Looking to get a good digital SLR camera

To be honest oss I am now edging to the Nikon, and late last night a few of the Pentax ranges came to my attention. The ISO does seem pretty weak on the Sony and I have seen that in action on one of the reviews I have read

Plus the Nikon gets 3 frames per second whereas the Sony manages about 2 in review tests.....

I've been looking at some of the second hand models on Ebay I've noticed that some of the newer models are little more than the older models in a new case - no new improvements. And the Canon range actually go backwards, removing features to lower their costs but making their entry level SLR range slightly worse than their previous models (with the exception to a few software tweaks)..

Well, I've decided not to go with the Sony range and have thrown a bid in for a Nikon D3000 on ebay. The auction ends in 4 days and so far my maximum bid is £250 for the kit.. I might get a bargain

But I might still (should my bidding fail) go for either the Nikon 3100 or the Pentax M-X

Peter it's a great idea, nothing wrong with second hand camera bodies, the camera that made me happiest in the last 4 years was a very old second hand Canon 1D mark 1 that I bought on eBay for about 300 quid, I combined that with various new and second hand lenses the results have been marvellous from that camera for example :-



By the way the 1D is only a 4 megapixel camera, it makes great prints.

Can't remember what lens I was using for this one might have been a the Canon 50mm.

Yes that's true and also why I am happy to consider an older camera on ebay, if you know what you are looking for you can get a great bargain.

It still is and it always will be, the lens creates the image all the sensor does is record it.

Both options make sense, the problem with modern Lenses are that they contain electronics which can fail, image stabiliisers, autofocus motors, and electronic aperture motors. In the old days Lenses rarely if ever failed and the worst that could happen was a sticky iris or stuck focus ring now some very expensive glass can fail in lots of expensive ways

Saying that most of my lenses were second hand with only a couple being brand new, never had a bad second hand lens yet although one lens I bought new seven years ago had an expensive autofocus motor failure.

Currently I am in the lead at £265. Not going higher than £300 so we will see...

The pricing of second hand bodies depends on their age and can go as low as 15% of original price, lenses on the other hand tend to retain their value and will usually go at 65% to 70% of original value.

Hard to put a price on the body but a recent one I would say maybe 60 to 65% of orginal sales price.

I've seen an advert in Manchester for a D5000 for £350.. So.. Not having a D3000 for more than £300.

There's a standard kit going for £329 with a buy it now and a body only going for £230 the 18-55 lenses appear to be around80-90 quid.

I would be a bit nervous about that guys feedback Sean 6 of his points come from two people in private listings the only thing he's sold publicly was for 99p. He returned the feedback on 4 of the items but there's no trace of any returned feedback on two other items.

With the zoom included in that kit I would expect the bidding to go higher than 300, he bought the zoom on ebay about 9 months ago so his story holds up, might be a good one if the bidding does not go too high but If you don't get it the buy it now's are still there, separates or kits it comes out at roughly the same price.

The seller I am bidding with has 54 items he sold where he/she got feedback from. Mostly cheap things but some £100 plus items, mostly jewelery..

If I fail at this bid then it is off to The London Camera Exchange shop in Manchester

I must've found another one, it just happened to have a current bid of 265 quid this one http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NIKON-D3000-C...lCameras_JN&hash=item2a0ea9a346#ht_500wt_1156 (ah it's gone past the previous bid and 300 already )

London Camera Exchange shop seem pretty good I've looked at their stuff before.

I've bought lots of stuff and never been disappointed yet but you have to check the sellers history carefully and worth cross checking feedback with the buyers as well by exploring their ebay feedback history too.

It's all common sense in the end.