12 Things You Can Do With Your Old Cameras and Lenses

If you have old cameras and lenses on your hands and aren’t sure what to do with them, don’t worry. You have plenty of options.

These range from donating them to schools and charities, giving them away to individuals, getting them recycled, or simply selling them on if they’re worth too much to do any of the above.

We’ll get into the hows and whys of all those in this guide, but let’s start with that last one. The one that can get you some cash back into your own pocket.

Sell your old cameras and lenses

It might be the case that your old cameras and lenses aren’t actually that old in real terms. They’re just old to you as you’re wanting to upgrade.

If this is the case, you’ll probably be looking to get some of that value back to help fund your next purchases. If so, there are plenty of places where you can do so.

To decide which is best for you, you could weigh up the factors involved with selling privately or to an established business, and whether to do it online or in person.

Sell your old cameras and lenses to online businesses

Selling your old cameras and lenses to a registered business online gives you more security than when dealing with peer-to-peer platforms.

A lot of them give you the convenience of an instant quote too, and free shipping should you take them up on it.

These places can be divided into two groups: actual camera shops who buy to resell in their ‘Used’ section, and websites who will accept any and all electronic gadgets.

Examples of the former include:

• Used Photo Pro
• KEH Camera
• B&H Photo
• Adorama

Examples of the latter include:

• Cash Your Tronics
• BuyBack World

Try them all, see who gives you the best offer, and take advantage of that free shipping and instant, painless payment.

Sell your old cameras and lenses globally on eBay

If you’d prefer to set your own price when selling your old camera gear, peer-to-peer selling is the way to go. In doing so though, you may lose some of the convenience and security the companies above offer.

Still, if you want to go for it, eBay is arguably the best way to get your stuff in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

People can find your listings wherever they are in the world and you can set your shipping rates to cover any destination you might need to ship to.

As a platform that handles the payment, eBay also offers you some protection should anything go awry during the transaction or afterwards.

Sell your old cameras and lenses in local marketplaces

While listing your old cameras and lenses on eBay will help you reach as many potential buyers as possible, you may prefer to handle any transactions in person.

To facilitate this, you could list your items on Craigslist, in second-hand groups on Facebook, or the dedicated Facebook Marketplace.

And to genuinely reach as many people as possible, you could also look to post in any print publications that may still be running in your area.

Some people still don’t like buying things from strangers on the internet, and having your gear available for people to come and see in person before buying may help you sell it quicker and with less risk.

Sell your old cameras and lenses to high street businesses

A final option for selling your old cameras and lenses is in a high street second-hand, thrift or pawn shop, or at a flea market.

Bear in mind that these places are buying your gear to sell it on again and whoever you negotiate a price with will be a professional. You might not be, so be careful you get a fair price for what you’re selling.

If you do decide to go this route, check the value on eBay or KEH first, go in with a minimum acceptable price, and don’t agree to anything less than that.

Donate your old cameras and lenses

If you’re looking to be more altruistic when getting rid of your old camera gear, donating may be more preferable than selling.

There will always be organisations who would love to receive your stuff for free and ensure they are put to good use.

Exactly who you want to donate your old cameras and lenses to is up to you, but here are a few ideas to get you started.

Donate your old cameras and lenses to a school

The easiest way to ensure your old gear continues to benefit individuals and the practice itself is to donate it to a school, college, university, or an art school that runs photography classes.

Some of these may still even be running film photography and development courses.

Budgets are tight and they may not have enough equipment to go around, and some students and their families may not be able to afford gear either.

By donating to an educational facility there’s a good chance you’re helping a youngster on the path to bettering themselves.

Donate your old cameras and lenses to a charity shop

High street charity shops are always looking for new stock that will sell quickly.

Few people want clothes that went out of fashion a couple of years ago, books that everyone has read, or CDs from flash-in-the-pan pop stars, so they take up valuable space in charity shops everywhere.

However, those who collect old photography gear will often horde as much as they can, no matter how outdated you think it is, meaning some quick turnover for the shop you donate to.

Whichever charity has a shop on your high street deserves your help, and your old cameras and lenses could bring them some much-needed revenue.

Donate your old cameras and lenses to a photography charity

While high street charity shops will use the income from selling your gear to fund whatever work it is they do, donating your old cameras and lenses to a photography charity will likely mean it being used by people being helped by the charity.

There are plenty of organisations who operate in different ways.

All are as equally deserving of your old cameras and lenses so do some research and decide which you most want to donate to based on your own feelings towards them.

In no particular order, suggestions include:

• PhotoVoice
• Film Photography Project
• Josephine Herrick Project
• Disabled Photographers’ Society
• NYC Salt

Give away your old cameras and lenses

Although we talked earlier about donating your old cameras and lenses to schools and charities, giving them away to individuals is slightly different.

If you don’t need the money you’d get for selling your gear, giving them away can mean getting other things that may well be worth more to you, depending on your values.

Give your old cameras and lenses to youngsters

Interviews with photographers always include the question how did you get into photography?

To me, the most common answer has always seemed to be I was given an old camera by my [insert family member here] and…

So could you become that family member now by giving away your gear to your child, grandchild, or nephew or niece? If there’s nobody in your family that fits the bill, how about a neighbour with children? Or someone at work?

The younger generations love taking pictures. They do it on their phones all the time.

There will be someone, somewhere in your network, with children who would love to learn how to use your old cameras and lenses. Set them on the path.

Give your old cameras and lenses to your blog readers

This one is a little bit niche as not every photographer has a blog. If you do though, you’d probably like a quick and easy way to increase your traffic.

Running a giveaway, where a lucky reader will win your old camera or lens, can do this. Simply include sharing the giveaway or your blog on social media as a condition of entry to the competition, which you can set up on Rafflecopter.

If your prize is worth winning, it could well snowball and get your blog discovered by people who have never seen it before.

Whether this is worth it to you depends on the value of your gear and how well monetised your blog is.

If the numbers add up though, you could get more long term value from giving away your gear than you would from selling it.

Keep your old cameras and lenses

Everything on this list so far has talked about getting rid of your old cameras and lenses, and you may well be reading it specifically for ways to do that.

However, the title of the piece is concerned with what you can do with them, and that can also include keeping hold of them.

If you’ve just got some new gear though, why would you want to keep the old?

Keep your old cameras and lenses as backups

If you’ve bought new gear to replace perfectly good older cameras and lenses, I’m going to guess it’s worth a decent amount of money – purely because when people replace working equipment, it’s going to be an upgrade.

So how would you feel if you dropped your new camera or lens off the side of a boat, or if it got full of dust in a Saharan sandstorm, or if it was irreversibly damaged by freezing temperatures on a polar trip?

Wouldn’t you rather take your older yet perfectly serviceable gear instead?

If there’s any chance you might go somewhere your new gear may not survive, it might be wise to keep your older gear as a backup you don’t mind sacrificing.

Start shooting again with vintage cameras and lenses

As mentioned at the top of this piece, some cameras are pretty much obsolete now.

The early generation digital ones, with their 2-megapixel resolutions, certainly fall into that category. However, it’s the cameras that these were designed to replace that could still be worth keeping.

Film cameras are enjoying a huge resurgence, with a big, active community of shooters posting their work online.

If you gave up film to shoot digital but still have your vintage cameras and lenses, it’s not hard to find film for sale. So instead of getting rid of your gear, you could buy some rolls and rediscover the joy of shooting analogue.

You never know when something like this challenge might crop up in the film photography world.

Alternatively, you could pick up an adapter and simply shoot with your old lenses on your current digital camera.

Recycle your old cameras and lenses

With all the opportunities laid out above for you to get your old cameras and lenses back into the hands of someone who will use them, I believe recycling should be your last option.

You may think throwing them away would be the last option, but I disagree. Throwing them away is not an option.

Do not throw them away. Do not read this whole article and then just throw them away.

Old digital cameras need to be recycled as a last option thanks to a few of the materials used to make them.

Some, like copper, platinum and aluminium, are valuable and can be used again. Others, especially those found in the batteries, can be harmful and need to be properly processed.

Fortunately, finding a place who can recycle your old cameras, lenses and batteries isn’t difficult.

Suggestions include:

• E-cycling
• Call 2 Recycle
• Recycling for Charities
• Canon
• Samsung

The bottom line on what to do with your old cameras and lenses

In my opinion, the most important thing to do with old cameras and lenses you no longer want is to get them into the hands of someone who will use them.

That may come from donating them to a charity or giving them to an individual you know. It may even come from re-evaluating your own views on your old gear and beginning to use them again yourself.

It may also come from selling them, either privately or to a place like Used Photo Pro or KEH Camera, that will get them into the hands of someone new while putting some cash back into your own pocket too.

Choose which avenue works best for you and your circumstances and go down it. The chances of them all being closed must be very small, but if they really are, recycling is still preferable to throwing away.

In most cases, there’ll be someone who does want your old cameras and lenses and will put them to good use.

Do that person, yourself, your gear, and photography in general a favour and let them do exactly that.

If that post has inspired you to start using your old camera gear again, check out these further guides on how to do that today:

1. How to use vintage lenses on your digital camera
2. How to shoot street photography with vintage lenses
3. A guide to buying a mirrorless camera for vintage lenses

And if you think others will find this post on what you can do with your old camera gear useful too, why not help them find it by giving it a share? 🙂