[Steve Beswick]

Steve,

There are quite a few working Pentax cameras with lens(es) that qualify on eBay for $50 - $75 including shipping.

Can you accept such a donation? It would be painless for me (or others like me) to buy such a camera/lens pair & have it shipped to you - just a few clicks & no hassle of picking & packing etc. You might send a statement of some kind for the donor to use for deduction verification for the IRS.

It would be up to you to handle lemons received. I'd expect them to be rare.

Dave in Iowa

PS I'll buy one for you if you'd like a trial run.

Dave,

I'm going to ask my boss about this idea sometime this week. It sounds like a great idea to me, but I don't want to jump head first into this without clearing it.

-Steve

[Steve Beswick]

Everyone,

First, I would like to apologize for my slow responses. At some point in the past, my subscribed threads list was too active, and I was getting dozens of emails every day. In a fit of aggravation I switched my notifications off, not thinking about this thread. I just turned them back on, and my responses should be much quicker in the future.

I wanted to take a quick moment to thank everyone who has donated equipment so far. It has been a massive help to our students. In the past we have had many students drop Beginning Photography because they couldn't get a film camera to use quickly enough. While I cannot say that never happens anymore, it is far less common. Furthermore, financially challenged students are finding it much easier to stay in Beginning Photo without the burden of purchasing a camera.

Finally, I wanted to say that your donations have caused an environment of generosity to form at school, with faculty, staff (including yours truly), alumni, and on occasion even current students making donations of a wide variety of things to the program. Don't get me wrong, most of these donations are relatively small, but cumulatively they are making an appreciable difference in the photo program.

Thanks again!

-Steve

[pearsaab]

steve i just came across this and wondered if it was still an issue to get film cameras...amy

[Steve Beswick]

steve i just came across this and wondered if it was still an issue to get film cameras...amy

Doh! For some reason the notification email didn't come through. It is probably some erroneous setting on my end. Yes, we are always looking for cameras. To be completely honest things are not as bad as in the past, but while we now have 50% more cameras than we did in the past, the failure rate has doubled. That may be a somewhat temporary condition, as our collection of ZX series Pentax cameras seems to be the major contributor to the spike, and we are really running out of them.

[angry_larry]

Hi Steve,

I've got two K1000s and a MZ5N that'll be going out to your school. Package will probably include a 28mm lens as well. Keep an eye out for it.

---
Larry

[Steve Beswick]

Thanks Larry! You don't seem angry at all.

[Jimfear]

Do you know about the Phenix cameras? This one looks like it has the features you are looking for, and warranty if it brakes down.

Best of all, it's K-mount!

[Steve Beswick]

Do you know about the Phenix cameras? This one looks like it has the features you are looking for, and warranty if it brakes down.

Best of all, it's K-mount!

Jim,

We actually have 4 or 5 of the Vivitar 3800 cameras, which is just a rebadged Phenix. I am leery to encourage acquiring more, as I have had one apart, and the ~$220 price tag is not equal to the number of should-be-metal critical parts which are plastic. That said, the ones we have have been decent so far, with only 1 loose wind lever to contend with. I guess you could say that they are on an extended trial run.

[normhead]

If I might ask, what state are you in? I'm a student as well, and I've never heard of a regulation which would prevent the purchase of used equipment....

I used to be the department head for a high school photography program. I ran into the same regulation. What I did wouldn't have gotten me in trouble with the law, but possibly with the school board. I asked students for a $2 donation every time they bulk rolled a roll of film. The first batch of that film every year was paid for by the school board. So technically I was charging for film that was already paid for. After the first lot we bought film with money from the donations so things were more up and up. 50 cents from every role went to a slush fund to purchase used equipment. I got through 10 years of this before retiring, without a single complaint of any kind, either from my administration, or from my students. Although administration made it clear, they knew nothing and if the school board ever found out, they were hanging me out to dry. Good luck with your efforts, for 10 years it was part of my life.

[Tinatoo]

Hi I have a pentax p30t with a few lenses that I would like to donate.. any suggestions? thank you
tmcdaniel@metrocast.net

[atupdate]

Hi I have a pentax p30t with a few lenses that I would like to donate.. any suggestions? thank you
tmcdaniel@metrocast.net

Send Steve a private message. He doesn't get on the forum very often but he is still accepting camera donations.

Tim

[45 Mike]

I have a couple P bodies that I can donate, but basically I just wanted to bump this thread.

[tibbitts]

Who verifies your receipts? I have friends in such positions who have the sympathy of their overseers and are not against noble fraud to work around inconvenient bureaucracy. Suddenly the purchase of 10 refurbished K1000's becomes the cost to refurbish 10 K1000's that the school already owned. Probably even get a discount if you tell them you are a school and buy more than one.

It doesn't matter who has sympathy for you, you'll get fired, or worse, for that. Good intentions don't matter - you have to follow the letter of the law.

---------- Post added 03-15-2014 at 09:07 AM ----------

It would be good to have an update as to whether any institution still wants pre-digital cameras. At the graduate level you can make a case for offbeat / historical art techniques, and locally there's an upper-level undergrad elective that still requires a 4x5 (I only know because I see the students using with the cameras), but 99.8% of students should really have "graduated" to digital by now.

[LFLee]

I don't know... this 'donation' thing just sound weird.

Are the Uni offer free education to students? No? then why expect to equip the school with "donations"?

Will the school accept 'donation' as tuition fee? student donate based on the quality of education they think they receive....

[atupdate]

I don't know... this 'donation' thing just sound weird.

Are the Uni offer free education to students? No? then why expect to equip the school with "donations"?

Will the school accept 'donation' as tuition fee? student donate based on the quality of education they think they receive....

People donate to universities all the time. Donating a used film camera will not provide anyone a free education but it does help keep a film based photography program up and running. The less photography classes out there, the more I-phone photo's become the norm. Help fight the good fight.

Plus, they provided a very nice donation letter to use for income tax purposes. They base their estimated values on KEH prices, not e-bay prices.

Tim