[Jonathan Mac]

I buy and sell quite regularly, usually items that don't have high value, but I recently sold a lot of stuff, Pentax and Fujifilm, and the majority of it sold faster than I had expected and I made a loss on only a very few items. Overall, I made a profit. I usually get a lot of low-ball (piss-taker) offers but not so much this time. So I can't say I've noticed any big changes.

As for the future, people will continue to ditch DSLR gear even though much of it could be used (even with AF) by use of adapters. The used market for mirrorless gear will continue to grow since it's only a few years old and there's not so much stuff out there now. DSLRs and their lenses will lose value over time as they get older and less desireable. The price of good film gear will continue to rise.

[silcam]

To the manufacturer's delight people are moving lemming-like to mirrorless. I personally find it weird to buy a small body only to attach a huge stovepipe lens that hangs out over the front.Some anonymity that is! When the early adapters calm down we may see a very different marketplace. DSLR is gear s still very usable. Call me Old School but I'll wait to switch if I switch at all.

[Marcus Rowland]

The big problem has nothing to do with photography - most economies are in a terrible state and a lot of people are trying to sell things to get a bit of money, with relatively few buyers. I'm pretty sure you'd be seeing the same thing if you were trying to sell last year's laptop / car / whatever. The current changes in photographic technology are a relatively minor issue because people are fairly slow to switch - I can still sell old AF Nikkors (the screw-drive type which went out of production a good few years ago) because there are still a lot of bodies in use that can use them, and because they are very good lenses.

[martin42mm]

I've bought and sold secondhand camera gear on ebay and through the occasional camera fair for more than 15 years. Very rarely had a problem with either what I've bought or sold, and that numbers into the many thousands. It enables me to pass on what I rarely or no longer use, and buy gear at below new cost. Part of the lack of problems may be that I rarely sell any equipment that involves AF, which is often the achilles heel of bodies and lenses, and often is in the eye of the beholder as to what is acceptable performance rather than any real issue. Rarely do I get less than I hope to sell for, and I almost always use a 99p auction start if using ebay. But this is just to support my hobby.

However I also have a mate who buys at car boots and sells on ebay , and has made a good living for about the same period as I've been using ebay. He's still quite happy with his turnover, although finding saleable items at the boots is getting more difficult. Any issues with what he buys and I sort it for him before sale, and he has always used a 'send it back if there's a problem' policy ( as I do), and hence 100% positive feedback. Yes, customers do sometimes as naiive/daft questions, like one buyer who wanted to know how to switch on the motor drive of a manual-wind film camera, and the usual issues with not understanding the non-universality of lens mounts. He just answers politely, and if there is a drawn out Q & A before sale, the prospective buyer gets blocked, since there is obviously a return-in-the-making there! After sale, again polite answers, with always the offer of send it back if you're not happy.

So our experiences from different, private and commercial seller perspectives are quite similar, and hopeful that the market continues to be viable taking into the account the foibles of fashion and perceived desirability of photographic equipment of whatever make or type.

[eric1965]

To be honest the last years used equipment skyrocketed all over the place. I regularly search Euro Union Fleabay for Pentax stuff. The last search I did was a couple of days ago. K10D bodies for 135-150EUR, K7 for 200-300EUR, K5 for 260EUR, K5 II for 340EUR, K1 II for 1600EUR. Recently on Kamera Express a bargain K3 II for 960EUR?????
At least prices went up with inflation.

To be honest If I want a K1 II i will bite the bullet and purchase a new camera. We will see how long these items are for sale...
Kamera Express who wants to profile themselves as the European B&H in the past they checked their used equipment, now they just put it on sale if their is a problem they are insured and the user is the guinea pig. My last purchase a K5II for an acquaintance firmware 1.00 camera not reset to factory settings, previous user exif data still present. After a couple of days I noticed the camera was missing the diopter adjustment slider. When I called helpdesk the person did not even now the difference between a camera and a washing machine. I asked kindly to escalate the problem to one of their colleagues, a couple of days later I received an email stating I have to look at page xx of the user manual. When I mailed back there was no diopter adjustment and asked if the part was user replaceable he apologized and will look further. 6 months later no response. I finally found the part and the camera is fine now.( a very nice K5 II with 7500 shutter actuations)

[ROBEFFY]

Not sure that this is right, seeing as I am not Nostradamus...
Seems like anything old is cool, so, film and DSLR will likely resurge.
Who knows?

[JackFromAdelaide]

.
For decades now, I've bought and sold photography gear. Lately, I'm finding that the buying/selling environment has changed and is different then I've seen before.

On the buying side, I've scored some terrific deals in the last few months ($6,000 USD Nikkor lens for $1,700 USD - new old stock Canon 5D full frame body with 6 batteries & 2 chargers for $120 USD).

On the selling side, it's just the opposite! I've got dozens of items for sale at extremely low prices, but not only are none selling, but I'm not even getting low ball offers.

It seems that this is a great time to buy used gear; but not a very good time to sell gear.

What's been your experience lately buying and selling photography equipment? What do you think the future holds?

Yes, I have had to part with some excellent equipment at fire sale prices. I don't know if it is Pentax or all camera equipment.

[Lord Lucan]

The last search I did was a couple of days ago. K10D bodies for 135-150EUR .... [etc]

But are they sold? You need to look at the recent "Sold" prices.

I have been looking for certain things on Ebay for the last year or more, and I have seen some of the same items for all of that time, at the same silly high prices. I'm surprised that Ebay doesn't just kick items off, after say 3 months at the same price, to save themselves disk space and to save seroius buyers having to wade through pages of the same tripe in order to find something useful. Just look on Ebay at the hundreds of crappy little old 1970's low power, high voltage, amateur flash units that sellers expect to get £9.99 or more for (plus £4.50 postage), even non-working, because that's what the seller paid for them at Dixons 50 years ago.

OTOH, I have given up trying to sell photo stuff for the time being. Ebay have nagged me to start my auctions at 99 pence, but I know that the item would sell at only that (if at all) as you are lucky to get even one bidder, and to despatch anything costs me £1.50 to park the car near the post office in town and about £4 for the fuel to get there and back. As for the crappy little flash unit I inherited from my father, I just threw it away.

[E-man]

It's been several years since I've bought or sold any photo gear on eBay and overall, I've done more of the latter than the former. While i got a few good deals on gear I bought, I was usually disappointed at the prices I got for the gear I sold. Although not camera related, I had been selling off my late father's antique toy collection on eBay, but over time, it became less and less lucrative between rising shipping costs and now the IRS wants a piece of the action if you sell more than $600 worth in a year. The limit used to be $20,000. At this point, I don't even want to fool with it.

[kypfer]

I have been looking for certain things on Ebay for the last year or more, and I have seen some of the same items for all of that time, at the same silly high prices. I'm surprised that Ebay doesn't just kick items off, after say 3 months at the same price, to save themselves disk space and to save seroius buyers having to wade through pages of the same tripe in order to find something useful. Just look on Ebay at the hundreds of crappy little old 1970's low power, high voltage, amateur flash units that sellers expect to get £9.99 or more for (plus £4.50 postage), even non-working, because that's what the seller paid for them at Dixons 50 years ago.

Doesn't eBay still charge to list items, whether they sell or not? If so it's in their interest to keep as many items as possible listed!
There's also the "Similar sponsored items" and "Related sponsored items" entries that other punters are effectively paying for, so the more items they've got listed the more opportunities they've got to plug other items!
It's all down to a penny here and a penny there over an awful lot of items … then they take their slice if it does sell

[martin42mm]

Doesn't eBay still charge to list items, whether they sell or not? If so it's in their interest to keep as many items as possible listed!
There's also the "Similar sponsored items" and "Related sponsored items" entries that other punters are effectively paying for, so the more items they've got listed the more opportunities they've got to plug other items!
It's all down to a penny here and a penny there over an awful lot of items … then they take their slice if it does sell

I only ever list on ebay these days when there is a seliing fee offer , usually over three days including a weekend. It used to be £1 fixed but now they just reduce their fee take to 20% of what it usually is. Of course only private buyers can take advantage of that , so not much incentive for businesses.

[Lord Lucan]

Doesn't eBay still charge to list items, whether they sell or not?

As far (at least) as amateur sellers are concered, no. You can have up to (AFAIR) seven automatic re-listings (ie eight in total) for free, but then a fee kicks in (10% of auction starting or BIN price I think). The trick is to withdraw the listing before the seventh auto re-list, and then re-list it after a few days manually with some different wording.

I don't know about fees for dealer listings, but some dealers have the same items being re-listed for years, apparently automatically. They would not do that if it cost them 10% each time, so perhaps they do pay a one-off flat fee.

[Jonathan Mac]

To the manufacturer's delight people are moving lemming-like to mirrorless. I personally find it weird to buy a small body only to attach a huge stovepipe lens that hangs out over the front.Some anonymity that is! When the early adapters calm down we may see a very different marketplace. DSLR is gear s still very usable. Call me Old School but I'll wait to switch if I switch at all.

"Lemming-like" implies without thought when in fact (most) people are thinking of the considerable advantages they bring. Certainly I don't think that body size in relation to lens size, and whether or not it looks weird, is a determining factor of deciding whether to switch systems or not. And the early adapters (sic) moved to mirrorless some time ago, those moving now are moving to generally quite mature mirrorless camera systems.

[martin42mm]

"Lemming-like" implies without thought when in fact (most) people are thinking of the considerable advantages they bring. Certainly I don't think that body size in relation to lens size, and whether or not it looks weird, is a determining factor of deciding whether to switch systems or not. And the early adapters (sic) moved to mirrorless some time ago, those moving now are moving to generally quite mature mirrorless camera systems.

Call me stuck in the past, but I can find only one advantage of mirrorless bodies as far as I'm concerned, and that is the reduced back-focus that enables me to use rangefinder lenses. The reduced body-size is of no consequence compared with the downsides to me. Give me a real SLR every day that does not rely on either screen or digital v/f, despite me having a very good pocket camera that has an excellent digital v/f. So this is one non-lemming....and enables to take the opportunity to buy all that discarded gear should I want to!

[kypfer]

Call me stuck in the past, but I can find only one advantage of mirrorless bodies as far as I'm concerned, and that is the reduced back-focus that enables me to use rangefinder lenses. The reduced body-size is of no consequence compared with the downsides to me. Give me a real SLR every day that does not rely on either screen or digital v/f, despite me having a very good pocket camera that has an excellent digital v/f. So this is one non-lemming....and enables to take the opportunity to buy all that discarded gear should I want to!

Exactly my feelings
Samsung NX11 for my Russian r/f lenses … Pentax DSLR for everything else!
Inevitably - YMMV