Buying a Nikon F75

After owning the 50mm for a while, I found it restricting on a DX camera, since it is a moderate telephoto. I thought I might like to have the full-frame advantage, and also read about how to use a film camera as a digital camera. Then Ken Rockwell posted his series of articles on how to use eBay. This emboldened me to look into buying a used Nikon film camera more seriously.

First I had to decide on which Nikon film camera I wanted. Nikon had discontinued almost all of its film camera and film lens products in early 2006. The last of the low end film cameras were the F55, F65 and F75. Older film cameras at the higher end were the F80, F90 and F100. I liked the newer but lower end camera because they were more similar to the D50 DSLR I owned and was comfortable with. The F75 was Nikon's last new film camera, released in 2003. I decided on the F75 since it seemed to have the most features and the least compromises. And it was available at a price I could afford.

Next I had to see what the F75 was selling for. I saw at B&H Photo that new (grey market) F75's were going for US$149.95. Then I had to see what they were going for used on eBay.

The first thing I noticed on eBay was that Canadian camera retailer Henry's was selling used Nikon F75's on eBay. This was a nice bonus because I knew the outfit and also shipping from Canada to Canada would be cheap and quick. One thing that was strange was that Henry's listed its items in US Dollars. I saw that one F75 already went for US$68. Then I watched another auction and it went for US$55. I thought that this was reasonable and wanted in on the game.

It seemed that Henry's would auction off one F75 a week, ending on Fridays at 9 PM EST. The next F75 auction ended on Boxing Day. So far I followed all the rules of buying on eBay: research the item, find what it's worth, find a reliable seller. The next thing to do was to find what it's worth to me. I saw the auction bid up the price to $50, where it stayed for a day or two. I had to determine my absolute maximum bid, because I also had to follow the most important rule of buying on eBay: bid only at the last second. I settled in my mind to bid $75. That's not much more than other auctions, and it's 50% of the new price which seems reasonable. Also it's fitting for the model number of the item.

Now all I had to do was wait for 9 PM Friday and be at my computer at that time. (I also had to setup PayPal which wasn't hard.) The wrinkle is that my wife and I were watching a DVD at that time. She got very annoyed with me being on the laptop in the middle of the movie. Finally 9 PM rolled around. The highest bid was still $50. One minute before ending time I entered my maximum bid of $75. 30 seconds before ending time I hit bid. eBay automatically bid $51 for me. The other bidder's maximum was only $50! I clicked refresh again and again as the seconds ticked down. I was still the highest bidder. Then I won! And I only had to pay $51!

Next I had to instruct PayPal to pay for it, which I did right away. Henry's was off for the holidays but my payment was right there when they came back on Monday. They shipped it right away on Monday and it was in my mailbox on Tuesday. Awesome service.

The next week Henry's had another F75 for sale, and it went for US$128. I don't know why someone paid that much when you can get a new one for US$150. I guess it was auction fever. I managed to get the best price of the four F75's Henry's sold in December.

Funnily enough I now have the camera and lens combo that Ken Rockwell shows on his F75/N75 test review page. I'll tell you about how I like the F75 in the next post.