Most disappointing cameras?

[Pumalite]

All the dogs I've cololected in 63 years.

 

[Ralph Javins]

I have been unhappy with abut half the camera bodies I got on fleabay. Now I get most of my gear at KEH.

Good morning, Jeff;

You have been disappointed with about only "half the camera bodies" you have received through eek-bait? Man, that is good!

So far, I have been running about 20% of the cameras were useable with only a CLA. Then there have been another 60% that clearly needed an obvious repair along with the CLA to make them workable. The remaining 20% were so far gone as to be uneconomical for even me to have repaired, so they became parts cameras sitting on the top shelf waiting for another camera in need.

The use on eek-bait of the term "Used" seems to have been something where they often miss that "Used, but fully functional" part immediately following that "Used" starting term in the published eek-bait definition. When you have a camera arrive and you open the box, and while lifting out the camera, you notice that the front element group literally flops around on the lens, this is something that is a bit of a stretch to fit into that "but fully functional" part. You would think that if they knew they had a lens with a loosely controlled "tilt" component, they would have charged much more for it.

 

[fstop]

I've done fairly well on screwmebay until the past few months. Bad sellers, bad,bad,bad they all have something in common, they are female.or a husband and wife team.
They way things work on ebay is if they screw you they will offer to refund you money IF you foot the bill to ship the item back.The seller doesn't lose a dime, but you'll be out the shipping cost, they know you won't spend 20 dollars to ship a 20 dollar item back to get a refund or in the case you do they simply relist the item
I don't bother I just give them negatives. They got one shot at sending what is described.If its junk and is stated as such thats ok, but you get these nitwits that say it works fine and it doesn't work at all they deserve a negative even after a refund as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Roger Cole]

Am I the only one who passes up apparent bargains on eBay when the description proves it was written by someone who doesn't know what they are talking about? It's possible of course that such items really are fine and just owned by people who don't know anything about them, inherited them, got them with a box of miscellaneous junk, whatever, but some of the really odd descriptions of cameras and lenses and, worse yet sometimes, darkroom equipment just send me away shaking my head. I deal with established sellers with good reputations that know what they're talking about only, and so far so good. I may pass up some bargains but that chances isn't worth the risk to me. My preference for cameras and lenses would be KEH, other reputable used dealers, and the forums (here and LFPF) over eBay. Never had a truly bad experience buying off the forums though some things have been described a wee bit optimistically or with what I considered important details omitted.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

replaces a Yashica T-4, which despite the
superior Zeiss lens, I could not produce the quality of the results I wanted, because of the limitation of the film DX Coding, without a Manual Overide.

There are two work-arounds:

1) Place a bit of ND filter material - a few mm^2 snip from a $5 / 20x24" sheet of Rosco - over the metering cell. A 0.6ND filter and a lack of DX code results in the camera shooting at 2 stops under ASA 100 - resulting in ASA 25 for Tech Pan.

2) Make your own DX sticker with some aluminum foil and electrical tape.

The older T4's were nice in that they were DX coded down to ASA 25.

 

[fstop]

Am I the only one who passes up apparent bargains on eBay when the description proves it was written by someone who doesn't know what they are talking about? It's possible of course that such items really are fine and just owned by people who don't know anything about them, inherited them, got them with a box of miscellaneous junk, whatever, but some of the really odd descriptions of cameras and lenses and, worse yet sometimes, darkroom equipment just send me away shaking my head. I deal with established sellers with good reputations that know what they're talking about only, and so far so good. I may pass up some bargains but that chances isn't worth the risk to me. My preference for cameras and lenses would be KEH, other reputable used dealers, and the forums (here and LFPF) over eBay. Never had a truly bad experience buying off the forums though some things have been described a wee bit optimistically or with what I considered important details omitted.

I pass up bargains on ebay all the time,you can get burned by people on the forums too. I'm still ahead of the game with what I got from ebay,but its annoying being outright lied to.

 

[ambaker]

I've had good luck with the bay, but then I check feedback every time. I also look to see if they have sold similar items before. If they say untested, or "no idea about these things", it's no sale. As far as I can tell, untested means broken.


---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=36.790819,-90.481120

 

[MattKing]

I've had good luck with some things accompanied by "I know nothing" descriptions - especially when the name is wrong too .

But I never bid anything close to a market value, and I only bid on things where I know the shipping cost as well.

 

[flatulent1]

I've had a few bad experiences on buying through ebay, most of them good, some of them outstanding. One of my greatest buys was a T90 the seller said had the EEE error. Nobody would touch it. I got it for about $100. Looks like new; slammed it on the floor a few times and it works great. You gotta know how to treat these things.

 

[Roger Cole]

I've had a few bad experiences on buying through ebay, most of them good, some of them outstanding. One of my greatest buys was a T90 the seller said had the EEE error. Nobody would touch it. I got it for about $100. Looks like new; slammed it on the floor a few times and it works great. You gotta know how to treat these things.

A little percusive maintenance will straighten out a surprising number of things.

I passed up a supposedly (and probably was) NOS Jobo tank I really wanted because the seller had no feedback at all as a seller. I'll take a risk like that on a $10 or $20 item but not on a $130 tank much less something more. I bought one "used but clean" from someone else with extensive feedback and a rating of 100% for the same price a few days later.

 

[zsas]

Be aware of the "deal". I lost the bidding on a camera recently, and since I knew the winner and I loved the same type of camera, I sent him a msg, well, it was funny because he told me after getting the camera he said it was a lemon, etc, etc....sometimes it is just fine to not finish first....

 

[wblynch]

Nearly a disappointment...

I got my Olympus OM4T on Ebay for a really good price including some good lenses. There must have been something in the description or profile that set off alarms because I faced no competition on the bid.

When it arrived the body was pristine with only a microscopic mark on it. It looked like it had never even had a roll through it but it was seriously jammed.

I popped off the bottom plate and tapped and pried until I tripped the shutter. It has worked perfectly since.

I'm sure the seller knew it was jammed and was happy to push it off to a sucker (me) but I win and I didn;t even need the BFH !!

 

[Kc2edh]

The Lomography Diana+. Picked one up on Ebay with tons of Superia 100 for a few dollars, and the lens gets flare so badly that practically every outdoor shot is ruined by it. This isn't a pretty flare either, half the frame gets washed out. Ah well at least the film was worth more than I paid. Still using it up (in other cameras, or course)!

 

[wy2l]

Anytime I have bought junk. Same experience with ham radio. Don't buy junk.

 

[BrianL]

I steer clear of sellers who suggest they do not test the item bcause they don't have time, do not know how to use it or similar crap. I especially loved a couple of years ago a seller had a manual camera for sale and said he could not test it because he did not know how to use it. It was an slr. He also had a Yashicamat for sale and stated he had tested it and it worked fine. How could you know how to use 1 but not the other. Another seller of a ballpoint mentioned also he had not tested it as he did not know how it worked - it was a Parker T-ball Jotter, obviously a complex instrument.

Of course there was that one time when I saw an add for an Olds Toronado and the seller said it had not been driven for a year and he could not test it. I called and went over. He had bought it new and had racked up speeding tickets galore. The judge offered him a few choices including a year in the clink and loose o license for 2 years provided he sell the car. He decided it was the better deal. The car was a color I did not care for but was almost brand new (this was early '73) and to avoid not going back to jail he all but gave it to me for something like a $1,000. It had 5,000 miles on it. Yes, sometimes you do not win and sometimes there is a great story to be told.

 

[darinwc]

One way to weed out the unscrupulous sellers is to look at what else they are selling or have sold.
If they have other camera equipment, then generally yes, they do know better. If they have random stuff like garage sale stuff, then its more likely they just really know.

Also, people with a lot of sales generally do it for a living, or for supplimental income.
They can either A. make more money from each item by testing/inspecting it. or B. quickly sell alot of stuff by saying its untested and as-is. or C. sell the good stuff as working and the bad stuff as "untested/unknown". It's pretty easy to figure it out by looking at the other auctions.

 

[wblynch]

I have known people to purposely describe things as broken or "for parts" that they know work perfectly well, just because they don't want to deal with complaints or returns.

It's definitely a game of "read between the lines" with this stuff.

 

[brucemuir]

It's definitely a game of "read between the lines" with this stuff.

Truer words were never spoken

It is a game most times.

 

[Chan Tran]

I have many cameras but the one that dissapointed me the most has to be the Nikon F5. Now it's a very good camera but I guess I put too much expectation on it. I bought the F5 in 2002 brand new after almost 20 years since I bought a new camera. I found that its meter, shutter speed, aperture controls are not very accurate. It's only on par with equipment made 20 years earlier when in calibration and my camera had to be sent back to Nikon for calibration twice. TTL flash exposure bias for fill flash so it mostly underexposure when flash is the only illumination. Matrix metering system bias for slide film so once again it underexposes color negative film. The controls are ok but slow to operate.
But I still think it's a great camera.

Speaking of the Pentax K1000. I don't like it because it's overpriced nowaday but it's a usable camera when you could get a brand new one with lens for $129 in the early 80's. However, I found both the Pentax 50mm f/1.8 and 50mm f/1.4 to be excellent. I can't fault the sharpness of either of these lenses in any way. I got my KX for less than the K1000 because many people are after the K1000 and don't know about the KX. The KX is a much better camera as a learning camera than the K1000.

 

[fstop]

I have known people to purposely describe things as broken or "for parts" that they know work perfectly well, just because they don't want to deal with complaints or returns.

It's definitely a game of "read between the lines" with this stuff.

Sellers have been forced into that because of bad buyers.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

... forced into it because of bad buyers.

I used to wonder how bad sellers stayed in business.

Then it hit me: they are in business so bad buyers have somewhere to shop...

Me, I'm only too happy to steer PITA potential customers to to another firm: "You don't really want an f-stop timer: I can tell you are smart enough to see through all the hype; you should get one of those really great Beseler digital timers, you will be much happier [because I sure will be]."

 

[fstop]

You missed the point.
The point is sellers are selling good equipment as parts because buyers will complain about non existant issues.
I was booted from a forum that had members out in the open discussing strategies to harass and defraud honest sellers. When I pointed out what they were doing was illegal and against ebay TOU they turned against me. But not before I alerted the sellers they were plotting against with links to the posts.
People will get in over their head with a purchase (new or used ebay or not) and blame the seller, the don't read instructions, they don't read descriptions, they don't understand TOU etc. Buyers will buy something listed with known faults and expect the seller to pay for the repair after they buy it.
I was a power seller on ebay a couple years ago, I rather throw stuff out than sell on ebay right now. Meg @#$%man screwed up ebay and lost a ton of sellers and buyers.

The BAD BUYERS are looking for freebies through any means legal or not.there are bad sellers too, but bad buyers abound.

 

[zsas]

I have a confession re taking a risk, sorry if it is a digression, but I saw posted on Craigslist a camera that was my dream camera for a great price in a town 1000 miles from where I live, the seller posted his phone number, I googled the phone number and it led to a listing for his company (a contractor). I then looked on the BBB and Angie's list what folks thought of his company. Then after seeing such high praise for him, I called him, offered to pay listed price for camera, and $25 for shipping with insur. I got my dream camera for way under ebay. I paid him using paypal (NOT GIFT) and I have been so proud of how I got my dream camera, that works great, as he assured me it would, when talking to him over the phone....I dont know why I post this, except to say there are good folks out there, but do your homework if you want to take a risk I guess! I took the risk and won, but I was insured from bad (i.e. papypal refund on non-gift payments, etc)....

 

[fstop]

Yes there are good people out there, the problem is they are out numbered by schmucks.

 

[michaelbsc]

Yes there are good people out there, the problem is they are out numbered by schmucks.

I think this sometimes, too. But I always come back to the conclusion that it isn't actually true.

The good folks really do outnumber the schmucks. The problem is that the schmucks are always willing to get in your face and bother you. The good folks just want to let bygones be bygones.