Second hand SLR's

[Simons]

Hey

I am looking at selling my 1 year old Canon EOS 1000d, and upgrading. However i don't have enough money at the moment to be splashing out £1,000's on a new camera.

I have found a website and a shop which sells second hand SLR's.

Would you advise to avoid second hand cameras? Why?

For example i have found a second hand Canon 20D body for £250, and also an Canon EOS 1D body for £450, to me they sound like great deals!

Do cameras get worse over time and with use (the 1d has taken 140,000 shots), or do they keep the quality?

Thanks for any answers!
Nic

 

[Derrel]

Well, things tend to wear a bit....but on the "pro" bodies like the 1D, the shutters are pretty tough. EOS 20D bodies are getting older now, and here in the USA on Craigslist I see them in my area for $250 every week, which is less than 250 Pounds Sterling. A Canon 1D is now a somewhat "old" design, especially in terms of the battery---at that time, Canon's battery technology was quite crude com pared with today, so batteries for those older 1-series bodies are nowhere near as capable as today's batteries.

Used cameras do represent a big savings over buying new, but you are buying older sensors, older and smaller LCD screens on the back, no live view, not as good at higher ISO, and so on. Yet, when you consider that the 20D retailed new for $1,599 US dollars and can now be had for $250-$300, there is a many-fold lowering of the price. On a d-slr that costs under $300, if it breaks, you do not fix it--you just buy another used one to replace it.

 

[Simons]

Yeah, i understand that obviously they must degrade to an extent.

But would an old Canon EOS 20d for example perform better than a fairly new Eos 1000d(Rebel)?

Cheers

 

[Derrel]

Yeah, i understand that obviously they must degrade to an extent.

But would an old Canon EOS 20d for example perform better than a fairly new Eos 1000d(Rebel)?

Cheers

I don't know the answer to that: I currently own an old EOS 20D,and I use it as my walkabout, birthday party/snapshot camera. It's small, it's payed for, I like how it shoots RAW+JPEG in monochrome, and it's got a LOUD, clanky shutter that sounds like an aluminum baseball bat hitting a softball....the 20D in sequential mode sounds like "TINKKK! TINKKK! TINNNK"..the 20D has a crummy, tiny little LCD screen on the back...the 1000D is a newer, higher-resolution camera. I'm not all that up on the Rebel series' technical image quality, but my impression is that the image quality and features of the 1000D is better than that of the 20D. The 20D is quite "old" in terms of d-slr development. I would say the serious camera review sites like dPreview will give you the information you need, in terms of the actual data relating to whatever quality or image quality or feature metrics *YOU* value most.

 

[Simons]

Thanks for your help!

I'll check out that site aswell
Nic

Yeah, i understand that obviously they must degrade to an extent.

But would an old Canon EOS 20d for example perform better than a fairly new Eos 1000d(Rebel)?

Cheers

I don't know the answer to that: I currently own an old EOS 20D,and I use it as my walkabout, birthday party/snapshot camera. It's small, it's payed for, I like how it shoots RAW+JPEG in monochrome, and it's got a LOUD, clanky shutter that sounds like an aluminum baseball bat hitting a softball....the 20D in sequential mode sounds like "TINKKK! TINKKK! TINNNK"..the 20D has a crummy, tiny little LCD screen on the back...the 1000D is a newer, higher-resolution camera. I'm not all that up on the Rebel series' technical image quality, but my impression is that the image quality and features of the 1000D is better than that of the 20D. The 20D is quite "old" in terms of d-slr development. I would say the serious camera review sites like dPreview will give you the information you need, in terms of the actual data relating to whatever quality or image quality or feature metrics *YOU* value most.