BAA Help Needed & Great Used Gear News and Lessons

What’s Up?

Most of Saturday was spent dealing with post-surgery discomfort 🙂 and watching the Masters Golf Tournament. I am rooting for Jordan Spieth who will begin the last round with a tenuous lead. Sunday afternoon will be nail-biting time for sure.

I am thinking that I had better get packing tomorrow morning as only my Think Tank Rolling Bag is packed so far. I leave for the airport hotel at 7:30pm tomorrow night for my 6:00am flight to JFK on Monday. 🙂

The Streak

Today’s blog post marks 156 days in a row with a new educational blog post. As I will be making the trip to Namibia on April 11, this streak will likely come to an end soon. As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. For best results use one of our many product-specific links; after clicking on one of those you can continue shopping with all subsequent purchases invisibly tracked to BAA. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated. Please remember: web orders only. Please remember that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.

BIRDS AS ART Help Needed

We are proud to announce that the new BIRDS AS ART Online Store will go live on May 1, 2016. The old store, rife with problems, has long been due a peaceful death. We do need a few test shoppers. If you would like to help us out, please shoot Jim an e-mail with the words Test Shopper in the Subject line. You will not get to keep the stuff that you order but you will have our thanks.

Great Used Gear News and Lessons

A very good friend who is a multiple IPT veteran recently sold his old 400 DO and a 1D Mark IV to Adorama for $2,000. I had had four old 400 DO lenses listed for many months. I had his lens sold for $2450 the other day but when I e-mailed him he told me that he had sold it and the 1D IV (both in excellent condition) for the criminally low price of $2000. For both I asked. “Yes.” As I could have easily gotten at least $1200 for the camera and had $2450 for the lens lens, my friend, who shall remain un-named, lost at least $1650.

Here are the lessons:

1-Patience is a virtue.
2-If you sell your used gear to a camera store (and that includes my dear friends at B&H Photo Video), you are gonna get ripped off. Doing so is better than taking your gear out to the curb and leaving it with the trash, but not by much.

The prices of the used, original (aka “the old”) 400 DO lenses present an interesting case study. We sold one for $4199 back in May 2014 and another for $3,000 in August 2015. Very recently we sold one for $2400 and two for $2299. At one point we had four listed. Most folks were patient and eventually got a halfway decent price. My good friend got robbed. The major camera stores pay pennies on the dollar so that they can make a tiny profit when the now over-priced items can sell to the occasional ignorant buyer.

What’s Up with Used Gear Sales?

I have been somewhat remiss for the past month or so, mostly due to the San Diego surgery trip, at tending to the Used Gear Page and especially at getting new stuff listed. I am rectifying that here today.

Selling Your Used Photo Gear Through BIRDS AS ART

Selling your used (or like-new) photo gear through the BAA Blog or via a BAA Online Bulletin is a great idea. We charge only a 5% commission. One of the more popular used gear for sale sites charged a minimum of 20%. Plus assorted fees! Yikes. They went out of business. And e-Bay fees are now up to 13%. The minimum item price here is $500 (or less for a $25 fee). If you are interested please e-mail with the words Items for Sale Info Request cut and pasted into the Subject line :). Stuff that is priced fairly–I offer free pricing advice, usually sells in no time flat. Over the past year, we have sold just about everything in sight. Do know that prices on some items like the EOS-1D Mark IV, the old Canon 500mm f/4L IS, the EOS-7D, and the original 400mm IS DO lens have been dropping steadily.

Important Used Gear Stuff that has never appeared on the blog before

When folks receive the Items for Sale Info e-mail, they are asked to read it carefully and to let me know if they accept the terms, especially #s 4 & 5. Once they agree to the terms we work on a price that will get the lens sold while making both the buyer and the seller happy. Most agree to the terms. Here is #4:

#4-If the seller decides not to sell the item after I have done the price research but before it is listed they agree to pay a commission equal to 2 1/2% of the current B&H (low-ball) offer. If the item is listed and the seller accepts a price lower than the asking price, the commission shall be based on the original asking price. If the seller decides not to sell the item, or sells it to a buyer found independently, the seller agrees to pay a commission equal to 2 1/2% of the original asking price.

And here is #5: If you make contact with a buyer and sell them additional items you promise to pay 5% on all sales, even those that were never listed on the Used Gear Page.

Item #4 above is in place as a good deal of work is required to come up with a price that is both fair to the seller and is attractive to potential buyers. I am not a free pricing service 🙂 And item #5 is only fair.

Used Gear Cautions

Though I am not in a position to post images of gear for sale here or elsewhere, prospective buyers are encouraged to request photos of the gear that they are interested in purchasing via e-mail. Doing so will help to avoid any misunderstandings as to the condition of the gear. Sellers are advised to photograph their used gear with care against clean backgrounds so that the stuff is represented accurately and in the best light; please pardon the pun :).

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4G ED VR Lens

IPT veteran and good friend Mark Hardymon is offering a used Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4G ED VR lens in excellent condition for the by far BAA record low price of $5999. The sale includes the original trunk (CT-607), a Wimberley low profile tripod foot, the original Nikon tripod foot, a LensCoat soft front lens cover, the original Nikon front lens cover, a black LensCoat, all other original accessories, and insured ground shipping via UPS. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Mark by e-mail or by phone at 614-296-2277 (Eastern time).

The 600 f/4 lenses are ideal for those who do birds and wildlife. This older version of the Nikon 600 weighs 11.16 lbs. This model is still in production and sells new at B&H for $9,394.00. The newer lighter version, the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4E FL ED VR lens (designated by “E” rather than “G” after the f/4) weighs 8.4 pounds but costs $12,296.95. Thus, Mark’s lens is a great buy for someone young and relatively strong who would like to save $3395. artie

Nikon 500mm f/4G ED VR lens

Long-time-ago IPT veteran Myer Bornstein is offering a Nikon 500mm f/4G ED VR lens in excellent condition for the record-low BAA price of $4,999. It just had a complete Nikon check-up. The sale includes a soft cap, a LensCoat TravelCoat, a RRS low mount, the lens trunk, the original leather front lens cover, and insured ground shipping to US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Myer via e-mail or by phone at 1-508 944 7401 (Eastern time).

Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II Lens

Paul Roscoe is offering a Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II lens in mint condition and for the record-low BAA price of $9450. The lens includes a LensCoat that has been on the lens since the original purchase and a Wimberley Arca-Swiss compatible replacement lens foot. The sale also includes the lens trunk, the original front lens cover, the lens strap, the original shipping box, and insured ground shipping via Fedex. Your item will not ship until your check or bank wire clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Paul via e-mail or on his cell phone at 1-508-932-5038 (Eastern time).

The 600 II is the world’s premier super-telephoto lens. It is super-sharp and features Canon’s amazing four-stop Image Stabilization system. This, the current version, weighs more than 3 pounds less than the previous model. When I am not weight-restricted, the 600 II is my first choice in super-telephoto lenses. I use it at Bosque, at Nickerson Beach, and from my car on a BLUBB when working down by the lake near my house. Heck, I am renting one in Namibia. When you need maximum reach, the 600 II is the only way to go. As the lens currently sells new at B&H for $11,499, you can save $2,000 by grabbing Paul’s lens right now. artie

Canon EOS 5D Mark III

A New Record-Low BAA Price

IPT veteran Bill Wingfield is offering a used Canon EOS 5D Mark III DSLR camera body in excellent condition for the record low BAA price of $1498. The sale includes the front cap, the camera strap, and insured ground shipping via major courier. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Please contact Bill via e-mail or by phone at 1-843-729-6670 (Eastern time).

I have used the 5D III for birds on occasion with excellent results, even with the 2X III TC and the 600 II. It has long been my go-to dSLR for flowers, landscapes, and Urbex photography. In my experience, the quality of the image files is second only to those from the 5DS R. artie

Please Remember to use our Affiliate Links 🙂

To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod heads, Gitzo tripods, Wimberley heads and plates, LensCoats and accessories, and the like. We sell only what I have used, have tested, and can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know what you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail. I just learned that my account was suspended during my absence; it should be up and running by Monday at the latest.

I would of course appreciate your using our B&H affiliate links for all of your major gear, video, and electronic purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we, meaning BAA, would of course greatly appreciate your business. Here is a huge thank you to the many who have been using our links on a regular basis and visiting the BAA Online store as well.

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Typos

In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right 🙂