(!) 50/1.4 due to temporally somehow thinking that 1.4 was the1.2, most likely a short circuit in my brain mixing numbers up.

I paid about $30 for an A50/1:2 because I quickly looked and saw A50/1.2. Fortunately they were few bids because I know I bid significantly higher. I used it a couple of months and sold it for $50, so that ended surprisingly well.

Yea I got the bug for a while and got over 100 old lenses. I haven't got a clue how many I have (could be closer to 200 total including all my AF ones). At one point in time I was just placing very low bids on anything that seemed somewhat of interest. I did wind up with a lot of very nice lenses and of course some junk.

I do that sometimes too, figuring I probably won't win them, but occasionally I do.

At least you've never done it with a 1:2...

See above

The 70-210mm ver 2 that I got was described as a 62mm vivitar lens. It had 1 slightly blurry pic. The seller was very nice but didn't have a clue about lenses so asking questions did no good. I printed an 8x11.5 pic on photo paper from the listing for close examination, lol. I could just make out the shadow of a button on the mount so I was thinking olympus mount at that is what it was. It was in excellent shape and I paid $15 shipped. Seems that was a very easy conversion if I recall right. I used a donor lens mount, thinned it a little and it dropped right in. I needed a spacer ring to keep the aperture ring down. I use a big white ugly plastic insert from the bottom of a filter case. It was meant to be temporary, by it works fine and I never changed it.

I have seen more than a few where it was described as the filter on it.

It seems like half of the listings on shopgoodwill are like this, I'm sure that's a stretch, but there are a lot. I've asked those questions too, where you spell it out and they still are clueless. I felt so sorry for one seller I told them they needed to relist the item properly and they could make more money.

Od course there are those sellers on ebay that purposely play dumb, have several photos each careful to not show the information that IDs the lens.

[Tonto]

At least you've never done it with a 1:2...

Like me! Thankfully the part of me that didn't know that a 50 1.2 isn't available in M series was also the one that had no idea what 50 1.2 lenses go for, so I paid $60 for a M 50 2.0 instead. It actually was a great little lens which took the hit when I dropped my Kx onto concrete

[bluestringer]

I won a Vivitar 55mm 2.8 Macro a few days ago, but it was OM mount. I didn't pay attention to the ad and the pictures were bad. Only paid 35 dollars for it, so tried my hand at modding it to PK mount. Worked out ok. See my other post on how I modded it, only works as macro, but that's fine with me.

[boriscleto]

I have actually got some good deals on shopgoodwill, but not in the last several months. For some reason the auction prices have become ridiculously high, higher than new for some items. I always calculate the shipping cost as part of the price, and obviously those people could benefit by finding out about priority mail. They always use an oversize box, fill it with heavy packing materials like newspapers, and then send it UPS. I always try to look closely at the photos, because the descriptions are clueless.

The Ricoh KR-10 I bought from goodwill had broken Tokina 28-70, forgot about that one too. The XR 50/2 was in good condition so I didn't really care.

Of the last 5 things I've bought from goodwill, 4 shipped UPS 1 shipped USPS. The USPS package arrived from Peoria, IL in 4 days. The UPS packages, 3 from CA 1 from AZ took about 7 days to arrive. The UPS orders all shipped late in the week, no matter when I paid...

[monochrome]

Very early in my LBA phase I bought a Takumar 135/2.5 when people were mounting Pentax lenses to *istD's. I knew something about it was wrong but I didn't know what. I actually found Boz's K-mount page researching on the Web to figure out what I had.

My listing when I resold it was much more buyer-friendly and descriptive. Surprisingly, there was a bidding frenzy at the end and I made a profit on the deal.

[bdery]

On a side note, does anyone know how the macro works? You draw the one touch zoom all the way back, push a button, and then the zoom focuses instead? Is that how it works? I think that is the part that is jammed.

You get the zoom to 70mm (pulled near the camera body), then you press the white button AND swivel the two "shoulders" (the one with the button and the one opposed to it. They move together but are hard to operate if you don't handle then both). The zoom tube has to be really at the end of its run.

Once you switched, focus is done by pull-push, not turning the tube.

The v1 is an excellent lens, prone to CA but apart from that quite good. For macro it's stellar, really impressive bokeh. I liked my time with it.

About $23 shipped so not a big deal on the money part. I really have no use for any of them but I guess $5 ea for donor mounts isn't bad (I have gotten them cheaper).

It's a fair price even if they are damaged, you can try and clean the fungus, you'll learn something along the way!

[ripit]

I was disappointed as the only reason I bought them was to get a fully functional mount for my good 70-210mm. It being my own stupid mistake made it even worse.

In hind site though, its a good price for parts lenses, even just for the mounts. Its hard to get pentax lenses in any condition much cheaper than that due to shipping cost (and I do need donor mounts). Any lenses that come out working is just a bonus (have have not had much luck with cleaning fungus and the resulting image quality).

There is a little good news so far. The 70-210mm is now fully functional though not really smooth (it it still a little sticky/jerky like poor lubrication would cause). Most of the problem seemed to be helped by a little lube. All the glass is fine except the front group. It seems someone already cleaned the fungus (but didn't get the glass clean in general after). I cleaned the farthest most inside surface but not inside the group yet). It actually doesn't look too bad the way it is. I had problems getting the focusing ring/whole front of lens back on in the right thread (I always have a problem with that). I think its a tooth off so minimum focus distance is about 10ft and it goes past infinity (macro function is about 10ft down to 2 inches). If I could get it moving a little smother it might be usable and I really like the macro function. I have a feeling there is a helix cam or 2 in the rear of the lens (couldn't get at it disassembling from the front) that is lose and or needs lube. I'll have to disassemble from the rear next time. Whatever attaches the rear collar of the zoom collar (which disconnects from the focus collar) to the internal workings seems to be where the problem may be.

I have less confidence in the A 50mm 2.0 (most of the fungus damage on the 70-210 is around the perimeter but the 50mm has a really bad spot dead center). Well just have to see but it is worth what I paid for parts alone not that I got past the initial disappointment of making a mistake and buying the wrong lens. Its not like a $23 loss would be a huge deal (and its not a loss anyway).

[Just1MoreDave]

I have less confidence in the A 50mm 2.0 (most of the fungus damage on the 70-210 is around the perimeter but the 50mm has a really bad spot dead center). Well just have to see but it is worth what I paid for parts alone not that I got past the initial disappointment of making a mistake and buying the wrong lens. Its not like a $23 loss would be a huge deal (and its not a loss anyway).

The A50/2 has a lot of parts in common with the A50/1.7, particularily parts you might lose or need when you try to fix the aperture ring on the 1.7.

[ripit]

The A50/2 has a lot of parts in common with the A50/1.7, particularily parts you might lose or need when you try to fix the aperture ring on the 1.7.

I'm quite shocked but the the A 50mm 2.0 lens glass cleaned up and I can see no damage whatsoever. It is nice and clear. I have seen damage from fungus before including when it just causes discoloration to the coating (and generally loss of contrast and sharpness). There is nothing I can see. IT doesn't seem like the lens
lost any contrast or sharpness. The images look nice.

As far as the aperture, the ring is fine. It looks like the only problem is the blades are a bit slow. It doesn't hesitate or stick at all. I can move it to any position, hold and then release and it closes fully every time. The blades just move a touch sluggishly though the still move smoothly. There is no sign of lubricant on the blades. I tried it on a camera and it would seem so far that the blades are moving fast enough exposure is consistent. I think I'll just leave it for now.

This purchase was defiantly worth it now.