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The Smart Money... And how to spend it.
Camera Electronic has always had a good supply of refurbished, demo, ex-rental, and second hand stock - all the time I have been dealing with them or working for them. It is no different now that I am writing for the firm. And there was a good example of this at the recent PhotoLive 2024 Expo.
Dom and I were tasked with the books and trade table - he is much more knowledgeable than I with many of the products on display, but we both have experience with analogue as well digital photography. Now and then Duncan Dodd would pop by and help us out, and he knows more than the two of us combined…
So what is good about pre-owned equipment? In the right hands, a lot - tried and trusted professional equipment at much-reduced prices. 12 month warranty. professional advice on how to use the cameras, lenses, and flashes to their best effect - remember that we’ve been doing that, with these, and you can too.
There were two star cameras and a sleeper that caught my eye - for different reasons. I suppose you could say that two of the cameras would be good for general-purpose photography on a very high level - one for professional use and one for the high-end enthusiast.
But one camera is dedicated to very special shooters…
The Linhof Technorama is an analogue camera - taking 120 roll film through a classic film path. It is entirely manual in operation; exposure, focussing, frame advance. There is an Albada-type viewfinder that slots into a cold shoe on the top. It is HEAVY, and built like a tank shell.
It is served by a Schneider lens fixed in place. You cock it before firing - that’s with the red button, and you don’t get to go too fast. you’ll have to guess th distance and know
the exposure, but the lens does stop down to f:64 so you’ll have a reasonable depth of field. and you’ll only get 8 shots on that roll of 120 film, so expect to change rolls frequently.
So what’s so good about all this? The negatives or transparencies that come out of the camera are 2.8:1 panorama format. Like this, though this is just an illustration cropped out of a different digital camera’s file. The real LInhof negative is immensely more detailed and precise.
This is such a specialised camera that few will find a ready
use for it - but calendar and fine-art shooters will recognise the advantage straight away.
Now if you are a general-purpose shooter that wants a camera that can do pretty near any medium and close shooting pretty near better than anything else…consider the Leica Q2 that has come onto sale.
It has a fixed 28mm Leica lens feeding onto a full-frame 40+ megapixel sensor with provision to reduce the minimum focusing distance to 17 cm. It is a fast f:1.7. There is a very bright and detailed OLED viewfinder as well as the screen. It is robustly weatherproofed.
Note it is also heavy - being classic Leica construction.
It will be a dangerous camera for the shop to sell - because in the right/wrong hands, it will mean the customer never comes back. They will take this away, start to use it, discover that it does everything they could ever want - perfectly - and the only time we’ll see them again is when they want a new memory card.
Own goal…
The third star did not get a photo because I got busy. A Nikon D3s. Big, heavy, sturdy, incredible low-light and sport camera, and at a bargain price - a REAL bargain price. It went back to the shop at the end of the day, but if you need to shoot theatre, sport, or wildlife, follow it back there and search the second hand cabinet, Hope no-one has beaten you to it…
To check current second hand stock, please click here.
All text and photos by Richard Stein
