Cheapest 35mm film cameras on eBay, live right now.

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How to buy a used film camera

Light seals and shutters are the weak points. The foam light seals in old film cameras perish over decades and let light leak onto your film, but they are cheap and easy to replace, so do not let perished seals put you off a good body. The shutter matters more: ask the seller to confirm it fires at all speeds and that slow speeds are not sticking, as a shutter repair can cost more than the camera.

Meters, batteries and fungus. Many older cameras need a battery for the light meter, and some use long-discontinued mercury cells, so check what it takes and whether the meter reads accurately. On any lens, hold it to the light and look for fungus (web-like threads), haze or oil on the aperture blades, all of which degrade images and are costly to clean.

Mechanical versus electronic. A fully mechanical camera will work without a battery and is easy to service for decades, which is why classic manual SLRs remain popular. Electronic bodies offer more automation but a failed circuit board usually cannot be fixed. Decide which you want before buying, and confirm the film advance and rewind work smoothly.

Value. Well-kept mechanical SLRs and their standard lenses hold value and can be serviced indefinitely, making a clean used one a lasting buy.

Common questions

Cheapest by model, at a glance

A daily snapshot of the lowest genuine eBay price for every model we track, and how good that price is right now versus its usual level, updated automatically. Prices last refreshed 12 October 2026. Tap a price to see that model's cheapest listings on eBay, or tap a model name for the full live list here.

These are second hand prices, listed by sellers as used or pre-owned, taken from live eBay US listings in US dollars. In collectible categories a sealed or unworn item is sometimes the cheapest genuine listing, and it is included. The same number works both ways: it is what a buyer pays today and the resale value a seller can realistically ask. Every model also carries a price history, the daily record kept since tracking began, which is the part to read before you buy or resell. On a day when a model has no listing that passes these filters, its row keeps the last price we recorded rather than inventing one, and drops off this table if that goes on for more than a few days.

Under each model is the actual listing that price came from, so you can see whether it is the thing you want or a bundle, a variant, or an accessory that happens to share the name.

Over the period we have tracked, this category is up 0.5%, while the used market as a whole is down 0.3%. See the Used Price Index, which is built from these prices and published as a free CSV.

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