I would appreciate advice on buying a Sony A1 here on this website. Your suggestions for how to review and inspect the cameras offered for sale are appreciated.
First order is to look at the info on the seller. How long they have been on FM and the number of positive feedbacks they have received in transactions. Generally I'm at ease dealing with well established members with very good feedback. In every purchase transaction I've been involved with, the item I received was accurately described or actually better.
glasseyevision wrote:
I would appreciate advice on buying a Sony A1 here on this website. Your suggestions for how to review and inspect the cameras offered for sale are appreciated.
Since you have just joined and this is your first post, I assume that you yourself have no selling feedback here. In terms of what you ask about--advice on buying an A1 from the board--that creates the difficulty that sellers will not be sure about you as a transaction partner on an expensive item.
This is a problem that everyone who is new to the board faces. While you are the buyer in this transaction, there have been scams operated where a buyer pays for a camera or lens and then puts in a claim that he received only a brick or a bag of rice in the box that was delivered. Of course I am not suggesting that is what you are doing, but it is a legitimate concern on a seller's part since they don't know you.
There are various ways of overcoming this, e.g. buying in person from someone on the board who lives in your area, arranging for a phone call or facetime as part of the deal so that the seller can get a better sense of who you are, giving the seller a place where you work that can be verified, etc. Once you start to have positive feedback, things get much easier.
One specific aspect of purchasing a used A1 that I would want to verify is that it's running firmware version 3 (my preference, or at least 2.01) and that the Bluetooth and wifi radios still work properly. The reason for this is that some A1s (I have no idea how many, probably not many), when updated to firmware version 2, would have their wifi and/or bluetooth radios stop working.
glasseyevision wrote:
I would appreciate advice on buying a Sony A1 here on this website. Your suggestions for how to review and inspect the cameras offered for sale are appreciated.
Speaking in general if you do not have the confidence in inspecting the camera yourself, I would suggest either buying new with a warranty, or getting someone you trust and know in real life to help out with testing the camera out.
Preferably someone who has experience in the camera model, or at least the brand you are buying.
I agree that it would be best to have a local camera shop inspect the camera. It is a bit intimidating buying without an experience set of eyes and hands doing an inspection.
