The Lone Loons Go Shopping For Cheap, Old, Wonderful CCD Sensor DSLR Cameras

Cheap, Wonderful old DSLR cameras!

Our fave second-hand beach guitar, and a Nitori salt shaker we use for a slide. (Total expenditure: ¥5415 – or about $50.42, CDN. Another example of great quality for next to nuthin’. The guitar is a Tokai copy of a Gibson Hummingbird – a legendary guitar. That’s how we at Lone Loon Song roll, Baby! If that’s how you roll, you can hear/see it in action at Colin D. Cochrane’s Youtube Site – Music Videos only!) This image is from our new-to-us 2006 era Nikon D40 APS-C CCD sensor equipped DSLR Camera. It has 6.1 megapixels. This was shot in manual mode with a vintage Nikkor “nifty-fifty” lens from 1976. This is probably the 6th or 7th attempt. We tried to focus on the slide. You don’t notice that the focus is on the slide for a couple of ticks. We like that. We’re still learning, but we kind of like this. YMMV, no accounting for taste, and whatnot.

Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Thanks for finding us. This is another Lone Loon Song article intended to educate and be useful. If you’re entertained into the bargain, why, how delightful!

As promised, here is a condensed version of our search (and research) for a Cheap, (“Inexpensive” is a better word) Wonderful CCD sensor equipped DSLR camera from 2006 – 2010: what we only half-jokingly refer to as the “Golden Age” of CCD DSLR cameras. Spoiler: We ended up with a 2006 Nikon D40. (See image on right.)

In our article: How Many Megapixels? Incredible DSLR Cameras For Pennies On The Dollar we got all worked up about the bargains that abound, if you’re willing to put in a little elbow grease. Intrigued, we began to do our research. If you think you might like to hear our tale, read on.

But first – it’s quite likely that you found us through Google – and so it’s possible that you’re looking for a specific answer to a specific question. If this is you, welcome. We’re happy to provide you with a table of contents. Feel free to bounce around, or read it from soup to nuts, as God intended.

CCD Sensors: Cheap, Old Wonderful DSLR Cameras – Table of Contents

A Brief (For Us) Preamble

If you know anything about us here at Lone Loon Song, you’ll know we are all about Getting Out There™ camping and squeezing out as much greatness, joy, fun and yucks as we can while keeping as many of our hard-earned Simoleons as possible. This is our story of searching for and finding a wonderful DSLR camera we love for pennies on the dollar. Without tooting our own horn, we’ve become pretty good at it. Keeping the Simoleons, that is. The photographs aren’t going to win any prizes. But that’s not the point. The point is to have as much fun as possible, for the least expenditure of scratch and effort.

And frankly, we’ve been nailing that.

It’s possible that we were just lucky, but you make your own luck. Something else we feel compelled to mention: We value overall quality above bells and whistles. As a matter of fact, when we first got our Nikon D40 we bought the body only. This means no lens. We wanted a quality lens, so we did our due diligence. Since we had never owned a real camera, we were pretty lost. We read that a Nikkor “nifty-fifty” (50mm lens) was a great lens to start with. So we found one for a ridiculously low price. (There is some argument that this is not a true “nifty-fifty” – It’s hard to work up any emotions one way or the other. We love it, whatever the fuck it is. Note: We found our exactly what the fuck it is. Big love to Photosynthesis, which is outstanding. Anyhoo, it’s a vintage 50mm lens from 1976. It should have been a lot more expensive than it was.) “Loons!”, said we to ourselves. “This is awesome!”

And it is. The problem was, the only way to use the two together was to shoot completely in manual mode. (We’ll have an article on how we shoot in manual mode real soon now™. Okay, that’s a bit of a joke. But it’s almost ready. It’s hard to write things simply.)

Almost nobody was encouraging about manual mode. “Nobody uses manual mode any more.” (No shade, but it’s possible that once you mortgage the farm and pay through the nose for a late model DSLR with all the bells and whistles, it’s hard to see the advantages of manual mode.) Manual mode means no Automatic mode, aperture priority mode, shutter mode or program mode. (It’s true; It’s slower, you need to take a lot more time composing your shot(s) – thinking – but you get to make the decisions. If it ain’t in the shot, that’s your lot. Are you smarter than the camera?

In any event, we were faced with a decision. Either return the lens and camera and take our chance – which likely meant spending a lot more money – to get a camera and lens that would work together automatically for the same amount of money, (“and pigs might fly out of our butts”) or learn to shoot photographs in manual mode. (In manual mode, you have to set all of the elements of the exposure triangle individually.)

No quitters, us – and we had no crying need to spend any more money. (What? No, we’re not tight-fisted, we’re frugal.) Still, it was two weeks of absolute frustration – with no results to speak of. Seriously. We got either a blurry blob, or complete darkness. 0. Nada. Zilch. Did we quit? We did not.

(Digression Alert:There’s a song on the upcoming Colin D. Cochrane and The Whole Kerfuffle album – “Grandmother’s Blues” – called “Belvedere”. Anyway, the hook in that song is “too dumb to quit”. Look for it. It’s gonna be great! Ahem.)

In the third week we got a shot that didn’t suck – It’s later in this document. (We’ll document our journey learning to shoot in manual mode, too, and share our tips and tricks in case that is something you’re interested in. If you’re interested in DSLR photography, we totally recommend learning to shoot in manual mode, because you’ll understand what each element of the exposure triangle does, and why you might choose this other mode over that other mode.)

We made some mistakes, but that helped us to learn a thing or two along the way. Here, we share what we’ve learned. Our greatest wish is to be useful to our friends. Life is short. Be kind. Share. Whenever you Get Out There™, remember to always “Leave No Trace:Pack it in, Pack it out!”

We hope that you will find it interesting and helpful to you. If you are entertained into the bargain, well, shucks. That’s about all we can wish for. Thanks for finding us. If you find us useful tell your friends, or feel free to link to us.

Introduction: How We Found A Cheap, Wonderful, New-To-Us, CCD Sensor-Equipped DSLR Camera

Our origin story: Shopping For A Wonderful, Cheap, Second Hand CCD Sensor DSLR Camera

We started off finding out about digital sensors for cameras. In an article Cameras For Camping – How Digital Sensors Work (CCD and CMOS). This turned us on to the idea that you could find really great cameras that a lot of people had dismissed as “old technology”, and simply not as sexy anymore. And, not unlike a middle-aged man with mid-life crisis, they did the equivalent of forsaking their lovely, gracefully aging brides, and running off with Kelley-Ann the cocktail waitress. Spectacularly stupid. We recognized that the CCD sensors represented a real opportunity for our frugal hearts. (Full disclosure – we found our camera in a local second hand shop. Don’t forget about them! For lots of cool stuff. They also have great prices on gently used, very high quality camping gear. Lots of people we respect buy things online, and we will too. There are amazing bargains to be had online, but you still have to do your research. Don’t neglect the second hand shops, though. You can find some treasures if you’ve done your research and are “Johnny-On-The-Spot”.)

In researching digital sensors, we began to become curious about Cameras – How Does Sensor Size Affect Image Quality?. In the course of this, it quickly became apparent that we weren’t going to go with a full-frame DSLR. There are a couple of good reasons for this:

  • There’s a non-trivial jump in price from an APS-C DSLR camera to a full-frame camera. For example, most full-frame DSLR cameras on the second hand market range from ¥20,000 (a little more than $200. CDN) to ¥120,000 (a little more than $1200. CDN). That is a huge range. Mostly, that’s in features. If you can find something in the less expensive range, that’s an invitation to do a little more research. So, be prepared for that. You might be able to find some cheaper ones, but they’re still pretty pricy, and that’s “body only” – meaning you’re going to have to find a compatible lens (or what’s much more likely – lenses – which can be super pricy even if you’re in the pre-owned market ) that does what you want. One other thing – turns out it’s surprisingly hard to find a full-frame DSLR with a CCD sensor. A larger full-frame camera has several advantages: better low-light performance, reduced noise, the largest available dynamic range, and the ability to catch more light. Everything we have found is CMOS technology, which is newer and more expensive. They also use less electricity, and you can often get significantly more photos per battery charge. You can have your own definition of “cheap”, but that’s too rich for the Loon’s blood. The cost/benefit argument just doesn’t sway us. Hey, never say never, but it would have to be a pretty special deal and a lot of camera.
  • As we said, at least since 2002, most of the full-frames have sensors that use the newer CMOS technology, and our research led us to believe that while CMOS sensors could be manufactured more cheaply at scale by the companies, there was a trade-off in image quality. Paradoxically, this savings was never passed on to the consumer in any meaningful way. The CCD cameras – while smaller APS-C sensors – were built for price conscious consumers. We’re not going to get into the argument of which technology is “better”. (We wrote an article comparing the two:Cameras For Camping – How Digital Sensors Work (CCD vs CMOS). Lots of people really like the CCD colours. (The jury is still out on that one. For the record, we like the CCD colours. )

We do our best to make ourselves useful by sharing what we’ve learned with our readers. We don’t use A.I., or take anyones word for what we think. We’re not selling anything. If you end up buying something through one of our links, thanks. That does help us a lot, and we appreciate it. But we’ll never tell you to buy something. As a matter of fact, we’ve been known to advise our readers to not buy a damn thing. We did just that in our article, How To Get The Best Camping Or Outdoor Photographs On A Budget of $0.(Or double your money back.) We enjoyed the shit out of writing that one, God Help Us.

In any event, the point is that we’ll always tell you what we think. Trust is tough to earn, and easy to lose, so we’ll just be as honest as possible.

We don’t have a dog in the fight. We don’t care what you end up buying. Or even whether you get something, or not. But we can tell you what we bought, and why we bought it, what we love about it, and why we’d buy something different, given our ‘druthers. This is for everything you can imagine – from sleeping bags and coolers to lenses for your DSLR. Do we have our preferences? Damn straight we do. We make no bones about it. On the other hand, you can take what we say to the bank.

We’ve worked hard to be as knowledgeable and thorough as possible. We’re all about E.E.A.T. Anyhoo, where were we? Oh, right, our shopping adventures looking for 16 year old new-to-us inexpensive, wonderful cameras.

Our entire adventure sprang from an organic curiousity about the way some photographers feel about CCD Sensors. Around 2010, (and a few years preceding and after) folks began to become convinced that they were not very good, (contrary to all obvious evidence – “The grass is greener”, and that sort of thing) and that the CMOS sensors were a much better technology. As a direct result, CCD cameras (and paradoxically, in some cases older cameras with the CMOS sensors) began flooding the second hand DSLR market – leading to a drop in price and a general disdain for said cameras. When we explored how sensors work we somehow got pulled into this interesting story. (Cameras For Camping: How Digital Sensors Work – (CCD And CMOS).)

It’s been quite a journey, but one that’s been nothing but rewarding. Almost by accident, we discovered that there are quite a few discerning photographers who love these old cameras. We’re pretty firmly in this camp. (Truth be told, unless you’ve sunk the kid’s college fund into your camera(s) and feel the need to justify it, why would you not? See link above about DSLR cameras for pennies on the dollar.)

Our research on digital sensors for cameras (and of course, our ground-breaking discourse: How Digital Sensor Sizes Affect Image Quality) led us to an interesting epiphany: “Hey, you Loons! Listen up! You can get great quality DSLR cameras for really economical prices.” (Really insane prices, when you consider what you get.)

That pretty naturally gave rise to finding out about inexpensive CCD Sensor equipped DSLR cameras. We wrote about that in our article: How Many Megapixels – Incredible DSLR Cameras For Pennies On The Dollar. Here our research revealed that with the possible exception of printing your images, megapixels are basically a sales-pitch. (We have an article on megapixels and printing coming soon. Yessir. Real Soon Now™ . To be frank, when it comes to printing, a dog’s breakfast looks mighty sensible. Printing is a big business, and it’s tough to know who’s blowing smoke or sunshine, and who knows what’s what. Give us a minute, and we’ll see what’s what. For now, what we know for a fact, and it’s undeniable, is that in 2006, with no more than 10 megapixels, and often not even 6 – photographers were producing beautiful ,large prints, so we’re mighty skeptical.)

If we’re being perfectly frank, until very recently, we were unable to tell the difference in image quality between a 6.1MP image and a 12MP image – certainly on a screen. Which is how most folks are going to view your images. So give it a think.

Why Cheap, Old, Wonderful, CCD Sensor DSLR Cameras?

We’d better back up some, hadn’t we? A while back, we at Lone Loon Song began to become curious about the bargains that abound with the wonderful, cheap, old CCD sensor DSLR cameras. As regular readers know, (waving! Hey, guys!) long have we been infatuated with being outdoors camping, and recording our adventures in photographs. We also hate spending too much money like the Devil hates Holy Water. On the other hand, we’re not interested in doing without life’s little pleasures.

We started off with a cheap point and shoot “digicam” Olympus 2050 from 2013 or so, and it served us well. It was still a mistake. Could we have spent a lot less, and got a lot more camera? In retrospect, yeah. Nobody ever claimed we don’t make mistakes. “The burnt hand learns best.”

“Hey, let’s record our adventures with a camera!” Nothing wrong with that. We have a lot of images that we enjoy that we would otherwise not have. But, the opportunity-cost is non-trivial. We could have got a lot more bang for our buck. And being Lone Loons, that squeezes our bunions.

We didn’t know a damn thing about photography in those days. Full disclosure: we’re still learning about photography. We do have mentors whom we trust, but we always “trust, but verify”. Which is never a bad idea. We still have passionate arguments with folks we totally respect about when to compress drums. Which compressor? Sometimes you should, and sometimes there’s just no real need. What you always have to do is ask yourself why? If you’ve got a good reason, fill your boots. All of our decisions are made for a readily defendable reason. (Well, that’s the goal. We have a new plugin that has found it’s way onto a lot of things, so we need to get some discipline, and practice what we preach.)

We knew a lot about media, and putting other peoples images on the web, we’d been doing that for years. But truthfully, we were more interested in simply recording our camping adventures, places we went, who went with us, what we did, and the best swimming places. We were delighted if something just didn’t suck. We were unsophisticated (to put it kindly) when it came to photography. In the past decade or so, we’ve become … well, kind of infatuated with good images. We’re not experts, but the knowledge that we do have we’ve certainly come by honestly.

We’ve come to heartily believe that nobody needs a “cheap” camera; not in this Year Of Our Lord 2025 you can absolutely get a hell of a lot more camera for a lot less money. It’s not even close. There is no question. Here are just a few advantages:

  • It is cheaper to buy a quality second hand DSLR camera. (We bought our Nikon D40 and a Nikkor “nifty-fifty” 50mm lens for a smidge under ¥12000 (That’s pretty close to $120.00 CDN). It has an ASP-C CCD Sensor with 6.1 megapixels. Don’t be distracted by megapixels. The image quality blows away our iPhone with almost twice as many MP’s. You cannot match that kind of value with the same money on a cheap camera. You just can’t.)
  • If you buy a DSLR camera, you’re bound to learn more about photography. You’ll get better images, too.
  • You don’t absolutely have to, but we’ve certainly began to become interested in software to edit images. Why not?We’d be surprised if you didn’t at least become curious about editing your images, as well. Even if it’s just fixing the horizon, or re-sizing an image or trimming down the file size for the web. Especially with open source software like RawTherapee and Gimp – to name but a few – that won’t set you back a dime, and will vastly improve your shots.

File This Under “Don’t Do This, It’s A Bad Idea.

But in those heady days of 2013, we just wanted something simple, and we didn’t have a lot of money. We didn’t care that there was a second hand DSLR market. And it’s mighty happy we are to have those mediocre images. But in terms of lost opportunity, it’s a false economy. We didn’t learn anything about photography, and a lot of images, contrary to what we said about any tale being better than none at all, we could easily do without. Our point, (and we apologize for the long hike to get here) is that we think it’s a vastly better idea to get a “real” camera and learn to use it, especially when you can get them for such a low price.

We’ve long been avid campers and outdoors people, and some time in 2017 we got a smartphone, and like everyone else, became intrigued by the possibilities of photography. We were smitten. The possibilities of combining camping and photography beckoned, and with apologies to The Waterboys, we were “willin’ fools”. Helpless fools. We wrote about this in our article How To Get The Best Camping Or Outdoor Photographs On A Budget of $0 Dollars, (Or double your money back!) – in which we expanded on getting terrific images without spending any money.

Well, that was really cool. Seriously. We loved the shit out of that. But we kept seeing really great images from other folks, and we couldn’t seem to get close to results like that. We began to think that we needed a better camera. So we commenced to scheme.

We hate buying cheap stuff. It’s never worked out for us. We hate buying something and then having to replace it even more. Where’s the economy in that? On the other hand, quality stuff can be had if you do a little research. Here, for example is one of our absolute favorite acoustic guitars.

Why Should We Listen To You Loons About Cheap DSLR Cameras? (Or Saving Money In General)

Just so you get the full flavour of who we are and what we do: this second hand guitar set us back ¥ 5000 (about $50.00 CDN.) We’d been looking for one of these for a while. The Tokai copy of the Gibson Hummingbird is… well, not legendary, but enjoys a certain reputation among aficionados of Japanese copies of U.S. Gibson guitars. When we found it, we had to do some work on it – it was in terrible shape – but now it plays great! It’s nearly always in open e tuning – and although we bought it explicitly for camping, thinking that for $50.00 who cares if it gets a little wet, we’ve come to love the shit out of this. We baby it shamelessly. It’s made it onto some recordings we like very much. The slide is not really a slide at all. It’s a salt shaker. (¥415 at Nitori – slides start at ¥2000 at the music store – $4.15 and $20.00 CDN respectively. You can hear both on a YouTube video of the classic Ry Cooder tune: “Across The Borderline”. Which, BTW was recorded on a $1000. CDN hackintosh that that we built to impersonate a $3000 store-bought Macintosh.) Our MacBook Air is second hand. $300 CDN. We took this photograph with a 2009 Nikon D40 with an ancient Nikkor “nifty fifty” lens. (¥5000 or $50.00 CDN and about the same on the lens. We could have spent more money on the lens. As a matter of fact, we debated taking it back to the shop. It was so old that even though it fit on the camera, it wouldn’t work in any mode but manual mode. Everyone said “Jesus, learning to shoot in manual mode is a pain in the ass!” but it really turned out great for us.)

So, sorry for the long walk, but all of this is to show our Bona Fides as far as getting great quality for pennies.

Is A Second Hand CCD Sensor DSLR Camera Right For You?

These cameras aren’t going to tick all the boxes for everyone. Let’s dispense with that nonsense right now. Also, you really need to suss out your budget. There is a huge difference in price. You quite likely need to balance the amount of money you are willing to part with and the camera that you need. Persistence and research are good friends. The size and technology of the sensor in any given camera is a big consideration. (We wrote about this in Cameras For Camping: How Digital Sensors Work (CCD vsCMOS). That’s good stuff to know. Because, frankly, if you’re interested in super fast subjects – think birds in flight- it’s not going to happen with our manual focus. It can’t be done. If you want to photograph that kind of velocity, you’re gonna have to spend more money. “Kid’s college fund” money. We’re ready to do without that. Really great auto focus is not cheap, even second-hand. If wildlife birds in flight is your thing, you should find a reddit group where folks who are into that hang out. You’ll learn a lot. That’s good advice for any genre of photography.

Understanding Photographic Modes On DSLR Cameras

All DSLR cameras have modes. Modes are modern inventions that allow photographers to spend less time preparing for a photograph. Our point and shoot Olympus 1050 SW has modes, to a certain extent. So does the Nikon. We just can’t use ’em until we buy a different lens. Which is a tale for another time. We don’t know enough about lenses, yet.

Modes have pre-configured controls to help the photographer take photographs in different situations. For example, it can shoot for 30 seconds or so of video. That would be video mode. Modes are controlled by a rotary dial. It might be helpful to think of these as settings. Our point and shoot Olympus would allow access to several of these settings. The image below right is what modes look like on the Olympus. You can probably guess what these do, but if you open up SCN you’ll get a certain number of pre-configured options for certain conditions. (Portrait, sunset, indoors, etc. None of which is very good. We tended to use Auto for everything. We were often disappointed, but sometimes we got something good.)

Of course, we’ll still use the Olympus. It needs a new battery, but other than looking a little beat up on the outside, it’s fine. But our go to is the Nikon.

A DSLR camera will allow access to all of the elements of the exposure triangle. It will also allow you to shoot in modes. These usually allow you to control one, two, or all of the three essential elements.

The most common modes on these old dears are:

  • “M” for Manual. This gives the photographer total control over the three essential elements of the exposure triangle.(That’s from Adobe. Ours is a lot simpler. And better. No bias, here.)
  • “A” for Aperture. It can be Av or something else on different cameras. Does the same thing. Lots of folks love this mode. The camera chooses the opening of the aperture, and ISO and shutter speed are controlled by the photographer. (Don’t let the words put you off. There’s nothing to it, especially in A mode.)
  • “S” for Shutter Speed. The camera chooses the shutter speed, and the ISO and aperture are up to the human.
  • “P” for Programable. The photographer can choose to assign certain elements to the camera.

Here’s a little note about the exposure triangle, or anything else you read. It’s like a YouTube video that teaches you to do something. It’s worthless if you don’t do it for yourself. You have to put in the time to understand it. No amount of watching YouTube will get you all of the way there. You want to learn Jimi Hendrix’ solo from “Little Wing”? You can watch all you want, but if you don’t sit with the guitar in your lap until you’ve got it, then you haven’t got it. Sorry. There’s no Easter Bunny, either. Oh, cheer up. Santa’s real.

Here’s a sweet deal, though. If you put in the time – a lot less than learning Jimi’s solo – to learn to shoot in manual mode, you’ll understand why to choose this or that mode. Is it a pain in the ass? At first? Shit, yeah. But, and this is a big but, it’s absolutely satisfying. And it doesn’t take that long before you start to understand. It took us a smidge over three weeks, but five days of that was sulking, and walking past the camera and shooting hairy eyeballs at it.

Full disclosure: When we found the Nikon D40 we got a little over-excited, and our research led us to believe that our best bet – not knowing much about lenses – was to get a good quality “nifty-fifty” (50mm lens) lens and learn to use it. We knew that we had to be careful about compatibility – you know, “does this lens work with this camera?”.

So, when we saw the D40, and after we had got home and fired up the Google, we began to look for lenses made by companies with good reputations. (There are lots. It’s incredibly confusing. There are also many sites that are simply not correct. The Nikon U.S.A. site does a pretty good job of demystifying it, but it will take some time and effort.) We found a Nikkor 50mm lens for about ¥5000, and that seemed like a good fit. We didn’t know anything about auto focus.

Our D40 is from 2006, but it has auto focus – which is a motor on the camera body which can drive the focus on the lens, provided that you have the right lens. Lenses that work with your camera’s motor are much more expensive than ¥5000. (Lenses are not cheap – second hand or otherwise. But, our lens was pretty cheap. Come to find out it’s cheap because you can only use it in manual mode. We didn’t know that at the time. We had no idea about modes.

We’re learning a lot about photography in general by learning to shoot in manual mode. In fact, we’ve got an article we’re writing about why everyone who has any interest in photography should learn to shoot DSLR cameras in manual mode.

Shooting In Manual Mode – What’s The Big Deal?

Before we got our Nikon D40 (and were forced to learn manual mode) we confess that we felt a certain amount of offense taken when people mentioned that they used it. The same can be said for people who shoot in RAW vs JPEG files. You can waste a lot of time on that, and lot’s of folks do.

For us, manual mode is not some sort of a snob thing, rather it’s an opportunity to better understand any mode or even kind of photography that you are interested in. Is it a lot of work? Yes. Yes it is. It’s a lot more than automatic mode. But it’s been worth it for us. In less than a month, we’re really starting to internalize the exposure triangle, and starting to go on instinct. Oh, we’re nowhere near experts: we’ve got at least 40 miles of bad road to go, but it used to be more. The point is, it’s a hell of a lot of fun. We’ve written an article that records our experience learning to shoot in… well, more obstacles than simply manual mode. It’s quite a tale, and you may learn something cool.

Believe us, we’ve got a lot of shots that we aren’t gonna post. They’ve found a lovely home in the trash. Still, it’s tons of fun, and sometimes you get one like the one above. Or even this one:

Once we got one image that was clear and focused, we got pretty damn excited.

The Quality Is Obvious.

We became infatuated with the idea that perhaps it was possible to get wonderful images for a tiny amount of money. (That’s kind of our Lone Loon Song thing – we are all about getting the biggest bang for the least outlay of money and effort.)

Our research led us to getting curious about how digital sensors work, and we wrote about that. (See Cameras For Camping – How Digital Sensors Work – CCD and CMOS.) This begat our natural curiosity, and naturally led us to overlooked bargains in terms of DSLR cameras. This research begat our article How Many Megapixels – Incredible DSLR Cameras For Pennies On The Dollar.

That led us here. We thought that we wanted at least 10 megapixels, but once we started to research, we found that even that is probably too much for us. For a smidge over ¥10,000 – about $100.00 CDN we are the proud owners of this little gem on the right:

A Plethora Of Quality Glass (Lenses – Not necessarily cheap – Even second-hand!)

We are delighted with our little acquisition and the outcome of the whole adventure, really, and we cannot wait to Get Out There camping with our new toy.

There are lots of other cheap camera options that we want to explore. (We’re intrigued by digital video cameras from the same era. There’s a Sony that we’re researching right now. Why not a YouTube Channel? We mean other than the music one.) The big one on our list is lenses. We need to do a lot of research on lenses. The first consideration is compatibility. (You can read our cautionary, yet humourous tale.)All of these wonderful cheap cameras were produced by serious companies, and as a result, there are lots of options available. (As long as you get a Canon, Nikon, Pentax, or Sony – these guys have the largest marketshare in the used marketplace, so there’s lots of lenses available. There are quality third party lens manufacturers, too. Some other benefits are that you’re more likely to get quality advice from owners online. You’ll get a lot of nonsense, too, but that’s part of going online, isn’t it?)

This topic really deserves it’s own article, so look for that soon.

Here Are Some Possibilities, With Some Idea Of Current Prices

(Prices are from Amazon – you may find better deals elsewhere, this is just to give you an idea of prices. They may vary. Persistence and research are your good friends – and haunt the second hand shops.)

BrandModelSensor TypeSensor Size
Nikon
CCD
23.6 x 15.8mm (APS-C)
Nikon
CMOS
23.6 x 15.8mm (APS-C)
Nikon
CCD
23.6 x 15.8mm (APS-C)
Nikon
CMOS
23.6 x 15.8mm (APS-C)
Pentax
CCD
23.6 x 15.8mm (APS-C)
Sony
CCD
23.6 x 15.8mm (APS-C)
Canon
CMOS
23.6 x 15.8mm (APS-C)

Most of these are “body-only”, meaning no lens is included. That’s a good thing. The case can be made that a lens is more important than the camera. So do your research. Popular brands of camera will have more options for lenses. Make sure the lens is compatible. Some people choose the lens first, and then kind of back into the camera. Not a bad strategy. Check the return policy, always. Check the actuation or the shutter count on the camera. (That’s how many times the shutter has been actuated, or used. Most mechanical things have an estimated life. Our Nikon D40 is supposed to be good for 50,000. When we checked the shutter count in GIMP – JPEG only, for some strange reason, we found it was less than 4000. We grinned for about three days. Long tale to say you too can get lucky.)

Any of these cameras is a good bet. They are all APS-C sensor sizes, which we feel are the best “Goldilocks” fit between overall quality and $$s. As we said, we do have a soft spot for the CCD sensors; they’re usually cheaper, paradoxically, because when new they were more expensive, and the colours just pop! Most of the full-frames are CMOS. Full-frames (see our article: Cameras: How Does Sensor Size Affect Image Quality) have definite advantages – just not enough to justify the cost. We firmly believe that with a little sweat equity your can get whatever image you want with your “crop-sensor”. You may want some features that these particular cameras don’t have, but in terms of simple quality for the money, it’s hard to go wrong. That may not be a deal-breaker for you, and if so, God love ya. (We should also mention that there is a good chance you can find these cameras cheaper locally – we found ours for a little more than half of what the seller wants on Amazon. – That’s still a good deal, we just got lucky. Remember we were speaking of persistence and research?) One last thing, don’t be put off by blemishes. Look at this sweetheart over on the left. “A face made for Radio”. So, take photographs. Look at ’em. Think. Excellent. Now you’re ready to make a decision. By way of illustration, an illuminating tale:

When we first looked through the EVF (electronic view finder) of our new-to-us Nikon, we saw three tiny black spots. “Uh, oh.” We thought. But after we got some shots we could see, we found that we couldn’t see the spots on the images – even at ridiculous zooms in GIMP. So take photographs, and judge the photographs. Our lens has been through the wars. It’s still great. And something ridiculous like 60 x cheaper than it was when new. (That’s true.) Yes, it was a pain in the ass to learn to use. Yes, it was built for film cameras. Yes, we totally screwed that up. We fell into the frozen sea and came out with our pockets full of delicious fish. So it’s all in the doing.

Conclusion:

If you think you might like to get involved in photography, there is no better way – in our opinion – than to get a wonderful, cheap, second hand DSLR camera from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s. If you can find a low actuation, gently used CCD sensor equipped camera, we can’t recommend it highly enough. You’ll get frustrated, of course.

But the first time you see a great image in your LCD, you’ll get a pretty cool feeling. We’re totally psyched. Other than the used acoustic Japanese guitar market, these are the best bargains we know of. (We’re gonna write about that, soon, too.)

A quick note: Other than the image, of the lens, and the lens and the camera, all of the images on this page were shot with this Nikon D40. After not quite a month with this thing, we are absolutely in love. On the other hand, we think we’re gonna get something else. At 6 megapixels, it’s plenty, but once you start looking, damn, there’s a ton of great stuff out there. We’re hooked. We cannot recommend these cameras enough. They are fantastic, overlooked gems. There is no better way, no cheaper way for you, or someone you love to get totally hooked on photography.

We were surprised, too, at how much we enjoyed the challenge of learning to shoot in manual mode. Look for an article soon on What, Why, and How to shoot photographs on a DSLR in manual mode. Until then, Look after each other, thanks for finding us, and big love. If this was helpful, tell your friends. Feel free to link to us. See you out there!

Sincerely,

YELP (Your Ever-Lovin’ Pals)

The Lone Loons.