[toby]

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Recently bought a Motormarine II with strobe and lenses for £350 second hand - I settled on the motormarine as it was pretty much a manual camera and uses real film as opposed to digital  - I am one of the masochistic individuals that actually likes to play with settings and pay through the nose to get just one or two really good shots from a roll of film.

however have just come across a camera shop that has 2 Nikonos V cameras both for just a little over £500 both complete with strobe and basic 35mm lens (one of them is the rare green one) - a wide andle and macro kit is available for an extra £200 ish
Considering that I am quite serious about photography (even though I am very much a novice at the moment) and considering that despite the fact that the nikonos has been discontinued, lenses and spares are still widely available and will probably remain so for a while - should I snap up this deal right now and get a camera that is likely to be all I need for many years to  come - or should I wait?

 

[Bunny]

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Wait for what? That they'll get cheaper? Well they might.. with lots of people going over to digital, more of the old 35mm will be coming on the market, but I think this is truer for the MMII than the Nik V.

The only thing that would stop me from going for it in your shoes, is if you have an SLR that you may wish to buy a housing for in the future instead of going for an actual UW camera. But at 800-1000+ quid for a good SLR housing... it's a tough call...

 

[toby]

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800-1000 for a housing? - and the rest bunny!!!!!

when you add up all the extra bits you seems to need for a housed system  - interchangeable dome ports and flat ports, twin strobes (no point going for a housed slr without twinned strobes), stobe arms it comes to loads more than that - unless you know something that I dont

did some sums the other day and the best I could get it to with a cheap Ikelite housing was just a shade over £2000 including a Nikon F65 (relatively cheap slr)

 

[toby]

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In terms of waiting, I meant should I wait until I am a more competent photographer?

 

[Bunny]

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I DID put a + behind the 1000...  

 I guess it should've been ++++

( I was assuming here you already HAVE an slr)

I'd do it if I were you.. in fact.. have been sitting here wondering if I should have the second one (since you say there are two) ... but I think I might go digi for uw next, since I had my MMII stolen last month on holiday... am still waiting to hear how much the  insurance company will cough up...

As for becoming a more competent photographer... might aswell work with the proper tools from the start, I reckon

 

[toby]

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so you did - hope you don't think I was flaming you

bad luck on getting your camera nicked - good luck with getting the insurance company to pay out

 

[Bunny]

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I didn't... and thanks, I'll need it.