@covetingthepreciousthings
Thank you so much for all of this help, really appreciate it.
*My first DSLR was the Nikon D7200 and now I have the D610.
None of them were new*
Where is the best place to get secondhand cameras? I think local indie camera shop might be the best bet, but I was concerned how quickly camera tech might go out of date? Or is that not so much of an issue? Just worried about forking out for a used camera and it getting dated quite quickly.
Then again I'm not sure how long a camera should / could be used for?
Looking at some of the other posters cameras reminds me that I did have a D3000 or 3000 series back in time as well
I’m no expert, nor professional. But for a while I was acting as one of the ‘official’ media at some paintball tournaments.
Looking at one of my Facebook galleries theres over 5000 for a weekends event. I will have taken more, and slightly filtered those down.
I take photos in bursts to get either the right moment of a piece of action or a sequence. A couple of teams used me to aid their post game analysis / training, so would be after a lot of fast burst sequences of their ‘breakout’ starting move of each game
I probably took 7500+ in a major tournament weekend, and around 5 of those a year
The thing that matters with DSLRs etc for their longevity is shutter count. But even with that number of photos for me I’ve never had a problem with second hand cameras.
A good local specialist camera shop would be best to check out secondhand cameras, and they will have the knowledge to advise you on what would suit you and give some form of guarantee/support.
eBay works, but you’re putting yourself in the hands of the seller as to how good that person is
MPB is a good online shop for second hand cameras etc
www.mpb.com/en-uk/
CEX is handy too, with a basic level of service, they check it all works, grade it based (based on general condition, how complete it is etc) and you can come back if there’s a problem with it
(I did buy lens from CEX online which turned out to be mis-described and returned it to my local CEX, it was supposed to be a Nikon fit lens but was Olympus. When processing the return she asked me how you tell the difference, and as I was telling her about different mounts she pulled the lens out and said that perhaps the word Olympus around the edge of the lens could be a clue !)
For technology changes on cameras it does change quickly, so the newest today will be out of date before a year passes. But they already far exceed what we would normally notice or be able to show on screen or when printed
A ‘proper’ camera that’s a few years old will be better at performing then a new compact even when a new compact has more pixels/mega pixels.
The sensor is what matters most as that governs what detail can be captured. The pixels just describe how big the photo will be
More pixels are better then less in principle, but you would have to find a very old camera that can’t have its photos printed on A4 or A3. (If you go and take a close look at an advertising hoarding then you’ll spot that even though photos on a big advert look good at normal viewing distance they are printed with not that many dots/pixels —- the professional who took the photo probably used a very high end professional camera with the final product far below the quality taken
The thing that I would miss from newer camera technology is WiFi capability, to zap photos straight to my phone then to Facebook. However I can use two memory cards, so I have a higher capacity fast card in one slot and a lower capacity WiFi card in the other. My camera is set to save RAW format to the large card (allowing for full editing later) and JPEG to the smaller card
During the day I would pick out particular shots and WiFi them to my phone and Facebook, then later go through the full set on computer.
My last ‘upgrade’ was from a DX sensor to an FX sensor. The FX is a larger ‘full frame’ sensor and the DX is a ‘crop’ sensor (its like cropping the image down)
So I’m getting a ‘bigger’ picture each time as if I’m closer to the subject.
An advantage is that my camera can use both DX and FX lenses. I was already using some FX lenses on the last camera, but not getting their full benefit, and I could still use all the lenses I already had when I upgraded. For some cameras this would result in a dark edge as it would try to take full frame images, but mine can be set to detect and adjust for the lens.
I’ve since sold all my DX lenses and replaced them with FX, but due to the compatibility I didnt have to do that in one go