Fotografica Doesburg

This weekend we visited the “fotografica market” in Doesburg.
To be honest we expected a very small market with some cameras and hobbyist selling/trading their gear, what we got however was something that was a lot bigger. Imagine a whole street (or 2) totally filled with sales people selling vintage cameras ranging from Praktica, Leica, Canon, Nikon to the large format cameras that they dragged along in the old days. Even if you were just visiting it was an awesome display of vintage cameras and “weird” other things.

Pricing on these kind of markets is always a bit of a “problem” on one side you can find some really cheap gear, on the other side some prices are without any doubt ridiculous and much higher than one would expect online and let’s be honest that is to be expected because a lot of the people selling are actually “traders”.

I hoped to score some nice lenses but was actually taken on a side track due to the fact that the last few days I’ve been reading a lot on Leica cameras and I actually for myself decided that I would like to try a Leica R camera, I already searched a bit online and the R series is not something you see a lot and when you see them the cameras are cheap but the lenses are incredibly expensive (well at least I think so). A nice Zeiss lens can be bought well below 100.00 euro but when you want Leica glass…. well let’s say you know it’s Leica. Any way prices I don’t want to pay for a film camera. But I happened to stumble upon a 50mm F2.0 Leitz/Leica Summicron lens in pristine condition (looks like new) and the seller wanted 299.00 for the lens, in the end I took the lens with me for 250.00 which I think is a pretty sweet deal (especially when at home it appeared to be a ROM version) I also picked up a R4 body for little, so the coming weeks you will see some images from this combination.

As you can see in the images it was a collection of old junk, jewels and incredibly fun stuff.
The weather was not very good (as usual in the Netherlands it’s rather unpredictable) so I really wonder how many people will be there when it’s nice weather… well we’ll see next year because I will be visiting the market again next year without any doubt.

One of the things I found really interesting during the day was how many times I was asked “What camera are you shooting?” I was walking around with a FujiFilm X-E1 with silver top and leather case, as soon as I told people it was the FujiFilm the first question was “Never saw that type, interesting”, as soon as they found out it was digital however…. well the interest was gone, so you immediately know what kind of public is there lol.

You also hear a lot of interesting stories when you are just standing still somewhere close to people chatting….
Imaging two elderly men (I guess in their 70’s) chatting about lenses, and not like you expect, it’s like when I talk about something I’m really excited about.
“You know I own the lens from the 1940’s, bought it originally, it’s not the modern versions (imagine a face that looks like modern is bad/dirty), not it’s the one WITHOUT the coating” and a big smile, the other men looked like he just saw a beautiful girl undress in front of him “Really, wow…………….” both men smiled and I walked away with the feeling I just witnessed some pure passion (and I don’t mean the girl).

Overall however it’s a selling/trading and look around market.
I saw some people emptying a whole bag of rather nice Nikon gear for 15.00 to a seller who claimed that he would just throw it away because it was useless, and actually threw it in a box and only put one lens in the gear for sale. “Yeah I have a lot of that gear, it’s all rubbish, nobody wants it anymore, normally I throw it away as you can see… however that one lens…. well maybe someone will buy it, but it will probably take a lot of time” the seller looked like he was happy to get rid of the “junk” and handed over 2 cameras, several lenses and accessories and got his 15.00. As soon as the seller was gone the camera came out of the “rubbish” box and was placed on the counter again together with the accessories… well that’s trading I guess, I could not do it that way I think.

Now don’t get me wrong, some gear actually is not worth much, or even useless but do some research online and see what you can get for it before shelving out a whole bag with lenses and cameras to a trader, somehow I always think that it’s better to make someone happy with your gear than selling it for 15.00 to a trader, but that can be personal of course. I know that I always look online what something is worth on eBay or www.keh.com and after that I can always decide what to do.

Same goes for if you want to buy something, take your phone with you and have an internet connection, as mentioned before I was looking for a Leica kit and put myself in a budget, because let’s be honest it’s a film camera, it’s not something I earn my money with and spending 800.00 on a camera and lens is something that I will not do for a film camera, not even if it has a double the size Leica dot (although that would mean it’s fake by the way).

 

While walking around several traders offered for example R4 bodies (the body I wanted to buy) pricing however was very far apart, some asked 200.00 which is way too expensive and some asked 75.00 which is on the cheap side. In the end I opted for a 150.00 body which is not cheap but the body looked like it was brand new and everything was in 100% working order. Having internet with you helps to get the pricing down, and ALWAYS try this. The trader who sold me the lens wanted 299.00 for the lens, I wanted to pay 200.00 and ended with 225.00 the only reason for this was that I could show him online that this was the normal going rate for that lens…. what I did not know was that I ended up with the ROM version of the lens that is actually a worth a bit more, but I found that out at home, so make sure you know which lenses are worth what.

I highly recommend visiting markets like this, and the one in Doesburg was really a lot of fun, but be aware.
At normal flea markets you sometimes can get a pretty good deal, I bought whole bags with camera gear for 5.00 which in then end turned out to be worth much much more, on markets like these always keep in the back of your mind that the people selling know EXACTLY what they are selling, so don’t be to quick.