Price of used 35mm equipment

"Paul Rubin" wrote in message
...
"Mac Breck" writes:
If DSLR buyers have a large investment in a lot of manual glass that
they really like, and it's a system of glass that they've built up
over many years, why wouldn't they want to hold onto their favorite
glass when they get a DSLR? There are manual lenses that I'd never
sell, because I really love the optics. The D100 does not meter
with them, so to Hell with the D100. I want to have a DLSR that
meters with all of my lenses, and that's the D1/D2 series.

I'm sort of in the situation you describe. I have maybe $2K of Nikon
stuff, not a large investment by pro standards but not trivial. At
the moment there's no D1/D2 camera with a 6 MP sensor with square
pixels, so if you want that you have no choice but the D100. Maybe
there will be a D2H soon which will probably cost around $4K. At that
price it's cheaper for me to throw away my current lenses and get a
D100 and new lenses, than to buy a D2X and use my current lenses. Of
course if I ditch my current lenses, I'm more likely to get a Canon
DSLR than if I can keep using my lenses, so Nikon IMO did a pretty
dumb thing in making the D100 unable to meter with MF lenses.

The MF lenses usefulness is sort of altered anyway by the small DSLR
sensor. The ultrawides become medium wides, my favorite 35/1.4
becomes a non-wide, the 55/2.8 becomes a short telephoto. They're no
longer good for the shooting that I bought them for. Meanwhile the
newer lenses (at least the pro ones) really do seem to improve on the
old ones (e.g. the 17-35). If I had a 300/2.8 I'd probably feel
different, but I have mostly shorter lenses.

I would wait until February and see what Fuji's S3 features. Thom Hogan has
predicted that it will be an 11mp full frame sensor. He is thinking it will
be mounted on an N85 (upgrade from N80) which may meter with MF Nikkors, or
the other rampant rumor is that the S3 will be based on the F100 body, which
will also do such metering.

HMc