...Then two come along at once. Canons, that is! Yesterday I was in Portobello Road Market and got an Eos 5000 35mm body with an EF 38-76mm zoom - for £5. A weird one and I gather not their best lens, but it all works and I'll probably make a small profit. And today I went to a car boot sale (US="swap meet") and got a Digital Rebel XT (AKA Eos 350D) with a 4GB CF card - for £15. Working, but needs a battery charger, but fortunately there was enough charge left to try it and everything works. I've just ordered a USB charger for £3.99 which ought to do the job. Once I have that it'll be taking the place of my 300D as my test bed camera for weird lenses etc. since it's higher resolution and USB 2, not 1.1. I ought to be going to a couple more boot sales tomorrow - hoping things happen in threes...
Well, nothing last Sunday - but today I picked up a set of Kenko extension tubes for Eos for £2, and a slightly damaged EF 80-200 for £5 - that one works but it's missing the trim ring around the top of the zoom ring, so it looks a bit naff and dust can get in - I'll be selling it as-is for spares/repairs. Unfortunately it turns out that the tubes are only suitable for older full-format lenses, the plastic disc supporting the electrical contacts has a hole that isn't quite big enough the back end of modern APS-C Canon lenses. I'm tempted to try to enlarge the hole on the extension rings so they'll work with digital lenses, but common sense tells me it isn't worth the effort - you can get a set of AF tubes for about £12, and the tube lengths are more appropriate for APS-C lenses. Also I don't currently have a drill press - I never bothered to buy one because I had access to a workshop in my job, now I'm retired but I never got around to setting up a proper workshop at home - so I'd have to modify the tubes with a rasp or something which would be a pain. I'll probably sell them and put the profits (if any) toward a set of tubes that don't need modification. And during the week I got the charger for the 350D and it's working very well, so I'll probably list my old 300D on eBay tomorrow.
