Is now the time to sell our film cameras?

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NB23

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Depends on the buyers astrological signs, I guess.
 

NB23

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Man I’m so confused. The Age of Capricorn will follow the Age of Aquariusapproximately 2150 years after the beginning of the Age of Aquarius, but the actual date for the start of the Age of Capricorn depends upon which system is used to calculate the length of an age and which system is applied to mark the start of the Age of Aquarius.

Kodak shoulda been aware of this fact when they created digital sensors, thus their own demise.
 

blockend

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I don't understand why every fresh faced kid on YouTube owns at least three Leicas. A Leica used to be the preserve of grizzled grey beards. Now they're used to shoot outdated film at maximum aperture by people who ask what ISO means. The world's gone mad I tells yer!
 

Wallendo

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"He believes that the entire photo industry is now firmly poised on a great abyss - the time for mass (and massive) changes when the masses of once-dedicated film shooters give up on analog and defect to the big D. Firmly convinced that this is about to happen, he insists that NOW is the time for us to offload our film cameras while we can still get quite decent prices for them."

Has you friend been hiding in a cave for the last 10 years, or get confused in his Tardis?
The masses have already given up on film and gone to digital. In fact, the masses have now gone from digital cameras to smart phones.

If you have cameras you don't use, sell them. As for whether prices will go up or down, no-one really knows. Some prices or going up, some are going down. You can reduce your risk but selling items over time instead of trying to time the market.

To me, film cameras are tools/toys for my enjoyment and won't be selling any anytime soon. The only ones I don't use are pretty worthless anyway.
 

Sirius Glass

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We will all be killed!
We will all be killed!
We will all be killed!
We will all be killed!
We will all be killed!
We will all be killed!
We will all be killed!
 

RalphLambrecht

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I seem to be playing the devil's advocate this week. By way of explaining this, I'm at home, five days before I depart for Southeast Asia on one of my extended photo shoots, with no household chores to be done before I go (ours is an entirely Sagittarian environment, two humans and three cats shari the same astrological sign, admittedly in the latter case as far as we know as our felines don't have birth certificates so we go by the personalities and traits, most definitely December fur babies they are) and little to do but read, write, plan my next two months' travel adventures and daydream.

Now to return to the point...

A dear friend long involved in photography has in the past year moved fully into digital (Nikons) and mostly given up shooting film. He isn't especially pro or con one or the other but says he did so for convenience and ease of creating his images. According to him, while he "sort of" misses his black-and-white film work, his digi results are as good as anything he did before, shooting is easier, he enjoys what little post-processing he does, and he rejoices at having escaped the tyranny of the darkroom with its fixer smells, endlessly long print washing and time dedicated to fine-spotting his enlargements. In fact he says he misses absolutely none of that, except the frisson of not knowing what his results will be on the spot when he shoots an image. also the fun of shooting with is Leica iiig (which he still does, in a limited way).

He believes that the entire photo industry is now firmly poised on a great abyss - the time for mass (and massive) changes when the masses of once-dedicated film shooters give up on analog and defect to the big D. Firmly convinced that this is about to happen, he insists that NOW is the time for us to offload our film cameras while we can still get quite decent prices for them.

I tend to both agree and disagree (another hybrid Sagittarian trait). Certainly film prices here in Australia are so ridiculously high as to put off most older photographers who traditionally keep to a sensible budget but now find the costs of film and darkroom supplies so inflated as to be off-putting. Many of my friends (who are in their 60s and 70s and on reduced incomes but still share my love of older cameras and traditional darkrooms) agree with this sad summing up. If anything destroys the future of film shooting here in the Antipodes, it will be the price of film.

I got around this to some extent by hoarding in the late 2009 but am now almost out of chemistry and 35mm films (my remaining stocks of refrigerated 120 films would put your average camera shop circa 2005 to shame). Having recently relocated from Tasmania to Melbourne, last week I ventured into my favorite retail photo center to buy fresh developer and fixer and other odd bits of darkroom chemistry, and all but lost bowel control in shock when I realized the high prices for anything.

Fortunately I do my own D&P, as the same retailer wants the price of a kidney for processing one roll of slide film and two fingers from one's hand for color negative. And New Zealand prices it seems are up to 50% higher. Ooch!

So my query. Do you believe that NOW is the time to sell our stores of unused cameras? Will prices for secondhand gear crash to rock-bottom in the near future? With environmental destruction, climate change and all the other awfuls the media tells us are waiting at the end of the street, will film become as rare (and as expensive as) dinosaurs' teeth in the not-too-distant distance?

in 2012 I had >50-60 cameras but I'm now down to a more sensible but still oversupply of <20.

My Nikkormats and Nikkor lenses are worth only cents on the dollar and prices have not improved since 2010. My Contax G equipment would sell at the same prices or a little better as in 2012. Rolleiflex (oddly, not Rolleicords, which I consider as as good as the 'flexes) prices in Oz have skyrocketed and some Ebay sellers want megabucks for well-worn 1950s Automats with dents and missing bits. German 6x6 folders still command reasonable prices on the same auction site.

I've noted that, as for most overpriced things on Ebay, not much seems to sell. Now and then a pigeon bits the poison hook but on the auction saes are stagnant.

Bearing in mind what I said about Satan's Advocacy, what are your thoughts about all this?
Now is the time to keep our film cameras. Prices are down and they are borderline antiques now. Now is the time to buy and complete your sets but, the good stuff is already gone.
 

Theo Sulphate

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Every once in a while I wonder if I should sell my fully electronic cameras, such as the F4s, R8, Maxxum/Dynax 7, or Elan 7NE, and keep only the more mechanical cameras.

My reasoning is that once something fails on one of these, the likelihood of repair or finding a reliable donor part is unlikely. The aperture mechanism of the Maxxum/ Dynax 7 is one example.

Ultimately, I know I'll keep everything because to sell something I own is too painful.
 

Sirius Glass

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Now is the time to buy, prices are going up.
 

Kino

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Ultimately, I know I'll keep everything because to sell something I own is too painful.

I am fighting that right now, and the little buggers keep sneaking in the back door when I am not looking! A Petri 1.9 and a Agfa Ambi Silette appeared just last week, hungry for film and attention.

Who am I to turn them away?
 

blockend

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The price of film cameras is directly related to the availability of good quality affordable film. If film costs escalate to a point where newcomers are deterred from trying it, it will become an exclusive commodity for use by serious artists. That will kill the value of all normal cameras, leaving only niche applications.
 

Edward Romero

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If you like everything done for you then go digital and sell off everything. Myself I love to use my hand held meters, do my own focusing and choose my own aperture and shutter speed. Using filters for different effects and developing and printing my own prints. Using digital is for snap shots like using cell phone. For pure enjoyment shoot film and that is a hobby we all love. My wife has her Nikon DSLR which I really can’t stand but she loves it.
With your old equipment sell it or start collecting old cameras like myself. I have around thirty cameras in a lighted display case and use 5 different medium format cameras one dating back to 1917 and still kicking.
 

Paul Manuell

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@ozmoose First off, when you were born has absolutely nothing to do with your, your partner's or your cats' personalities. Astrology's as make believe as religion.
Right, with that out the way, my answer to your topic is I will give up using my film camera and be forced to learn to shoot digitally when, and only when, film becomes unavailable.
 
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Arklatexian

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I seem to be playing the devil's advocate this week. By way of explaining this, I'm at home, five days before I depart for Southeast Asia on one of my extended photo shoots, with no household chores to be done before I go (ours is an entirely Sagittarian environment, two humans and three cats shari the same astrological sign, admittedly in the latter case as far as we know as our felines don't have birth certificates so we go by the personalities and traits, most definitely December fur babies they are) and little to do but read, write, plan my next two months' travel adventures and daydream.

Now to return to the point...

A dear friend long involved in photography has in the past year moved fully into digital (Nikons) and mostly given up shooting film. He isn't especially pro or con one or the other but says he did so for convenience and ease of creating his images. According to him, while he "sort of" misses his black-and-white film work, his digi results are as good as anything he did before, shooting is easier, he enjoys what little post-processing he does, and he rejoices at having escaped the tyranny of the darkroom with its fixer smells, endlessly long print washing and time dedicated to fine-spotting his enlargements. In fact he says he misses absolutely none of that, except the frisson of not knowing what his results will be on the spot when he shoots an image. also the fun of shooting with is Leica iiig (which he still does, in a limited way).

He believes that the entire photo industry is now firmly poised on a great abyss - the time for mass (and massive) changes when the masses of once-dedicated film shooters give up on analog and defect to the big D. Firmly convinced that this is about to happen, he insists that NOW is the time for us to offload our film cameras while we can still get quite decent prices for them.

I tend to both agree and disagree (another hybrid Sagittarian trait). Certainly film prices here in Australia are so ridiculously high as to put off most older photographers who traditionally keep to a sensible budget but now find the costs of film and darkroom supplies so inflated as to be off-putting. Many of my friends (who are in their 60s and 70s and on reduced incomes but still share my love of older cameras and traditional darkrooms) agree with this sad summing up. If anything destroys the future of film shooting here in the Antipodes, it will be the price of film.

I got around this to some extent by hoarding in the late 2009 but am now almost out of chemistry and 35mm films (my remaining stocks of refrigerated 120 films would put your average camera shop circa 2005 to shame). Having recently relocated from Tasmania to Melbourne, last week I ventured into my favorite retail photo center to buy fresh developer and fixer and other odd bits of darkroom chemistry, and all but lost bowel control in shock when I realized the high prices for anything.

Fortunately I do my own D&P, as the same retailer wants the price of a kidney for processing one roll of slide film and two fingers from one's hand for color negative. And New Zealand prices it seems are up to 50% higher. Ooch!

So my query. Do you believe that NOW is the time to sell our stores of unused cameras? Will prices for secondhand gear crash to rock-bottom in the near future? With environmental destruction, climate change and all the other awfuls the media tells us are waiting at the end of the street, will film become as rare (and as expensive as) dinosaurs' teeth in the not-too-distant distance?

in 2012 I had >50-60 cameras but I'm now down to a more sensible but still oversupply of <20.

My Nikkormats and Nikkor lenses are worth only cents on the dollar and prices have not improved since 2010. My Contax G equipment would sell at the same prices or a little better as in 2012. Rolleiflex (oddly, not Rolleicords, which I consider as as good as the 'flexes) prices in Oz have skyrocketed and some Ebay sellers want megabucks for well-worn 1950s Automats with dents and missing bits. German 6x6 folders still command reasonable prices on the same auction site.

I've noted that, as for most overpriced things on Ebay, not much seems to sell. Now and then a pigeon bits the poison hook but on the auction saes are stagnant.

Bearing in mind what I said about Satan's Advocacy, what are your thoughts about all this?
I would agree with some of the above "BS" only if you are approaching your middle "nineties" and can no longer stand "up-right" in your darkroom. The only reason I would go digital is if I decided to start making "color" photographs which I have no intention of doing. When I "cross-over" I hope my family finds someone who will like to use my equipment to make Black & White photographs........ Regards!
 

KN4SMF

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Being 62 and having had a heart attack 2 weeks ago, my perspective has undergone some reality checks. They may stop making film. They might. But I will likely be dead first. But then, so could you, or any of us. So just go out and shoot film. There is a thrilling magic to seeing an image come up in a tray of chemical that all of Silicon Valley and all their perfect computers and perfect digital images can't begin to match. And it's more than that. Way more.
 

TMcG1959

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Just recently I was in the same dilemma. I decided to keep shooting film and use the camera on my samsung Galaxy to take digital snaps. For me digital photography is for 'snap crazy' shooting while all the thought and skill comes from film.
 

TonyB65

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Your friend has it completely wrong on the trend in film, it's becoming much more popular. It'll never be what it was but the price of used gear is definitely on an upward trajectory. Medium format gear and quality 35mm cameras are definitely creeping up in price. It's simple supply and demand, new film cameras are few and far between, so well looked after film gear will continue to go up in price as the supply runs dry. Models such as the OM1n/2n are definitely increasing in price, as are all the popular decent brands and models. A couple of years ago I picked up 2 pristine Canon EOS 50E's, one given to me and one bought for £15 as a spare because I liked it so much. Now they're already fetching £50 in mint condition. This is not a huge rise but indicative of the way it's going. If your friend wants to shoot digital and get rid of his film gear then he should go for it. But I wish I had a £1 for every person who did just that and then rues getting rid of well loved and used film cameras because digital was the answer to it all. There is an explosion of film podcasts and youtube channels on film, on instagram it's very popular, these are all barometers which tell me film usage is very much alive and well.
 

TMcG1959

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When you see Boots stocking Ilford film again, you can tell it's ' back by popular demand'
 

NB23

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Being 62 and having had a heart attack 2 weeks ago, my perspective has undergone some reality checks. They may stop making film. They might. But I will likely be dead first. But then, so could you, or any of us. So just go out and shoot film. There is a thrilling magic to seeing an image come up in a tray of chemical that all of Silicon Valley and all their perfect computers and perfect digital images can't begin to match. And it's more than that. Way more.

Yeah but the idea of a star trek beamer... beaming sexy ladies from all over the world right in my bedroom somehow beats darkroom prints with images coming up in a tray.

Come on, silicon valley! What are you waiting for?
 

goamules

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This is the first time I've been back to APUG in years. Several people have said in this thread "35mm cameras are definitely creeping up in price." Not true at all, 35mm is down from it's peak about 2007. Other than a few cult items that become fads for a year, then die quickly, the value graph of 35mm cameras is a spiked line heading downwards. If you go back even further, say 20 years instead of 10, it values went down slowly with the adapters of digital in the late 90s. All the "good" SLRs went from $500 kits to $200 kits, to 100 kits from about 1995 to 2005. Then with the internet and forums, there was a little spike as new "collector-shooters" started realizing they could buy not just one, but many vintage cameras, and try them all! For a while, Rangefinder gear went back up a about 50%, so a Leica or Canon Barnack was about $350. Good LTM lenses went back to $300-500. Look at what a Leica IIIC sold for in 2006. Or a Canon 50/1.2 LTM lens. Now look today. They are about half what they were in 2005-2008. If you bought a Canon 1.2 then for $800, you have a $275 lens now. A $450 Leica body is now about $200. I bought and sold cameras and lenses a LOT during the early part of the 2000s, even going to camera shows in Europe. I track my bought for-sold for prices closely. It's WAY down now, and has been for 4-5 years.

They will NOT "creap up" over the next 20 years. They will stagnate or fall. Shoot film if you like quality tools. It's like collecting and owning a bunch of buggy whips in the mid 20th century when cars became preeminent.
 
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DF

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Now's the time, if anything, to go out and buy yourself another spare film body. Here at The Chicago community Darkroom, wrere getting in newbies as well as returnies EVERY WEEK ! !
Millenials with their parents old Nikons dug out of the attic others coming back from digital fatigue,
 

MattKing

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I have no intentions of selling any of my film gear.
Andrew,
Does your wife know this!??
:whistling:
And in response to goamules, I'd say:
While you were gone, prices cratered (around 2005 I would say), stayed low for a long time, and have been rising steadily recently.
 
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Theo Sulphate

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Right. From about 2003 to 2008 it seems amateurs and pros were dumping all their good film bodies and associated lenses in favor of digital, which was just starting to introduce full-frame sensors (e.g. 12MP D700). Common sentiment on dpreview, even to this very day, is that any 6 MP or 8 MP sensor exceeds 35mm film resolution...

Anyway, the Great Film Camera Sell-Off enabled me to buy quite a few excellent camera bodies and lenses at very low prices. I do see higher prices today.
 
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