What effing universe is this?

[KenS]

Film is hip, man. It's those damned YouTubers! Shhh. I'm buying Nikon lenses while they're still relatively cheap. I got a N8008s for $10 recently. Deals are still to be had.

There are some of us who no longer expose ANY 35mm film (but I still have my OLD Pentax Spotmatic and the 100mm lens..(which I loved to use)...but have not used it since I 'retired' in 1997, and now much prefer sheet films under the dark-cloth with my Linhof Monorail or my much older 8x10 inch Burke and James. Thus.. I now make a LOT fewer exposures... and "NO bracketing',... just in case)

Ken

 

[CMoore]

However mechanical parts can be modelled and made on 3D printers (yes, metal 3D printing is a thing, although still expensive) or CNC (home CNC setups start at $200 or so) and lathes.

Mechanical cameras can be repaired essentially indefinitely, so long as you can get a part to model, you can continue to service it. They will simply increase in cost to repair over time.

Aren't some modern day plastics pretty strong.?
Couldn't a person have a 3D printer make a top or bottom plate, or a gear or lever...that was originally metal... and (for most applications) make a few out of plastic.?
They might not last as long, but if it saves the camera.....................

 

[DREW WILEY]

Excellent machinable plastics like Delrin and UHMW have been around a long time. But note that I mention "machinable". Little things like camera gears need to be not only durable, but dimensionally stable. Even ordinary brass is a miserable material. The brass used for die-castings is a specifically different alloy; and dies are very expensive to make. Hard to say what will be 3D printable in the future. Elon Musk is 3D printing re-usable metal alloy rocket booster housings; but he has a lot more money and equipment than the rest of us combined.

 

[warden]

Aren't some modern day plastics pretty strong.?
Couldn't a person have a 3D printer make a top or bottom plate, or a gear or lever...that was originally metal... and (for most applications) make a few out of plastic.?
They might not last as long, but if it saves the camera.....................

Top or bottom plate and some levers would be no problem, and you can expect them to last if designed properly. Not cheap, but custom parts are valuable after all.

https://docs.carbon3d.com/files/tec...8.2060848467.1617233050-1904085839.1617233050


Edit:
I should note that the linked materials might not be possible to use with consumer/home printers. I outsource printing to Protolabs.

 

[Sirius Glass]

While all this talk about 3D printing, such repair work is well beyond the ability of most people including people who read Photrio.

 

[warden]

While all this talk about 3D printing, such repair work is well beyond the ability of most people including people who read Photrio.

That can also be said of mixing one's own development chemistry from scratch or any number of esoteric pursuits on this site that we drone on about for years. This is just another arcane avenue to explore. Enjoy.

 

[mawz]

Excellent machinable plastics like Delrin and UHMW have been around a long time. But note that I mention "machinable". Little things like camera gears need to be not only durable, but dimensionally stable. Even ordinary brass is a miserable material. The brass used for die-castings is a specifically different alloy; and dies are very expensive to make. Hard to say what will be 3D printable in the future. Elon Musk is 3D printing re-usable metal alloy rocket booster housings; but he has a lot more money and equipment than the rest of us combined.

I'd suspect desktop CNC is more valuable for this sort of thing than home 3D printing right now, especially as 5 axis machines come down in price (3-axis is dirt cheap, but 5 axis still costs in the 4 digit range for something suitable for machining metal). Machining delrin is extremely doable at home now, as is brass and some steel. Tool steel is an issue due to the lack of appropriate tools for reasonable money.

3D printing will be more useful for doing things like replacing a body shell or thumb grip, not precision mechanical parts. That's mostly a limitation of desktop FDM printers than 3D printing itself, printing any sort of metal starts at $10k USD and rapidly climbs from there (and you need additional equipment to turn those parts into something usable, the feedstock typically requires a 'curing' step after printing to be usable)

The real limiter though is getting CAD of the parts necessary, once you have that it's entirely possible to simply order the part from a bespoke manufacturer, either CNC or 3D printed. Costly on a per-part basis, but when doing one-off repairs is a $10-20 part all that expensive? (vs the $0.50 or less it cost the original manufacturer)

And of course, a skilled technician could simply mill the part on a lathe and/or stand mill. My grandfather (a watchmaker) did this all too often when a part for a watch or clock wasn't available and fundamentally a mechanical camera is merely a clockwork device. Such machines suitable for camera parts are readily available for reasonable cost, the limiter is skill and there remains a community of hobbyists who maintain those skills.

 

[DREW WILEY]

One thing I really regret not buying back when I was running a large tool distribution business was a miniature precision milling machine. But the ideal variety simply didn't exist yet when I most needed one (just the big industrial kinds), and I had already completed most of the design projects I needed. I got by with a basic industrial drill press and numerous other personal shop items, used the company shop too at times, or borrowed more specialized items from inventory or as manufacturer prototypes (something I was encouraged to do for sake of first-hand testing), and if necessary, farmed out certain projects to serious machinists. Other than lenses, nearly all the equipment in my lab was either made by me or modified by me. That was fun in itself; but at a certain point, it's time to innovate less, and actually use the equipment more.

 

[BradS]

mean while...the average sales price of a well used Leica M6 has gone up another 10%.

indeed, what F'ing craziness is happening here?

feels a bit like the tulip bulb craze.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Tulip collectors / Leica collectors. Not much difference, whether you've got a flower pot atop the fireplace mantle, or an expensive camera just sitting there for sake of bragging rights.

 

[Horatio]

mean while...the average sales price of a well used Leica M6 has gone up another 10%.

indeed, what F'ing craziness is happening here?

feels a bit like the tulip bulb craze.

Have you checked M2s lately?

 

[Huss]

Have you checked M2s lately?

Have you checked the price of M1s?
That is just a vf camera with no rf, and they are over $1000 now!!!

 

[BMbikerider]

I bought an almost mint Nikon F6 about 6 years ago for £625 and I have sold it to a DEALER for almost twice what i paid for it. I could have kept it a bit longer but I exchanged that for two Nikon F2a models and still had a decent bit of cash left over.

 

[BradS]

Have you checked M2s lately?

good grief! it looks like they're up about 50% over the last six months.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

mean while...the average sales price of a well used Leica M6 has gone up another 10%.

indeed, what F'ing craziness is happening here?

feels a bit like the tulip bulb craze.

You have to wonder if the prices on the red dots will get so expensive that all the photographers who can afford them, or stupidly pay for them will all find themselves in a circle one day going "hunh.... y'all think we shouldd'a thought about this a little more?" and realize that the only people driving up the prices is themselves.

 

[BradS]

You have to wonder if the prices on the red dots will get so expensive that all the photographers who can afford them, or stupidly pay for them will all find themselves in a circle one day going "hunh.... y'all think we shouldd'a thought about this a little more?" and realize that the only people driving up the prices is themselves.

That may be giving the Leica snobs too much credit....I mean, some of these fools seem to believe that they are special in proportion to the price of their gear.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

That may be giving the Leica snobs too much credit....I mean, some of these fools seem to believe that they are special-ed in proportion to the price of their gear.

Fixed it.

 

[NB23]

If you ask me, the stupidest thing is Robinson Crusoe needing a film camera on his lost island. Or on a boat.

 

[beemermark]

2 years ago Mcdonalds had a 99 cent double cheeseburger on the Dollar menu. Today it's $2.29. What freakin universe is this? For you old enough to remember inflation starting in 1970 you know what's coming. For you that are too young be prepared for a lesson in economics.

 

[Huss]

You have to wonder if the prices on the red dots will get so expensive that all the photographers who can afford them, or stupidly pay for them will all find themselves in a circle one day going "hunh.... y'all think we shouldd'a thought about this a little more?" and realize that the only people driving up the prices is themselves.

Hold on, let me write this down. Customers' demand for something causes an increase in price. Got it.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

Hold on, let me write this down. Customers' demand for something causes an increase in price. Got it.

What I'm saying is that its like getting into an eBay bidding war with yourself, on your own listing.

 

[Don_ih]

I paid around $700 for a Leica M42 about 5 years ago. I was hesitant to buy it at that price, really. Then I got lucky and got a Summicron that wasn't scratched all to hell (rare) for around $500. That total price is still too much but I was fairly certain I could resell it and get the money back, if I needed to. I didn't expect I'd be able to get twice the amount back, five years later, but that's what it looks like. It's very tempting to sell it. Fact is, I don't use it much - I normally carry around a Leica III.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

I paid around $700 for a Leica M42 about 5 years ago. I was hesitant to buy it at that price, really. Then I got lucky and got a Summicron that wasn't scratched all to hell (rare) for around $500. That total price is still too much but I was fairly certain I could resell it and get the money back, if I needed to. I didn't expect I'd be able to get twice the amount back, five years later, but that's what it looks like. It's very tempting to sell it. Fact is, I don't use it much - I normally carry around a Leica III.

I used to buy cameras based solely on their resale value, and typically didn't buy anything that I couldn't at least get my money back on or make a little extra when sold. I'm cool with inflation and demand, and I understand that it's just a thing that will always occur. What I don't understand or care for much is the absurd thought that something like a Nikon FM is as valuable as the F5. You can get either for around $200. It doesn't make any sense. It's like paying for a pinto when you can afford the cadillac. There's no rhyme or reason to it. And if you've (generally speaking) paid attention to any of my posts, I like things to stay the same, without change, and always make sense - and that's just not the case in this particular instance.

Thankfully I believe I've turned the corner, and no longer look to the buying and selling game for creative satisfaction. In fact, I'm seriously considering selling everything I own except for the RB, and the F2. I find that not having any choices is much more enjoyable than having too many.

 

[Don_ih]

I used to buy cameras based solely on their resale value, and typically didn't buy anything that I couldn't at least get my money back on or make a little extra when sold. I'm cool with inflation and demand, and I understand that it's just a thing that will always occur. What I don't understand or care for much is the absurd thought that something like a Nikon FM is as valuable as the F5. You can get either for around $200. It doesn't make any sense. It's like paying for a pinto when you can afford the cadillac. There's no rhyme or reason to it. And if you've (generally speaking) paid attention to any of my posts, I like things to stay the same, without change, and always make sense - and that's just not the case in this particular instance.

Thankfully I believe I've turned the corner, and no longer look to the buying and selling game for creative satisfaction. In fact, I'm seriously considering selling everything I own except for the RB, and the F2. I find that not having any choices is much more enjoyable than having too many.

I've bought many cameras just to resell. All of the cameras I use, I've bought because I wanted to use them. The Leica M42 - I bought it to see if I liked it better than a III. While it is maybe a bit faster to use, I don't like the added size. I have cameras of different formats, ranging from 110 to 8x10, all of which I will use at various times. My end goal is to make prints I want to keep.
As for FM as valuable as an F5: for most people, it would be. It's down to how people find out about and then use these cameras. The majority of people don't need or even know about the greater capabilities of the F5 - why would they value it higher? In the meantime, they have had the FM touted as a perfectly good film camera to load up with Portra and take overexposed pictures of their naked girlfriends. And that's basically true. The same thing has pushed up the price of the Canon AE1 - and I regularly find those for $15 and sell them for $150. The thing takes swell photos.
Anyway - is a working FE worth $200? If a Sony A6000 is worth $700, I'd say a Nikon FE should be worth more.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

The majority of people don't need or even know about the greater capabilities of the F5 - why would they value it higher? In the meantime, they have had the FM touted as a perfectly good film camera to load up with Portra and take overexposed pictures of their naked girlfriends. .

The problem I have is that I want everyone to think like me, because I'm always right. It's a completely ludicrous character flaw, I'm very aware of that - but that doesn't make it any easier to accept.