How to buy a film camera on eBay without getting burned

Between the eleven of us we've bought north of forty cameras at auction, and the hit rate has improved dramatically since we started comparing notes. This is the checklist that now lives in the club WhatsApp.

Read the photos, not the description

"Untested" from a seller with camera-shop-quality photos means tested, and it failed. Look for: a photo of the shutter open (proves it fires), the film chamber (foam seals turn to tar — cheap to fix, good to haggle with), the lens against a light source (haze and fungus hide from front-on shots), and the battery compartment (green corrosion is a walk-away on electronic bodies, a shrug on mechanical ones).

Mechanical beats electronic at the cheap end

A Zorki 4 or a Pentax K1000 with a sticky slow speed can be exercised or serviced back to health. A 1980s electronic wonder-camera with a dead board is a paperweight, and no one repairs them for less than the price of another camera.

The slow-speed test

First thing on arrival: fire 1 second and listen. It should buzz evenly and finish crisply. A shutter that hangs at slow speeds usually just needs exercise — fifty dry-fires across all speeds while you watch television revives a surprising number of "faulty" cameras. If it doesn't, a CLA (clean, lubricate, adjust) runs £60–£120; factor it into your bid.

Our reliable bargains, 2026 edition

Soviet rangefinders (Zorki, FED) for Leica thrills at pocket-money prices; the unkillable Pentax and Olympus mechanical SLRs; and folding medium-format cameras, which remain the biggest negative per pound in photography — check the bellows for pinholes with a torch in a dark room.

Bring your new arrival to a club night before you trust it with anything important. Someone will have owned one, and someone else will have broken one.