In short, if you’re thinking about spending what feels like a lot of money on a film camera, then read this first! The trough Instead, I just want to shine a bit of light on the reality of the used film camera marketplace, perhaps give readers the opportunity to reflect on whether or not they are making the right purchasing choice, or if instead they might be falling foul of a touch of gear acquisition syndrome. The goal of this post is not to discourage people from buying film cameras. Unfortunately, in an increasing amount of cases, it feels to me that the increase in value has spiralled out of control, and maybe that the buyers of some of these more popular cameras are beginning to lose a little bit of perspective. In a world that’s more often so keen to dispose and buy new, all this old kit being given new lease of life can’t be all bad. It’s encouraging with regard to the health of the film photography community, but it’s also quite satisfying to see some value being reattributed to a lot of very viable photographic tools.

To be fair, in some ways, the increase in the value of film cameras feels like a good thing. But for every day that passes, all these cameras are getting older, less reliable and harder, if not impossible, to service – a fact that sometimes seems a little lost in all the excitement! Demand has increased, supply hasn’t, and the price you need to pay for a lot of popular film cameras is now reflecting that.

In the last 5 years the value of used film cameras has gone through the roof.

Minolta camera for sale