Selling your camera gear

Start with the number that governs everything else: resale value — what the item actually sells for, today, in your condition, on the open market. Not what you paid. Not what it cost new. Look up completed sales for the exact model and check what the big used resellers list it at. Every offer you will receive is a percentage of that figure.

What each route pays

Which one you should actually pick

Trade in when you are buying anyway

This is the most efficient move in the whole guide. If you are upgrading, trading the old body against the new one turns roughly 60% of resale into an immediate discount, in one transaction, with no listing, no shipping and no waiting. Ask explicitly what the difference is between the cash offer and the trade offer — the shop will tell you, and it is often a bigger gap than people expect.

Take cash when you want it gone

Around 50% of resale is the price of convenience, and for a drawer of gear you will never use again, it is a fair one. There is no listing to write, no stranger in a car park, no chargeback three weeks later. For anything below roughly a couple of hundred dollars in value, the difference between routes is not worth the hours.

Consign when the item is desirable and you are patient

Consignment shines on gear a shop is confident will sell to its customers: sought-after film bodies, fast primes, medium format, cult lenses. You net more than a buyout, the shop does the testing and the talking, and the buyer gets a warranty they would not get privately.

Before you sign, settle five things: the commission percentage, who sets the price and whether it can be reduced without asking you, how long the agreement runs, what happens if it does not sell, and who is liable if it is damaged or stolen in the shop. Get it on paper.

Sell privately when the item is valuable and you are willing to work

A private sale is the only route that gets near full resale — and every part of the gap is work you are doing yourself. Expect to lose a meaningful slice to selling and payment fees on the big platforms, plus shipping and packing materials. Expect tyre-kickers, lowballs and at least one person who wants it shipped somewhere odd. Expect that on most platforms a buyer-protection dispute is decided in the buyer's favour, so photograph everything and use tracked, insured shipping.

How to prep gear so the offer holds up

Preparation is worth real money, because every unknown a buyer has to absorb comes out of your price.

• Clean it properly but gently. A microfibre cloth and a blower on the glass, a soft brush in the seams, isopropyl on the rubber grips. No solvents on the lens coating, no compressed air blasted into a shutter, and never take anything apart.
• Find everything. Front and rear caps, hood, strap, charger, cables, manual, box, and the original receipt if you still have it. A complete kit is worth noticeably more than a bare body, and missing caps are an instant deduction.
• Charge the batteries and bring them. A camera that cannot be switched on cannot be tested, and an untestable camera is priced as broken.
• Format the cards and wipe your data. Remove copyright and owner fields from the camera's settings, and clear any saved Wi-Fi credentials on connected bodies.
• Know the shutter count on a digital body, and say it before they look it up.
• Disclose the faults. The dent, the sticky aperture, the light leak. They will be found in the first two minutes, and the offer that follows a surprise is always worse than the offer that follows a disclosure.
• Bundle sensibly. Body, lenses and accessories together as a working kit. Do not split a kit that sells better whole.
• Do not pre-repair cheap gear. Paying $150 to fix a body worth $200 to make it sell for $220 is a loss. Sell it as-is and disclose.

Timing, briefly

Digital bodies lose value fastest in the first two years and again the week a successor is announced — if you know an upgrade is coming, sell before the announcement, not after. Lenses hold value far better than bodies, and good manual-focus glass and desirable film cameras have been appreciating rather than depreciating. Gear sitting unused in a cupboard is losing value on the digital side and gathering fungus on the optical side; neither improves with waiting.

The practical sequence

1. Look up completed sale prices for the exact model and condition. That is your resale figure.
2. Get an online buyback quote. It takes five minutes and gives you a floor.
3. Clean and assemble the full kit, and note the shutter count and any faults.
4. Walk into a local shop that buys gear and ask for both the cash number and the trade number.
5. If you are buying anything at all, take the trade. If not, weigh cash-today against consignment or a private sale, and be honest with yourself about how much work you will really do.

Find the shops that buy on the sell your camera gear pages, broken down by state and city, and check how to judge a shop before you hand over a bag of equipment.

Common questions

How much will a camera store pay for my used gear?

As a rule of thumb, a trade-in against something you are buying is worth around 60% of what the item will resell for, and a straight cash buyout around 50%. The gap is the shop's margin plus the risk it is taking on gear it has to test, warranty and sit on. Both are real numbers rather than lowballs — a shop that pays 90% of resale does not stay open.

Is store credit better than cash?

It is worth more on paper. Shops commonly pay a bonus of about 10% for taking credit rather than cash, and trade-in credit against a purchase generally lands nearer 60% of resale where cash lands nearer 50%. It is only a better deal if you were going to spend the money there anyway — credit at a shop you will not return to is worth exactly nothing.

How does camera consignment work?

You leave the item with the shop, they price it, display it, test it and handle the sale, and they take a commission when it sells — commonly 25–40%, so you net roughly 60–75%. That is more than a cash buyout, and the catch is time: you are paid when someone buys it, which might be next week or might be six months, and until then the gear is not yours to sell elsewhere. Get the commission rate, the pricing method, the minimum price and the timeframe in writing.

Should I sell to a local store or to KEH or MPB?

Online buyback services quote quickly and often pay comparably to a local cash offer, but the quote is subject to inspection after you have shipped — and revised offers are common. A local shop inspects the gear in front of you and pays that day, with no shipping and no risk in transit. Get both numbers: quote online, then walk into a shop with the printout. A store will sometimes match a number it can see.

Is it worth selling old lenses that are not worth much?

Individually, often not — a shop may decline a $20 lens or fold it in for a token amount. Bundled, yes: a body with its lenses, caps, strap, charger and box is a complete kit that a shop can put on the shelf tomorrow, and it is worth more together than the sum of its parts. Bring everything, including the boring accessories.