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Thread: Ebay - lenses from Japan

  1. #41

    Join Date
    Jun 2006
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    417

    Re: Ebay - lenses from Japan

    edt
    Last edited by asf; 17-Oct-2021 at 12:24.

  2. #42

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    Jun 2006
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    417

    Re: Ebay - lenses from Japan

    edit
    Last edited by asf; 17-Oct-2021 at 12:24.

  3. #43

    Join Date
    Nov 2017
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    654

    Re: Ebay - lenses from Japan

    I find japanese ebay sellers to be excellent. Concerning LF gear I have bought 3 lenses and a lot of film holders. Apart from 1 lens that was described as "as is" all items were conform the description. The as-is lens has a defect but it is hard to spot but still usable and the price was correct.
    Expert in non-working solutions.

  4. #44

    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Posts
    65

    Re: Ebay - lenses from Japan

    Sorry to hear about your lens purchase experience. I have purchased 4 or 5 large format lenses from Japan and never experienced a problem. They have been well packaged and quickly shipped. Mistakes do happen, I am glad to hear they treated your problem respectfully as we all hope all online sellers would! Kudos to them!
    Last edited by OKAROB; 30-Jun-2018 at 23:49.

  5. #45

    Join Date
    Mar 2017
    Location
    Del City, OK
    Posts
    227

    Re: Ebay - lenses from Japan

    I love to buy from Japanese sellers on eBay! I've found the Japanese to be the most honest and polite of all of the countries I regularly do business with. They often send a little gift (chocolate, bag of tea, paper crane) and a hand written note in English with any purchase I've made. Plus the US Dollar is strong against the Yen and they still have a strong film culture over there so they tend to present the best values in general.

    That being said, I believe that there are good and bad people of all races, religions, countries of origin, age, gender, sexual orientation, political affiliation, and fan of a particular sports team. So I tend to try not to think of sellers in terms of where they're from, but rather how they list their items. Do they provide good pictures and lots of details? Do they respond to questions? Do they have good feedback history? I've had very few bad experiences on eBay over the years, and most of the bad experiences I have had have been as a seller, not a buyer (buyers deciding they don't want something after all, so they break it and claim it was damaged in shipping and demand their money back seems to be a popular trend).

  6. #46

    Join Date
    Jul 2016
    Posts
    4,566

    Re: Ebay - lenses from Japan

    Quote Originally Posted by JMO View Post
    My experiences with eBay sellers of MF and LF gear from Japan over the last several years has been similar to the above responses - ALL GOOD.
    +1 , scrupulously honest and fair.

  7. #47

    Join Date
    Mar 2016
    Posts
    232

    Re: Ebay - lenses from Japan

    My purchases from sellers in Japan have been positive with one exception, in fact lenses were often better than described. The only bad experience was a crappy 2D bellows I got from Tokyophoto.

    I received an enlarging lens yesterday from Japan which looks perfect, it was a heck of a good deal.

  8. #48

    Re: Ebay - lenses from Japan

    The only issues I've ever had with any Japanese sellers is them not knowing how to properly check bellows for light leaks. Each time I received one with corner holes the seller made amends. I've never had any problems with used lenses from Japan.

  9. #49

    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Calgary, Canada
    Posts
    71

    Re: Ebay - lenses from Japan

    Quote Originally Posted by asf View Post
    Well just to add another data point

    For 6+ months I had been looking for a certain wide angle lens at a not insane price and finally found one from a Japanese based eBay seller (100% rep) that looked perfect at the price I was looking for and it included the correct real linhof technika recessed board and the correct CF (bonus I thought). Thought it wouldn't last long so I pulled the trigger on BIN and a couple days later the package arrived.

    All looked great, not a mark on the lens or CF, shutter seemed perfect, the included hard lens case had a smell but nothing too bad.

    Mounted the lens on a monorail, did some test shots. Image looked funky on the ground glass (lots of edge barrel distortion) but it focused and the film was sharp. Still something didn't feel right. The standards seemed way too close together. I thought it seemed too wide for its marked length but I didn't have another to compare it with so I thought it's my imagination.

    I didn't need it for any shoots for a while so put it away. Several weeks later I mounted to a helical for a tech camera, it wouldn't focus. With the helical at its shortest it was focusing just inches in front of the lens. I switched it to a helical for a wider lens, still it wouldn't focus closer than a couple feet. So strange. This lens looked new, couldn't understand what was happening. Finally I did some comparisons of images of Rodenstock lenses from the series and guess what - the rear element was from a different lens. I contacted the seller, explained what happened, they immediately apologized and told me to return it.

    Did they know it was bad? Maybe, maybe not. But it just goes along with my other experiences - they don't know what they are selling.

    In hindsight the deal was a little too good (other Japanese sellers had the same model lens at $150 more without CF) although the price he was asking was in line with actual recent completed sales (again without CF and Linhof board which should add ~$100-200)

    End of the story is I got my money refunded and the seller didn't want the lens back so my impression is there's a calculation in their prices to compensate for the rare losses like these (buyers who know enough to realize the problems). I replaced this lens with one from a member here and the new one is perfect, correct rear element, works as expected on the helical, no distortion.
    Funny, I was checking Super Angulon prices on eBay the other night and came across a listing for a 75mm f/5.6 SA from Japan that seemed like a decent deal. Something didn't quite seem right about the lens... a closer look at the auction pics revealed that the "rear" element installed was actually the front element of a convertible Symmar 150/265mm! You really have to wonder about these sellers sometimes.

  10. #50

    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Reykjavík, Iceland
    Posts
    114

    Re: Ebay - lenses from Japan

    I have had great experiences with Japanese camera shops, both in person and through eBay, but like every store it is important to remember they were probably not out there using it themselves, so they might not be aware of hidden problems.

    Regarding the swapped rear element thing, I bought a 150mm Sinaron SE as part of a package from a Norwegian photographer, and I asked him beforehand if it was sharp. "Yes!" The price for the package was very low overall and included a Toyo camera a 90mm Gradagon and other accessories. When I tried the lens, it had a lot of glowing highlights and was not sharp. It was somewhat functional, but quite soft. I sent it to Rodenstock for a repair, and they said the shutter and rear element was from a 150mm Apo Symmar. Whoops. The bellows were also Swiss cheese and needed to be replaced. I asked the seller and he said, "oh, sorry, I only shot 3 polaroids with the kit". Norwegians are generally very honest too, so I think it is important to remember that there are people everywhere who are bad sellers, whether they intend to be or not. In my case the gear was priced low enough as to make it better for my sanity to just ignore it and get on with my life...a 150mm SE was not in the package, it was a Copal 0 shutter with some pretty end caps.

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