Mental prices for Plastic Fantastic cameras.

John Bragg

John Bragg

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I just had a casual look at what Olympus Mju Stylus Infinity cameras are going for on Ebay and I am amazed at how prices have continued to soar. I have 2 in pristine condition and frankly they are great cameras, but not worth that money. I paid £3 for one and £12 bnib for the other. I will keep them, but I am tempted to sell my pair of Mju ii and buy a Nikon lens with what I raise.
 
I think all compacts are sky rocketing - even the really junky ones.

I sold off my last Olympus Trip 35 last year. Nice little camera, but I haven't used it in years. A £10 buy a decade ago turned into an £85 sale on eBay. I couldn't believe it.

Now's the time to go through the shoeboxes and junk drawers and clear out some space, I guess.
 
About 7–8 years ago, I sold a very nice Olympus 35RC for $65. I've been looking for another one lately and current prices for one in comparable condition are around $200. Kicking myself.
 
Boggles the mind. I have a Leica Mini in good working order, bought new. For 1/2 the price they go for now.
 
I can't imagine these prices coming down at all unless the recent resurgence in film's popularity starts to wane again. I bought a Mju II off craigslist for $10 a decade ago - it's a fine camera, but nowhere near what the hype makes it out to be. My best purchase was a Hexar AF for $250 - that camera saw years of use, but I still sold it for $750 last year. I figure that's better than waiting until I have a very expensive brick on my hands.

As appealing as the size of these cameras are, once you try enough of them you kind get tired of the unreliable AF, loud winding motors, unrepairable electronics, and button dances to turn off the flash every single time.
 
I've had 3 Nikon F's given to me over the last couple of years.

Crazy to see plastic P&S cameras selling for more than a real pro camera. Maybe because the latter continue to work and can be repaired, the P&S last long enough for a couple of rolls.
 
On the one hand, you wonder if this is good for photography because it seems to indicate that heretofore digital only people are getting into film photography. The potential downside is that once they all figure out that their “film photography” isn’t that spectacular, they’ll just throw the baby out with the bathwater and never progress to cameras that yield nicer results. On the other hand, maybe a few/some/all don’t want nicer results, maybe they want photos that look like the old faded ones they found in mom’s drawer, because they think that’s what photos used to look like new. Wanting for some reason to go back to a past that’s much worse than the one that actually existed. Who knows.

Overall probably not a bad thing though. If there wasn’t the demand that’s driving prices up, that would just indicate that “the world” was so uninterested in film photography that people weren’t opting to get involved even at the least expensive level.
 
I noticed this last week. Never mind all-metal mechanical cameras; my Leica AF-C1 is approaching Barnack camera prices. :cool:
 
I tried to give a local thrift store my Olympus Infinity Stylus 38-115 zoom about 5 years ago. They would not take it, saying that it would not sell. It still worked, I ended up taking it apart for entertainment. I was amazed at how complex and precisely molded all the plastic parts were.
 
It is nothing but demand and no new stock. Film look is trendy among young ones. They knew nothing but mobile phones. Plastic, small cameras are great match.

And to be honest, for most of photography they do, it is indeed perfect match. Then we were young, we ditched all of the Zenits and FEDs and went happily with plastic fixed focus cameras.
Once we became bourgeoisie, we acquired plastic EOS300. It allowed to have kids photos close been in focus.
 
Larry Cloetta said:
On the one hand, you wonder if this is good for photography because it seems to indicate that heretofore digital only people are getting into film photography. The potential downside is that once they all figure out that their “film photography” isn’t that spectacular, they’ll just throw the baby out with the bathwater and never progress to cameras that yield nicer results. On the other hand, maybe a few/some/all don’t want nicer results, maybe they want photos that look like the old faded ones they found in mom’s drawer, because they think that’s what photos used to look like new. Wanting for some reason to go back to a past that’s much worse than the one that actually existed. Who knows.

Overall probably not a bad thing though. If there wasn’t the demand that’s driving prices up, that would just indicate that “the world” was so uninterested in film photography that people weren’t opting to get involved even at the least expensive level.
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It's unfortunate that the last impression the general public has of film photography is the crappy point-and-shoot camera of the 1990s. Slow zoom lenses with tiny max apertures, overly aggressive flash, and waiting to "see how the pictures turned out" because you have no indication of what the auto modes of the camera were doing. No wonder digital cameras seemed like an improvement.
 
Ko.Fe. said:
It is nothing but demand and no new stock.
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Exactly...they aren't making them anymore and they are easy to use. I mean...they are still a steal compared to Contax T2 and T3 prices.

I'm sure these Olympus cameras were $200+ when introduced...
 
I bought a Stylus Epic new in 2003. It's still going strong, although the battery door has to be taped shut. Wonderful camera but it could die any day. I would not spend more than $50 on a replacement.
 
Andy Kibber said:
I bought a Stylus Epic new in 2003. It's still going strong, although the battery door has to be taped shut. Wonderful camera but it could die any day. I would not spend more than $50 on a replacement.
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So, it is a great camera that has lasted almost 20 years and it isn't worth more than $50 to you? That does not make sense.
 
dexdog said:
I tried to give a local thrift store my Olympus Infinity Stylus 38-115 zoom about 5 years ago. They would not take it, saying that it would not sell. It still worked, I ended up taking it apart for entertainment. I was amazed at how complex and precisely molded all the plastic parts were.
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I've been contemplating selling my Olympus Stylus Zoom, almost never used in its lifetime... but keeping the Mu II
 
The rise of plastic camera prices remind me of the last spoken words of dialogue in the movie “The Bridge Over the River Kwai” ,

“Madness….madness”

But for myself, could care less, never liked these auto everything cameras anyway.
 
jsrockit said:
So, it is a great camera that has lasted almost 20 years and it isn't worth more than $50 to you? That does not make sense.
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It does make sense. They used to litter car boot sales and i could buy them for a pound. - I have bought plenty of these cameras from 2007 onwards (T4, MJU) and the fail rate in the last 5+ years is much higher than back in 2007. As they get older their fail rate increases expodentially. Plastic becomes brittle and breaks. Buying one of these cameras will not last anywhere near 20 years more (you will be luck if you get 5 years out of them).
 
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