Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to my Skillshare class. My name is Erin and in this class, I'll be teaching you everything you need to know about buying a used camera on eBay. I'm a photographer, filmmaker, and I work full-time as a digital manager at a major commercial photo studio here in Los Angeles. A lot of people ask me, what does a digital manager do? It's a great question. Essentially, my job is to rent really expensive camera equipment to major photo productions. Along with consulting and dealing with camera equipment from major clients, I also have a fascination with cameras and spend a lot of my time looking up used and new cameras online. You could say, I'm obsessed. If you choose to enroll in this class, you'll be coming along with me as I look for a new used camera for my camera collection. This will enable me to show you step-by-step my process, all my tips and tricks, how I decide on what camera I want and just basically be able to show you how to make a good decision on eBay and get the camera that you want.
2. Class Project : In this segment, I'm going to be talking to you about the class project. Since this class is all about purchasing a camera on eBay, that's exactly what we'll be doing. For this project, I want you to look through eBay and find four cameras that you think might suit your needs using all the tips, tricks, and best practices that I'll be teaching you in this class. Once you have those four cameras picked out, I'd like you to pick one of them and post them in the discussion below, and just explain why you think this might be the one that you might want to buy. Once you've purchased your camera on eBay and it arrives in the mail, then this is where the fun part comes. I want you to go out and shoot one roll of film, if you buy a film camera, and if you buy a digital camera, I want you to go out and shoot 36 images. Why 36, you might ask? Well, that's the same amount of images you can shoot on one roll of 35 millimeter film. Once you're done taking your photos, I want you to post those in the class project. This will be a great opportunity for you to show your work and show off your new camera. I'm really excited to see what kind of cameras you guys find. I'm really excited to see the photos that you make.
3. What's The Deal With Cameras: One of the most common cameras you'll run across on eBay are SLR cameras or single-lens reflex cameras. This is a Nikon F3, and this is a single-lens reflex camera. All that means is that whatever you are seeing through the main lens is what you're seeing through the viewfinder. These are really popular because they're modular, which means that you can switch out the lenses, you can switch out the viewfinder, they have full manual control with some automatic features, and they're super durable. People have always liked them because they can set them up however they want, and it gives them a lot of options when it comes to lenses. I would highly recommend a camera like this for someone who's just getting started out because it really teaches you the fundamentals of photography because it's mostly manual, and it gives you the option to switch lenses and try out different looks. We just talked about SLR cameras, which use 35-millimeter film, but there're actually these other cameras called TLRs, which stands for a twin-lens reflex camera. This is a TLR camera, and it looks crazy and complicated, but it's really not. It's really cool because it uses two lenses to take a photo. Essentially, this is the viewfinder, and this top lens is the lens that you look through when you're looking through the viewfinder, and this bottom lens is what they call the taking lens, this is what actually takes the photo. Before they had SLRs, this was the standard of how people would take photos. The cool thing about this is it uses a completely different film format. This doesn't use 35 millimeter, this uses what's called medium format film. Many will say that I should find a roll of it to show you what that looks like, so I found some area. This is medium format, and this is 35-millimeter film. Basically, this is bigger than 35, and this is what the TLR camera uses. It just takes higher resolution photos because the film is bigger. Moving on to our next type of camera. You just saw the SLR camera, the TLR camera, and now we're going to talk about an SLR camera again, but this is a medium format SLR camera. This is a Mamiya RZ67. It's a legend when it comes in medium format. It's a huge camera, it's super bulky, and pretty heavy and hefty. This is like the pro camera, the 1990s, late '80s, '90s, and prior all the way until the mid to late 2000s. A benefit to an SLR medium format camera, just like the SLR 35-millimeter camera that we talked about earlier, was that whatever you're seeing in the viewfinder, is what you're seeing or whatever your point this lens' at. Remember how like in the TLR camera we had two lenses, this one just has one lens, so whatever is coming into the lens, you're seeing through the viewfinder. Also like the F3, I mentioned before, it's modular, so that means you can switch out a lot of the different components on it. The lenses are interchangeable, so you can take this lens off and swap it out with others. The viewfinder's interchangeable. This is a waist-level viewfinder, but you can also add on a prism finder, so it's more like an SLR where you look through it. Then it has film backs, which is a new thing that I want to bring up with modular medium format. What this is, I want to pop it off here. The reason you have one of these, this is a film back, is that back in the day, if you wanted to shoot different films, but in most cameras, you can only load one film at a time, you just have a bunch of these lying around with different types of film loaded into them. Let's just say you wanted to shoot some color photos, and then later on you say, "Oh, I want to use some black and white, but what am I going to do?" Well, luckily you'd have another one of these little black and white and you can just swap it out, pop it back on to the camera. You can have black and white film, you can have color film, you can even use Polaroids. This was a huge advantage to having a modular medium format camera. Another cool thing about the RZ that's really unique to this camera, so you can get in focus there, is that it has this bellows. All that does is move the lens back and forth, so this is how you focus the camera. Another advantage to having a bellows versus like twisting the actual lens to focus, is that you can use a regular lens and get much closer to your subject, almost creating a macro lens. This camera is super popular because of its versatility, and its image quality. It's got a huge negative, it uses medium format film, just like the DLR. The versatility is what really made this really popular pros. Now with film becoming more popular, these cameras are definitely becoming more popular again as the kids are using them as they say. Yeah, it's a lot like an SLR camera, like the Nikon, but it's just a bigger piece of film, but you get all the modular aspects, which is really nice so you can customize it how you like it. I've already shown you a lot of modular film cameras where you can interchange stuff and making customizable. But I think actually a really cool version in camera is the point and shoot, which is really probably the simplest camera you can buy. Cool thing about these, is that they're mostly automatic, and they really do everything for you. You might recognize these from maybe your childhood, maybe your dad have one or something. They're great cameras because you can just focus in on taking pictures, and not worry so much about setting up the camera or doing manual exposure and all that stuff. Cool thing about this guys, is it has a little zoom lens too, so it gives you some variety on your shots. A lot of them have fixed lenses though where you can't zoom. Yeah, I couldn't recommend point and shoots more. The only problem with point and shoots is that they're just mechanically complicated, so they tend to break really easily. Buying one of these on eBay is always a little bit risky, but there are definitely models out there that are more reliable than others. I'll link a few in my camera recommendations later when we talk about that. So far I've shown you only film cameras, but this class is also useful for buying digital cameras on eBay. One of my favorite digital cameras also happens to be Nikon. This is a Nikon D810, it's a digital SLR camera. Really the only difference between how these work and the film one I showed you before, is that it has autofocus, and instead of capturing the image on film, you're capturing it on a digital sensor. The thing I really like about Nikon is that they've used the same lens mount since 1959, so you can actually put on a lot of manual lenses from the old days onto these modern digital cameras. Not that you'd really normally do that, but it's just nice to know that you can, and that's something I really enjoy about Nikons. But yeah, otherwise, the same concepts apply where whatever you're looking at is what you're taking a photo of. The cool thing is that it can autofocus. That can be super useful if you don't feel like focusing yourself. Honestly, when you put one of these cameras on automatic, it's almost like having a point-and-shoot film camera because it figures out everything for you, although I wouldn't recommend it because these cameras are capable of being fully manual, and they're definitely the best way to shoot stuff if you're going to be using something this advanced. One thing to mention with digital cameras is that, for the most part, they're going to be more on the expensive side when it comes to buying when used. That's just because they're newer, and people are definitely using more digital cameras than they are film cameras, so they just have more value in the market. That doesn't mean that you can't find a good used digital camera that's reasonably priced for what it is. Another really popular DSLR for professional use is the Canon 5D Mark III. This camera came about six years ago, but still works great and shoots really decent to an ADP video. If you're someone who's looking to use your DSLR more for video than photo, this could be a great option. Unlike the Nikon, it has a more modern lens mounts, so you can adapt the autofocus lenses to old Canon SLRs from like the 80s. This is still a really solid camera, and anyone looking for a DSLR should consider one of these. There's actually one more type of digital camera that I want to mention, and that's a mirrorless camera. This is a Sony A7 Mark IV. As you can see, it looks a lot like a DSLR. There's no mirror inside this body, so what happens is the light goes in through the lens, hits the sensor, and then there's little monitor in the electronic viewfinder that displays what the sensor's seeing. In essence, it works just like an SLR camera, where you see what you're looking at through the main lens, but it's just like a little computer monitor. I'll try to show you some footage so you can see what that looks like in reality. Some of the major advantages to mirrorless cameras are their adaptability. You can put pretty much any manual focus lens on here, and it's really easier to focus by hand, because the electronic viewfinder gives you lots of access, like focus peaking, and I'll show you how that looks through the viewfinder now. We are looking through the viewfinder of my Sony a7 III now, and unfortunately I can't record focus peaking through my external minor. But I'm going to show you another manual focus assist that is offered, and that's magnification. If I hit my button here, it will zoom in, and we can grab focus on whatever we want to make sure it's tack sharp on these rotten avocados on my tree outside. Then I'll pop out here, and now we know that the avocados are sharp. That's a super simple way of using focus assist when you're using manual focus lenses to take photos with this camera, and it's super handy. Last but not least, I want to add a little bonus camera just to show you how cool Nikons are. This is a Nikon F100. There was a magical time in the '90s when you could get a film camera that had all the modern computers, they're like in modern digital Nikon would have. The cool thing about this camera is that you can shoot 35-millimeter film and have all the same functionality and autofocus as you would with the Nikon D810. Let me demonstrate. I'm going to take the lens off the D810 here. This is the 85 autofocus from the D810, and this is the Nikon F100. Because Nikons use that same F1 I was telling you about since 1959, you can actually put this lens on this camera. Nikon F100 is a secret little camera that not all people know about. The coolest thing about it, like I mentioned, is that it can use autofocus lenses, and it has all the same controls as a modern Nikon D810. Anyone who's looking again to film photography and wants an autofocusing camera, I would highly recommend one of these. I know we looked at a lot of cameras and it was a lot of information, but the goal of this first lesson was just to show you how many different types of cameras are out there. I hope you got inspired, and so again you're thinking about what types of cameras you might be interested in purchasing. Obviously, I'll be going more into detail as we move on through this class. I can't wait to see you in the next lesson.
4. Why Ebay?: So in this lesson, I just want to do a quick overview of why I like eBay for buying used cameras. I think the biggest reason eBay is the best place to buy used cameras is that they offer a lot of buyer protections. Whenever I'm looking for used camera gear on eBay, I make sure that the listing has the eBay Money Back Guarantee badge and I also like to make sure that the seller accepts returns. As long as the listing has those two criteria, you pretty much covered for anything. So let's just say that maybe the camera got damaged in shipping, or the seller sent you a different camera that not was described in the listing, it's really nice to have that peace of mind that if something like that happens, you're covered and it's basically just an insurance policy that you're going to get your money back. I think another reason eBay is so great is that when I first started on Photography, I grew up on a small town, so I didn't really have access to any used cameras or camera gear, so I really understand if you are living in a small town or not near a big city, that eBay really gives you access to a world full of cameras that can be delivered right to your door, and I think that's really awesome. Just to be fair, there are obviously other places you can buy used camera gear online, probably the best alternative to eBay is KEH. They are cameras store warehouse that ships cameras directly to you and they offer a guarantee. They're actually pretty good, but they're more expensive and they have less inventory than eBay. You can also go the Craigslist's route or thrift stores or garage sales, but in those scenarios, you're most likely not going to get your money back, so I think that risk is something to be aware of. Especially if you're not that experienced of buying camera gear, I definitely don't want to go that route. So I hope this little overview is helpful for you to better understand why I like eBay and I can't wait to share more tips, tricks, and best practices, as I actually start to look for my camera in the next lesson.
5. Ebay: Search Part 1: Hey, welcome back. I'm really excited about this next lesson because I actually get to start looking for a camera for my camera collection. Like I mentioned before, there's three things I like to think about, and it's budget, research, and what camera is going to fit my style. I also have to consider, since I have a decent camera collection already, what would be a good fit to add something to the collection. I don't really want to have a duplicate. I want to make sure that I'm always buying stuff that's different so that I got a variety of different options when I'm shooting. I've come to the conclusion that for my budget and for the types of cameras I own, I think I'm going to look for a point-and-shoot because the point-and-shoot that I do own that one with the zoom lens, the flash is burnt out on it. I would just love to have a point-and-shoot with a flash. I also think that's going to fit nicely into my budget. That's what we're going to look at first, and I'm going to be switching over to my computer screen in a bit here to show you my process and talk you through it. Just don't worry too, because I'll be showing you a few other types of cameras looking through eBay for them so that you guys get an idea of how I've may look for an SLR, or a TLR, or even a digital camera. We're going to go over a lot in this lesson, and I'm excited for you to come along in the journey. Welcome to eBay. As you can see from my recently viewed that I'm constantly looking up cameras, I wasn't kidding. Like I said earlier, I'm looking for a point-and-shoot with a flash for under $150. Usually my first thing I'm going to do is since I don't know a lot about point-and-shoots, there are so many of them out there, I'm just going to do a little search on Google and see what cameras exist and maybe there's something that will catch my eye. I'm going to make a new tab here. Best point-and-shoot film cameras. I'm just going to go through these. They got this one here, it's got tons of blogs about this. I've heard of DigitalRev, let's check them out, 2015. We want this XA, I really like this camera. I've heard a lot about it. I've never use one, but I only hear good things. That could be definitely a possibility. Yashicas, yeah. These are pretty expensive now. This article, it came out in 2015, so they got some prices here. No way these prices are valid anymore. I bet you these are a lot more expensive. That's something to think about if you see when these articles, and they came out two years ago. Film is beginning more popular with people, so the prices keep going up. But yeah, those are really good cameras, Contax T2. These are also really expensive, I know that. These are expensive. Yeah, there's lot of expensive ones on here. Oh, this is a really cool camera. If you're maybe someone out there who's got a lot of money and looking to spend it, these are worth a look. If I had a bigger budget, I definitely consider one of these. The Olympus Stylus, these are really popular and pretty expensive. I want to say they're in 300 and $400 range. As you can see here, it says 50-120. No way. These prices are way out. Really, Contax T3, also a great camera. Anything is Contax, these are really expensive. They're German made, they're really nice, and they're super small, and they have really nice lenses. I think on this list, the one that feels right is the Olympus XA, so I'm just going to copy this. Go back to eBay, and then just paste it in, and let's see what comes up. I don't know a lot about the XAs, but I've heard they're good. Obviously, there's a couple different models. We got an XA1 here, we got a XA2. This one's got 12 watchers because it's cheap. I haven't look into that one. After that, some quick thing. I'll point out here is where you see there's EXC++++. This is usually an indicator that a Japanese camera dealer, and they seem to use this as a rating system. Whenever I see this, I almost always known. As you can see here, it says it's from Japan. This one doesn't have it, but also from Japan. I actually really like dealing with Japanese camera dealers. Everything I've ever bought from Japan has been in great condition and exactly how it's been described. They have a really good camera culture over there, and they take it pretty seriously. I think it's always a good idea if you ever come across something from Japan to consider it, and I've never had a bad experience. Just something to keep in the back of your mind when you looking. It looks like these all have like a little bit of different styles. I'm just noticing like the switch here, it looks different on these two. This is an XA, and this is an XA2. Let's just see what this one is. This is cool. This is a 2.8 lens, and I guess, that's probably the first thing as I only get photo of it here, let's see. That switch on the left there, this one right here. That shows you what aperture of the lens is set to, and you can set it manually, which is really cool. That's a nice feature. I always like a point-and-shoot because they're automatic. But it's also nice if you can override some of the automatic features, and force it to do certain things, if you know what you're doing. Like I was mentioning, it's a 2.8 speed lens. The lower this number, you'll see right here around the barrel of the lens, you see some data there. You'll see where it says 1:2.8. That just means that's it's a 2.8 lens, and basically, the smaller that number is, the faster the lens is going to be. This applies for all lenses. If you're looking for an SLR and you see one that's like a 1.4, or 1.8, or 2.8, that's what that stands for. The lower the number, the faster the lens is, which means it can let more light in, and that's usually more desirable. Anything that has a faster aperture will usually be more expensive. Also, what that affects is the depth of field. Whenever you have the camera pointed at subject, or let's say, you're taking a portrait, probably you all seen that blurry background effect behind the subject. The lower the number, the more blurred out the background is going to be, and the higher number, the less blurred out the background is going to be. It's just something to think about. Usually anything that's faster is going to be more expensive. This camera looks pretty cool. Let's see the price is, 200 bucks. It's a little bit beyond my budget plus 30 bucks shipping. Seems little bit beyond my budget. But other thing to point out here is, as I mentioned before, here's the eBay Money Back Guarantee. So whenever you see this, that's a pretty good sign. They also accept returns, so that's great. I didn't mention this at all, but all those sellers will have feedback rating. I usually never try to buy from anyone below 99 percent. Not that it's always going to be a telltale, but I think that's always a safe bet, and you can see how many items they've sold here, 739. That's a good amount, so I feel pretty positive about this seller. If you go down, let's see what it says about it. This is pretty classic since this is, let's see, it's from Japan. Yeah, this is from Japan. It's really anything from Japan always have like this, this breakdown sheet where they just tell you the very specific amount of information. I don't worry about appearance too much. I usually like to buy stuff that is in good shape, so I'm not too much scuffing or scratches. But the reason I worry about that is if someone has dropped it or a lot, or rubbed it up against things, it could damage over time, but not the biggest deal. But I do see down here, it says there are a few fungus and what that means is when lenses sit around for awhile, especially older cameras. If the lens is exposed to humidity or moisture of any type, sometimes mold can literally grow inside the lens and cause it to become foggy, and that's pretty much a no-go for me. If I received when it is haze, fungus, scratching, or separation if any of those are yes, probably a no. Dust is not a big deal. Like a lot of dust is, but if it's just a few specks of dust, not a big deal at all. Won't really affect the quality of the photo or anything like that. But since this has fungus and is above my budget, yeah, this is a no-go. But interesting enough, something to check out. Moving along let's see also we can find here. I like that manual control, I wonder if it's just an XA thing. Yeah, that was an XA with a 2.8. I'm going to try that. I'm going to type in Olympus XA. Since I'm curious about the 2.8 lens, that's what I want to find. Let's see if we can come across here. This one is free shipping, but it's 240 bucks, which is a little quite a bit beyond my budget. But let's just take a look at it, just for fun. You can see this thing is in really good shape. It's nice. The big that you checking always is the picture of the film door. Here we go. Big thing to checkout, it looks like all the seals aren't on this. They're normally be some foam where the hinges, you can see what the glue is. I would say this is not in perfect shape just because there's no foam which is important because it keeps the back of the camera light tight. If you don't have that foam, you'll get light leaks and that can cause streaking and crazy patterns that show up on your film. It's really important that when you're looking at these cameras to make sure there's a picture of the inside, so you can see if there's the foam that's going to keep the light out. Since this one doesn't, I'm already skeptical. I'm going to set some now, and it's really expensive. 115. Now look at this one. It's got all that foam on the outside. That's a good sign. Basically, what happens is since these cameras are old, over time that foam will deteriorate and that's why it falls off. It's really important to have that so you don't get light leaks. This one's in much better shape at least in that regard. It's a good price, 115, but has $50 worth of shipping. So it'd be five bucks, maybe 15 bucks over my budget, but I'd be willing to move a little bit on that. It's from Ukraine. Interesting. Let's see what they say about it. There is fungus and haze in the lens and finder. So immediately I'm over it. That the box doesn't seem to be in good shape but way beyond my budget, 179. This one doesn't come with a flash, which is going to be a bit of an issue. But the pictures look nice. That's got a little wear and tear. But it's got that manual switch that I like. They don't mention anything about the lens. Says the diaphragm works, which is the aperture. The lens looks pretty clean from the pictures. That does look a little dirty, so that does concern me. This is going to ask, is it in my price range? It is. It's a little over but it's free shipping. It's from New York. Lets see if the seller. Seller's got 100 percent feedback and he's sold over 4,100 items. E-bay, money-back guarantee and 30-day returns. So even if it hasn't got the flash, it still intrigues me a little bit. This is a good opportunity. I'm going to show you how you're going to contact the seller, asking questions here. You hit contact seller, you see details about the item. Click there. Then I'll just always say, "Hello, lens.camera." I always like to start out with a positives, so I'll say, "Great camera." I think it just makes people realize you're friendly and that you're not going to be hostile. "Just curious. Does the lens have any fogging, coating separation?" Separation means coating. There's coating on all the lenses and sometimes that can peel off over time. "Or fungus? Thank you." Always thank them for their help, "Thank you for your help" This is my pro tip, I always like to put my first name. I think because obviously everyone uses usernames on here. I think that just makes them realize you're a human being and that you're willing to be friendly and personal. I think it has gone a long way into people wanting to actually respond to you and give you the right information and be honest with you. I just always put my first name. I think it's best practice. I'll always do it. Send a copy and just have a paper trail. Then say send. Cool. We'll wait to hear back from him and see what he says. All right. So actually we looked at the XAs. I can keep looking through that. That's definitely one option. Let's look through this again, see if there's any other top ten lists. $25 to $99, let's see. That's the beautiful thing about the internet. This one came out in 2020, so it's more up-to-date. Light touch, has a zoom lens. See, now I already have a point issue with a zoom and it works. But I would probably avoid them because the zoom lens is really complicated mechanically and it's just something that's going to break and I'm trying to find a camera that's going to last me awhile. I'm probably trying to avoid zooms as much as possible. Let's see what we got here. But the version two has 35 , 2.8. Let's take a look at this one. It's a cool little camera. We're going to look at the version two because that has the 2.8 lens, which is what I want. Look at that. It says that this was the precursor to the Olympus Stylus, which is really expensive. So this one is 99 bucks. It's a cool little camera. I like this one a lot already. The other thing to note, so I was just looking at this and looking for those lights seals. Doesn't look like there's any foam on this one. But sometimes not all cameras use foam too, light seals, sometimes just they don't need it. I'm going to take a guess that this camera actually doesn't need the foam. Let's see what they say. Yeah. He took a picture of this. There is some foam around the window, so that's a good sign. Yeah. You see how there's that ridge around the edge of the door here? I'm going to say that this camera really doesn't require foam because what that is is like like a little dark seal and it basically just fits into a groove and it makes a right angle so the light can't come around the corner. So I'm thinking this is actually probably totally fine without foam. I'm not too concerned. The fact that the foam is still around the little preview window, it shows you what kind of film you have in the back of the camera. That's a good sign that it's not the foam that's [inaudible] , that there probably was never a foam there to start with. That's just a guess. But from my experience, I'd say that's probably the case. Let's just see what he says about it. This guy's got a 100 percent feedback, seller does not accept returns, so that's something to be aware of. Let's see. Camera tested. Condition is used. Shipped with USPS. Normal signs of use, good condition overall, flash works. Lens is clean and free of scratches and fungus. Same sharp lens as the Stylus. He doesn't say he tested it with film. I'm curious about this one. I am going to message the seller. Go on back. Yeah, look at how nice that looks. This is great. Cool. All right. I'm going take a little break for a second. I'll be right back.
6. Ebay: Search Part 2: I'm liking the XAs, but they're hard to find a good one. I really like that little slim one, the Infinity 2. Let's go to this one. Leicas are really expensive always, even thought this is just a little point-and-shoot. These are expensive. Here the OXA. Let's keep looking here, $25 shipping. They accept returns, 99.1 percent feedback. It's tiny, signs of use. Finder is clean. No fungus and separation. There's nothing to affect shooting. It works properly. It didn't mention anything about the flash which is important to me. I'm probably just going to message this guy and see how much the flash works. I'm curious to see how these look. My go-to way of seeing like, oh, I wonder what one of these point-and-shoots actually looks like is I'll just copy the name, and then I'll go to this website called Flickr and I'll link it below in the class. This is a good spot. You going to paste in lenses, different types of cameras you might be interested in. This is just a community website that people share photos on, Olympus AF-1. Yeah, this is my go-to way to see how cameras look. Olympus AF-1. Seems pretty sharp. It's a cool photo. I'll just look through and see what intrigues me. It looks pretty sharp. Really, what you're looking for and it really depends on the film scan, but nicer point-and-shoots will be sharper, have better contrast in the images. There's so many different factors that can affect that. But I have a pre-trained eye, but over time, when you're looking at this stuff, you'll see that some of these cameras you're looking at might not look as nice as others. You'll see a visual difference as you do a lot more research, and are looking through a lot of sample images, and stuff like that. But really I'm just seeing what people are taking photos with it. It's a good way to see, since this is a 35 millimeter lens. What does AF-1 Super. This is a good way just to see what the viewing angle is of the lens. You can see if this is wide. You can see a lot of the landscape that you're taking a photo of. If this was a tight lens, it'd be way zoomed in. Yeah, it seems like a cool camera and auto-focus seems good. That's another thing when these cameras are auto-focus, it seems like people are missing focus, or it's like not focusing on the right things. That's always something to think about. This is the daylight shot. It looks like it focused on the right stuff. See how it focused on the back here. This is a pretty cool camera. It's also obviously another great place to look up. Maybe not so obvious, but if you go on YouTube, I'm sure there's a bunch of videos about point-and-shoot cameras. Point-and-shoot film camera. Let's see what comes up here. Here we go. Best point-and-shoot film cameras 2020. Hi, everyone. Today, we're going to take a look at five best point-and-shoot film cameras in the market for this year. Obviously, it's amazing. YouTube has got tons and tons of videos about cameras, and it's a great resource for researching. I'll watch this video later and if it's any good, I'll put a link in the class and you guys could check it out if you're interested. I couldn't recommend it more. I've learned so much from YouTube videos over the years along with working professionally. Yeah, it's a great resource, so definitely use it. I know we're getting close. It feels like we're going to find something. Again I'm looking through these I'm just seeing which one draws me to it, and that's what I mean about figuring out what camera fits your style is whatever attracts you, you should nurture that curiosity, and do some research on it, and see if it's a reliable camera and if it's going to fit your needs and go from there. That leads you down the journey, the wormhole, if you will, about researching cameras. It's definitely okay to see one that you think that just looks cool and you're like, I wonder how that one is and then do your research. As long as you do enough research and you find out if it's reliable, I see no problem with buying cameras that way. Because the goal here is you want to find a camera that's going to make you want to shoot more, not less. You want to want something that inspires you and gets you excited about going out and taking pictures. I'm all about looking at cameras and picking ones that make you feel good. We got this guy is the one that, that guy got back to me, said worked perfectly. It's tempting. This one's so cheap and it's free shipping. [inaudible] it's worth and get this one and this one for less than a 150 bucks. Let's see what we got here. Looks like actually did have one down here, 269. Too much. Yeah, there's nothing in here I'm too excited about. I don't know I think I'm going go with the Infinity. I think it looks nice. It's just so cheap and it's got three washers. I just want to check one more thing because I'm pretty sure it was called The Infinity. This one doesn't say that in the front, it says AF-1. This one doesn't say it either, so never mind. This one's from Germany. This one looks like it's in really good shape. See now this pulling me this direction. Just getting down to nitty gritty now. It's got little foam pressure plate looks to be in good shape. Everything looks super clean on this thing which I would pay a little extra for versus this one which also it looks like it's in good shape. It's just not quite as nice. This one is interesting. It's got, let's see, quartzdate. This one is not the quartzdate which I don't care about that. It's not something I'm looking for. This thing looks pretty slick. I think I might go with this one. So 99.5 percent feedback, 4468 items, that good, $10 shipping I can deal with that, that's 125. It should get here pretty quickly from Hamburg and it has returns, money-back guarantee, and 2.8/35 lens, mint condition. I tested the camera, it's fully working, viewfinder is in excellent condition, lens in excellent condition, no haze, and scratches, no fungus, no cleaning marks. Guys I'd say, I just always double-check before you buy, but yeah, I think this is going to be the one. This thing looks like it's in great shape. It's got a flash. It's the right price. I just like that it's really good shape. Wherever I buy camera you're just trying to get the one that's in the best condition for the price. I think this is it. This is going to be my new camera. I can't wait to get it and I can't wait to shoot some photos and post them in the project with you guys. Well, I hope this is a little helpful. I'll also be going over a few more, but yeah, this is going to be my camera. I'm really excited. Here we go.
7. Ebay: Nikon FE: Welcome back. It was really fun to show you my process in looking for my point and shoot, and I can't wait for that bad boy shows up in the mail. It's coming from Germany, so it's going to take about a week. But I can't wait to get my hands on it and test it out and take some photos and share them with you in the projects. I'm looking forward to that. In this next section, I'm going to show you how to look for a film SLR, a medium-format film camera, and a digital camera. I'm hoping after I've shown you all this, this is going to give you a really solid foundation to start your own search for your own cameras. I can't wait to get started, and we're going to switch back over to my screen here and continue on. Welcome back to eBay. Like I said, we're going to look for a film SLR camera. I have a few recommendations. Again, we're coming up on another lesson, where I'll just go through some of my favorite cameras. But like you learned, I really like Nikons, and I think I'm going to start my search with the Nikon FE. To give you a little background here, I actually didn't really know about this camera till recently and this brings me to my next point. Like I explained before, Nikons have used the F-mount pretty much the entire time that Nikons existed. Basically, all their manual lenses will fit on to any of their manual camera bodies, and even some of their autofocus bodies and digital cameras. I really like that about Nikon and that's why I've decided to show you this camera because I think if you invest in Nikon lenses, like the old manual ones, they have a lot of versatility because you can switch in between a lot of different cameras, and everything is pretty reasonably priced. I think this is a great camera brand for someone who's just starting to get into. Obviously, there's different models that cost all sorts of different prices. The Nikon FE is actually one of the more basic versions but is a super capable SLR camera and you can get a go on for a very decent price. Some of them with lenses, some without. I'm going to continue explaining what I'm looking for and without further ado, let's take a look. First thing I want to bring up was I actually didn't even know about the Nikon FE until a few days ago. So I want to show you how I actually came across this camera model and why I'm now a big fan. Another great research resource is there's a guy out there named Ken Rockwell. If you looked in the cameras all before, you've probably come across this guy's blog before, but he's like the old school, mid-2000s blog guy about everything in cameras. Ken Rockwell Nikon FE. When I was trying to decide a camera for you guys, I knew there was a cheaper Nikon SLR body out there that I haven't own personally, but I knew it was good. I just don't know what it was. So I just literally looked up Nikon SLR and Ken Rockwell and this guy came up. He does these really detailed blog posts just about every piece of camera equipment ever made and they're all really good. He's a lot of really good insight about what makes these cameras good or bad. I think the biggest thing that's sold me in the Nikon FE was right here: it said, the newer FE2. As we've been learning with those point and shoots a lot of them have different models. So obviously as cameras, their first version, and then they have a second version that comes out, and a third version. There's a Nikon FE and there's a Nikon FE2. I took Ken's recommendation here and he says he prefers the older FE because the FE can use every lens since 1959, while the newer FE2 can't use non-AI lenses. I'll go more into detail on what non-AI, AI, and AIS lenses are later. But that's just some great information right there to know that the FE actually has more compatibility than the FE2. He also says that the FE has a better battery life. This whole article is super interesting, has lots of great reasons why he likes the FE over the FE2. I just want to make a point here that sometimes the older camera in the model series can be better than the newer versions. Just because a camera model is older than a newer version of it, it doesn't always mean it's worse. I'm going to take Ken's word for it that the FE is better than FE2 for most things. Also, he compares the FE to F3, which I do own. That's the SLR camera I showed you in that earlier lesson. It's a smaller, lighter package, and far easier to read. He's talking about the light meter. The light meter, which I'd agree, in the F3 is very hard to read. He says in the Nikon FE that it's much easier because it uses a needle instead of a digital display. I think that's pretty interesting. This actually makes me want to buy one and see how much better it is than my F3. So yeah, I just want to bring up Ken Rockwell because his reviews are great and he's a great resource for you when you're looking for your cameras. We're going to go back to eBay here. I'm going to go to Buy Now or Buy It Now. I don't usually like to mess with bidding too much. I just think it takes a lot of time. Basically, on eBay, that's the thing to keep in mind is that everything that's worth buying is going to be pretty much at its price value, which I mean the market rate. So I don't feel like I'm really missing out by not bidding because anyone who's bidding on cameras on eBay's probably are already aware of what its value is and it's going to end up somewhere close to its actual value. I'll just go to Buy It Now because everyone who is doing buy it now isn't going to charge way more than the market rate for that camera. Obviously, these prices will vary depending on the condition of the camera. Just looking at this, it looks like this run between say 150 bucks and this guy's doing 220 here. How about this? Another little trick is I do buy it now, and then if you're curious what these might cost for any camera, you can just go to Completed or go to Sold Items. Now you can see what these cameras have sold in the past. They tell you the date right here, so you can gauge what you might be paying for one of these. I'm just taking a look through here. It seems like a really good condition one will run you over 200 plus, but I bet you one that's with a lens. Mind you that when you're buying SLR cameras since they're interchangeable and have interchangeable lenses, sometimes you're just buying the body only like this one. You can see it doesn't have a lens with it. Then sometimes you're going to be buying the body with a lens. That's up to you to decide what's better or better deal for you. Sometimes it can be better to buy just the body by itself and then buy a lens separate. Sometimes it's a better deal to buy a lens with the body and you'll just have to compare and contrast and see what fits your budget. Let's go back. I'm going to undo the completed sales here; undo the sold ones. Cool. Let's start going through these. I just want to go quickly through and just give you some tips when you're looking for one of these. Let's try these two different versions; there's a silver version and a black painted version. That's just something to be aware of. They're the same camera. If it says FE and that FE2, then you're looking pretty much at the same thing. This is 220. It's an FE2, so it's worth a little bit more because it's newer, but we know from Ken Rockwell's review that the FE is actually better. So we're going to only look for FEs. Right off the bat, this thing looks like it's in great shape. It's from Japan. You know how much I like my Japanese camera dealers. Yeah. You can see this thing looks pretty clean. No scratches on the front, and this looks like it's just the body only, no lens. That's okay with me. I think SLRs are a good place for a lot of people that start out with if you're just looking to buy your first camera. I also want to bring up the difference between digital and the film. I think a big advantage of buying film cameras, especially these inexpensive ones are they are just inexpensive, and even though it is film, so it really depends on your purpose. Maybe if you're looking to buy a camera to shoot commercial work to make money off over maybe shooting weddings or head shots or whatever you might be trying to do, probably a lot of people are going to want a fast turnaround, quick results, or want to be able to review the images quickly. You're just engage this by what your needs are. So a film camera might not be a perfect choice for you if you're trying to do commercial work and you need to pump out the images quickly. But there are plenty of wedding photographers these days that shoot film, it's a specific niche market that people like. It's not always the case. But if you're someone who's just curious about photography, maybe it's a hobby or you just want to try it, I can't recommend buying a phone camera more. A really big advantage is that they're inexpensive and instead of spending maybe a few $1,000 or 1,000 to $1000 on a digital camera. Obviously, the advantage of digital is you can shoot as much as you want, and there's really no consequence to it except hard drive space. Whereas with film, you have to pay for film, and developing, and scanning if you can't scan your own film. But if you're only spending, let's say this is a 120 bucks, and let's just assume you can get a lens for another 100 bucks. Let's just say for $250, you can have a completely working camera, and you can spend the difference that you want to spend on a digital camera on film and developing and scanning. I think film was a great way to learn how to take photos because you had to do everything manually and you can't see your results right away. You really learn by fire, and it's sometimes a little bit of guesswork, and you're going to fail a lot, but you're going to learn lessons quickly and because there's actually consequence to taking bad photos. You're spending money and you don't know until you going to develop whether they're good or bad. This camera looks pretty good. Another thing I want to look at, like we were looking at the point and shoot, this is where the foam seals are on the back here. I'll try to point it with my mouse here. When my mouse is, do you see that line right there? That's the light seal, and it looks like it's a little Canyon. In there I can make out that there is some foam in there, so that's a good sign. You always want to make sure there's foam if you think there's supposed to be foam. Yeah. As you can see in that bottom left corner, you can see the foam in that crease. Yes. The foam looks good for looking at the door. Yeah. See by the hinge there, there's a definitely a piece of foam and light seals, so that's great. Then again, as we were looking with the point and shoots, I want to make sure that they have the eBay Money Back Guarantee, which they do. He accepts returns for up to 60 day, so that's great. If you look at his seller profile here, he's got a 100 percent positive feedback. I'm already feeling really good about the seller. Appearance is beautiful. Great. Its tiny scuff's in normal use. Just remind you that these cameras are prior from, what can I say? They made these from 1978-1983. The fact that these cameras still in such good shape after almost 40 years at the newest, that says a lot about the quality. The icons are notoriously known to be bulletproof. I think this could be a great option for someone. No haze, no fog as we saw before. No scratches, no balsam separation and a fungus, and a little bit of dust, but dust is not a deal breaker for me. Yeah. I don't really see anything off the bat that really bothers me. That's the mirror to make it an SLR. You can see at the very bottom edge there, looks like some code, I think it's just a little bit of felt threading that's popped up. I don't think it scratches on the mirror, so I'm not worried about it. Inside a camera like this, they'll put felt around the inside to make sure that any light that might come in isn't going to be bouncing around in there so it makes it really dark, which is what you want. Lights coming through the lens. You don't want there to be any interference. Yeah. Everything looks pretty nice on this. The fact that it's only a 120 bucks, $20 shipping, that's a good deal. Then I feel seemed like a no brainer. I'm going to make a new list here. We can just do film SLR. Perfect. Cool. Well, I will say a great option. Let's just take a look at another one just to see what they could potentially offering here. Yeah, a 120 bucks, that's actually a good deal. This one says, excellent plus, plus, plus, plus, so it must be good. Again, this one looks to be in good shape. Some of the Chrome looks a little dirty, but nothing that concerns me. Looking through here. I like they takes a lot of pictures of it, and gives you view of all the angles. You can see in the viewfinder there, it looks a little like a little bit of smooth sound there, will there, or some separation. That's something I'm a little concerned about. Also, another thing to note with these SLR cameras, and basically all SLR cameras is that they're pretty much fully manual. As you can see, it has an auto mode. But the big difference between different types of models is how fast the shutter can go. This top dial here with the late numbers on it is that shutter dial. You can see that this one goes up to 1-1,000 for the second. That's pretty fast for these manual SLRs. I think the fastest ones that I know of go up to one for 1,000 that a second. That can be a factor in the price of a camera as depending on how fast the shutter can go. The higher that number goes, it could potentially make the camera more expensive. Just something to be thinking about when you're looking for these. If you're not looking at this specific model that's pretty universal that the hub is shutter dial on top. This one looks okay, but definitely not as good of shape as the other one. I'm just going to pass that one out. Let's look at one more just for fun. Let's see a black one. I'm going to do Nikon FE black. Yeah. It seemed like the black ones are a little bit more expensive. I'm guessing, people just like them for the way they look. They're exactly the same. This one's an FE2, so that's why this one's more expensive. Let's just see this one. This is similarly priced to the silver ones we looked at. Again, this seems to be in really good shape. There's a little bit of scuffing or paint that's bubbling up on the corner there. Not a big deal. Let's keep looking. The photos look good. I say, I like the fact that I take some photos, that's always a good sign when you're looking at a listing. I think if someone takes a lot of photos, they're not really trying to hide anything from you. Yeah. This thing seems to be in pretty good shape. Let's check out that film door again. Now, as you can see, it looks like all the light seals around the door there. As you come across the back here, everything looks pretty clean. It seems like pretty option. Let's look at that viewfinder quick. Viewfinder seems pretty clean. It could be a little smudgy or maybe has a little bit of separation in it, but nothing that looks to bad. Let's see what he says about it. Yeah. Again, series business as he got photo of themselves on. Show signs of use. It seems like it's a little bit more worn in. There's a little dust, but there is no problem in visibility. Works properly. I think makes a little note that this is the finder, which is the viewfinder. That's what that means. There's a little bit of dust in the viewfinder, and that's expected. Anything that's 35-40 years old, if it's not in perfect condition, it's going to have a little bit of dust in it. Yeah. I mean, I think this could be a good option for someone. It's a good price. Let's see what shipping is, 40 bucks shipping, but it's coming from Japan. This is a pretty good option. It seems like the black Nikon FEs are a little bit more expensive than the silver ones. If you don't care about the color, it seems like the silver ones are the way to go. You're going to save yourself low $. There seem to be a lot more of them, at least from what I saw briefly. You might get some more options and some of them might be in better condition. But obviously, this is just the body of the camera. There's no lens. That's what I want to bring up next.
8. Ebay: Nikon Lenses: Whether you're looking at Nikon or different brand. Each camera company makes their own in-house lenses. What that means is, Nikon makes Nikon lenses that fit their cameras. The reason I bring this up that they're in-house is that there are also other camera companies out there like what's a common one? Tamron and Sigma that might make lenses that fit onto Nikon cameras. They're just like third-party camera companies that just make lenses. For the most part, I like to stick with the in-house lenses that were built by the same company that made the cameras because they usually work the best with the cameras, and they're usually a bit higher quality optically than buying a third-party lenses. In Nikon's case, you can just type in Nikon. As we talked about on the point-and-shoots, there were a lot of 28-millimeter and 35-millimeter lenses on those. So with an SLR camera, you have a lot of options for all lenses. Let's just say we wanted a 35-millimeter lens and you can see here in this suggestions. The first one here, I really want this lens, I was looking at to buy it, but it's very expensive, but just to show you this one, for example. This lens is almost $400, so you're probably, oh boy, this is where it gets expensive, but this is what I want to explain to you. Each camera company have their in-house lenses that they make. So this is their nicest one. The reason I know it's a nicest version of their 35 millimeter is that it's a 1.4 and if you remember from the point-and-shoots, but I was saying that the lower the f-stop or f-number is, the more expensive the lens is going to be. The reason that is, is that the lower the number is, the more light it lets in and that's valuable to photographers because if you're shooting in low light circumstances, if maybe you're shooting on the street at night, or maybe you're shooting inside a building without natural light, this can become very useful to help you get a good exposure on your film because the lens is able to allow more light in. Like I said, I'm not going to go into great detail about how this works. I'll post the video in the class that talks about f-stops and what that means. But then the next thing I want to talk to you about when it comes to Nikon lenses, these Nikon manual lenses is the AIS. Like I was saying, older lenses from 1959 use the F-mount. They came out three different versions of them. There are non AI lenses, and then there are AI lenses, and then there are AIS lenses. Basically, as time went on, they figured out how to make the lenses better. This is the one we already looked at. Like I mentioned, Nikon Nikkor 35-millimeter, 1.4 AIS, this is the nicest version they ever made because it's an AIS and super fast. Now if I type in Nikkor, 35-millimeter AI, this is the second nicest 35-millimeter they made. As you can see, it's a little bit slower, it's an f/2. It's not as fast and it's got the AI. This is actually the 35-millimeter lens I own for my Nikon f/3. It does the job. It's not the best and suddenly keep in mind, not that I think you should be worried about this when you're just starting out, these older manual lenses from the '80s back then, wide-angle lenses like anything below 15 millimeter, 35, 28, 18, they just didn't really have the technology back in the day to make wide-angle lenses work very well. There are obviously some examples of ones that are good, but on the most part, wide-angle lenses are harder to make and make well, and in the '80s before they had computers to sculpt the lenses, they were always a little bit softer, not as sharp, but I just want to bring it up that wide angle lenses are usually a little harder to find a good one. I don't particularly think the f/2 AI version of this lens is very good. Actually, I own it. It does a fine job, but it's nothing special. I definitely want to get this one, the Nikon 35 1.4 AIS because this one is actually very good and it's very sharp. It's from the '80s so it's a pretty rare occasion that a lens that wide is sharp. Just something to think about and that's pretty much across the board. If you're looking at a Canon or maybe a Minolta camera, the wire lenses are, and if you don't get the nicest versions of them, they usually aren't the best. I think that gives you a pretty good idea. Just to show you one more example, it's a Nikon 50 millimeter. I'm using that terminology interchangeable. I did an Nikkor in the last search and I'm going do Nikon 15 millimeter. You can already see it gives you a couple of different versions here. This is actually a good thing to bring out, if I do the 1.8 g. Through your research, your probably find this out too, but I just want to bring it up and maybe save you some headache. This is a modern auto-focus Nikon lens for a digital camera, even though this has an F-mount, so you could actually put it on an old camera. You can't really use it to its full capability because it doesn't have an aperture ring, and I'll show you what that looks like. You can see here on the lens, this will always look colorful numbers. This is the aperture ring. That's basically how you control how much light is coming in to the lens. I'm not going to get too specific because I'll post the video about aperture and how that works, but because these old manual cameras require you to have an aperture ring, a modern auto-focus lens won't really work on it even though they'll fit because there's no aperture ring to control the light. You can focus it, but you can't control the aperture, so you're stuck. Then I just want to show you when you're talking about Nikon lenses, there are non-AI lenses. These are essentially the same thing as AI and AIS, but they are the first generation. AIS is basically it lets the lens coupled with the camera body and affects the light meter inside the camera, which helps you determine your exposure. These are from the 1960s and 1970s, so they are quite a bit older than the AI and AIS lenses. Basically, what he's saying is if you buy the Nikon FE, you can actually use these older non-AI lenses. I own one of these, but I rarely use them, and something to be aware of is that back in the 1960s, they even had SLR cameras or a new concept. These lenses are developed in the infancy of Nikon, and they do the job, but they have a lot of less modern coating on the glass in the lens. What that means is, over the years they develop chemicals that they can put on the lens to make it or have less lens flare. If you point a lens into a light, sometimes you'll get a crazy blooming effect. I'll try to post a photo of what that looks like here. It's definitely something to be aware of even though you're buying the Nikon. If you buy a Nikon FE, you can use these lenses on it, the glass inside of them isn't as high quality as the later AI in AIS lenses, but the nice thing about them is they're cheap. You could get a pretty good deal on one of these because they're not a sought after. As you can see like this, 170 bucks for a 50 millimeter, 1.4, which is a pretty good deal. That's a fast lens and it basically works how the other ones do, and if you buy the FE, it can actually use this lens. That's just something to be aware of when you're looking and obviously do some more research beyond what I'm telling you here to see you better understand. That gives you a rundown of the classic Nikon manual lenses that are out there. If you read the Nikon manual, they'll tell you about more the lenses they have for selection, but they're 85 millimeters and all different lenses for different applications. Doing some research will definitely enlighten you on the different types of lenses and what they do.
9. Ebay: TLR: Now I want to move on and talk about medium format cameras. Like I mentioned before earlier in this class, there are multiple types. There are TLRs, and there are modular SLR medium format cameras. I just wanted to show you a few different kinds, and show you what the prices are, and maybe just a few things to look out for when you're deciding on a medium format camera, film camera, that's something you want to get into. Yashica is the brand of one that I have, and there are tons of these. I don't know a ton about TLR cameras, I've only owned one. I'm not expert by any means on these. But they all work pretty much the same, and there's a bunch of different brands of them out there. Yashica is just the prime one the better known. One of the most expensive brands of TLR cameras, which are really great, Rolleiflexes. But those can run a few $1,000 used, so you got to have some serious cash if you want to get one of those. But I think Yashica is a great way to go, to get something cheap, and that's going to give you good quality photos for a lot less money. If you ever see a camera that only uses 220 medium format, that's a discontinued type of film. You can't actually buy that anymore. You might be able to buy used film online, but I wouldn't recommend it at this point, it's pretty old. If you see anything that says 220 medium format, that's something to be aware of right away. What you are looking for is something that accepts 120 medium format, and all that really means is 220 had twice the length of film. Most of these TLR cameras can shoot 12 photos on one roll of film. But if you had 220 film, you'd be able to shoot double. If you shoot 12, you've actually shoot 24 photos on one roll of film. One-twenty film, you're totally cool; 220 film, no dice. I'm not going to look at this one because it's 220, so it's not worth your time. Since I don't know a lot about Yashicas and I can't really recommend a specific one, except the one that I own, which is a 120 Yashica-D, D as in dog. Let's just look it up, in a way, you can see what the prices are. This one looks to be in a little bit better shape than mine. It's got a lot of watchers, so that's a good sign. But as you can see, it's about 200 bucks, so it's not bad. A big difference between TLR and an SLR camera is that most TLRs, you can't switch the lenses out like you can on an SLR camera. So you basically buy it with the one lens, and that's all you can use. The lens that's on this one is an 80 millimeter, 3.5, and I don't want to go into too much depth about this because this isn't really about the fundamentals of photography, it's just about buying cameras. But an 80 millimeter is like a 15 millimeter on a 35 millimeter camera. So as the film gets bigger, the length of the lenses changes. If you ever just wondering what a pretty standard lens for a medium format camera is, 80 millimeter is like the gold standard, it's just in the middle. It's good for portraits, but it also can shoot amazing landscapes. Again, here's the F speed on it, it's 3.5 so it's not as fast as some of the lenses we were looking at with the 35 millimeter cameras. You're going to find that you're never going to have lenses that are as fast as a 35 millimeter SLR camera, and that has to do with the fact the film is bigger in these cameras. Even though this is a 3.5, the depth of field, that out-of-focus look that you get when you shoot a portrait is going to be much more just because of the size of film, and that's a universal physical thing, it's physics. Anytime you're dealing with medium format, you're always going to get a more blurry background, even if the F number is higher than a 35 millimeter camera. I'll see if I can find a link to put down in the project to explain that better. Basically, my basic point is you're never going to find a medium format lens that's quite as fast as an SLR lens. There's some good options here. If you're looking at one, let's just see why everyone likes this one. I would definitely do some hardcore research when it comes to TLRs because they're all so different, and there's so many different brands of them. Just do a Google search, and see if people say they're reliable. Pictures on this really suck. I don't like that post at all, but here's one that seems to be in pretty good shape. It comes with a case, so that's cool. Nice thing about TLR cameras is that they're so simple. There's almost nothing can go really wrong with these. That's why there's so many of them, and they still work to this day because they're just really simple machines. You can see that there's really no film on this, and that's totally fine. Because you can see in the back of the film door here that it has that groove in there, and that basically, you see where that metal is protruding out of the back of the camera that goes into that groove. Because it makes a hard right angle, it makes a light tight seal even though there's no film, just a classic, very simple solution to that problem. No film really required, so this thing looks to be in perfect shape. But for 250 bucks, and you can shoot medium format, not a bad deal. You can take some really nice photos with these cameras, even though they're so old. That's a TLR camera.
10. Ebay: Medium Format Film Crop: A good medium-format modular camera I get started out with, I have one of these at one point, is a Mamiya. Here's another camera brand, 645. That has to do with the format. As you can see, these cameras look a little bit more like a SLR 35-millimeter camera, but these M645s, they're pretty inexpensive, 400 bucks. The nice thing about this is you have interchangeable lenses. You can see this one's pretty dirty. I'm probably not into that. I realized that these don't actually have film backs. They just open up in the back there and you can load medium format film. I guess something to point out as well is this 645 number. There are basically three common types of medium-format cameras, whether they're TLRs or modular, and 645 just means six centimeters by 4.5 centimeters. What that means is what you're going to get in your negative is a rectangle shaped photo. It's going to look like big 35-millimeter, basically. If we go back to the TLR camera, you can see that this is a square-shaped camera, and that's known as six by six camera or six centimeters by six centimeters. The photos that come out of it are going to be square. Then just to show you, Mamiya, I mentioned this camera before, RZ67. Here's the RZ67 that I mentioned to you and showed you earlier on in the class and the 67 here in the name stands for six by seven. Just to be clear, you're using the same kind of medium-format film, which is 120 length, which I mentioned before. If you're a C220, don't even bother with it. You're only looking at 120 style cameras. That's the size of the film. Then the film is cropped differently depending on the camera. An RZ has the biggest crop, so you get the biggest negative out of it. What that means, a downside to it is you only get 10 shots per roll. If you're using a TLR camera, that's six by six, you get 12 shots per a role of medium format. If you're using the 645 Mamiya, you get 16 shots. That's one advantage of a smaller size is you get more shots per roll. That could be important to you if you don't want to spend a lot of money on film.
11. Ebay: Minolta X-700: Another great camera that I've had in the past is Minolta X-700. This might have been my first SLR camera I've ever bought. Minolta is a good brand. It's not as coveted as Nikon or Canon. It's definitely up there. If there were three major camera companies back in the day, this is the third. You can get with the body and the lens for 175 bucks; just a solid camera. The lenses are cheap so you can buy lots of accessories. As you can see, this is a 50-millimeter, 1.7. A 50-millimeter lens on an SLR is the classic combination. If you ever see an SLR camera with a 50-millimeter lens, you really can't go wrong. A lot of people have started their photographic journey with a 50 and a camera, and that's it. You can take a lot of great photos with just that lens. I like the Minolta because it has some of the automatic features like the Nikon had. It goes up to a thousandth of a second, it's got all manual controls, and the lenses are decent. Just to point this out, you can see Minolta's brand is Rokkor. Any of Rokkor lenses are Minolta-built for Minolta cameras. You're going to want to look for the same kinds of things. I don't have any pictures of the film door, do they? No. That makes me worried a little bit, you can't see inside the camera. Another thing to mention here too is that a lot of these cameras take small watch batteries to power the light meter that's inside of them. Here's a silver one for 280. I think it's in really good shape. This is a good camera. I miss this one too. Zoom in. You can see here, the film looks to be in good shape on that side, which is important. This one has the groove. As long as that stuff goes in there, there is probably some foam on the inside of this, but it looks to be in good shape. I couldn't recommend the Minolta X-700 more, but again, if you're looking to just buy into a more professional system, then Nikon might be a better option. All the professionals back in the '80s used Nikons. That was the top camera brand for SLRs, but yeah, X-700 is a good one.
12. Ebay: Nikon D810 & AF Lenses: First off, when I was giving you my overview of some of the cameras, I mentioned only really professional grade versions of digital cameras, and what I mean by that is that the cameras all have full-frame sensors. There are two types of digital sensors out there. When it comes to that 35-millimeter digital cameras, there are full frame and crop frame sensors. The most simple way to explain that is a full frame digital sensor is the same size as a piece of film would have been if you're using a film SLR. A crop frame, APS-C sensor is smaller than a piece of film would have been. I'm just going to tell you of the bad, a lot of people will say that crop frame or APS-C, sensors are totally fine, especially when you're a beginner. But I bet my bottom $ that when you think of photos and looking at photos and finding inspiration, the look that you're seeing is a full frame digital sensor most of the time. What I mean by that is a crop frame sensor, there's really nothing wrong with it per se. Again, anyone can take good photos on any camera if they know what they're doing. That's why you can take great photos on an iPhone just as you can with a full frame digital camera. But I know when we think back to childhoods and we're seeing photos and a nice soft depth of field, when you're taking portraits and things like that, your mind is already trained to think about full frame digital sensors. When you're using a crop sensor, it's more difficult to get that nice blurry autofocus background. I'll post a video about this in the class that you guys can better understand the difference between full frame and APS-C sensors. But I'm just going to tell you from my experience and I wish I knew this starting out. This is a big reason why buying used cameras is a great way to go, when you're buying digital cameras is that I honestly think even if you're starting out as a beginner with a digital camera, you should just go for the full frame, full format 35-millimeter sensor. I just find crop sensors to be a joke. I'm going to bet that you're going to be way more satisfied with a full-frame camera because that's what you're used to seeing. With a that said, a Nikon D810 is one of my favorite cameras because it's probably five or six years old now, but it's still really good. As you can see, you can buy a used D810, which has 36 megapixels, which is quite a bit and still well within today's standards. If not above some cameras today and it's full frame and that's just great and I've used these cameras at times, and they just look really nice. The color is really good, the lenses are nice that you can buy for it, you can get those autofocus ones I was showing you a little bit earlier and the fact that you can buy a full frame 36 megapixel camera for under 1,000 bucks is great. Basically you could be spending this amount of money on a brand new crop frame camera thinking that's the way to go and I'm telling you don't do it. Buy a used full frame digital camera. Another thing to think about when you're buying digital cameras, a criteria that a lot of people think about are the shutter count, because these modern cameras can actually track how many times a shutter has been fired throughout its lifetime. A lot of people will list the shutter account. Let's see if they put on here. This camera works great, so this one had 250,000 shots taken. Manufacturers will say that their shutters will last between a 100,000 and 300,000 shutter or firings of the shutter, and this one has 250,000. You might be thinking it's like a mileage on a camera. You might be thinking that's a lot and is but a little pro tip from working in the industry for all these years, I've seen cameras have like 500,000 shots with the original shutter and they work fine. I think the manufacturers are just a bit conservative when they're estimating it so that it can't get sued later. Even if a shutter fails, you can send it in and get repaired, that can be cheap. But it's worth a risk sometimes, especially for a digital camera, for a $175 of this quality. I'd say this camera has been used pretty heavily, but it doesn't mean it couldn't go for quite a bit longer on that shutter. I wouldn't let this discourage you too much, but I don't except returns. This is a bit of a risk. I would say try to find one with a little bit lower shutter count on it, but I wouldn't worry too much about the shutter count. Right here this guy puts 318,000, it's 1,100 bucks, this one comes with a grip, which is nice. Another thing to think about when you're buying digital cameras is that they take memory cards. That's how you save the photos. Like for D810, it uses CF cards and SD cards. If it doesn't come with a memory card, you're going to have to buy one and you probably had to buy a memory card reader so you can actually take the photos off of the card. This guy doesn't list how many shutter counts it has so this would be a situation where I would message him. I'll do it right now and I can let you guys know what he comes back with later. When you're looking at digital cameras, you're going to need to know what memory cards it uses, you'd probably want to know what's the shutter count is on it. Again, like I said, don't stress out too much about the shutter count, if it's below a 100,000 that's like a 100 percent buy, in my book. If it's above a 100,000, just do some research and see what the manufacturer recommends for replacing the shutter and make your own decision. But I'll let you know because from a professional standpoint, those shutters last a lot longer than the manufacturer advertises. I wouldn't worry too much about it. With these Nikon DSLR's, they use Nikkor G lenses. Let's do the 50 millimeter 1.4 and see if you do that, you're going to get the manual lenses, but if you type in G, so anything with g after it, you can use on these D810. You can also use D lenses, which are like the 90s AF autofocus lenses. I didn't mention this earlier, but you can actually use the Nikon AF-D. As long as there is a D out there, you can see that these have an aperture you can't quite see it. But so these have an aperture ring, so you can actually use these on the old manual Nikon like the FE or the F3 because it has an aperture ring, this totally works on there. Another cool thing about Nikon is in the 90s, they had lenses that could work on their manual cameras and their autofocus cameras. If you're looking to save a little bit of money, these AFD lenses aren't quite as nice as the modern G lenses. You can probably pick up one of these use for less and it will still work on a D810 just fine as an autofocus lens. The only thing that's different is the optics aren't quite as nice. What that means is the glass inside the lens is not quite as precise as the G models. Just something to think about. But if you're looking for a budget autofocus lens, this could be a good option, a $165 versus if you've had a G lens, you can get a brand new one for $368. You'd definitely save some money. Once you get past that 50, if you like a 35 millimeter, that's gets pretty expensive, $854 for a 35 millimeter. Now this is the best one is the 1.4G. I think they also make a 1.8. Just know there's always usually a consumer like a more mid-range version of the lenses for digital cameras. Then you want to make sure the lenses don't say DX because that's a crop frame. There are two different types of lenses for digital cameras. If you have a crop frame digital camera, there are a special crop frame lenses that work on them. With Nikon, the way they signify that is DX, that's the crop frame version, and if you're looking for the full frame version, the full 35 millimeter version, you want the FX versions. You can see here Nikon AF-S FX. So that's important. FX means full frame, and like I was saying, they make mid-range versions for their lenses. This is less expensive than their top line 1, which is the 1.4, so 1.8. These lenses aren't built as well, and they have their disadvantages. But if you're on a budget, this could be an option to start out with. Maybe once you make some money or off your camera or do a commercial gig, then you can upgrade to 1.4
13. Ebay: Canon 5D DSLR's : I guess I'll just show you Canon real quick because that's one of the other common camera brands. There's Mark III's, there's Mark II's. You kind of see the different prices here. Five D HD, Mark II. You get a Mark II, it's just 21 megapixels. I guess I never really explained that earlier, with the Nikon it was 36 megapixels and this one's 21. Megapixels is the resolution. Each digital image is made of pixels, and the more pixels you have, the larger the images. So you can print it in larger sizes or you just have more detail. Basically, the higher the megapixel count, the more detail you're going to have in the picture. I'll put another video down in the class to explain megapixels and resolution better as well. You can get a 5D Mark II. It's a decent camera. It's the old classic. You can get one for $464. It's a good deal. This was the go-to digital camera back in 2010, 2011. So not too old, still usable in today's world. Then you can go up from there if you want to the 5D Mark III. This is also a full-frame camera. I'm not really going to talk about crop frame in this lesson. I don't really believe in them. Five D Mark III wasn't hard to find, just got to type in Mark. Mark III, you can still get one at 850 bucks. It's kind of a lot of shutter. See this camera, 62,000 shutter actuations. That's nothing. Like I said, anything under 100,000 is like no shutter actuations. I can never say that word. Actuations. Tough one. Say that 10 times. A Mark III, it's even better. It has a little bit more resolution. That's a solid camera. Mark IV is the newest version. Just do your research, see what camera might fit your needs. It's got a little label there. Look at the condition. Some might come with memory cards, some might not, and it'll be usually listed here, batteries, chargers, that kind of stuff. Then Canon lenses, if you're looking for them, the nice ones, the L-series lenses are the best. Let's do it on a 50 millimeter. They have 50 millimeter 1.2, so it's crazy fast. This is a classic. People love this lens. Like I was saying earlier in this class, the lens mount on the modern Canon AF cameras, you can't buy Canon camera from the 80s and put these modern lenses on there, the mounts are different. That was that big advantage about Nikon, is that the mounts, they have the same for all these years. Canon didn't go the same route, so just be aware that if you buy an AF Canon lens, autofocus Canon lens, you are not going to be able to fit it on a classic Canon camera. If you're looking through Canon cameras, the L, whoever has an L in the name there, that's the highest quality version on their lenses. Then as you price search, when I was doing that, they also make a 1.4 and it's a USM. Where you see this USM indication, that's ultrasonic motor. It's just branding. The 1.2 L's uses an ultrasonic motor, but this is the mid-range or the lower-quality lens for Canon. If you see USM, that's also a good lens it's just not as fast. Again, just do your research, see what looks right for you. But 225 bucks for one of those, so that's quite a bit better.
14. Ebay: Sony A7 Series: Last off, I want to show you the Sony's. Sony A7 is their full-frame line of mirrorless cameras. This video is being shot on a Sony A7 III, which in my opinion, I think is the best all around modern Sony camera right now. As you can see, an A7 III is pretty expensive, about $2,000. Obviously, I bought one of these cameras and I bought mine used. I've had no issues with it, so don't feel afraid to buy used Sony a7's, $1,800, it's a pretty fair. This camera came out three years ago, two years ago, so it's still pretty new. But with Sony's, it's a little different story about going on older versions. Just to break it down quickly, they have a lot of different models and you should just look this up to understand better what the different ones are. But essentially, Sony has two different versions of their cameras. They have a more video-centric camera, A7, a more video-centric A7 and a more photography-centric A7. The photography ones are the AR models. So the a7R III, that's the photo version of what I'm shooting this video on and that has more resolution. It's a 42-megapixel sensor, whereas the A7 III is a 24 megapixel sensor. The reason there's a difference there is these cameras basically came out at the same time. They basically do the same thing, they even both shoot video, but the A7 III has a lower megapixel count because when you have a lower megapixel counts, usually the sensor will do better in low light, which is important when you're shooting video because you want to keep that noise and grain down when you're getting in lower light situations. The a7R III is higher resolution because it's more focused around photos. Having more resolutions is usually better, you get more detail, you can make bigger prints. That's something to think about when you're looking at the Sony's. I probably want to go any older than the A7 II's. I don't know a lot about the A7 II. As you can see, you can buy one brand new for $800. It's the same resolution as the A7 III, just to make this point clear. An a7R II also exists. But you should really look up some reviews and see which ones might make sense for your use. Again, the a7R II has a 42 megapixel sensor. If you're crazy, they just came out the a7R IV. This is a photo version of their fourth version. These cameras have a 61-megapixel sensor and actually we have more of these at work and I can tell you it's a great camera. It's definitely better than anything they've made before which makes sense because it's the newest. Again, these are full-frame cameras, so you're getting the sensor is the same size as a 35-millimeter piece of film. I just want to make that clear that that's what I'm telling you to buy. I think you're not going to be disappointed and you're not going to feel like your gear is limiting you. I hope going through here at eBay gave you a better sense of what to look for, what the lookout for. I hope my tips and tricks were useful for you. Obviously, there's a lot of variables when you buy cameras, and understanding how they work, and different types is really important. As long as you do your research, lookup plenty YouTube reviews on different cameras, read the manuals, replay a blog post, and also reference this Skillshare lesson, I think you're going to be covered and make a pretty wise decision when purchasing used camera on eBay. I'm really excited to see you guys in the next couple of lessons. I'll be going over how to send in your film to get developed and scanned. I'll also be giving you some camera recommendations to give you a head start when you start looking for your own camera. Can't wait to see you in the next lesson.
15. My Camera Recommendations : Hello, and welcome back. In this lesson, I'm going to go over all my personal camera recommendations. I think this could be helpful for someone who's struggling to decide on what kind of camera they like, or they might just be a little bit overwhelmed by all the information I've gone over so far. I hope this is really helpful for you, and let's just get started. First off, I want to start out with film cameras. I think film cameras are really good for people who are starting out, because they really teach you the fundamentals of photography. As I mentioned before, they force you to figure out how to take photos without getting that instant feedback. I think that's a valuable lesson. Film cameras are also just awesome. Shooting on film gives you a really unique look. It's a whole different process than shooting on digital. You just have a lot of fun with it. It's more about the photography than it is about the technology. The first camera I want to mention is the Nikon FE. The Nikon FE really does it all. It's fully manual, it's super reliable, and it's compatible with all Nikon's lenses since 1959. It's also affordable, and I think that's really important when you're a beginner not to be spending too much on your first camera. You should just get a camera that you know can do everything and that you can just experiment with and try out new things. The next camera on my list is the Minolta X-700. This camera was actually the first I ever bought for myself when I was first starting out in photography. It's a great camera, and has a really good view finder, and it's easy to manually focus, and has lots of great Rokkor lenses that are just as good as any Nikon lens out there, or any lens from any of the other brands. I couldn't recommend this camera more. The third camera in my list is the Canon AE-1. The AE-1 is a direct competitor for the Nikon FE and the Minolta X-700. It essentially has all the same features as those two cameras. It's fully manual, has tons of great lenses to pick from, and they're not super expensive. A fun little fact about this one is it uses the FD mount, and there are two FD Canon lenses that they actually use the same optics in their modern day out-of-focus lenses, the 51.2 and 851.2. If you're looking for some really fast primes for this thing, this camera has it and it could be totally worth it if you're looking for something like that. The next camera I hold near and dear, and it's the Nikon F100. I've already mentioned this earlier in this class, but this camera is just amazing, it's a 35-millimeter autofocus SLR camera from the late '90s. It's just a perfect culmination of computer technology and analog photography. It's autofocus, you can use all the modern Nikon G lenses and AFD autofocus lenses from the '90s and the manual lenses, like the AI, AIS lenses. You have tons of options for lenses. You have really precise control because it has so many computers in it, and the light meter's really amazing, so you almost never miss a shot because it has such a good light meter for gauging your exposure. These cameras are actually surprisingly inexpensive, at least for now, while people don't know about them. If you're looking for an autofocus camera that's film and has a great light meter built-in, you can't go wrong, I couldn't recommend this camera more. For all of you who like Canon, or maybe have Canon autofocus lenses, you're in luck. There's also a Canon film camera that's autofocus that I recommend, and that's the Rebel 2000. I actually own this camera. It was my sister's, and she gave it to me. The coolest thing about the camera is that you can put modern Canon EF lenses on it. Just like the F100, it has a lot of the benefits that that camera has, because it came out in 1999, it's in that weird hybrid stage of photography where they were transitioning from film to digital. It has all the modern computers and precise control, but it also has autofocus and a decent meter. This camera is definitely not as built well as the F100, it's very plasticky and consumer grade, but it's still a good camera and it does the job, and you'll get lots of great results out of it. The next camera in my list is the first point-and-shoot I want to bring up. It's the Olympus XA. The coolest thing about the Olympus XA is that they have lots of manual control, even though they are point-and-shoots. You can adjust the aperture manually and you can focus manually, and the camera figures out the shutter for you. The cool thing is that, even though it's got manual control, it takes some of the guesswork out of it and makes it really easy to just concentrate on the photography. They also look really neat and they're super small, so they're easy to take around with you and be discrete. I highly recommend one of these to someone who's just getting started out. The TC-1s are really neat because they have a really wide 28 millimeter lens, which is rare on a point-and-shoot. They also have manual aperture control if you want it, and then they do everything else automatically where you autofocus and it controls the shutter. Just like the XA, it gets out of your way and it lets you really focused on the photography. They're super small and compact. What's really nice about them is they're very reliable, which is super rare for point-and-shoots. If you've got the money, I would highly recommend one of these. This nice camera, I've actually already talked about in this class, and it's the Mamiya RZ67. The RZ67 is a true legend. It's a beast, it's super heavy, it's super bulky, but it's got all the options you ever want if you wanted to shoot medium format. Probably the best things about it are that it has a 6 by 7 negative size, it uses medium format, the quality of the lenses is amazing, the adaptability, the body is amazing. It has a bellow, so you can shoot macro photos with standard lenses. It just has tons of capability, but I would say if you're just getting started out in photography, or you literally never taken a photo before, I wouldn't recommend this camera for a complete beginner. It's a lot of camera to handle, and it's a lot of learning curve, because especially if you have the waist level viewfinder, everything's in reverse, and it's a little bit unwieldy. But also I wouldn't discourage anyone from trying it, if they really want to commit, but just be aware that it's a difficult camera to get used to, and it will take a while and some good practice. Last but not least, in my film camera recommendations, is the Yashica D, which is the TLR camera back there. It's not the best camera by any means. It's actually not that great at all. It's on the lower end, but just because it's not the nicest doesn't mean it can't take great photos. I've taken a lot of really amazing photos on it. It's simple and they're relatively cheap on eBay, so I recommend to anyone who maybe just wants a starter medium format camera just to try it out and not have to spend too much money. For my first digital camera recommendation, I recommend the Canon 6D. The reason I'm recommending the Canon 6D is that it's a semi-professional camera, so it still has a full frame sensor, and it's fully compatible with all the Canon EF autofocus lenses, but it's going to be a little bit cheaper than let's say a Canon 5D Mark III. The next camera on my list is a Nikon D750. It's also a semi-professional camera from Nikon, so it's going to be less expensive than investing in like a D810 or a D850. It's basically the same thing as a Canon 60, so it's a full-frame camera, but it has a few less options, but it's going to be less expensive and it might be a good option for someone who's looking to spend a little bit less money on a digital camera. Now we're getting into more of the professional digital cameras. The first one on my list of professional digital SLR cameras is the Canon 5D Series. I wouldn't get anything older than a Canon 5D Mark II. The 5D Mark I uses different batteries and it's just really ancient, but 5D Mark II's still pretty good. It's about 10 years old, where I would really recommend, if you're going to start out in this camera line, go to the 5D Mark III. It came out about six years ago, and it's still really good. It's definitely up to professional standards today, and you can get a good deal on one you used. The next two cameras I want to talk about are the Nikon D810 and the Nikon D850. The Nikon D810 is probably one of my all-time favorite cameras. It came out about six years ago, it has 36 megapixels. It's just an amazing overall camera, super high-resolution images, great color, and it's autofocus, and you can't go wrong. You can find them online for a really good deal. You're going to be really happy with that camera. If you want to go crazy, you can get the Nikon D850, which came out like two years ago. They're going to be way more expensive, but you can find a good deal on one used, and it has really good autofocus. That's probably the biggest improvement, but it also has 45 megapixels, which is higher resolution than the D810. Last but not least are the Sony a7 mirrorless cameras. I brought these up obviously already. But there are a few models that I think are worth purchasing used. I just want to explain a little bit more about it. The reason I think Sony a7 cameras are so good is their autofocus capability. It borrows so much technology from cell phones that it uses algorithms to track your face and your eye, so the focus never misses. The next best thing about the Sony a7s are that they're really great at shooting video and they're mirrorless, so they're able to adapt a lot of different lenses to it. You can put manual lenses on this and focus super easily because it has lots of focus assists. Another thing to note is that Sony hasn't been around that long. I went and buy a Sony a7, older than the Sony a7 II. One thing to note with the a7 II and a7R II is that the batteries are much smaller that come with it, so it has really bad battery life. If you really want to get best of both worlds, I would get the Sony a7 III, which is what this video is being shot on. Its got a 24-megapixel sensor, Sony really improved the color, which is I think really important when it comes to digital cameras. It's a good all-rounder. You won't be disappointed. I really like the Sony a7R III and the Sony a7R IV. The a7R III is about the same price as an a7 III, but the a7R IV is going to be a lot more because it just came out a year ago. All things to think about, but I would highly recommend trying out one of this Sony A7s. I was really impressed coming from a Nikon, and I have really no complaints. There's one more thing I need to talk about when it comes to recommendations, and that's light meters. You should be aware while researching cameras to make sure to know whether your camera has a built-in light meter, or if you'll need an external light meter. All modern DSLR and mirrorless cameras will have a built-in light meter, but some older film cameras might not have one. If you don't, you're going to need a light meter so that you know how to set up your camera when you're taking your shot. This is a light meter, and it's basically a calculator that helps you determine your exposure. If you don't have a light meter in your camera, this external meter will tell you what to set your camera to so that you get a proper exposure. I'll put a video down below explaining light meters better, but I just want to make it clear that when you're researching cameras, just make sure you know whether your camera has a built-in light meter or doesn't. Because if it doesn't, you're going to need to buy one of these. I hope my recommendations cleared up some questions you may have had and gave you a good jumping off point as you start your research. I can't wait to see what you guys find, and see you in the next lesson.
16. Where I Buy Film: Hello and welcome back. In this lesson, I just want to briefly go over where I like to buy a film. Since I live in Los Angeles, it's pretty easy for me to get film locally. There's two stores in town I like to buy from, either at Samy's Camera or Freestyle Photographic. If you're someone who might be considering buy a film camera and you don't live in a big city, some of my favorite places to buy film online are: B&H, Adorama, Samy's Camera, Freestyle Photographic, and Amazon. Just a little pro tip, I really liked Freestyle Photographic because they seem to sell some unusual film that you can't seem to find at other vendors. So if you're looking for a weird film or something different, they might be a good place to check. Once I get my Olympus point-and-shoot that I bought on eBay, I'm going to shoot a roll of film and I'm going to send it to Richard's Photo Lab. I'm going to be going through my whole process in the next lesson about how I'm going to do that. So I can't wait to see you there and show you more on how to ship film to a lab.
17. Shipping Your Film To A Lab: Hello and welcome back. In this class, I'll be showing you how to place an order with Richard's Photo Lab. This is the lab I've chosen to get my own film developed. I will be also creating a FedEx label, and show you how to pack your film to ship to the lab. Without further ado, let's cut to my screen and go from there. Welcome back to my screen. I just want to first point out that Richard's Photo Lab is moving, and when I'm doing this recording it is August 25th. Just make sure that if you decide to order from Richard's that you check to see which address you should be shipping your film till it get developed; very important. Just make sure you check that. Scrolling down here to make it super easy, we're going to go to Develop Film. I'm going to be picking their new ordering system. They have an older one, but I'm just going to do the new one. I will be processing a role of Kodak Tri-X 400, which is a black and white 35 millimeter film. You can also get it in 120, which is in medium format. But I have 35, so we're going to pick 35 millimeter. It's black and white. If you guys have color negative, that's C41. If you have slide film, that's E6; just so you know. Pushing and pulling is a little complicated, but basically it's a way that they can process the film slightly different if you want to push more sensitivity or pull sensitivity out of it. This is a bit of a complicated concept and I'm not going to go into great detail here, but I will link a video explaining this better in the class. But I'm just going to do my normal. For my scans, I want scans and I'm going to be doing it Richard's way. Since I don't get too many scans from them, basically this just means they're going to pick a look for you. Maybe once you start scanning with a lab and you start developing a relationship with them and a specific look that you want to get from your developing and scanning, then maybe you want to look into this Custom option. Just a side note, there are two scanners that they have: the Noritsu and the Frontier scanner. Black and white film, they do only on their Noritsu because it's a better scanner for that. In scan size, we're going to do large because I want the best quality. I actually prefer not to get my negatives cut, so that means I'll just leave it as a full roll when they send you back the film and I'm not going to get any prints. Once you hit buy It Now" you'll just be filling out your credit card information and your shipping service for them to ship your film back. I'm not going to show you that because I don't really need to, it's pretty self-explanatory. But now we're going to move over to the FedEx; making a shipping label. I've already opened a tab here with FedEx. With FedEx, you'll need to create an account. A little pro tip is that you can actually create a business account for free, and you'll get a little bit more of a discount when ordering from FedEx. That's a little tip and trick. I'm already logged into my account, I'm just going to go Shipping, Create a Shipment. You won't be able to see this, but this is my address. You always want to have a return address and you're going to be putting the two address. We're going to scroll down here. Companies, since we're sending this to Richard's, it's going to be Richards Photo Lab, which I actually have in here. Look at that, it auto fills it. Well, I did this before. Richards Photo Lab is the company. Contact name, I just like to put Attention Developing Department because that's what's going to be happening, the film is going to be brought in the Development Department. At the time I'm doing this video I'm sending it to their 28022 Industry Drive address in Valencia, but this address may change by the time you are actually ready to send in your film. So definitely double-check the Richard's website to make sure you're sending it to the right place. Then I just looked up their phone number on their website and pasted it in here. Then once you've done this, the next thing is since you have an account you can save this address so that next time you don't have to type this all in. Like what happened when I auto filled there. We're going to go down. Ship date, it doesn't really matter. I just do a day off. But even if you show up late to FedEx to drop off your package, it'll just automatically adjust. Number of package is one. Obviously, we're going to do you standard rate. They don't let you do less than one pound, so I just put one pound in here. Declare value. I'm not going to declare a value on this, because it's not valuable as a something expensive. Even though the photos might be valuable, it's hard to gauge what that is. So that is an insurance, if you want to do that. I'm just going to do ground shipping because I live pretty close to Richard, so that should take a day to get there. But if maybe you're across the country, anything that's FedEx Express is going to be air freight. This will definitely get there faster but ground is cheap and reliable, so that's why you should pick. Unless you get a FedEx box from the FedEx office, you're just going to do your package. Don't worry about putting the dimensions in, they do it. They figure it out when you drop it off and they weigh it for you. Even putting the weight in here isn't a big deal because once it's actually brought to FedEx, they will recalculate what it's going to cost. You don't need a return label because Richard is going to ship you back your film on their end. I like to put a little reference usually, so I just put Point & Shoot Film because that's the camera that I shot this film on. Another little pro tip is I like to go to Shipment Notifications here. Hit "Edit" and you won't be able to see my e-mail address here, but basically you're going to want to hit "Ship" and "Delivery" and that way it'll give you shipping notifications as your package is being shipped. That's really about it. If you want it just create a profile so you don't have to do entering all this in. Next time you want to ship, you can just click this little box. Then you're just going to hit "Ship", that's going to create a shipping label that you can print out. I've already done this so I'm not going to do it, but we're going to switch over to my camera again and I'm going to show you how to pack your film into a box, and tape it up, and put the label on it. Welcome back. As you can see, we have our empty box here. This box is actually a little bit too big for just shipping one roll of film. First off, I want to mention that I highly recommend just shipping your film in boxes and not envelopes. Even though your film might be in a case like these little 35-millimeter canisters, it's still very delicate and it shouldn't get banged around too much because it can bend the metal and you can get light leaks in there. So I always prefer using a box over an envelope. This box is a little bit big, so I'm going to put some packaging in here to make sure our film roll isn't going to be banging around too much in there. Then next step is I'm going to grab a Ziploc bag. The reason we put the film in a Ziploc bag is just in case the box gets a hole in it or it gets caught up in the rain this way you put your film in there, it's going to keep it protected and you just want to seal it up. Perfect. I'm just going to throw that in there. Then once you've completed filling out your order form on Richard's Photo Lab's website, you're going to get a piece of paper that has all your order information on it and you're going to print it out. You're going to put it inside the box with your film. Then really all of these is a matter of taping it up. Let's do that. Make sure that everything is sealed well. Lets do another one. My tape gun is really crampy. Now you're all sealed up. It's not going to come loose. Then last but not least, we're just going to put our shipping label on there. Really the only trick to this is making sure that you have a nice flat surface, and that you laminate it with packing tape. I like to just do it strip by strip. In this way that if it gets rained on, your label won't get damaged. You just want to make sure you don't get any real wrinkles in there so that the bar code can be easily read by the scanner. That's about it, and you have a package ready to be shipped. I hope this lesson showed you how easy it is to ship and pack your film to send to a lab to get scanned and developed. I'm really excited to see your photos in the class projects. I'll be wrapping up this class in the next lesson, so I can't wait to see you there.
18. Conclusion : Wow, here we are. This is the conclusion of the course. First off, I just want to thank everyone who actually took the time to watch through the whole course and get to this point. This was a big project for me, it's my first Skillshare. It was quite a lesson to actually learn just to talk in front of the camera. I hope I wasn't too unbearable, but I assume if you got this far that you found the class useful. I want you guys to feel like old pros when you're going through eBay and looking for your use cameras. I hope I could bestow a lot of useful information to you and share with you a lot of my insight from all these years of working in the industry and buying cameras for myself. I'm really excited to see you guys start your photographic journeys. I can't wait to see what kind of cameras you guys find, see all your cool cool photos in the class project. Please, if you have any questions, please post them in the discussion below. I can't wait to do more Skillshare classes in the future and share more information with you and give you more insight on photography and other related topics. Again, just thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Aaron Alpert, Photographer + Filmmaker + YouTuber
