First Generation DSLR Prices

CaptainPenguin

CaptainPenguin

Messages
5,161
Name
Nigel Cliff
Edit My Images
Yes
On the back of a wedding I did last month for a daughters colleague I now have 3 bookings for next year,so rather than borrow my neighbours DSLR as a back up I decided to start looking at the prices of the likes of Canon D60 and 300D's on eBay.

Is it me or would others be surprised to find most of these in the £200+ bracket especially as a 350D went on here a few weeks ago for £100
 
Last edited:
Sorry to digress a little, but make sure you would be happy to cover the entire wedding on any backup equipment you have as problems can arise at any time of the day!

The cameras you mention are 7-8 year old technology which were considered good back then, but pretty poor in relation to current cameras and I personally, would not want to have to resort to the cameras I was using in 2003 if I had a problem with my No1 camera of today!

I'm not a Canon man, but wonder if the D60 & 300D were further up the family tree in their generations than the 350D so holding their value better?? Dunno, just an idea.
 
I would look at upgrading your current camera and using it as back up.. a second hand 40D or 50D would be ideal and can be picked up for quite reasonable prices now
 
Guys the topic is not wedding back ups its about how and why quite old technology is still able to hold a substantial price,however re that old technology I was recently looking at a wedding shot on a D60 about 7 years ago and the quality of the results matched anything I have seen taken recently on more modern kit
 
its about how and why quite old technology is still able to hold a substantial price
Click to expand...

Supply and demand, there are a lot of people out there who can't afford new kit and are hunting for a bargain foothold into DSLR's.

Recently my niece wanted to get her first DSLR, she couldn't afford the extra needed for a new camera and I had an 18-50, 28-105 and 70-300 in pentax autofocus doing nothing, so we managed to get her a mint pentax K200D body quite cheap (under £200) and I gave her my lenses.
So for an outlay of just over £200 once she bought herself a bag and memory card, she has a nice starter 3 lens outfit.
Lucky her has just had elements 8 given to her by my brother as well, though he did get my copy of CS3 for free when I upgraded to CS5 so he did well out of it.
 
That D60 is still better than a new compact. It will probably outlive one too in the hands of a holiday snapper. £200 seems to be the bottleneck price. If I am right, D60 is the only digital way to use some the old Sigma lenses. Perhaps that's why.

There are also good (cheap) for IR conversions.
 
Ive seen the 20D at £169 before.
My reckoning is that by the time the 350D came out, DSLR were just becoming affordable (under £1000) and at the time I bought my first camera there was only the Nikon D70s and 350D worth considering.
There's literally thousands of these out there, not so many 300D. Perhaps it holds a certain value, like a classic car to die hard enthusiasts? I know I wouldn't pay £200 for one.
 
A lot of the older dslr's are still in use by people who arent interested in the ever more expensive upgrade path, and with good reason. To the average person, the difference in image output from the early ones to the latest crop are marginal compared to the cash outlay.
I'm not a professional photographer although I sell a lot of my images. I took the upgrade route via Nikon from D50 to D300. Now gone back to a D70s. To be honest, I am hard pushed to tell any significant difference between images I shot with my D50 / D70s and my D300. I have used both a D3 and D700, never any Canon stuff though
People shot weddings with early digital cameras quite happily and paid a fortune for the kit and are probably using the same or similar lenses now. If you look at a wedding album from 2004, is it that much different to one shot today in terms of image quality? Probably not. I am sure the customers cant tell. So, if I was shooting weddings and needed a back up, I would be happy with an older DSLR.
But then again, I am a cheapskate!

Allan
 
allanm said:
A lot of the older dslr's are still in use by people who arent interested in the ever more expensive upgrade path, and with good reason. To the average person, the difference in image output from the early ones to the latest crop are marginal compared to the cash outlay.
I'm not a professional photographer although I sell a lot of my images. I took the upgrade route via Nikon from D50 to D300. Now gone back to a D70s. To be honest, I am hard pushed to tell any significant difference between images I shot with my D50 / D70s and my D300. I have used both a D3 and D700, never any Canon stuff though
People shot weddings with early digital cameras quite happily and paid a fortune for the kit and are probably using the same or similar lenses now. If you look at a wedding album from 2004, is it that much different to one shot today in terms of image quality? Probably not. I am sure the customers cant tell. So, if I was shooting weddings and needed a back up, I would be happy with an older DSLR.
But then again, I am a cheapskate!

Allan
Click to expand...

Totally in agreement Alan my 400D does all I need and a 7 year old body will do me fine as a back up and as you say most people could not tell the difference
 
my only concern would be reliability, i've had a 2nd hand 20d now for a while and it's failed on me with error 99 twice, taking the lens off and rubbing the contacts fixed it within a couple of mins, but not what you would want to do in the middle of a job!

Quality wise i was with a friend at an airshow over the weekend, both using very similar len's me with my 20d and him with a 7d, most of the final shots dont show a lot of difference in quality, sure the 7d is a more versitale camera and will walk all over the 20d in certain conditions, but would a "customer" notice the difference on a "standard" wedding shot?
 
The main difference i've noticed in upgrading is noise performance. I do like to shoot in low light and often long exposures.
I shot my brothers wedding on a Nikon D50, my first SLR. Ok it wasn't a professional job but they love their wedding album.

Only drawback i've found is when printing onto extra large print, poster size or canvas, the resolution on some of the older 6mp isn't enough.
 
Canonite said:
Only drawback i've found is when printing onto extra large print, poster size or canvas, the resolution on some of the older 6mp isn't enough.
Click to expand...

I agree, that will certainly start to show that 6.1 mp isnt really enough for those size prints. Biggest I do is A3 and my puny 6mp sensor fills that size nicely.
Csedgbeer is right about reliability too, an older model will probably be more prone to breakdowns / errors etc, especially if the shutter count is high. I was lucky with my D70s, about 6 years old and only 5k clicks. Plenty of life in her yet.

Allan
 
I purchased a 300D last year for £80.00 when I first got into Canon. Have seen them going for around the £100.00 mark. The 10D is not a lot more either (extra £10.00-20.00), but of course there is no EF-S compatibility.

I've seen a couple of Canon D30 and D60s go cheap on Ffordes recently too, at just over £100.00. There's certainly some cheapies about, and don't look for buy it know prices on the bay...these people are often just a touch optimistic ;)
 
manualfocus-g said:
I purchased a 300D last year for £80.00 when I first got into Canon. Have seen them going for around the £100.00 mark. The 10D is not a lot more either (extra £10.00-20.00), but of course there is no EF-S compatibility.

I've seen a couple of Canon D30 and D60s go cheap on Ffordes recently too, at just over £100.00. There's certainly some cheapies about, and don't look for buy it know prices on the bay...these people are often just a touch optimistic ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks for that I will have a look at places other than eBay and UI like the look of a 10D as all my lenses are full frame
 
Canonite said:
Ive seen the 20D at £169 before.
My reckoning is that by the time the 350D came out, DSLR were just becoming affordable (under £1000)
Click to expand...

It was the 300D that was the first sub £1000 price DSLR and started the ball rolling
 
I'm not so sure - I can tell at a glance which of my images were taken on the D1, D1x and D2x cameras I used in the past.
Apart from the 24-70 which I started using last year and the 70-200 VR-I from the year before, the lenses have been the same ones for the past eight years.
I've always shot RAW (well since 2004 anyway) and edited in Photoshop (started with PS6, now on CS4).

The most noticable difference is in colour rendition.

What I thought to be acceptable then, simply doesn't stand up now compared to images from current DSLRs at any price-point.
Images from the D2x, which is still reasonably current (as in: professionals are still using them quite widely) are noticably 'flat' compared to those from the D3.
Images from the D1x are actually quite horrible by comparison. Skin tones are not particularly nice, so weddings would not be a suitable subject for those cameras any longer, given that better alternatives are available - I'd rather use a D3000 instead...

Never mind the pixel-count or the high-iso capability - it's the overall look of the image that's most important - it's what grabs you first...
Those older cameras don't stack up against the current line-up...
 
CaptainPenguin said:
Totally in agreement Alan my 400D does all I need and a 7 year old body will do me fine as a back up and as you say most people could not tell the difference
Click to expand...

that maybe the case, but tbh I'm a little surprised. I would of thought if that was your reasoning then another 400d would be better? There is a big difference between 1st and 2nd genewration dslrs and if as the only reason I can see to do this is to save money another 400d isn't really expensive, would be exactly the same in terms of pictures and in terms of useage
 
csedgbeer said:
sure the 7d is a more versitale camera and will walk all over the 20d in certain conditions, but would a "customer" notice the difference on a "standard" wedding shot?
Click to expand...

The main reason I would be reluctant to use MY early camera (Nikon D100 bodies, which were today's equivalent of D300s in the Nikon family tree) is limited camera performance/capability, rather than image quality.

The problem with having a backup camera that does not perform (almost) as well as your main camera, is that you may have to provide a client with a compromised service if your backup kit cannot cope with the many "non-standard" shots at a wedding.
 
boyfalldown said:
that maybe the case, but tbh I'm a little surprised. I would of thought if that was your reasoning then another 400d would be better? There is a big difference between 1st and 2nd genewration dslrs and if as the only reason I can see to do this is to save money another 400d isn't really expensive, would be exactly the same in terms of pictures and in terms of useage
Click to expand...


I see where you are coming from but isn't really expensive is a relative term and the potential £100 difference between say a 10D and a 400D is substantial when you are not awash with money,hopefully however as I have a while before I need the camera I may spot a 2nd or even 3rd generation bargain
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top