Shops starting to open in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Merchant getting ready to start his day in the Old City. Very small shops, but people work (and likely live above) their shops even though there is not a lot of room and lots of similar small shops around.
View of the stain glass inside the room of the Last Supper. Obviously a Muslim mural (the Arabic).
Plane taking off in New York on the way home.
Quick update on the website. I don’t know when, but news agreggators (RSS/Atom Feeds) started enforcing well formed XML and apparently mine wasn’t. I fixed that and added a new gallery way to view my front page. I also added links for the two different feeds since it wasn’t very obvious before. Anyways, a much needed update for the front page…
These were my travel companions when we went to DC to see Josh get married. What follows are some of my leftover shots from that trip.
Lincoln Memorial. Tons of people coming and going. I needed a neutral density filter and a long exposure, but even still many people were just sitting on the steps. But it would have looked a lot better.
Tomb of the unknown soldier.
Lincoln himself.
The Washington DC temple is more impressive than what these pictures show. Here you can see the limited dynamic range of the S90. But still a great travel companion.
This is shooting pretty much straight up. I was more impressed with the size of the temple than I thought I would be.
One thing about eBay is that you can’t pick who wins your auction. One of mine had someone with a rating of 1 win an item. So that means he has only bought one item on eBay. I was slightly concerned, but it all worked out in the end. There were two issues though: he took three days to pay (in eBay time, that is an eternity) and he was asking follow up questions about the item after he won which he should have asked before. Anyway, he left positive feedback and I did the same, but I thought I would help him figure out the eBay “culture” for future bidding. What followed was this email exchange:
Me:
According to your ranking, you are relatively new to eBay. I just want to help you out with future purchases.
I auctioned ten or so items on eBay. Every single one was paid for within hours or at least half a day of the auction ending with the exception of yourself. Not a big deal to me, but mostly everyone pays that quick.
Also after the auction ended, you asked a couple of questions that should have been asked prior to the auction closing. If any of those questions had changed your mind, you should never had bid in the first place and someone who did want the item would have won. But if I had to deal with finding a new buyer or relisting, it is very annoying.
I am going to leave you a positive review, but I wanted to pass this along as advice (pay quick and ask all questions before winning). I apologize in advance if this comes across poorly to you. I’m only trying to help you be a better eBayer
Best of luck on future auctions.
His Response (edited, he really wrote the profanities):
What a smart a@@ response. I dont really care about any of that. If you want people to pay within the day then I suggest you make note of that in your auction. Otherwise don’t b%%%% when someone makes payment after a couple days, because there is nothing wrong with that.
The lens is alright but im an a@@hole so f— you.
My Response:
I apologize for passing along unwanted advice. I didn’t think of you as you indicated, nor did I mind you taking a couple days as I originally indicated. I’m sorry you took this as an offense. I didn’t intend it as such.
His Response
Hey man, I was mostly just kidding around. I was only a little bit offended by the message and I definitely exaggerated for the hell of it. The lens is great.
If you want the two second recap, I made about $3,000 gross. My estimate to final price for everything was shockingly off by only $5 (I was of course high and low on some, but in the end the total price was very close). eBay didn’t estimate nearly as well for me, but more on that later. One thing I didn’t realize was eBay fees have gone up significantly. eBay fees were roughly 8% and then PayPal takes 3% (my eBay fees turned out to be 10% because of second chance offers, original listing fees, etc.). If I were to do it again, I would figure out the ball park price by watching a couple auctions close. Then try to sell high or at that price through craigslist. If you don’t find a buyer at a good price, then go to eBay. Like my expensive lens sold for ~$1350, but after fees and such it was more like $1200. So going to craiglist, I could have listed for $1400 and taken a lower offer for more money than what I got on eBay. But sometimes you see irrational prices on eBay. I didn’t really see that much this time around though. But I’ll review that later.
But the high level summary, everything probably cost me around $6,000 when I bought it new. Everything sold for barely over $3,000. eBay took a little more than $300 of that. PayPal took a little less than $100. So I was left with $2600. Crazy when you think in the end you lose $400 for the privilege of the eBay market. I’m not sure it justifies the cost like I was mentioning above. I don’t know why you would think normal depreciation is, but the 40-50% seems about right to me. More details on an item by item break down below.
Before I get into the numbers game though, this next chart is meant to highlight how cool Google Docs are. It is pretty handy making these plots and charting the data. I don’t see why people need excel at home. But the data behind the chart is percent of final price over time for the auction. You can see all of them had a good uptick on the last day by about 25%. As most people already know, the action all takes place in the last two days. But it is interesting how some get bid up high early and just stay there for a while. And I’ll be honest, I was a bit worried about my 70-200 sitting at $280 with two days to go. But in the end, system worked out as expected.
Watchers is a good indicator of interest and how affordable your price appears to be. Toward the end it was interesting to see people dropping off since it was too high in their opinion. I was watching fairly closely the last day and people started slowly falling off during the day. But for most every item, there were the hard core eBayers that waited for the last minute to bid up items. That happened for mostly every item. So even when you are losing watchers, some of your watchers are still interested more than likely.
So for the first eight or nine days (I always do a ten day auction), the watchers was most significant to me. Then the last day, I think the views is the most important. The purple line (total) shows the total per day while the others show the overall total for each auction over time (so day five is the total views over five days for each item, but for total is the number of views on that day). First day is significant, then it goes into a lull just to spike the last two days. I don’t think it matters which day it ends, the pattern would be the same. But the final spike would probably be even higher on a weekend.
Also I was surprised how flat the price per day increase was. I think we saw before the big initial spike. Then everything was very flat at about $100. Until the depressing day of Sunday followed by two back to back $1000 days. This was of course mostly just my lens.
Removing the 70-200, a similar flat trend was still there with only the last day showing a spike. I imagine this is more typical.
Here is my final post on how eBay’s estimate fared. I’ll provide more details and thoughts on the why below.
The 70-200 price I was a bit curious about. There is a version II that replaces this one so I wondered if eBay was distinguishing between the two. Apparently not since mine also came with two expensive filters and ended up well below the target. I owned this lens for three or four years. Bought it for $1700 (not counting $100+ worth of filters) I believe and sold it for $1350.
My Nikon D200 was a little disappointing since I did include a good number of extras like an extra battery. But this is a six year old camera body. Bodies depreciate like crazy. This I bought new for ~$1700 and it sold for under $500. An ideal cycle for a body is to sell right before a new one comes out so you get top dollar for it. A friend of mine used a Canon 7D for eighteen months and sold it only losing ~$150 (there is no 7D replacement yet or on the near horizon like end of this year).
The Tokina 12-24 was a big surprise. This one has a newer version and I had no extras other than the filter. How and why it went above eBays target was a bit surprising. Maybe the non-name brand lens market is a little less informed to know the difference I bought this for $500 and it sold for a little over $300 after three or four years.
The SB600 is no longer made by Nikon and there is a significant market for it. It sold over my initial purchase price (I paid $180 and it sold for $250. There were some extras with it, but it still would have sold for more just with the flash alone. Also as an fyi, you are not allowed to ship batteries. I had to switch to a new buyer when I couldn’t ship them and the previous high bidder wanted a ridiculous amount to compensate for not getting the rechargeable batteries.
The S90 took a hit from the target, but I imagine that was because the S100 was announced. I wasn’t really surprised by this. I had it for a year and bought it for $320 and sold for $160. Pretty significant hit. I was willing to do it because I wanted higher resolution video and a faster lens on the telephoto end. I now have the LX5 I paid $360 for (or an increase of $200) which is worth it. I hurried a bit in buying mostly because our little boy is turning two soon. So recording the memories and in high definition was worth it to me. I know not everyone would see it the same, but that was my perspective especially since I need a filler camera until I find a mirrorless body I want.
Vixia HF100 is three years old. We paid $600 I think and sold it for $200. I know little about this market (which I think is dying much like point and shoots).
The tripod eBay didn’t really have an estimate for since the legs and head are different combinations and I doubt you can find a comparable. But I bought them for $230 and they sold for $123. The craziest thing is the buyer paid for two day shipping which cost $80.
The 18-70 is maybe the craziest. I owned that lens for eight years if not longer. Ever since my lovely D70. It came as part of the kit and so I don’t really know the price. I think it was valued at $300 at the time. It sold for almost $150. But I made a lot more than eBay thought I would and there wasn’t much in addition to the lens.
The two backpacks were pretty disappointing. I thought people winning one of the above items would try to score a backpack cheap since the shipping was free for any additional items. I charged a flat fee of $20 per item for shipping (which was pretty accurate in the end). So I think for cheap stuff it prevents it from getting bid up much since that is the overall cost (even though I don’t get the money, you have to think relative to Free Super Saver Shipping and other promotions companies have). But the Micro cost $60 and it sold for $20 and the Computrekker cost $200 (at least it does now, but I thought I paid less than that) and it sold for $50. I owned the Computrekker for six or seven years and the Micro for two or three years.
In case I didn’t make this obvious, I haven’t given up on photography (just Nikon ). I’m going to buy a new camera and probably two at that (although only one at first). But here is where my head is (by the way, if you read my earlier posts you can see my mindset has changed along the way. Read it as my inner turmoil as I decide to leave Nikon and join the mirrorless crowd and figuring out the best fit).
My biggest complaint is that I seldom used my dSLR because it was too big and heavy. A lot of that has to do with having two kids and not wanting to carry them along with ten pounds of equipment. I’ve gone on some trips with friends for a weekend and used my dSLR, but those trips are getting more and more rare (again kids). And then when we are with the kids, I pretty much use the S90 for most of the shots since I can have it ready so much faster. Like my Hawaii shots, 95% of them were shot with the S90 and I was pleased with the results. It wouldn’t have been quite as relaxing taking my dSLR everywhere. Your needs are perhaps different than mine so I respect that other people see it differently. But for me, I think a permanent move to the m4/3 system is on the way. My only beef at the moment is Panasonic’s are too basic and the Olympus is using a two year old sensor. I’ve waited two years for the Nikon D400 (which still hasn’t come), so waiting another year or so for a refresh of the Olympus PEN E-P3 or Panasonic going back to the roots of the GF1 isn’t that big of a deal to me (in the mean time, my wife still has her D90 with the 18-200 which is sufficient to fill the gap should an exciting trip arise).
But in case you didn’t notice, I’m selling my S90 and our video camera. My two biggest issues is the S90 only shoots SD and is so slow on the tele end, it is like a prime indoors. The video camera is good quality, but I ended up using the S90 since it was much easier dealing with that compression instead of AVCHD. And the S90 can take pictures and was more portable.
Below are the cameras I was/am considering and my take on each. Please feel free to add your thoughts.
Olympus XZ1 ($460) – excellent lens, but it isn’t very thin compared to the S90 and the video is shot at 720 MJPEG (worse than AVCHD). The video pretty much kills it for me.
Panasonic LX5 ($350) – great lens, wider angle than the Olympus, only 720p, but at least it is AVC. Second most portable after the S90. I’m strongly considering this partially because of price, but also features are pretty solid. The sensor is 1/1.7″ CCD which I want to compare to the next two.
Canon S100 ($430) – this was just announced, but should be available soon. 1080p video, by far the thinnest (27mm vs 38mm for the LX5, 42mm for the XZ1, 57mm for the X10). CMOS sensor (slightly smaller than 1/1.7″ but still should be better because of CMOS). Biggest gripe is the same with the S90 that at the tele end it is an f/5.9.
Fuji X10 ($700 potentially) – largest sensor compared to above and it is CMOS. Should be best quality, although I will definitely check dpreview and see if it is a meaningful difference. Great lens, 1080p. Downsides are cost, weight and size. It is more than 2X as thick as the S100.
Olympus PEN E-P3 – Comparing this to the Fuji X10 is really interesting. With teh 17mm lens it is (34mm (body) + 22mm (lens) vs 57mm for the X10). Crazy right? The X10 is thicker than the m4/3. But this with the 45mm f/1.8 prime and I would be set. It would weight 25% more. This thinking had me start doing some image quality analysis. Even with the much larger CMOS sensor, the image quality wasn’t any better than the S95. What a disappointment. That sensor is pretty behind the times. I thought the camera was given a silver by dpreview because of bias toward Nikon/Canon until I compared the images myself. The big issue I have with investing in the PEN already and then waiting for the next body is that they mostly all come in kits instead of body only. And I really don’t care to sell a lens I didn’t want to buy in the first place. And waiting gives me a little more time to see what the market does.
But comparing all the above, the image quality of the PEN kills me along with the lack of portability. The X10 would need killer image quality to justify the bulk. The S100 is too slow at the wide end. And the LX5 seems to be the right balance of quality/features/price. This is my current thinking which could be different in an hour. I’ve attached my table below with the feature set as I view it. I’m not purchasing anything until all my eBay stuff is shipped and received. So please pass along your two cents in the meantime.
There are only two days left, so I thought I would share with you my interesting finds along the way. I’ve sold through eBay before, but this is my first mass sell in the sense that I have more than an item or two on the line. Being more analytical, the number side of things is really intriguing to me (hence all the charts and such). If you are more like my wife, just skip this post
I often create plots and then send emails out at work without adequate explanation. Which then takes a series of emails to make sure everyone understood the data correctly. I will try to do better here, but if you don’t understand a plot let me know and I can try to elaborate on my explanation.
As my title says, there are only two days left. So these are for the first eight days. What I am wondering about with the first three plots is the effect of the weekend. Someone mentioned having an item end on the weekend is really important for the price. I don’t know how true that is, but hopefully these first three plots dig into that a little deeper.
This first plot is the number of views per day. Obviously the first day is the big winner. Friday was pretty much a normal day (less views than a Monday or Tuesday), but Saturday and Sunday were huge. We’ll see if this is a trend for the weekend or just a trend that the auctions are getting closer to closing. Strong start, weak middle, strong finish. That makes sense to me, but maybe there are a lot more eyeballs on the weekend.
Much more important than views, is the amount of people watching the item. This can go two ways. If the item stays low, more people might watch the listing hoping to catch a deal. (I’ll have more on watchers per item later). If it goes high fast, it might not have many more people interested in watching it since it is already at a max for some bidders. Given the value eBay estimates the items will sell for, very few are even close to a max. Only one item is above what I thought it would sell for and that is my SB600 flash. I paid $180 if I remember right and it is now listed at $122. Crazy thing is eBay estimates it will sell for over $220. Nikon no longer makes them and apparently they are a hot commodity.
But back to this chart, watches is the most important metric in my opinion. As you can see, no significant trend with any days of the week or with time passing in the auction. Friday was a low point in fact (Wednesday is the other). The Tokina 12-24mm did go backwards two days as it went from $150 to $200. That item might be approaching its max (the current high bidder is a BYU fan so hopefully he wins).
This third chart is not very important, but interesting. This is the price change per day. My experience has been that it stays relatively low until the last day and then it spikes. So first day there was a good amount of bidding and I started off with about $300. Then each day has been pretty consistently about $100 more, with the exception of today (while writing this post I did get about $20 more on one item). But the weekend trend is very insignificant here. I have no idea why Sunday is so bad (I check prices around the same time everyday since it is right after we put the kids down).
So maybe ending on the weekend is good since there are more eyeballs and they want immediate action. Items not ending on the weekend seem to see more views, but it doesn’t seem to impact the final price more than any other day.
This next chart is the current standings for price. The 70-200 is WAY under priced. The funny thing is it keeps moving by a couple dollars. Like the guy that took it from $200 to $202. Don’t know if he thought that would really seal the deal for him, but he already got outbid. I don’t know when this one will shoot up, but it had better or I will be pretty sad. These are ordered in terms of my estimate from high to low. I could be off on the S90 since the S100 was just announced and it is not as valuable now. That is the only one that still has a reserve which might mean I keep it, which is fine.
Last chart here is for the number of watchers. It gives me a good indication of which items are undervalued. So like I was saying with the 70-200 being undervalued, there are a ton of people watching it. And while it sounds crazy that my SB600 will sell for more than I paid, you can see there is a lot of interest in buying the flash. The Tokina 12-24mm probably won’t show much of a last day spike. And lastly, hardly anyone wants my Microtrekker. I’m not surprised since I’m charging $20 shipping. Someone local that skips out on shipping or I have an offer for free shipping if you buy multiple items (well only pay one shipping) which would possibly get this sold for much more than where it is.
But overall it is interesting (and scary for the 70-200) to watch capitalism work. Please pass along any of your thoughts/insights on the above.
I enjoy making charts of things and seeing how the data moves. Ebay is great in that you can see how the sale really evolves. My experience in the past is that it prices gradually creep up and then the last day they really jump. Some items are surprising me though in how fast they’ve jumped. The tripod is already over $50, which isn’t shocking, but more than I expected for the first day. The D200 jumping to $150 is more than I expected for the first day also. The last one of the same nature is the SB 600 at $51. And in that light, it is surprising the 70-200 is only at $28. But it also has the most views and the second most watchers.
The only two disappointments that have me slightly concerned is my bags have zero bids. They have some watchers, but definitely the least interest overall.
It is official, I’m all in that the future of the digital SLR is not what I have currently. It might be mirrorless, maybe my next jump is full frame (although portability is still a dominant factor for me). But I’ve put all my stuff on eBay. Sad to think Nikon and I have come this far and now we are parting ways…
Feel free to take a guess in the comments on what you think my yardsale 2.0 will go for. Even if you have no idea, it is always fun to see how accurate/inaccurate people are.
Another group of photos that didn’t quite make it.
View of Waimea Canyon
The great thing about going to Hawaii is that you are used to going to bed early relative to Hawaii time and waking up at six am is really easy. So we caught the sunrise our first morning at Diamond Head and were fortunate to catch this rainbow. It really was this intense. I did nothing special post processing wise for this rainbow.
I really liked the groves of these trees. Getting a good photo of them was pretty challenging as this was the best I could come up with.
The Napali coast is an amazing place to visit. Photographs really don’t capture what it is like to visit these locations. We hiked to the little beach you see in the photo and then headed inland to swim at the base of a large waterfall.
Snorkeling with the turtles was a very fun experience. You can see this guy below. I was following him to get a good picture and then he dived beneath.
