Forum menu
My old man is having a loft clearout and found his Canon EOS 500 SLR and was about to throw it out before i said it may be worth something.
I know nothing about cameras and a quick ebay search didn't return much apart from one or two that sold at £30-£50. Is this about right or is it just another outdated piece of equipment that's best off going to landfill? Can the lenses work with more modern digital cameras?
For those in the know, its a Canon Ultrasonic lens (28-80mm) with a circular polariser?
Just thought i'd ask before it goes to the tip with big fat tellies that also work just fine.... cheers
I don't know a great deal about the value of the above.
However wouldn't it be great if you could buy a digital back to put on an old Nikon f3 or F2 etc.
The motor drive on my dad's broke recently. I took it to a camera shop to ask about repairs.
They said 'unless it has sentimental value, you're better off binning it'.
You can use the lens with modern Canon kit so that is certainly sellable. The body? Dunno - anyone want to buy and old Minolta X300?
They generally aren't worth a great deal (£30ish on eBay), but colleges and universities might use them as teaching tools. If not, see if the staff can put you in touch with photography students who would be put them to use. There's still a strong interest in analogue photography around degree level.
lenses yes, bodies no.
£30ish sounds about right for what seems like a fairly standard 35mm SLR. There are people out there who want them, particularly students photography clubs (my old club had loads of 35mm cameras!).
The lens is an EOS fit (like all the new Canon DSLRs) so should be worth something.
However wouldn't it be great if you could buy a digital back to put on an old Nikon f3 or F2 etc.
Would it? Why? (genuine question)
I've got an entry level Pentax MZ-M in absolutely mint condition in my loft. Can't decide what to do with it.
i sold an old Olympus OM20 SLR to a shop for a very good price a while back, and I was very pleasantly surprised with how much I got, but it was the original Zuiko lens that the guy was paying for and not the body.
Bodies go in the bin, lenses on ebay (saves the buyer postage and bin space).
I [i]love[/i] old film cameras, even relatively 'worthless' SLRs partly just from a design and functionality perspective. I dabbled with digital snaps, but getting a couple of old 35mms has really pushed me on in terms of photography in general. Russian ones are my favourite - Zenits and Feds.
Please don't throw working bodies away folks...chuck em my way!
Please don't throw working bodies away folks...chuck em my way!
ditto, just about to build a darkroom in the corner of the garage
happy to pay postage for old manual SLR's and rangefinders to safe people chucking them
my beloved Nikkkormat FT3 was stolen on holiday, absolutely gutted 😥
my beloved Nikkkormat FT3 was stolen on holiday, absolutely gutted
I bet the thief wasn't too pleased either 😯
Mine is from about 1998. Not vintage enough for you lot I'll wager.
I don't know, I've got a modern film range finder on ebay at the moment, a Voigltander Bessa R2a, and the biddings gone a little nuts for it!
I inherited about 150 cameras when my father passed away and some of them are still worth money, (the ones that were worth money when they were popular of course)
I sold a Canon 50mm lens made in 1992 last week and it went for double what you can buy the newer MkII version brand new for! The glass is the same, just no metal in the newer ones!
[img] 
[/img]
About as basic a camera as you can (could) get!
Well as basic as you can get for an SLR anyway.
Yes.. just reading up, apparently it weighs 320g all in, so some people really like them because of that.
5thElefant - Membermy beloved Nikkkormat FT3 was stolen on holiday, absolutely gutted
I bet the thief wasn't too pleased either
it was mint and had the 50mm pancake lens on it, he probaly doesn't know what he's got until he flogged it on portugese ebay
if someone has a replacement geriatric lump of metal they want to bin in my direction I'll take it 😉
I've got a dozen or so older SLR's, Pracs, a lovely old Pentax Spotmatic, a Canon and a couple of very under rated Ricohs along with so many older lenses you wouldn't believe it.
I treat them like I would a classic car. If it's a critical application I use the Nikon D80.
If I'm just out for fun, I like to go at a slower pace, really get involved with the process and take one of the old ones.
The image quality from older lenses can be amazing.
Depends on how involved you want to get I suppose.
Try it, you might just be surprised.
I work on the principle that if it needs a lithium battery, then it has no value. My Nikon FM with a 24mm Nikkor will run without any power and I love it. Replacements are now very cheap on ebay (except the FM3A). Proper old professional bodies retain value. Find me a cheap F2. Plastic bodied popular models are worthless.
I've got an entry level Pentax MZ-M in absolutely mint condition in my loft. Can't decide what to do with it.
Weren't you meant to give it to me, Mol? 😕
if someone has a replacement geriatric lump of metal they want to bin in my direction I'll take it
(Has a rummage)
Nikon F5
Nikon FM2
Pentax K1000......
No you can't have any of them. 😐
Well, if the alternative is the tip, I'll take the lens off your hands. If people are offering proper money for it then take that instead - I'm largely interested merely from a curiosity point of view, I'm new to photography and I've never tried a 'classic' lens.
Have kept hold of my first "proper" camera - an Olympus OM-1n.
Can't really face the thought of binning it or giving it away cheap.
As a fully manual camera it has been to places where you really wouldn't want to take fully electronic "gizmo" camera - damp, dirt, months away from any recharging facilities...
Having said that, I doubt I have used it at all in the last 10 years, and really wouldn't know where to go to buy film or get procesing done any more 🙁
Cheers for the info guys.
Well if anybody wants it for a token £15 + post (£20 all in?) then drop me a mail, otherwise i think i'll pop it on ebay and see what it goes for.
If it helps, its in a half decent looking soft case - a padded blue Campro bag & strap which would be included. Cheers.
Rangefinders tend to make more than SLR's, I have picked up a couple of SLR's to have a mess about with, if you need really wide angle stuff they're still of some use.
As a fully manual camera it has been to places where you really wouldn't want to take fully electronic "gizmo" camera - damp, dirt, months away from any recharging facilities...
Presumably somewhere so remote that electricity is unavailable will have a lack of shops selling film too?
A couple of spare batteries and a big memory card will do 3000+ photos. That'll be easier to carry than 125 rolls of film. You just need a weather sealed camera and you're set.
I'm sure film is an interesting hobby, much like traction engines are, but neither have a practical application any more.
Having said that, I doubt I have used it at all in the last 10 years, and really wouldn't know where to go to buy film or get procesing done any more
Poundland do 24exp 35mm film for a quid a roll. ASDA will process it and scan it to disc for you for £2.97
🙂
Presumably somewhere so remote that electricity is unavailable will have a lack of shops selling film too?A couple of spare batteries and a big memory card will do 3000+ photos. That'll be easier to carry than 125 rolls of film. You just need a weather sealed camera and you're set.
Two days walk either directon from the nearest leccy, although solar chargers are more easily available these days. Cold would also be an issue for battery life.
5thElefant - it's an argument which will continue to boringly trudge along....
FWIW, I use my old metal bodied Nikons with infra red film and it gives me results which (IMO) would be very difficult and time consuming to replicate digitally, even with an IR modified digital camera.
Whether art is or is not a 'practical application' is for you to decide I suppose...
Poundland do 24exp 35mm film for a quid a roll
Are Poundland stores still stocking that Kodak film they had recently? I tried a couple of their stores in North London a week or two ago and none seemed to have any on their shelves 🙁
If I come across any again then I'll buy at least £20's worth 🙂
I'm sure film is an interesting hobby, much like traction engines are, but neither have a practical application any more.
Many professional photographers (as well as amateurs) still use film - 35mm and medium/large format. Your assertion is nonsense and the parallel with traction engines clearly demonstrates your ignorance. Digital still hasn't hit the type of image quality (namely resolution) that easily be obtained from analogue, and possibly never will.
please don't feed the digital troll!!
MrTall - you have mail regarding your camera.
please don't feed the digital troll!!
Indeed. Analogue trolls are obviously better.
Digital still hasn't hit the type of image quality that easily be obtained from analogue, and possibly never will.
Sure, in the same way the tractor will never hit the 'quality' of the traction engine.
Nothing wrong with liking obsolete technology mind.
Sure, in the same way the tractor will never hit the 'quality' of the traction engine. Nothing wrong with liking obsolete technology mind.
My mistake; I thought your original post was serious.
I'd like a non-working Nikon F4 as an ornament, IMHO the pinnacle of Nikon film cameras (I didn't like the F5). As a matter of fact, Kodak did some digital backs for F90, F801, F4 etc. Highest resolution was about 2mp and they cost (when new in 1992/3) about 10k !!! Only big business and military could justify them. I bought one for 10 quid on ebay about 6 years ago for a laugh.
I still have my Pentax MX, fully manual, works without a battery. Cleaned the contacts and popped in fresh batteries the other day and the meter popped back to life nicely too. It even agrees near enough with my D3100 on exposures. One of these days I'll run some B&W through, develop and print them on my russian briefcase enlarger which looks like this.
[img] 
[/img]
I'm like Rkk101, Olympus OM series are my first love, I have an OM1n, OM30, OM40 and an OM2SP, but I'd sell both of those and keep my old OM10 with manual adaptor, if I needed the money desperately.
The OM10 does everything the bigger posher brothers do and with the same lenses ends up with the same pictures 😉
Although for amazing depth of field and speed of film advance, a Nikon F5 with an 85mm prime lens is an amazing tool.
Digital still hasn't hit the type of image quality (namely resolution) that easily be obtained from analogue, and possibly never will.
Never? That's a pretty bold assertion. Care to back that up?
Wiki reckons the resolution of high-quality ISO100 fine-grain 135 film is roughly equivalent to around 20 megapixels. (At best, other estimates say it's more like 6 to 8 megapixels).
Consumer cameras like the Canon 600D already take 18 megapixel images using an APS-C size sensor (smaller than 35mm film).
So seems to me that if they [i]really[/i] wanted to win that numbers game then all they'd need to do would be to make a 35mm sensor with the same density.
The OM10 does everything the bigger posher brothers do and with the same lenses ends up with the same pictures
I worked in a camera shop in the 1980s. The OM10 was THE most unreliable camera. Had more of them in for repair than any other.
OM1 or Nikkormat were the best. Nikkormat would stop a bullet!
Never? That's a pretty bold assertion. Care to back that up?
No need to be so defensive, Graham; and I did say possibly never. I'll link you to Ken Rockwell's page [url= http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/filmdig.htm ]here[/url] on the comparisons between analogue and digital. Out of interest, he notes 25mpx as roughly the equivalent to a 35mm film (with numerous variables, obviously). But it's not as straightforward as just pixel resolution.
For what it's worth, all of my photography nowadays is done either with a DSLR (Nikon D500) or my iPhone. My FE sits on the shelf next to my typewriter (which I still sometimes write with, by the way). I was still using 35mm up to about four years ago; when I got back into photography a couple of years ago, I decided that to go with a DSLR. I love analogue photography and still find that the qualities of film are much more aesthetically pleasing than digital images. If I had the resources to have a permanent darkroom I would absolutely still use film for the majority of my photos. I'm neither pro nor anti either medium.
No need to be so defensive, Graham
Sorry, didn't mean to be. Just questioning what seemed a fairly bold statement.
Ken Rockwell is interesting but:
• it was written in 2006
• I believe he has long since changed his mind.
• the man is a well-known Internet clown!
Out of interest, he notes 25mpx as roughly the equivalent to a 35mm film (with numerous variables, obviously).
That seems much higher than other quoted figures, but okay.
A [url= http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond3x/ ]Nikon D3x[/URL] is 24.5 megapixels (and that's 2009 technology - a D4 is rumoured to be due soon).
So I'm not convinced that film outstrips digital in resolution terms. Or if it does then it won't for much longer.
That's not to say film doesn't have it's advantages and clearly lots of people still get great pleasure from using it (which is what really counts).
sorry to sound stupid,but could i pick up a leica/lenses for a reasonable price nowadays (i'm guessing a big no though 😉 not that i have any cash to spend,just enquiring 🙂