Earlier today my friend and fellow photographer posted a link to a craigslist ad from a woman in Seattle looking for a wedding photographer. The woman was upset because she thought that $3,000 for a wedding photographer was “wack” because all we do “is hang out at a wedding taking tons of photos and editing them” and that we are “making so much money its crazy.”

I first read this post earlier today while I was running errands and my head almost exploded. I immediately started drafting a horribly mean and punishing response in my head, but by the time I got home, I realized that this is probably a common misconception and that maybe I should try to explain why photographers charge what we do for our work.

Before I post my response, I want to thank all of my brides who appreciate my work and think that I am worth the price. This response is not meant to offend anyone. I understand many people are on a budget — especially in this economy — and I understand planning a wedding is both expensive and overwhelming. I always try my best to work with my couples and offer customized and discounted packaging options for those who are on a tighter budget.

I just want to state again, that being a photographer doesn’t mean that we wake up in the morning, photograph a wedding for 8 hours and then go home and our job is done. Those of us who are lucky enough to be able to support ourselves as full time photographers don’t just work as photographers. We are also small business owners, which also comes with the job of doing all of our own marketing, sales, accounting, scouting, art directing, managing our offices and studios, being our own webmasters, doing our own post production, designing, blogging, being students, being mentors, researching, etc…

Sorry for the novel. Here was my response:

Dear Bride,

I am a wedding photographer in the Erie, PA area. Wedding season only last about 4 months here, so I photograph an average of 20 weddings per year for an average of $2,500/wedding (which totals about $50,000/year).

• That being said, I am a small business owner, so I pay all of my taxes, totaling about $15,000/year, which leaves me with a gross income of around $35,000
• Of that $35,000 I pay $600/month in rent for my small house and garage which I converted into my studio (which is where I would be editing your wedding images). $35,000 – $7,200 = $27,800
• Then I have my car, which I would use to get me to and from your wedding, which I pay $400/month for the lease, plus $200/month in car insurance. $27,800 – $7,200 = $20,600
• To get to your (and my other brides) wedding consultation, second wedding pre-consultation, the wedding itself, and to and from the printers I spend $840/year in gas money. $20,600 – $840 = $19,760
• I also have $500/year insurance in case you sue me, or if any of your drunk guests would happen to break any of my equipment. $19,760 – $500 = $19,260
• You also probably found me through my website, which I pay $30/month for hosting, and another $30/month so that you can view your photos online and share the images with your friends and family. $19,260 – $720 = $18,540
• Or perhaps you found me through my advertisements in the newspaper or local bridal magazines, or a bridal show that you attended that I paid to have a booth at. $18,540 – $1,000 = $17,540
• I also pay $250/month for my own health insurance in case I were to get hurt at your wedding. $17,540 – $3,000 = $14,540
• I pay $200/wedding for a second shooter for your wedding, so that you can have more images and different angles, as to make sure you get the best images possible at your wedding. $14,540 – $4,000 = $10,540
• I also need to have a new pair of shoes ($100) every season because my shoes get worn out and dirty from season to season. $10,540 – $100 = $10,440
• I need high speed internet so I can upload all of your images online, my home phone for my business and my cell phone so I can communicate with you. $10,440 – $2,500 = $7,940
• Oh yes, and I also pay a lawyer to make sure my contracts are iron clad and an accountant to make sure that I am paying all of the taxes I need. $7,940 – $500 = $7,440
• Sometimes I attend workshops and seminars to teach me how to better my business, and make my client happier (that would be you), as well as keep up on the trends and learn new techniques so that I can make sure you have the best quality images available.

That would technically leave me with about $7,000/year to feed myself, buy groceries, pay for my heat and electricity, clothe myself, etc. But, usually I end up reinvesting whatever I have left on upgrades and new equipment:

During your wedding, I bring my professional equipment that I use so that I can make sure you have the highest quality images.

• I have 2 Canon 5D Mark II cameras (because you always need a backup in case of a camera malfunction, which would ruin your big day’s photographs) which cost $2,500/camera = $5,000
• I also have quality lenses which can capture your special moments in low light situations:
  Canon 24-70 f/2.8 lens = $1,200
  Canon 70-200 f/2.8 lens = $1,300
  Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens = $500
  Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro = $600
• …and I have speed lights to catch the fun moments at your reception:
  2 x Canon 580EX II = $1,200
• Also multiple battery backups and memory cards, lens filters, light stands, umbrellas, light boxes, external battery packs and a bag to carry everything in = $1,500
• Because this is equipment, sometimes I need to have it serviced or cleaned to make sure it is all working properly = $200

After spending 8-10 hours at your wedding, I then come home to my home office and spend about 20-25 hours editing your images, creating your album, blogging about your wedding, posting pictures on Facebook, ordering you prints and burning your DVDs.

• I edit your photographs using a 27-inch iMac computer = $2,500.
• I edit your photographs on Adobe Lightroom ($200) and Adobe CS5 ($400 for the upgrade and $900 for the new program).
• I print your DVDs on a printer which costs $300 and which uses $200/year in ink.
• I buy the DVDs and jewel cases you’re getting printed for $300/year
• I archive all of your photographs on 2 x 2TB external hard drives = $500.
• I also back up all of my photographs online so if there was ever a fire in my office, you would never lose your photographs = $400/year.
• I also have office expenses as far as buying paper, staples, envelopes, packaging, filing cabinets and files, etc…
• I also spend time and money ordering your prints and albums, paying for shipping, going to the post office etc.

All of that being said, I’m usually in the hole at the end of the year, and take on many family portraits, senior portraits and corporate jobs in order to make ends meet.

Photography is my passion and my livelihood, and it is also expensive. Yes, it seems like a lot of money for one day, but one day isn’t all we spend on your photographs or on our business. You will spend thousands of dollars on a wedding dress or flowers or a venue or on catering which you are going to have for only one day, but your photographs will be the only thing you have to remember that one day for the rest of your lives.

I’m extremely insulted by your craigslist post and hope this sheds a little light on why we charge $3,000 for one day of your memories that are going to last you forever.

– Nikki Wagner, Photographer

About the author: Nikki Wagner is a wedding, portrait, and event photographer based in Erie, Pennsylvania. Visit her website here.

Photographer Lilly McElroy has a unique series of photos titled I Throw Myself At Men that consists of self-portraits showing her launching herself into the arms of strangers.

For this project I went to a lot of bars and I literally threw myself at men who I didn’t know. I used my body as a projectile, hurling myself toward strong, vulnerable men who were waiting to catch me. Poised in a perpetual state of social awkwardness and in full possession of the ability to subvert stereotypical gender roles, the photographs pose questions concerning relationships, social connection, sex, gender, and the desire to form relationships quickly that are both intense and long lasting.

The project got started after McElroy placed ads on Craigslist asking for men who’d be willing to meet blind date-style in bars and have McElroy throw herself at them.

I Throw Myself At Men by Lilly McElroy (via My Modern Met)

Image credits: Photographs by Lilly McElroy and used with permission

Photographer James Loveday has a portrait project documenting the people who use Craigslist. Over a period of several months, he placed ads on Craigslist offering free portraits to anyone who stopped by his Brooklyn studio.

Each time a person or people would come, I’d have everything set up and over the course of an hour or so I’d get their portrait taken. Some people would show up ready, knowing what to wear and what they wanted, others had a vague idea of getting famous and wanted to have pictures of themselves for their future careers as actors and models and some people were just intrigued, or bored.

Everyone who participated also filled out a questionnaire about themselves and their reasons for participating. The answers are shown alongside each of the portraits.

Craigslist by James Loveday (via Beautiful/Decay)

Some Atlanta-based photographer posted a humorous Craigslist ad on Monday highlighting the fact that people often assume that photographers will be happy to do work for free.

I am a photographer and since people are always looking for free shoots I assume that they must also do their job, or provide their services, for free.

I am looking to hire all types of people to do all sorts of jobs for me, as long as I do not have to pay anything. Just think, you will gain more experience, and I will put the word out for you and let everyone know what wonderful work you do. This opportunity will bring you a ton of unpaid work, but everyone will love you. So if you have a job or service you provide, and will do it for free, please let me know, because I am sure I have work for you and will hire you in a second.

Feel free to email me with the service you can provide, when you can start, and please include references.

I look forward to you free service.

Thanks,
:)

Photographer Looking For People to Do Their Job Without Pay (Atlanta) (via GoingPro)

Poke around on Craigslist, and you’ll find that it’s filled with ads selling professional services at dirt-cheap prices, including photographers offering to shoot weddings for just a few hundred dollars. Does this spell doom for the wedding photography business? Probably not.

Jeff Revell over at PhotoWalkPro writes,

Well yesterday [a friend] called me and I could tell he was kind of upset. I asked what was wrong and he said “Jeff, do you know what they are charging for weddings on Craigslist? How can I compete with a $300 wedding?” I told him flat out that he can’t, nor should he. It took me a few minutes to get through to him but when I did, he finally saw the light. I asked him if he thought that the people that were hiring a $300 wedding photographer would pay $2500 for the same service. Probably not. That’s means that he isn’t really competing for those customers. His customer is the one that recognizes the value of a true professional that will deliver professional results. Get that? The key word here is professional.

His point is that you shouldn’t be competing on price, but on quality. Focus on that, and you’ll be targeting a different segment of the market.

Are Cheap Craigslist Weddings Killing the Wedding Photography Business? [PhotoWalkPro]

Image credit: Wedding Photographer by Kip Praslowicz

Editor’s note: The checklist presented in this post is also available as a text file for you to print out and carry along for reference. This post was first published here.

Almost all of the camera equipment I have ever owned was purchased used. While this isn’t something to be proud of, I do like to think I know a thing or two about cameras and lenses. I have run into the occasional problems with lenses, but I made sure I had the option to return them if they had issues. I have also purchased a few lenses and cameras from people on Craigslist as well and as long as you know what you’re getting and tried it out when you made the purchase, you should be covered. There are a few things that I always check and I’m putting them up here in the hope that you might find some of it useful.

Camera Check

There’s not much that can go wrong with a DSLR camera that you can’t check in just a few minutes other than maybe a future shutter failure. The absolute first thing I do when I get a new to me camera is check the battery compartment for corrosion. Corrosion can be a sign of many things and if you’re planning on using the camera on a daily basis it’s best to keep your distance.

Now, does the camera power on? You might ask, why would I not just turn it on first, then check the battery compartment? Sometimes battery doors can get wonky or battery springs can get loose and I like the check the compartment first so that I know I just put the battery back in the camera myself and it required no additional effort or weirdness. The rest of the checks I’ll just put below in list format.

2. Use your own memory card and make sure it works in the camera.
3. Check all the terminals and look for bent pins or junk stuck in them.
4. Check the camera’s lens mount (look for brassing or scratches) and be sure that the mirror box looks clean (no actual dirt or water spots).
5. Use you own lens, Does the camera recognize it?
6. Does the shutter work and sound OK?
7. If the camera can do multiple frames per second, test it and make sure it will. If the shutter is dying, sometimes you can actually hear the frames get slower and it will affect the exposure.
8. Does changing the aperture and shutter speed actually change the exposure?
9. Check that all the modes on the dial work as they are supposed to.
10. Does the LCD Screen work?
11. If the camera has live view or video, be sure that they work as well.
12. Do all the buttons and dials work?
13. Test the hotshoe (they can get burn out and not function).
14. If the camera has a pop up flash, check that as well.
15. If the camera can do remote IR flash, check that as well if possible.
16. You would have already done this by now and it almost goes without saying, but be sure the viewfinder looks good (clean) and that when using spot metering, the meter actually changes based on the scene.
17. Take one completely black (underexposed) and one white (overexposed) frame. View them on the LCD and look for dead pixels on the LCD and on the sensor.
18. Compose a picture, select a focus point and AF on it and capture it. Play back the images and check that your focus point is in fact, in focus. Be sure to do this with a lens you already trust.
19. If the camera has a diopter control wheel, be sure that it works. Set it up correctly for your eyes, select a focus point and take a manually focused capture. Check playback to confirm your focus point is in focus.
20. If the camera says it comes with all the accessories, check that it did. Most manuals list exactly what is included with them all the way down to the quick start guide.
21. Last but not completely least, be sure the battery charger works!
22. It depends on if you care or not, but sure what you’re buying is for the US market. If it’s not, the manufacturer’s service facilities won’t work on it. That’s not to say that there aren’t other places that can, just be sure you know that going in.

Lens Check

1. Look at the front and rear lens elements. Are there any scratches? Angle the glass towards a light and look at the reflection. Are there any marks or swirls in the lens’ coating?
2. This one is kind of up for debate, but hold the lens towards a light source and look through it. Is there dust or fungus on any of the inner elements? While some dust is normal on almost all lenses, fungus is not. Fungus is a deal breaker for me because it etches the glass and can never be fully removed without a re-polishing. Dust on the other hand isn’t something I worry about unless the seller said the lens had just had a fresh cleaning or is supposed to be new. A film can also be present on older lenses. If it’s supposed to be a clean lens, make sure there isn’t a lightly frosted look to the inner glass as it will affect the image quality.
3. Check the lens mount for brassing. While brassing isn’t a deal killer, again, if the seller said in like new condition, be sure that it is.
4. Check the lens terminals. Make sure the pins aren’t loose and that it doesn’t look like someone did a crappy repair job.
5. Mount the lens to the camera. Check to see that there’s very little play between the camera mount and lens mount. Also make sure the camera doesn’t show any kind of error message when moving the lens and holding the shutter half way down.
6. Does the lens AF? Make sure it does.
7. Does the lens focus to infinity and up close through the entire zoom range.
8. If the lens has a focus scale, check for cracks in the plastic. Then check that the scale matches what the lens is doing (i.e. if you’re focused to infinity be sure the scale shows infinity).
9. Use AF and select a focus point; take a picture. Review the picture and check focus. If your camera works with every other lens you’ve mounted on it, but not with this one; there’s a problem.
10. Use manual focus and be sure it’s smooth; if it catches, there could be a problem. The same goes for the zoom; If it catches, there could be a problem.
11. Check that the filter threads have no flat spots and that a filter will screw into them
12. If the lens has IS and other switches, be sure these features work. On most image stabilized lenses, you can hear the IS motor working.
13. If the lens is supposed to have full time manual focus override, be sure that it works.
14. Set the lens to infinity focus and focus on something up close. Does the lens AF as fast as it’s supposed to? Different lenses will have different focusing speeds, but knowing how slow or fast it should be is important. If it’s horribly slow and it’s supposed to be lightning quick, there’s a problem.
15. Check the lens grips and be sure they’re snug. While loose grips are pretty common on older lenses, they are normally cheap and easy to replace. If it’s a known problem before you buy the lens, be sure that you can get a replacement and that they’re not discontinued. While this isn’t a huge deal, I’d hate to use rubber bands on a lens I just paid through the nose for.
16. Check the outer condition of the lens. If the lens is supposed to be new, check that the lettering isn’t starting to wear off and that there aren’t scuffs in the paint.
17. To get real picky, look at the screws that hold the lens together. Professionals use the correct screw driver sizes so that there’s very little damage to the screw heads. If the lens screws are all mauled up or mis-matched, it might make me think twice. If it’s a new lens, then that’s a no go.
18. Do a shake test. No, i mean give the lens a little shake. Does anything rattle? If it does, what is it and where is it?

Most of all, know what you’re buying before you buy it. All newer DSLR camera manuals should be available online for free download from their manufacturer. Read through the manual before you get the camera so you know that it is the camera you want and how the features work. Know the life expectancy of the shutter (normally in the manufacturer’s specs) and how much it cost to repair if you’re buying a well used camera. There are also many many places that does lens reviews. Read over those reviews as they sometimes list common problems to look out for on used equipment. Be an informed buyer and it might save you some trouble in the long run.

About the author: Jon Martin is a photographer based in Williamston, South Carolina. Visit his website here.

Image credits: Canon EOS 60D DSLR (4) by 아우크소(Auxo.co.kr) and Nikon by edcarsi

Camera bodies are probably the most difficult piece of photo equipment to sell, since new bodies and technology are released very frequently. They lack the longevity of lenses and depreciate over time.

We’ve posted a few previous tips about buying used DSLR gear and buying pro camera gear on a student budget, but now we’ll shift gears to the seller’s standpoint.

1. Think local — really local.

Selling your own camera gear can feel a little like selling an old project car.  It’s easy to become sentimentally attached, and you want to make sure it goes into good hands.

Before posting your gear advertisements anywhere, see if anyone in your immediate social circle is interested in buying. Co-workers or fellow students tend to be a good bet.  When I was working at my college paper, a lot of photo department staff would sell gear to each other, with the comforting reassurance that their equipment would be put to good use. There is also an added level of trust within colleagues, since they already know you and you’ll spend less time having to convince them that what you’re selling is in good condition.

Craigslist, when used with caution, is also a good way to find local buyers. Be wary of scams, though — a lot of falsely interested “buyers” might email you with a strange proposal. I’ve gotten a few generic emails from people interested in “the item,” offer a higher payment via PayPal, and then ask you to ship it to some remote relative in Africa. Yeah, right.

If you do find a real, local buyer on craigslist, do be careful. Propose to meet in a safe, public place during the day, and bring a friend or two along for added security. Cash is always most reliable, as well. It might be a good idea to meet near your bank, so you can safely stow your cash after you’ve made a sale.

2. Advertise the basics.

You don’t need to go into detail about small wear and tear that you notice, or anything beyond the camera’s model and maybe highlight some important technical specifications like megapixels and frames per second.

It is helpful to post a link with more detailed camera specs, either from the manufacturer’s site or dpreview.com, for the buyer’s convenience.

But the bottom line is to cut to the chase and don’t let your advert be hunkered down by unnecessary details.

Just tell them, it’s a Nikon D200. 10 megapixels. 5 fps. Excellent condition. Body specs here.

The less you tell prospective, but serious buyers, the more they might want to respond to your ad with questions. Once you begin a discussion with them, that’s your chance to answer more detailed questions they might have.

3. Don’t include more than you have to in the box.

Naturally, you’ll need to include a battery, charger, and other accessories that came with the camera body, but avoid including interchangeable accessories that you might use in the future.

Michael mentioned in his gear on a student budget post that he made the mistake of including a high-end B&W filter with a lens he sold, but later realized he still needed it.

Hang on to those memory cards and filters.

4. On the other hand, you’ll have a better chance of selling it if you bundle it with a lens.

Though this is a bit of a contradiction to the previous tip, but buyers will be much more interested in purchasing a used body if it comes with a lens.

You probably will not make as much back on the resell, but if the market is dry and people just aren’t interested, a lens can add a great deal of buyer incentive.

However, whether you need to include a lens or not really depends on what kind of camera body you are selling.

If you are selling a professional body, chances are, your buyers will be pros as well, and are likely to have their own lenses. In this case, there’s no need to include a lens.

If you are selling a lower-end DSLR, like a Nikon D40 or a Canon Rebel, prospective buyers are probably newer to photography, and will likely be looking for a bundle kit.

There’s really no need to K.I.T. with your kit lens, especially if you’re selling the body it came with. Ask yourself: are you really likely to attach that plastic 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 on your brand new D3x? Probably not.

Selling kit lenses alone is pretty pointless as well; brand new, they’re worth less than $150.

Instead, include it with the body you’ve got up for sale, and readjust your price. Be sure to check the street value of your bundle on eBay and craigslist.

5. Include your own photos of your gear on your advertisement.

If you provide photos with your advertisement, people are more likely to click on your posting. Additionally, if those photos are noticeably different from the standard manufacturer’s product shots, they can add to a feeling of authenticity and openness on the seller’s side. Also, when you post attractive product photos, the photos can imply your own skill as a photographer, and can give you more clout as a camera seller.

Conclusion

Understand the buyer’s standpoint when selling. Check out Michael’s posts on buying used DSLR gear and buying pro camera gear on a student budget.  Don’t sell yourself short, but be aware that you may need to make some concessions in order to make your gear marketable.

Finally, if you’ve got any additional tips on selling gear, feel free to share it with us!

Know What to Look Out For

Just as you need to know a good price on a piece of gear from a bad one, you need to be able to distinguish something that looks and works like it should from something that doesn’t. I’ll be covering some specific things on what you should look for, but bring along a photographer friend if you haven’t used the kind of gear you’re buying before.

Check the Camera’s Sensor

The sensor on a DSLR is what captures the image you photograph. You don’t want to buy a camera and then later find out that the sensor is scratched or damaged in some way, since this might affect the quality of all of your photographs. Different cameras let you examine the sensor in different ways, so be sure to know how to check the sensor on the camera you’re looking at before going to the meeting. Just taking off the lens won’t expose the camera’s sensor, since it’s naturally hidden behind both the mirror and the shutter curtain. You’ll have to use the feature of the camera that locks up the mirror and opens the shutter curtain in order to see the sensor.

Ask How Many Actuations the Camera Has

Cameras are like cars, and mileage matters. Each camera has a “life expectancy” for how many actuations, or shots, the shutter system is expected to be able to handle before it fails and needs to be replaced (which is expensive). A camera is generally in pretty new condition if it has less than 10,000 actuations, and very used if it has more than 50,000 or 100,000 actuations (since many cameras are only rated for this many). Research your specific model to see how many actuations the manufacturer rated the camera for. Since for most cameras there isn’t an easy way to verify the actuation count with certainty, the figure is meant to give you an idea of how used the camera is, and how much life you might still get out of it.

How to Tell if A Camera is More Used than the Owner Claims

From personal experience, the best indicator for how much use a camera has seen is the strap attached to the camera. If the owner claims that the camera has barely been used, but the strap is worn and faded, then a warning bell in your head should go off. Gentle and minimal use won’t wear down a strap much.

Other areas you can check for wear are the external flash hot shoe and the LCD screen. On certain camera models, the hot shoe has a black paint coating that slowly rubs off every time an external flash is attached or removed. If the hot shoe is used and worn, then the camera probably is too. Newer LCD screens also will appear smooth, and lack the hairline scratches that appear over time. A flawless LCD screen does not prove the camera is in new condition, but one with many small scratches indicates the opposite.

Check the Front and Back Elements of the Lens

If you’re buying a lens, take off both lens caps and hold the camera up to the light. Make sure theres no scratches or other imperfections in the glass on either side of the lens.

Ask the Seller to Pose for Portraits

The benefits of this are two-fold. First, this allows you to test the sharpness of the lens. Focus on the seller’s eyes with the lens wide open, and check whether the eyes are sharp. This also gives you an opportunity to have a photograph of what the seller looks like, as an extra precaution. Honest sellers might even be more than willing to let you copy down their contact information from their drivers license, as I’ve experienced a few times.

Test for Front and Back Focusing

Make sure the seller isn’t selling the lens because it focuses incorrectly. You can do this by focus testing the lens at the meeting. If you don’t want to bring something specifically to use for testing the focus, learn to do focus testing quickly on any sheet of paper with text on it.

Tips for Meeting the Seller

Try to meet during the day, since it’s both safer, and easier to examine and test camera equipment. Sufficient light will help you to more easily test the quality and sharpness of photographs. Of course, there’s always the general craigslist tips for being a “safe buyer”. Meet sellers in person at a public location, and with another person if possible. I’ve found that meeting in a coffee shop at noon generally works very well. I’ve even managed to make the process very quick and painless, since many times sellers will agree to meet me at the coffee shop just down the block from where I live.

In Conclusion

The things I shared in this article were certain things I picked up through the past few years of doing gear transactions through craigslist. It’s definitely not a comprehensive list of what to be wary of, and you should examine all the normal functions of the equipment to ensure that they’re working flawlessly. If there are other important things that I failed to include, please leave a comment and share!

When other photographers see some of the lenses I own (i.e. 24-70mm, 16-35mm), they often wonder how I can afford such expensive gear. After all, I was only an unemployed college student from a middle-class family. What most people don’t know is that I almost exclusively purchase my equipment used from sellers on craigslist. This article is about everything I’ve learned through years of buying and selling camera equipment on that site. If you have the money to purchase the gear you want new, then this article obviously isn’t for you. However, if you want nicer gear without paying absurd amounts of money (maybe photography is just a serious hobby for you), then these tips might be useful to you.

First of all, something I’ve found very useful over the past years is keeping a detailed log of equipment transactions, since it helps me to keep track of how much I’ve spent on this serious hobby of mine. I do this in a Microsoft Excel file, but any spreadsheet software or website (i.e. Google spreadsheets) will do.

Here’s the current state of my equipment log:

The columns I add entries to are “equipment”, “purchase price”, and “sell price”. The values in “expense”, “revenue”, and “net” (cheesy names, I know) are automatically calculated (i.e. expense is “=SUM(B:B)/2″). As I add purchases and sales to the log, I see how much money I’ve given, how much I’ve received, and what my net spending (or earning) is at the current state.

In the log above, you can see that I’ve spent a net of $3,584 on all the camera equipment I currently have. If I were to sell everything I currently have at very reasonable prices right now, my chart tells me that I would have only spent a total of $300-$500 on all the photography I’ve done since I purchased that 20D back in 2005. That’s roughly the cost of the point and shoot camera I used throughout high school before it finally broke during a trip to china! In fact, the reason I’m still at a net loss right now is because of the few bad choices I’ve made along the way (20D, 24-70mm, 70-300mm). If I had followed what I’m going to write in this article from the very beginning, I would have actually ended up making money while using professional gear at the same time.

So what have I learned?

Know the Street Value of Camera Gear

This doesn’t mean knowing how much a camera body or lens retails for. This means knowing the average price a certain piece of equipment is being successfully sold for on craigslist. After all, if you don’t know how much something is worth, how will you know when you see it being sold for a good deal? If you see multiple listings of a certain piece of equipment that are roughly in the same price range, then that’s probably pretty close to the street value.

Buy Low, Sell High

Now that you know the street value of what you want, avoid it. If you buy it at street value now, you’ll have to sell it at lower than what you paid for if you ever sell it later down the road. If you look at my equipment log, you’ll see that most of the time I sell something, it’s either for the price I originally paid or higher. I’ve often used a lens or body for quite a long time and many actuations before selling it for a good amount more than I paid.

Look For Packages

It’s pretty much always the case that someone selling multiple items together as a package must sell it for significantly less than the sum of each item separately. They are, in a sense, exchanging the extra money they could earn for the time they save by selling it all at once. This presents a great opportunity for the photographer looking for a good deal on a particular item in the package. If a package you come across includes a piece of equipment you want along with many pieces you don’t want, and is extremely cheaply priced, buy it all and sell off everything you don’t want. If the price was good enough, there’s a good chance you’ll end up paying nothing for the gear you wanted after selling off the rest.

Always Sell Items Individually

This is pretty much the previous point reversed. Buying items in packages and selling them individually can get you free gear and maybe even allow you to pocket some cash with your free gear. Buying items individually and selling them in a package will probably lose you money.

Camera Bodies Depreciate Like Cars and Computers

This is what I wish someone would have told me before I started out, since I sold the original 20D I purchased for $1,200 a couple years later for $380. The moment you take the first photo on a camera you purchased new, the value of the camera instantly plummets. Furthermore, camera technology advances very, very quickly, and the next model of your new camera will be released within the next couple years. When this happens, your camera instantly depreciates even more.

The moral of the story is, buy camera bodies used and from a couple generations back (since depreciation will be much slower). Also, “upgrade” often (you’ll want to anyway, right?). This allows you to constantly move up in camera technology without paying extra money.

Professional Lenses Don’t Depreciate Like Camera Bodies

Lenses made for the Canon EF and Nikon F lens mounts are interchangeable and can be used on cameras from as far back as 1987 and 1959 (respectively) and as recent as the latest models. Lens quality and features do not improve nearly as fast as the camera bodies they’re used on, so it’s possible hold onto a professional lens for many years without losing much of its street value. The caveat is that if you accidentally break the lens this tip goes out the window, so take very good care of your gear. Always use a filter.

I’ve found that top of the line lenses (like Canon’s L series) depreciate least quickly, and probably won’t break or fail on you due to their spectacular build quality. As a result, I don’t own any EF-S or third party lenses, though I’m sure you could go for those and do just fine as long as you go for high quality ones that get good reviews.

Jump At Ridiculously Good Lens Deals

Even if you don’t plan on adding the lens to your collection, you will be able to try out a wide range of lenses while pocketing money after you’re done with it. People sometimes pay to rent lenses they’re interested in, which seems funny to me (unless you’re pro, rich, employed, or all of the above). Why rent when you can buy, sell, and profit?

People also talk of variations in sharpness and quality from lens to lens. This is definitely true, but is all the more reason to buy lenses used on craigslist. Some people buy and return a lens repeatedly in order to find a “good copy”, but buying and selling the lens on craigslist will help you do the same thing while potentially putting money in your pocket.

Never Sell Interchangeable Accessories Along With Your Gear

A couple years ago when I sold a copy of the 70-300mm, I threw in a B&W filter along with it, thinking I didn’t need it anymore. B&W is a pretty high-end brand when it comes to filters. When I needed the filter again in the future on a different lens, I didn’t have it. Don’t include things like filters, extra batteries, or extra memory cards when you sell off gear, since you can keep those things for future use (and they don’t really add value to what you’re selling anyway).

There’s More To Come…

If following the guidelines I laid out in this article was as easy and straightforward as I made them seem, then I’m sure a lot more budget conscious photographers would be following these tips to save money on their gear. The truth is, there are definitely a lot of risks, dangers and things to avoid that I’ve come across and learned from as well. My next post will deal with how to know when to buy and when to run away from the deal. That’s the second part of this two part series, so stay tuned!

Update: My new article on how to make safe and smart decisions for used gear on craigslist can be found here: A Guide to Buying Used DSLR Gear.