Best place to sell GM5 that needs sensor replacement?

Hi guys,

after gathering advice how to fix my GM5 on here, it looks like it might more sense to upgrade to a Gx85 rather than to pay the 400 AUD to replace the dusted sensor. (In short, you will see speckles on pictures if you go over f8, all else works fine, it's basically something like this: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4074541)

The question is: where is the best place to sell a camera that is not in fully usable state? I'm assuming there's some sort of market for enthusiasts who might simply repair it themselves and hence would be interested? I'm worried that if I just dump it on ebay it will go for 10$.

Any advice on how to make the most of this situation?

Thanks in advance,

F

Kuei said:

Hi guys,

after gathering advice how to fix my GM5 on here, it looks like it might more sense to upgrade to a Gx85 rather than to pay the 400 AUD to replace the dusted sensor. (In short, you will see speckles on pictures if you go over f8, all else works fine, it's basically something like this: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4074541)

The question is: where is the best place to sell a camera that is not in fully usable state? I'm assuming there's some sort of market for enthusiasts who might simply repair it themselves and hence would be interested? I'm worried that if I just dump it on ebay it will go for 10$.

Any advice on how to make the most of this situation?

Thanks in advance,

Click to expand...

You can set a starting bid of your choice on e-bay.

Considered Craigslist?

By the way, your link does not work.

Kuei said:

Hi guys,

after gathering advice how to fix my GM5 on here, it looks like it might more sense to upgrade to a Gx85 rather than to pay the 400 AUD to replace the dusted sensor. (In short, you will see speckles on pictures if you go over f8, all else works fine, it's basically something like this: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4074541)

The question is: where is the best place to sell a camera that is not in fully usable state? I'm assuming there's some sort of market for enthusiasts who might simply repair it themselves and hence would be interested? I'm worried that if I just dump it on ebay it will go for 10$.

Any advice on how to make the most of this situation?

Thanks in advance,

F

Click to expand...

The correct link is: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4074541
The thread is about another GM5 user who cleaned the sensor and found one stubborn spot in the lower left corner of the photo. There are before/after samples of a plain gray wall. I can't see the spot unless I view the photo @100%. Such a spot would never be noticed in a regular photo. If this camera showed up on the used market it would probably sell for a big discount but substantially more than $10.

How bad is your sensor? It's unclear to me if any kind of cleaning was ever attempted by anyone. Got any f/16-22 plain gray wall (or clear blue sky) samples to show us?

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Lance H

Hi thanks for the reply. I've left it with three different camera repair places in Melbourne, all the same answer: a clean won't help. Has it been physically attempted? I don't think so, but I have no reason to distrust them.

Here's grey wall pictures at different apertures.


f16


f5.6


f7


f10

As you can see, the speckles "disappear" for smaller f numbers...but not entirely and I've had to edit them out in Lightroom even at smaller than 5.6

Kuei said:

Hi thanks for the reply. I've left it with three different camera repair places in Melbourne, all the same answer: a clean won't help. Has it been physically attempted? I don't think so, but I have no reason to distrust them.

Here's grey wall pictures at different apertures.

Click to expand...

Kuei said:

As you can see, the speckles "disappear" for smaller f numbers...but not entirely and I've had to edit them out in Lightroom even at smaller than 5.6

Click to expand...

Disclaimer: I have more and better experience with film and analog than I do with digital; but, the physics of light don't change between the two in this respect: It seems to me that a speck/spot that seems to be less visible and have softer edges at larger apertures would be somewhere in front of the sensor, namely in or on the lens.

If it were on the sensor, it seems it would not change regardless of aperture; but, I will defer this discussion to those more experienced with digital than I.

I'm interested to know, myself.

Alex Ethridge said:

Kuei said:

Hi thanks for the reply. I've left it with three different camera repair places in Melbourne, all the same answer: a clean won't help. Has it been physically attempted? I don't think so, but I have no reason to distrust them.

Here's grey wall pictures at different apertures.

As you can see, the speckles "disappear" for smaller f numbers...but not entirely and I've had to edit them out in Lightroom even at smaller than 5.6

Click to expand...

Disclaimer: I have more and better experience with film and analog than I do with digital; but, the physics of light don't change between the two in this respect: It seems to me that a speck/spot that seems to be less visible and have softer edges at larger apertures would be somewhere in front of the sensor, namely in or on the lens.

If it were on the sensor, it seems it would not change regardless of aperture; but, I will defer this discussion to those more experienced with digital than I.

I'm interested to know, myself.

Click to expand...

Those are definitely sensor spots - very common 10-15 years ago before automatic sensor cleaning came out.

The OP started a separate discussion about the spots and it appears that they are between the layers of the filter stack stuck to the front of the sensor which is why it costs so much to fix.

Chris R-UK said:

Alex Ethridge said:

Kuei said:

Hi thanks for the reply. I've left it with three different camera repair places in Melbourne, all the same answer: a clean won't help. Has it been physically attempted? I don't think so, but I have no reason to distrust them.

Here's grey wall pictures at different apertures.

As you can see, the speckles "disappear" for smaller f numbers...but not entirely and I've had to edit them out in Lightroom even at smaller than 5.6

Click to expand...

Disclaimer: I have more and better experience with film and analog than I do with digital; but, the physics of light don't change between the two in this respect: It seems to me that a speck/spot that seems to be less visible and have softer edges at larger apertures would be somewhere in front of the sensor, namely in or on the lens.

If it were on the sensor, it seems it would not change regardless of aperture; but, I will defer this discussion to those more experienced with digital than I.

I'm interested to know, myself.

Click to expand...

Those are definitely sensor spots - very common 10-15 years ago before automatic sensor cleaning came out.

The OP started a separate discussion about the spots and it appears that they are between the layers of the filter stack stuck to the front of the sensor which is why it costs so much to fix.

Click to expand...

Thanks for adding a little more to my limited knowledge of digital.

Kuei said:

Hi thanks for the reply. I've left it with three different camera repair places in Melbourne, all the same answer: a clean won't help. Has it been physically attempted? I don't think so, but I have no reason to distrust them.

Here's grey wall pictures at different apertures.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the photos!

For Kuei, your sensor is extremely bad. If it's true that the dust is between the layers of various filters above the sensor then this is beyond comprehension and it's safe to say most experienced photogs have never seen anything this bad. I had a delaminated sensor once long ago (exchanged for another), Kuei has an example of one piece of dust in between layers, IIRC I've seen one other case that had a single dust particle.

Kuei, you could make a lot of bar bets and become filthy rich with this unclean-able sensor. I looks exactly like regular sensor dust.

But I'm a stubborn guy and still suggest you try a blower at least once. Your going to need a blower anyway for your next ILC and all the ILCs in your future - it's a cheap, basic necessity.

If you decide to sell it, be truthful about its condition. Include a normal photo and a test photo.

For Alex, I have some test photos below so you can see was some regular sensor dust looks like. Test photos like this at taken of any plain surface (I prefer clear blue sky) at the tiniest aperture opening you have. You can add about +1EC to brighten things up. Your favorite image editing software can be used to increase dust visibility. I use Levels or Curves tools in Photoshop. With manipulation like this, dust spots that are not very apparent in normal photographs are revealed. It's up to the user to decide how upset they want to get over it - I just clean it when I see it.

Here's Kuei's unclean-able sensor photo with some Photoshop applied.


Sensor spots emphasized by PS. m4/3, f/16

Just for comparison, my daughter's old APS-C DSLR sensor looked like this and was nicely cleaned with a blower and Sensorklear (a very special brush/pen). The spots are well-defined so i knew they're on the sensor. Sensor-shake cleaning was ineffective, probably since they've been stuck to the sensor for awhile. I'll give her a reminder about cleaning:


Sensor spots emphasized by PS, APS-C, f/22

My Sony SLT APS-C camera's sensor was mostly clean but I probably had a couple spots on the back of the mirror (big fuzzy blobs) and definitely a fiber on the sensor (well-defined). This cleaned up using blower on mirror, blower+Sensorklear on sensor.

An SLT camera is kinda between a DSLR & Mirrorless camera, An SLT mirror is stationary:


Sensor spots emphasized by PS, APS-C, f/22

Lenrentals blog has a great article on sensor cleaning. They clean "hundreds" of sensors (and lenses) everyday so they know what they're doing and use all kinds of cleaning tools. I somehow manage just fine with just a blower and a fancy brush. Sometimes I will also use a cheap dime-store magnifying glass and flashlight.

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Lance H

Hi Lance, thanks for taking your time to answer this in so much depth. I'm really impressed by the helpfulness of the people in this forum!

I guess I will have a go at cleaning it then...looks like I'll need a cleaning kit anyway.

lehill said:

Kuei, you could make a lot of bar bets and become filthy rich with this unclean-able sensor. I looks exactly like regular sensor dust.

But I'm a stubborn guy and still suggest you try a blower at least once. Your going to need a blower anyway for your next ILC and all the ILCs in your future - it's a cheap, basic necessity.

Click to expand...

Cleaned the sensor...made no difference what so ever. Looks like the camera shops were right after all. I'll just hope some crafty Australian with repair skills will buy it. Worth a try though.

Kuei said:

Kuei said:

Kuei, you could make a lot of bar bets and become filthy rich with this unclean-able sensor. I looks exactly like regular sensor dust.

But I'm a stubborn guy and still suggest you try a blower at least once. Your going to need a blower anyway for your next ILC and all the ILCs in your future - it's a cheap, basic necessity.

Click to expand...

Cleaned the sensor...made no difference what so ever. Looks like the camera shops were right after all. I'll just hope some crafty Australian with repair skills will buy it. Worth a try though.

Click to expand...

I appreciate you tolerating my stubbornness.

There's two ways to sell this camera:

• Here's a camera that's broken. Buy it as $10 junk and risk spending $400 on a repair.
• Here's a camera with a defect that otherwise works perfectly. Good for beginner or rough field work, get more camera than you can otherwise afford. (Show test photo sample & regular photo samples). Price accordingly.

I'd probably hit all the specialty Lumix websites & forums. Certainly, the Lumix forums here on DPR.

--
Lance H

Kuei said:

I'm worried that if I just dump it on ebay it will go for 10$.

Click to expand...

Sounds like a fair price considering the $400 repair quote, but don't worry, you will still get $87.28 for it on eBay.

If that is dust behind the sensor filter then basically the camera is junk. Someone might buy it for the accessories - battery, charger etc.

lehill said:

There's two ways to sell this camera:

• Here's a camera that's broken. Buy it as $10 junk and risk spending $400 on a repair.
• Here's a camera with a defect that otherwise works perfectly. Good for beginner or rough field work, get more camera than you can otherwise afford. (Show test photo sample & regular photo samples). Price accordingly.

I'd probably hit all the specialty Lumix websites & forums. Certainly, the Lumix forums here on DPR.

Click to expand...

I've gone for option 2. After all, it's not broken as in non-functional, and if I was one of the people with cash for multiple cameras, I would well keep it around as a secondary to a big SLR, for which it certainly does its job.