Buying used lenses · DIGIT-ARC

Hey everyone

Was just checking out ebay.com yesterday, looking for some old manual md mount lenses. Most of these would have to be shipped from japan or korea or USA so just wanted to know what are the places to buy old used lenses in india. I've heard of the jjmehta forums and olx and quickr are options too, are there any others?

Plus what does one need to check before buying a used lens?

J

I have few old glasses and that's what I check while buying
#compatibility :as i am into nikon system hence that's not much of a problem unless you are going for pre Ai era. But for other users, for instance Canon, fd lenses will not focus to infinity on ef/efs bodies. So take your camera body along and test first hand.
#give the lens a shake to ensure that no moving parts of loose elements are there.
#check that no fungus / haze etc are there.
#minutely check front and back elements for loss of coating.
#shoot at different f stops to ensure that the aperture is not stuck of playing heavy.
#rotate the focusing ring so that to ensure that it is smooth.
#check for body dents, taps etc. Carry a filter with you and try to attach it. Many old lenses have bent filter rings and that's a real pain.
#don't buy distance / online unless the seller is known ( I have found out the hard way).
Last but not the least, check the images not on camera lcd but on a laptop screen. If the images come out well, even if there are fungus, dents etc you may go for the glass and most probably you will get a good one at a great price . Most of lenses will have some dust inside so that doesn't matter much. But don't buy lens with fog or haze. Have I covered everything?

justgothere said:
I have few old glasses and that's what I check while buying
#compatibility :as i am into nikon system hence that's not much of a problem unless you are going for pre Ai era. But for other users, for instance Canon, fd lenses will not focus to infinity on ef/efs bodies. So take your camera body along and test first hand.
#give the lens a shake to ensure that no moving parts of loose elements are there.
#check that no fungus / haze etc are there.
#minutely check front and back elements for loss of coating.
#shoot at different f stops to ensure that the aperture is not stuck of playing heavy.
#rotate the focusing ring so that to ensure that it is smooth.
#check for body dents, taps etc. Carry a filter with you and try to attach it. Many old lenses have bent filter rings and that's a real pain.
#don't buy distance / online unless the seller is known ( I have found out the hard way).
Last but not the least, check the images not on camera lcd but on a laptop screen. If the images come out well, even if there are fungus, dents etc you may go for the glass and most probably you will get a good one at a great price . Most of lenses will have some dust inside so that doesn't matter much. But don't buy lens with fog or haze. Have I covered everything?

yeah you ave covered everything

good advice. :+1:

Great advice.... You covered all

Jjmehta is the best place...you will get good quality glass from actual users and not olr lens dealers

Wow, that's a lot of advice

My issue is that i was looking for old manual md mount lenses (minolta) for my sony nex 6. Can't seem to find any of these in India. I did find many on ebay.com but not sure if i should buy without testing it. Are there any places in delhi where i can go to buy these?

if you do buy used lenses, make it a point to carry your slr and test it out from the buyer.

izzikio_rage said:
Wow, that's a lot of advice

My issue is that i was looking for old manual md mount lenses (minolta) for my sony nex 6. Can't seem to find any of these in India. I did find many on ebay.com but not sure if i should buy without testing it. Are there any places in delhi where i can go to buy these?

Yeah I also want to try Minolta lenses.

thats great...soo many guys want to use old minolta lenses ....try to find there much popular beercan lens ...it is said to be awesome ..its 70-210 f4

yup that was the first one I looked for, unfortunately it seems to only ship from the US and all the variants of it that I found were $150+ (including shipping). 9k for a lens where I can't check the quality seems scary

I want their prime lenses . have heard that they are awesome.

Not all, but i have a really old sigma 28mm f/2.8, it's amazingly sharp. The zooms that i've seen aren't all that good

Which lens mount you have?? Alpha mount or you use converters ?

I'm using a sony nex 6 with an E mount. These lenses can be mounted with an adapter

adapter mount have issue with infinity focus...difficult to use for landscape I think ... @amlan can your 28mm can focus till infinity

Not sure how to test this.

izzikio_rage said:
Not sure how to test this.

take moon pics , maybe .

, and check with other lens at same focal length .

just take a landscape shot...it need to focus till infinity...moon shot at 28mm is difficult

Got a couple of landscape shots this weekend, focus at infinity seems fine to me. Willl share the 100% crop so that you can check it out too. Was reading on some forum that if the length of the adapter is not right it'll start to act like and extension tube and affect the focus to infinity.

I'm using a NEX-MD mount for the lenses (ebay.com, shipped from korea)

*i.imgur.com/q9n6Mmc.jpg
Panagor 28mm f/2.8 prime: Pretty sharp, starts to give a good bokeh at f/2.8 and best of all with the 1.5 crop factor it is behaves almost like a nifty fifty

*i.imgur.com/UFjWFxt.jpg
Sigma 55-70mm, decently sharp at fully open. Gets pretty sharp when you decrease a couple of stops.

nice lenses there...there is soo much to do in photography...but time is real constraint ...when I was free I used to do all type of DIY and play with manual lens...

that looks sesky!!

anirbandd said:
that looks sesky!!

Yeah, so NEXY!

Raziel said:
Yeah, so NEXY!

BTW you are buying these lenses from ebay.com right. Is it worth the hassel and price of getting them shipped? I found a good sigma 70-210 f/4.5 there. But it costs almost as much to ship to India as what the seller is asking for it

Hi izzikio_rage, I buy from ebay.in only, only some adapters from ebay.com.
I think it won't cost extra for things less than 10K, not very sure though..

^^its less then 5k ....anything more then 5k will have 30% tax

sujoyp said:
^^its less then 5k ....anything more then 5k will have 30% tax

^^ Thx for the info.

Any purchse from ebay that is over 5k has a 30% tax? For what? That makes the price 6.5k...

import duty bro...its standard for camera accesories

Is this on the sellers price or on the total seller price + shipping? And if i buy from ebay.com and have a price that is higher than 5k when do i pay this? Is the initial transfer amount = price + shipping + 30% markup

its seller price+import duty I think...but not sure ...jaise hi india ki dharti par utrega maal 30% import duty

any item more than 5k may have import duty for sure...

Just found this on jjmehta forums

Customs Duty :: Know Before You Buy - Customs Duty :: Know Before You Buy
Customs Duty :: Know Before You Buy

I'm getting a little worried as to how anything from ebay can come to India

you can buy anything from keh or amazon.com or ebay or B&H ...just that you have to pay 30% import duty +shipping charges

Probably you guys know this already.

I have heard this site and even remembering bookmarked that site, but couldn't find it.

This site orders on behalf of you and receive the product it in US and they take care of shipping, import/custom duty and all.

We can ask for quotation how much it would cost us (including all the charges) before placing the order.

If I find the site, I will post the link here. If you guys know or find the site, post the link too...

here is the site nac maybe telling about - Now Shop from USA to India Online - ishopinternational ...try ur luck ...many guys get stuff from them..but I have never used it

Yeah, it's pretty much the same. Just that's a different site but the service seems to be same...

Nice, any special advantage of using this over just getting ebay or amazon to ship it? Is this cheaper? Plus a number of amazon sellers will only ship to the paypal address from which the money comes

The benefit is, you will know what's the bottom number. You don't have to worry about whether you have to pay to customs or not, whether you will be charged higher than what you supposed to.

Finally after a load of research i decided to get the Sigma 70-210mm f/4.5 K- II lens. It's my first push pull type lens and it just got delivered yesterday.

*i.imgur.com/7boQ35d.jpg

Suggestions needed on how I can test this out in terms of image clarity etc

testing is easy...click a flower @f4.5 then f8 then f10 ....check which seems the sharpest with reasonable blurry background ....if you are lucky enough then at 4.5 it will be sharp

I tried that, unfortunately i think I'll need a tripod and will need to spend some time to nail the focus before i can say how sharp the lens is

At 210 mm even shutter speeds of 1/200 give me motion blurring, need to find that telephoto formula that you told once

Since its a manual lens, i need to be sure that its a lens problem and not just me making a mistake in focusing

Chromatic abberations are there and there is some loss in contrast so that is definitely the lens's fault

CA and loss of contrast will disappere when you move to f8 and higher ...and yes in manual focus lens its even more difficult cause you dont get any kind of assistance...just use 2x of focal lenghth as SS