- 1). Look at the camera. As basic as that sounds, you can get a fairly good idea of what the previous owner has put the camera through. If it has dings and dents, the camera has been banged up a bit. If some of the paint has worn through, the camera has been handled a lot, probably under rough conditions. These cosmetic problems may not affect the overall all performance of the camera, but they do indicate how much use the camera has received. If the camera looks like it was just manufactured, even if it is 20 years old, the previous owner either didn't use it much or took extremely good care of it. On a digital camera, look at the LCD when it is off. Examine it for a lot of scratches or cracks.
- 2). Examine all the movable parts. Remove the lens and reattach it if you are looking at an SLR. The lens should come off easily and mount again just as easily. If it sticks or is hard to mount or unmount, there may be damage to the lens mount, meaning it may cause problems for you later on.
- 3). Open the back of a film camera to test how easily it opens and how well it closes. Look to see if it has any dents or bends that may compromise the light-tightness of the film chamber. Test the wind and rewind levers and knobs. Do this with the film door closed and open. When open, watch how evenly the takeup spool works, and how evenly the rewind knob moves. In a digital camera, remove and replace the memory card to find out how easily that works.
- 4). Test the shutter speeds. Without professional testing equipment, you cannot be precise, but you can get a good idea of how well the shutter works. In a film SLR, open the camera back, look at the shutter and trip the shutter button at a low shutter speed, say 1/15th of a second. Watch how the shutter curtain opens and closes, making certain it does not stick and flows smoothly. Gradually increase the shutter speeds. Watch the curtain open and close, and listen to it. You should be able to tell the difference in shutter speeds. If there is no apparent difference, the shutter only may work at limited speeds, meaning you might want a different camera. This is harder to judge on digital point-and-shoot cameras, but digital SLRs will generally make a different sound depending upon the speed of the shutter.
- 5). Take the camera out and field-test it, taking a wide variety of photos in different lighting conditions with different shutter speeds and aperture settings. Ultimately, the true test of any camera is the photos it produces, whether it is digital or film. After your shoot, examine the photos. In a film camera, if there are light or dark streaks, you have a light leak. In a digital or film camera, if the photos are blurry, or wildly over or underexposed, the camera is probably not worth having.
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