Currently Reading: Buying Gear on a Limited Budget

reading_girlI can’t claim full-time student status anymore, but I can claim “budgeting family” status. We don’t make large purchases (anything over $50), even necessary ones, without consulting each other, educating ourselves, and shopping around.  A DSLR is not a necessary purchase, and it’s quite expensive for a hobby, so I didn’t anticipate that I would get one anytime in the next five to ten years. But when I came across two articles on PetaPixel (via Lifehacker) about buying professional camera gear on a student’s budget, I was stoked because it put that purchase in our price range.

Sure enough, author Michael Zhang came through. I checked my local (well, soon-to-be local) Craigslisting and found some promising offers. Unfortunately, I am not in town to take advantage of them. But anyway, Zhang has some great tips both for finding and buying, and also for examining items once you’ve found them, before buying.

Here’s what I learned:

  • Don’t buy  camera bodies new. They depreciate just like cars.
  • Since you’re saving money on camera bodies, you should be able to upgrade more often. [I love this possibility!]
  • Lenses do not depreciate.
  • Buy in bulk, sell in individual pieces.