All live streaming gear has seen price spikes (or massively back ordered), is the same true for secondhand cameras too?

[IronFilm]

 

Was watching EposVox's video this morning about the price spikes, I was of course aware of the big price spikes in live streaming gear (switches / capture cards / etc), but he made another point I hadn't thought about: secondhand camera prices have gone up too. 

Now I think about it, I have a funny feeling he's right? 

As I've been keeping an extra close eye out for an upgrade for my G6, and indeed the prices don't seem too different than when I was looking into it last year. (and in a few rare exceptions, they've even gone up a lot! Such as the Sony PMW-F3)

You'd think after a year, I'd be able to easily find cameras at even cheaper prices than before?

Is everyone stuck bored at home, so buying cameras on eBay to film themselves? 

Perhaps right now is bad timing to buy a camera body secondhand, wait instead until the lockdowns are over & people have given up trying to start up their new YT channels. What do others think?

[BTM_Pix]

The secondhand market is obviously fuelled by people getting shut of their current gear to buy new gear, so the more buoyant new sales are then the greater the number of used cameras there are which in turn pushes the price down.

For a few reasons, there are not a lot of people buying new cameras at the moment due to COVID-19.

One reason is opportunity as bricks and mortar camera stores in a lot of countries are only just starting to open their doors properly.

Of course, the other reason is financial as, even leaving aside professionals who's work has fell off a cliff, people who don't do photo/video for a living but make up a huge proportion of sales have already lost their jobs or are in fear of losing them so have bigger fish to fry.

If you look at somewhere like the UK where the government furlough scheme is now being tapered down and will end outright at the end of October there are inevitably going to be some massive job losses.

Sadly, this will then lead to a big increase in the other reason that gear comes on to the used market, which is financial hardship.

That influx will lead to lower prices as will the reduced financial circumstances of those still in the market to buy.

So, the UK will likely be a cheap place to buy used gear from November onwards and with a deflating currency and the "challenges" on the horizon in January from Brexit it will almost certainly become cheaper still.

 

[newfoundmass]

When the idea was posted of doing a contest on here a few weeks back with the GH2 I looked at eBay to see the prices and was really surprised to see how much they were going for. I feel like I looked about 2 years ago and they were well under $250, but now they were $300 and up. Heck, I bought my GX85 for $250 in January, so that seems like a lot for the GH2! 

[herein2020]

I want to offer live streaming but it looks complicated as hell with too many things that can go wrong. Mainly if the venue does not offer solid reliable wifi or you are not paying some ridiculous monthly fee for an LTE data card you may not be able to deliver as promised. I have all of the equipment except I would need to buy the ATEM Mini Pro to complete my kit but I'm not sure it's worth it.

[BTM_Pix]

7 minutes ago, herein2020 said:

I want to offer live streaming but it looks complicated as hell with too many things that can go wrong. Mainly if the venue does not offer solid reliable wifi or you are not paying some ridiculous monthly fee for an LTE data card you may not be able to deliver as promised. I have all of the equipment except I would need to buy the ATEM Mini Pro to complete my kit but I'm not sure it's worth it.

Ah but isn't the argument that everyone else will be thinking that way too precisely why you should be doing it and hoovering up all the business ?

Teradek's bonded cellular encoders mean that you are not at the mercy of the venue, or you can use them to additionally boost your outbound speed by bonding cellular and whatever wired/wireless speed they have available)

They can use pay as you go data plans with no monthly commitment so you can charge for data on a per job basis without tying yourself into ongoing monthly costs.

It will set you back circa $/€2000 for the Vidiu Go encoder and two of their Core modems though 😉 

[IronFilm]

1 hour ago, newfoundmass said:

When the idea was posted of doing a contest on here a few weeks back with the GH2 I looked at eBay to see the prices and was really surprised to see how much they were going for. I feel like I looked about 2 years ago and they were well under $250, but now they were $300 and up. Heck, I bought my GX85 for $250 in January, so that seems like a lot for the GH2! 

That's exactly what I mean! 
Feels like the prices are higher for some secondhand cameras than they used to be. 

When I had expected the opposite, with people feeling the economic crunch and needing to sell off surplus gear meaning a flood of supply vs no demand for it (as everyone is penny pinching). 

A huge supply vs demand imbalance would mean plummeting prices for secondhand gear. 

Maybe this doomsday scenario for sellers will still happen, but it is another six months away. 

 

[Geoff CB]

14 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

That's exactly what I mean! 
Feels like the prices are higher for some secondhand cameras than they used to. 

When I had expected the opposite, with people feeling the economic crunch and needing to sell off surplus gear meaning a flood of supply vs no demand for it (as everyone is penny pinching). 

Maybe this doomsday scenario for sellers will still happen, but it is another six months away. 

 

I think people might be downscaling. They are selling their expensive gear and then picking up cheaper cameras, hense the low end getting more expensive. 

Because while I've seen used gear get more expensive, I've also seen a lot more of certain gear than was on eBay before COVID

Or not, just a theory.

Sony F3 went up a lot because of those YouTube videos on it and probably some of my posts. Also drove up the price on recorders for it as well.

[BenEricson]

3 hours ago, Geoff CB said:

I think people might be downscaling. They are selling their expensive gear and then picking up cheaper cameras, hense the low end getting more expensive. 

Because while I've seen used gear get more expensive, I've also seen a lot more of certain gear than was on eBay before COVID.

I sold a ton of camera gear that I had sitting around, simply because I had the time to sort and list it all. 

It is a really great time to be selling on Ebay. Tons of people are shopping online.

[herein2020]

3 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

Ah but isn't the argument that everyone else will be thinking that way too precisely why you should be doing it and hoovering up all the business ?

Teradek's bonded cellular encoders mean that you are not at the mercy of the venue, or you can use them to additionally boost your outbound speed by bonding cellular and whatever wired/wireless speed they have available)

They can use pay as you go data plans with no monthly commitment so you can charge for data on a per job basis without tying yourself into ongoing monthly costs.

It will set you back circa $/€2000 for the Vidiu Go encoder and two of their Core modems though 😉 

See you are proving my point, I'm sure there are technical solutions to everything but the question is how fast can you get a return on your investment. Most of the clients in my area are quite happy to set their cell phone on a tripod, and hit record in their app; once again cell phones are our biggest competition.  I'm seeing everyone around here just use their cell phones, even lawyers and CEOs of companies, I think because people just don't expect high quality from a livestream so the companies in this area couldn't care less about quality. 

For the few companies big enough that are willing to pay enough to offset the cost of the equipment, they mostly already have dedicated media teams who have acquired the necessary gear and wouldn't need me anyway. 

The biggest business in my area is the small events like weddings, gender reveals, etc; no way am I buying the equipment needed for low budget gigs like those.

[BTM_Pix]

38 minutes ago, herein2020 said:

See you are proving my point, I'm sure there are technical solutions to everything but the question is how fast can you get a return on your investment.

The point you seemed to be making, and the one that I was responding to, was about it appearing to be too complicated as being the barrier to you doing it.

If the point you were making was that there was no applicable paying market in your area even if you have the technical solution then, yeah, that is a different matter entirely.

Apologies for the confusion.

[herein2020]

3 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

The point you seemed to be making, and the one that I was responding to, was about it appearing to be too complicated as being the barrier to you doing it.

If the point you were making was that there was no applicable paying market in your area even if you have the technical solution then, yeah, that is a different matter entirely.

Apologies for the confusion.

I should have been more clear, I did do some research on live streaming and the costs to reliably provide it kept adding up; so in my local market the cost of reliability outweighs what I feel clients in my area are willing to pay. If I just bought the ATEM Mini Pro I think I could get that back, but only if I relied on the venue's wifi which is too risky IMO to be considered a professional solution without your own wireless internet solution.

[IronFilm]

14 hours ago, Geoff CB said:

I think people might be downscaling. They are selling their expensive gear and then picking up cheaper cameras, hense the low end getting more expensive. 

True, would be interesting to track how the prices of say Nikon D5 or RED Weapons are trending. 

14 hours ago, Geoff CB said:

Because while I've seen used gear get more expensive, I've also seen a lot more of certain gear than was on eBay before COVID

What "certain gear" have you seen more of?

 

14 hours ago, Geoff CB said:

Or not, just a theory.

As theories go, it is a good one.
 

14 hours ago, Geoff CB said:

Sony F3 went up a lot because of those YouTube videos on it and probably some of my posts. Also drove up the price on recorders for it as well.

F3 prices are just insane lately. Way overpriced in my opinion.
And  yeah even the HD recorders have gone up a little, but not the same leap up as F3 prices. 

[Geoff CB]

5 hours ago, IronFilm said:

 

What "certain gear" have you seen more of?

 

Lenses, grip gear (Tripods) recorders  (There was no listings for the PIX-E recorders and now there is a bunch, even though the price on them has gone up) , GPU's . Those are the ones I've been looking at so outside of that I don't know.