Why do lenses depreciate so little?

[Throckmorton]

As soon as you drive a car off the lot it depreciates 20%. So why is it that a 5 year old lens sells on eBay for maybe 10% less than a new one costs?

Obviously, things are worth what people will pay for them, but what is going through the mind of the buyer? Doesn't it occur to him that instead of buying a used lens for $1000, he can get a brand new one with a warranty for $1100?

 

[Scooby Doo]

Well for one thing quality results don't diminish that much. Heck you can get good quality shots with 70-80's manual lenses.

 

[fralexandr]

i suppose the only reason is that lenses can survive without maintenance for a long time without suffering noticeably from wear and tear, whereas car parts need maintenance and replacement periodically.

and like scooby said, optical quality doesn't necessarily improve drastically from one generation to the next.

 

[jpeyton]

A few factors:

1) eBay completed auction prices aren't a good representation of true local market value. Auctions are an environment designed to increase the overall sale price of an item. As a bidder, you're competing with everyone from people in your own city to people on the other side of the globe, and prices can vary wildly from one location to another (for example, a Nikon D800 that is $3000 USD in the USA is $4000 USD in the UK). People also are willing to buy used through eBay to avoid local sales tax. A better gauge of value is a cash sale on Craigslist.

2) Demand for SLR lenses has gone WAY up since the proliferation of inexpensive digital SLR bodies that share the same lens mount. Higher demand always drives up prices.

3) Older lenses can still offer similar image quality to newer ones. Advancements are being made in lens design, but the pace is far slower than the rate of advancement of the image sensors inside digital SLRs. For example, a 10 year old Nikon 50mm f/1.4 lens will take great pictures on a D70 (7 years old, $100 street value) and a D7000 (1 year old, $1000 street value), but chances are that a camera body I purchase today will be 'obsolete' in 2 years or less.

 

[corkyg]

A simple answer is that depreciation is mainly caused by wear and tear. There is very little in a lens that "wears and tears" whereas in a car, everything that "runs" is "wearing and tearing." A good lens will stay that way unless physically abused or stored in an environment suject to tropical fungus and mold.

 

[SecurityTheatre]

A lens has very little degredation with use.

My circa-1998 80-200 f/2.8 lens takes sharper images than a brand new 70-200 f/2.8 VR-II lens (provided you don't need the AF-S and VR-II). It still sells for a bit more than it did brand new almost 20 years ago. (MSRP was $780, now often sells for $900).

Neat!

 

[Throckmorton]

A lens has very little degredation with use.

My circa-1998 80-200 f/2.8 lens takes sharper images than a brand new 70-200 f/2.8 VR-II lens (provided you don't need the AF-S and VR-II). It still sells for a bit more than it did brand new almost 20 years ago. (MSRP was $780, now often sells for $900).

Neat!

Discontinued lenses appreciating makes sense. But what about lenses that you can buy brand new today? Why take a chance on a used one if you're only saving 5 or 10%? You don't know if the used one that appears to be in good condition has been dropped, or has some fungus that hasn't started growing yet, or a broken gear tooth, etc etc.