Pricing S/H gear

A small addendum seeing as I'm in the company of so many experts! With my small digital camera, I've been overcoming the erratic nature of the shutter speed that turns up, by wracking up the ASA option to 800 or 1600. I've hesitated over this, as to me it means added grain and is a practice to be minimised for general photography. But I have to say I'm not aware of any picture deterioration. Am I right here - it doesn't make any difference what the so-called ASA rating is when you're shooting digital? All it's doing is shifting the position on a sort of shutter speed spectrum?

Higher ISO would normally cause more noise (looks similar to grain) but your small camera may automatically process the images to remove it. This would usually mean smoothing out detail though. So it is best to avoid high ISOs, usually.

However the best DSLRs can produce great images at very high ISOs - 6400 is no problem for the K5 for example. Images will still be very detailed.

All the price guides are next to useless. They have always been out of date the day they are printed.

Like it or not, we now live in a world where many used items of all sorts have prices dictated by ebay (an auction) and like most auctions the price can vary hugely and there is no reliable way any longer of determining prices for most items.

Look at the completed items section of ebay for the items you have, to see If it is even worth trying to sell the items. Many film items are worth very little and some hold such low values that it is not worth even trying to sell, because the ebay fees and postage will often be higher than the items potential sale price.

If you plan on ebay selling, read my guide I posted:

https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/how-to-get-max-prices-on-auction-sites---...

Another thing to remember - go by final bids, not BIN prices.

It's worth remembering to mention that a flash/lens will work on Pentax DSLRs too. I recently picked up an AF201SA (very compact but surprisingly powerful program flash) for £5, the seller had priced it cheaply because they thought it didn't work on digital. In my experience all Pentax flashguns (at least from the AF160 onwards) are fine for use on a DSLR, the trigger voltages are safe and if you have a Program flash then it will work in P mode with your DSLR, as while Pentax dropped TTL they kept the older Program Flash protocol.

I've decided that I'll offer my unwanted kit here first, anything which doesn't sell will be traded in against the new lens. Expect a thread in the Classifieds in a couple of weeks, when I have some time off so will be able to get photos of the items and deal with posting anything which sells.

Thanks for comments on ISO/ASA - quite a coincidence that pushing both film and digital have similar deterioration results!

Thanks also for added comments re ebay. Sure, I've certainly found it a negative experience for cheaper items - though it can be managed. I remember seeing HP flogging off new computers that technically couldn't be described as new, for 99p and almost always achieving 3 figures for them. (Don't recognise BIN though - but agreed re final bids).

My own flash is an old but serviceable Chinon bounce unit (backed up with my father's aged Sunpak/Mecablitz slave units) - so they'll all be worthless anyway.

So I have an action plan now: photograph items, research completed items on ebay, advertise here first, then on ebay. Then research what digital I need and probably seek it on ebay too.

Wow - great value brains trust this! Thanks all,
Michael

Check the trigger voltage on older non-Pentax flashguns, depending on the sophistication they can fry DSLR trigger circuits. Better quality flashes have an extra circuit so the full voltage of the capacitors isn't passed onto the hotshoe pins. I know I have an ancient Sunpak and Jessops-branded flash (both little AA-powered ones) with trigger voltages around 200V, meanwhile all the genuine Pentax ones are under 8v and seem safe!

All you need is a multimeter set to measure DC volts, just turn the flash on, let it charge, then touch the positive test probe to the centre pin of the hotshoe foot and the negative probe to the side contact to measure the trigger voltage.

Will do - if I continue to use it! Thanks,
Michael