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Here to help.

Camera Gear Doesn’t Need To Be Expensive

YOU SAVE SO MUCH MONEY BUYING USED!!! It is possible to get absolutely obscene price to performance value on used gear.

The difficulty in finding deals is that there are hundreds of different camera models. Dozens of them might fit your needs. To make your life easier, I’ve been going through series of models to create used buying guides.

Guide to Used Cameras

  1. Canon AE-1
  2. Pentax K1000
  3. Nikon FM2
  4. Minolta SR-T 101

Picking Out Vintage Lens Winners.

All lenses aren’t equal. Modern lenses will give you images that are razor sharp corner to corner. Vintage lenses can set themselves apart by how they render, the color you can get with them, interesting bokeh, or other characteristics not valued by current photographers.

On the other hand, many vintage lenses just aren’t that good. Their performance may not be good enough to set them apart from other lenses. Worse, as time has gone on some lenses have defects that will render them worthless because of the difficulty in repair.

I’m somewhat indiscriminate in my purchasing of gear, so I get a mix of good, bad, and average. The lens reviews will help you find a lens worth owning.

  1. Canon AE-1 Lenses
  2. Pentax K1000 Lenses
  3. Nikon FM2 Lenses
  4. Nikon FE2 Lenses
  5. Canon A-1 Lenses

Camera Batteries

Have you ever been paranoid about the capacity of a battery? Especially if it was from a third party? I was.

I have figured out how ANYONE can inexpensively capacity test camera batteries. I have written a guide on how to capacity test camera batteries. It is a simple DIY project that only requires a screwdriver and pair of wire strippers.

Nothing Depreciates Faster Than A Camera.

Cameras are the fastest depreciating pieces of photography gear. That’s bad if you buy a new camera. If you buy used, you can get a high-end camera from 10+ years ago for pennies on the dollar.

Being able to use flagship cameras of years gone by is an interesting experience. Medium format in both film and digital become obtainable for non-professional uses. Or owning many cameras is remarkably affordable.

The camera reviews section showcases all of the cameras I have reviewed. You can also find information on camera manufacturers that are no longer in business.

Recent Posts

M42 to Nikon F-Mount Adapter

M42 to Nikon F Lens Mount Adapters If you want to adapt an M42 lens to Nikon be careful. With an F-mount camera, you can potentially cause damage with some M42 screw mount lenses. With some lenses, the rear element can extend back into the mirror box of a camera. A handful of M42 lenses can extend far enough back and hit the mirror. Flange Focal Distance The flange focal distance is how far the sensor or film plane is away from the camera mount.

Fully Mechanical - Canon FT QL Camera Review

Canon FT QL Single Lens Reflex SLR Camera The Canon FT QL is a single-lens reflex camera (SLR) that was released in 1966 and sold through 1972. In 1971 the Canon FTb QL and Canon F-1 were released as replacements for the FT QL. This is Canon’s first camera body with TTL (Through the lens) metering. With this new feature, you can be confident that you will get the correct exposure.

Canon AE-1 Review - A Popular Camera Since Release

Canon AE-1 Released in 1976, the Canon AE-1 camera was successful. Over one million units were sold by the time the camera was discontinued in 1984. The camera remains popular among analog photographers to this day. If you’re looking to get into film photography, the AE-1 is going to be one of the top recommended camera. Prices & Where to Buy Canon AE-1’s can be found all over the place.

All the Settings You Need to Know to Adapted Lenses to the Sony A7

Sony A7 Adapted Lens Settings for vintage manual focus lenses Navigating the Sony A7 menu can be difficult. The layout is poor and setting names are not clear on what they do. This is a list of settings the I use for adapted lenses on my Sony A7. They should also be similar to what you would find on a A7R. My favorite lenses to adapt are macro lenses. The best one I have found has been the Vivitar 90mm f/2.

All of the Problems with the Sony A7

Sony A7 Problems Glaringly obvious problems exist with the Sony A7. Reading reviews from when the camera was released 5 years ago don’t mention any of the problems. After purchasing a used A7, I began to immediately notice problems I was not made aware of. The star eater problem is the only deal-breaker, and it only applies to astrophotographers. Other issues can be worked around or avoided, as long as you are aware of them.

Nikon 28mm f/2.8 Series E Lens Review

Nikon 28mm f/2.8 Series E Lens The Nikon 28mm f/2.8 Series E lens is the widest of all the Series E lenses. Introduced as a budget lens, it still fills that role today. It has an AI-S mount so it will work on most Nikon cameras. Used Prices & Where to Buy A huge number of these lenses were sold in the early 1980s. As such, copies are widely available.