minhnestrone wrote:
Well a year or two ago, I forget now. BHPhoto had a special promo code plus the canon rebates were going on before the price hikes.
I got a 24-70mm L for $950 new and a 17-200mm L for $1450 new. Not quite as amazing as the Buy a Lens get a 580EX free deal but still pretty darn good.
I recently got a Profoto Acute 2 1200 kit w. tenba case and 2 PWs for 2100. I think that's a decent deal, but I'm a newbie to lighting so who knows .
Not quite 800$, but I picked up a new (as in, everything was still sealed) 5D in January for 1000$ of CL. I thought it was a hoax at that price. It wasn't. Apparently, mortgage payments come before cameras.
Also, my friend ~gave~ me an FTb QL, 50 1.4 SSC, and a Vivitar Series 1 70-210 3.5. Can't be that for a deal. Actually, you could, I'm sure. Anyone feel like donating a 135L to a poor college kid?
Last summer I picked up a gorgeous Hasselblad 500c/m complete with prisim, lens, body, back, hood, etc. for $250 from Hasselblad master technician John Kovacs. Gorgeous camera - he made sure it was in tip-top before it left his now retired hands.
mxquattro wrote:
Canon 300 f/2.8 for $750 at an estate sale. The owner bought it just before he passed away and it wasnt left to anyone. It went to auction and I was the only bidder.
John Power wrote:
$25 plus shipping for my 50 1.8 Mark 1 box. That beats the 300 2.8 deal by a mile. Anyone can buy that lens. Try and buy my box.
John, just remember that Michael Furman has one too, and he is my Canadian compadre........he might yet sell it to me cheap if my inner peace hinged on it.
One of my best deals was finding an absolutely mint condition Olympus 35RD rangefinder camera (notice it in my avatar?). I paid $20 for it at a thrift store, I sold it 6 months later (after using it quite a bit!) for $350! I knew they were collectible, but not that much! Needless to say, I was very pleased.
Another great deal was a huge chain reaction of trades/sales over a couple years span.
I had bought an epson R-D1 from a local hobbyist who had no idea why he bought such an "absurd" camera and just wanted to be rid of it. I knew the value of the package deal, but quoted him much less, shame on me ...
It was a new in the box R-D1, and a new Leica 35mm f/2 ASPH for $1200 total. I loved this combo and bought other lenses for it, but at that point I was also trying to hunt down a Hasselblad H1. I sold the R-D1 to a fellow in italy for $2100, and sold the Lens on ebay for $2k, I sold the other gadgets and lenses on ebay too, for random amounts. I bought my H1 kit on KEH for $2700, and with the extra money I bought a brand new 5D (because it had just come out), used the H1 for some time, decided I couldn't afford a digital back and then traded/sold it to a Gentleman in New Zealand for $2100 + a like new Canon 1Ds body (box+ all accessories included).
Used the 1Ds for a while, then sold that and purchased a 1DmkII. I used that 5D + 1DmkII combo from 2005-2008 when I traded it for a new 1DmkIII, which I used until march of this year when I traded the mkIII for a 5DmkII.
Whew! It was a journey! But it's all fun.
Oh and best lens deal ever, for me. Purchased a used 24-70L on ebay for $900, used it for 3 years, made money with it, and then sold it for $1050. I couldn't believe that one
A year ago, or near there...I had just bought a Rebel/300D(My first DSLR - Yeahhhhh)kit for $200.00, and a couple of days later, a XT was on CL for 400.00 -OR - "Trade for laptop", I had a laptop that might have fetched 150.00, So needless to say, the trade happened...and then I resold the Rebel kit for $250.00. Total for a Rebel XT Kit, with 2gb CF card = $100.00
I bought a NikKor 135.f3.5 for $20.00 in the Hamptons at a local camera store for $20.00 that had a sticky aperture.Had it fixed for $15.00 It was like $150.00 New (1974)
Probably a fantastic used copy of the 135L f/2 for $600 thanks in part to microsoft live! cashback deal.
Maybe that I got the 300 2.8 IS during the short while over the last few years where it was as 'low' as $3450, but still hard to call that a deal....
haven't really had too much in the way of great camera equipment deals, although I have had some for audio equipment (like 85% off on TOP notch stuff) and a few other sorts of things.
mxquattro wrote:
Canon 300 f/2.8 for $750 at an estate sale. The owner bought it just before he passed away and it wasnt left to anyone. It went to auction and I was the only bidder.
good grief!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
you wins hands down!!
i almost got a 70-200 2.8 non-IS for $450 at an estate auction, but they didn't let my online registration get through in time!
i bet that is the place to look though, estate auctions, most are local and hard to track but there are a few companies that toss the items online, as the 70-200 for $450 above, it seems to be THE only place left where you don't get bidding frenzies and where stuff still sells for the if it is used it is minimum 50% off retail mantra that used to generally rule before ebay made everyone seem to think 10% for used OVER new at online stores was steal . EBay got too big and too many nutty bidders came aboard. early, early on you could get lots of great deals on a wide variety of stuff, now only for the most obscure of items.
oh three 8GB Extreme III 30 GB/s edition SanDisk CF cards for $12 TOTAL, SHIPPED was not bad though
I got a 1DsMKII in mint condition, 1,056 frames (i checked) shot on it for euros 2,000 back in February. It had been used by a private fee paying school here in the capital for photography classes. It still had the new camera smell
I also got a near mint EOS 3 for 200 euros the same day. and all I had done was drop in to collect some prints.
and then to cap it all I was made redundant the following week, so timing couldn't have been better.
John
I got a 50D with Canon 18-200mm IS Sigma 530ST DG flash, a 8GB Sandisk III card, and carry bag for £925 delivered. I got £70 off from an eBay voucher making it all only £855 :-)
Hooray for Live Cashback hitting 35% when the 5d2 started hitting the shelves. To top it off, the cashback was immediate rather than the wait 60 day kind.
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