Tag: ebay

Two Photography Notes

Two things happened today that are related to photography fun.

 First: I didn’t need it but I did it anyway. I bought yet another camera from eBay. A Nikon F90. It was on my list of cameras to look for when I bought my last film camera last year. I ended up going for a much cheaper Nikon F401 which turned out to be broken. It came with a nice 50mm lens though so it was worth it for that. 

Similarly, today’s eBay purchase had more to do with the lens. There were two in the sale. One was another 50mm. That’s fine. The other was the reason I pulled the trigger. It is a 70–200mm zoom. I don’t have a good zoom lens that works with any of my film cameras. I do actually have a couple of zooms but they are both in seriously rough shape. Here’s hoping this one works out.

The camera itself looks good. Will it be broken like the last one? Probably, but who can say. It has autofocus and that’s what I really want. If the camera and the zoom lens both work out okay I will be very happy with this deal. If only one of them works, I’ll still be happy. If it’s all junk? Fuck.

What was the second item of note today? I took a bag full of cameras to Boston and went for a 6–7 mile long photo walk. Yikes! I started on Berkeley Street and Commonwealth Ave. I walked up Comm to Mass Ave, then cut across to Newbury Street and walked back down to Clarendon Street. I shot two rolls of film. The sunlight was pretty good, though it was a lot cloudier than the forecast I read last night said it would be. 

When I finished that loop I switched from film to digital and did the same route in reverse. Also, that was when the sun went away. I’ll post the digital highlights later.

For now… my legs are super tired from all that walking. I’m old, leave me alone!

Less Than Two Hours

I am less than two hours away from winning an ebay auction for a cheap, Soviet medium format TLR camera from the 80’s. I am the only bidder so far. Think I am going to win? Neither do I, but let’s see how it goes.

I’m exhausted. I have a massive headache. I have body aches all over. This is the post-covid booster shot blues. I was planning no working in the office tomorrow but now I think I am going to push that off until Tuesday. Just on the off chance that I’m not quite over this by tomorrow morning. Here’s hoping a good nights sleep will fix me right up.

Dangerous Nerd Moment

I probably shouldn’t have done it but…

I went to ebay tonight and put a very small bid onto a very, very old film camera. Does it work? Maybe. I wouldn’t have bid if the top bid at the time wasn’t really, really low because the camera is older than my parents and who knows if it functions at all.

I want to dip my toes into medium format film, and folding cameras from the 1930’s seem like the least expensive starting point… and a $25.25 bid isn’t going to hurt the bottom line.

The auction ends tomorrow… we’ll see.

FG-20: It Seems to Work

I put film in the new/ebay camera. It was a little difficult getting it to advance. It moved okay when the door was open, but not at all when it was closed. I think I need to roll it back a little to tighten it. It seems that way at least.

I also have to remember to half-push the shutter to get the light meter to work. That has gone wrong once as my attempt to half push accidently turned into a full push. Woops. So far it seems to be advancing the film correctly. Hopefully that continues for… forever, I guess.

Now I just have to shoot the whole roll and get it developed so that I can know the whole thing actually really works instead of just feels like it works. I also need to know if there’s anything fatal with the lens. It seems okay, but focusing feels a little difficult.

It’s all very interesting.

Tuesday Stuff

Happy Amazon Prime Day. I don’t really know what that means, but my beloved wife spent her pre-work morning shopping for bargains. I don’t know if she got any, but we have a new dorm room to partially populate at the end of next month so fingers crossed for good stuff.

Today is my work anniversary. 18 years ago today I started a new job. Eighteen (18) years… That’s the longest I’ve ever stuck with anything in my whole life. It’s crazy. Crazy, I tells ya.

My father is moving to a new room within the assisted living facility he’s currently living in. The moving day is tomorrow. I haven’t seen his new room, but I’ve seen one that is similar. It’s bigger than his current room and it has an actual kitchen. I took the day off to help out. I’m not sure how it’s going to go yet. We’ll see. I’m optimistic that this is going to be a good thing. I am not sure if my father agrees or not. Again, we’ll see.

Bellana is coming home on Friday. Repeat: Bellana is coming home on Friday. We’re going to have both kids in the house at the same time and it’s everything. Literally everything!

My Ebay camera purchase that I kinda wanted to back out of but didn’t is supposed to be delivered today. Here’s hoping the lens that the seller chucked in for free actually works. I am not sure it will. Unfortunately, Amazon Prime Day doesn’t have any deals on Nikon lenses from the 80’s so there’s no help coming from there.

18 years. I’ve actually stuck with something for 18 years. Who woulda thunk it. I wonder how many other folks from my new hire group are still around. Our careers are old enough to vote. So weird.

Ebay

I put a bid on an ebay auction for an old Nikon film camera. I don’t want to bring Dad’s camera on vacation in January because I would be afraid of dropping it or having it stolen or accidentally sit on it or Donald Duck might savagely attack me and smash it over my idiotic head.

You know, something like that.

So I put in a bid on a camera that lots of people on YouTube and Reddit said was both good and similar to Dad’s camera. The auction ended last night. By the time I got up yesterday morning I was feeling quite a bit of buyer’s remorse. Even though I hadn’t even won yet. Turns out I actually did win it. I didn’t welch on the bid, even though I was pretty close to cancelling my account without paying. I couldn’t be that big of a prick so I paid up.

I’m sure it’s going to be fine and I am sure it’s going to survive whatever Donald Duck may throw at it, but somehow buyer’s remorse is more obnoxious when ebay is involved.

For now though, let’s just leave this with a little Lock Monsters Hockey. It used to be alive.

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Ebay = Stress

I put a bid on a Nikon camera with a lens that may or may not work last night. There were no bids on it at the time and the auction was set to end just after 9:00 on Sunday (tomorrow) night.

I just checked it and someone else put in a bid as well. It wasn’t enough to top my tiny max bid, but it bumped up the price from $10 to $17.50.

Eeek! Ebay is stressful!

The Old Ebay She Ain’t What She Used to Be

I won three auctions on ebay two weeks ago.  All vinyl records, all less than $10.  One seller went deadbeat on me within minutes of the auction ending.  Suddenly and tragically the seller’s paypal had to be changed.  He graciously refunded the money that I gave him immediately after the auction ended and told me to let him know when I was ready so that he could relist the item.  Unbelievably, some one else bought it before I could bid.  Oh woah is me!

The first auction I won was for a copy of 2112.  The estimated ship by date was for all of last week through today.  Guess what hasn’t arrived.

The third auction went fine and it arrived in the mail today.  I guess one out of three ain’t bad.