What's a good price for a used d700 Nikon?

AFillmore · July 8, 2011

A friend wants me to sell her used d700 to me.. and I've been wanting one for a long time. What's a fair price for this in good condition? around 2k? (I would of course like to get a great deal, while offering a fair price)

Thanks!
Amanda

ziggy53 · July 8, 2011

Right now I do not see any for sale at either Adorama or B&H. KEH has 3 - Nikon D700 bodies for approximately $2500-$2600USD, depending on condition, etc. If you want a warranty of sorts, that's your best bet and KEH is very good with service before and after the sale.

http://www.keh.com/Camera/format-Digital/system-Nikon-Digital/category-Camera-Bodies?s=1&bcode=DN&ccode=2&cc=79275&r=WG&f

Buying from a private sale involves more risk, but it generally costs a bit less. I would be very suspicious of a D700 selling at $2000. I have seen them running $2200-$2700 privately. I suspect that many of the lower end of that range are "well used".

Edit: I should add that I don't see new D700 bodies for sale by the major players. That will probably keep used D700 values high for a while.

Edit2: I misread your post. I now see that you have a prospect on a used D700 from a "friend". If this is a good friend, and if you wish to keep the friendship, make sure you are very open in your conversations about price and both of you do some homework about prices beforehand. The last thing you want is any hard feelings resulting someone thinking they were taken advantage of.

As I said, I see current used prices for Nikon D700 camera bodies running from $2200-$2700 in private sales.

AFillmore · July 8, 2011

Thanks Ziggy - it's a fellow photographer in the area, she switched to Cannon and is selling her gear. So I do trust her equipment care etc. I know the d700s are out of stock most places now.. so thought this may be a good option for me to finally get a FX camera.

She's asking 2250 for the camera body.

Qarik · July 8, 2011

$2250 is an okay price but fyi I bought mine for $2500 new from B&H a couple of year ago.

borrowlenses.com · July 8, 2011

Prices are insane right now. They used to sell for $1800-$2000 depending on condition; now they are going for $2400ish.

Matthew Saville · July 8, 2011

Anyone who switches from a D700 to Canon should pay an IDIOT penalty of an extra $500 off the price. So, $1700?

Yeah okay, unfortunately, camera / lens shoppers have missed the boat for the most part, like Borrowlenses has said. Prices are going up! I paid $1900 for a D700 back in January, and that was the tail end of the sub-$2000 prices for used D700's. Now, you'd only find that price locally through a friend of a friend, but probably not on Ebay / KEH, nor B&H / Adorama etc. Since this is indeed a friend, I'd be honest with them and tell them clearly that if they were to sell it on Ebay, they might get a few hundred bucks more, but you're willing to offer $2000-$2200.

One thing you can do is use KEH's price calculator. I like it because it's an automated system, you just answer a few questions about the condition of the camera and it gives you a guaranteed price that they would pay for that item. It'd be kinda low, for example a MINT condition D700 would get you just $1400 at KEH. but it's a good starting point to help you bargain with a private seller. Add 50% to a KEH quote and I'd say you got a good street price for used gear.

=Matt=

Mav · July 9, 2011

These increasing prices are not what I wanted to hear! Just as I was getting tempted... seems like I should just buy a new one if I can find one.

dbarnby · July 21, 2011

Yeah I have also been eyeing up the D700... unfortunately what with all the trouble japan has had in the past few months with natural disasters, both canon and nikon had to shut down production... canon is back up and running but to my knowledge nikon got hit worse which means no F5/6s D700s or D3s for a while

For a good condition D700 in good condition (you said your friend is a photographer) $2200 is an excellent price imo - but as previously said - sit down and take a look at the prices bearing in mind all prices today are up $500 because production has stopped...

ziggy53 · July 22, 2011

I moved the discussion about professional level film cameras here:

http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=202283

angevin1 · July 22, 2011

ziggy53 wrote: »

I would be very suspicious of a D700 selling at $2000. I have seen them running $2200-$2700 privately. I suspect that many of the lower end of that range are "well used".

Can you quantify 'well used'? I am currently reviewing my line up and cameras and considering selling off the D700 with 24.5k actuation's.

ziggy53 · July 22, 2011

I believe that the Nikon D700 camera body is rated at around 150,000 actuations for the shutter box and mirror assemblies. Anything above 75,000 actuations might be considered "well used", even though "some" examples of the D700 far exceed the 150,000 actuation design.

Excessive brassing/paint wear of the body might be another obvious physical characteristic of a "well used" camera. Understand that the term "well used" is not derogatory. Many professionally used cameras are "well used" and still have much life left in them. I am not intending to mean that the camera has been abused.

angevin1 · July 22, 2011

ziggy53 wrote: »

I believe that the Nikon D700 camera body is rated at around 150,000 actuations for the shutter box and mirror assemblies. Anything above 75,000 actuations might be considered "well used", even though "some" examples of the D700 far exceed the 150,000 actuation design.

Excessive brassing/paint wear of the body might be another obvious physical characteristic of a "well used" camera. Understand that the term "well used" is not derogatory. Many professionally used cameras are "well used" and still have much life left in them. I am not intending to mean that the camera has been abused.

Oh, no worries. Since I am considering selling, and I am in no way a professional-salesman or assessor of camera gear, I just wanted some clarification. I like to represent my-stuff accurately, and typically do with photos and text. When I have sold before or tried to on dgrin, I have had folks write me and tell me how to doctor my products to 'look' better. Maybe thats the norm, but other than cleaning them, I see no reason to try and cover up simple wear.
So seriously, thank you for clarifying this for me!

Matthew Saville · July 22, 2011

angevin1 wrote: »

Oh, no worries. Since I am considering selling, and I am in no way a professional-salesman or assessor of camera gear, I just wanted some clarification. I like to represent my-stuff accurately, and typically do with photos and text. When I have sold before or tried to on dgrin, I have had folks write me and tell me how to doctor my products to 'look' better. Maybe thats the norm, but other than cleaning them, I see no reason to try and cover up simple wear.
So seriously, thank you for clarifying this for me!

One thing you can do is go on KEH's site and try to apply their ranking system to your DSLR. It will give you a SUPER-low price, since they are a business and have to turn a considerable profit when they re-sell your item, but it's still a good way to get a rock-bottom price, and a ranking system. My D700 would definitely fall into the "Bargain" category

, and my D300 would fall into the "Ugly" category. :-P

=Matt=

angevin1 · July 22, 2011

Matthew Saville wrote: »

One thing you can do is go on KEH's site and try to apply their ranking system to your DSLR. It will give you a SUPER-low price, since they are a business and have to turn a considerable profit when they re-sell your item, but it's still a good way to get a rock-bottom price, and a ranking system. My D700 would definitely fall into the "Bargain" category , and my D300 would fall into the "Ugly" category. :-P

=Matt=

Ah, thanks! I think I'll give that a try to help gauge it's 'rating'.

rpcrowe · July 29, 2011

A quick check of the D700 eBay completed sales for the last couple of weeks (use advanced search and select completed items) have the D700 bodies going for $2,000 to $2,500...

borrowlenses.com · July 29, 2011

It looks like prices are stabilizing a bit. Also keep in mind Nikon has a confirmed "event" August 24th so keep that in mind

ThatCanonGuy · July 29, 2011

borrowlenses.com wrote: »

It looks like prices are stabilizing a bit. Also keep in mind Nikon has a confirmed "event" August 24th so keep that in mind

Can't wait

... Can the D3s get any better? Video, who cares. 4 more mp's, who cares. I want to see binning!

Matthew Saville · July 31, 2011

ThatCanonGuy wrote: »

Can't wait ... Can the D3s get any better? Video, who cares. 4 more mp's, who cares. I want to see binning!

Binning? In my opinion, that's never a good thing. Sure, if noise is your only concern, but it just does NOT look the same in fine details, and it can lead to all sorts of wonky banding or other sensor issues.

I just hope that they don't go any higher than ~16 megapixels with their new FF sensor, since I know it will eventually show up in the D800 as well. I'd rather have a D700X and a D700s, of course, but I'll settle for something in between. As long as it has dual card slots.

I'll be kinda bummed if we have to wait until summer 2012 for the D800, which is looking pretty certain, but I will at least take heart that soon we will at least know what sensor the D800 will eventually inherit...

=Matt=

ThatCanonGuy · July 31, 2011

Thom Hogan was explaining it the other day... let's see, it was about the D400. If the D400 has binning, it could have high-resolution mode (maybe 24mp?) and high-ISO mode (binned pixels, bigger pixels, better sensitivity). He said he thought Nikon was working on binning recently... the article is on his 2011 archive page, a few articles down.

Qarik · July 31, 2011

what is binning?

ThatCanonGuy · July 31, 2011

I don't totally understand it, but here's what I know: pixels are grouped together and act as one big pixel. This lowers resolution, but increases high-ISO performance. Here's a paragraph from Thom Hogan's article:

Now for the part that, I'm guessing, could be Nikon's surprise in August: binning. Binning isn't new. The D1 was a 10.4mp sensor that was permanently binned (four underlying photosites to one pixel). Nikon has played with binning since then, too, with the oddly binned D1x (two side-by-side photosites to one pixel). The answer to the "why 24mp question" suddenly becomes simple if you add binning to the mix: you potentially get a D400h and D400x all in one package. I do know that Nikon and Sony have been working on binning recently. That would make some sense for both stills and video and could lead to a jack-of-all-trades DX body that excels at everything: low noise, high resolution, video without artifacting, etc. And it would explain pursuing 24mp in DX and 36mp in FX.

What's a good price for a used d700 Nikon?

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