Reports / May to October 2026
Used camera prices, May to October 2026
Six months of nightly observations, in one page. Used prices drifted down about 3.5%, Sony fell hardest, Olympus was the only brand that rose, and the cheapest copy of a camera was on eBay more often than at any dealer.
Published 2026-10-24. Data through 2026-10-23.
The short version
We compared what MPB asked for the same camera, in the same condition grade, in May 2026 and again in October. 222 bodies and lenses were listed in both months. The median change was -3.5%. 57% of them got cheaper by more than 2%, 26% got more expensive, and the rest stayed within 2% of where they started.
Measured against launch price, the typical used camera in this group went from 65% of MSRP in May to 62% in October. That is a slow slide, not a crash. Anyone waiting for a broad collapse in used prices has not seen one yet.
The fall was concentrated in newer, more expensive gear. Bodies released in 2019 or later dropped a median 4.7%. Bodies from 2014 to 2018 dropped 1.9%. Gear that cost more than $2,000 in May fell 5.4%; gear under $1,000 fell about 2%. Mirrorless bodies fell 4.6%, compacts 3.5%, and DSLRs as a group did not move at all (+0.1%).
By brand
Sony lost the most. 79% of the 29 Sony items in the cohort got cheaper, and the median Sony item fell 8.1%. Leica and Fujifilm were next, each with 71% of items falling. Canon barely moved. Olympus was the only brand where more items rose than fell, which fits what we see in the Micro Four Thirds catalog generally: the system's used prices found their floor a while ago.
| Brand | Items | Median change | Fell >2% | Rose >2% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sony | 29 | -8.1% | 79% | 17% |
| Leica | 14 | -5.8% | 71% | 7% |
| Fujifilm | 42 | -4.7% | 71% | 12% |
| Nikon | 27 | -2.5% | 52% | 30% |
| Panasonic | 41 | -1.9% | 49% | 29% |
| Canon | 32 | -0.8% | 47% | 34% |
| Olympus | 31 | +0.7% | 39% | 42% |
Brands with fewer than five items in both months (Pentax, Ricoh, Sigma, Hasselblad and others) are left out of the table. Medians on five to fourteen items, as with Leica, are indicative rather than precise.
The biggest moves
The Sony RX10 IV had the largest drop of anything we track. An excellent-grade copy at MPB averaged $2,737 in May, well above its $1,699 launch price, and $1,526 in October. All three grades moved together, month by month, so this is a real repricing of the model and not one odd listing. The Leica M11 and M10 both lost about a third of their May price, with the drop landing almost entirely in September.
Fell the most
| Sony RX10 IV Excellent | $2,737 | $1,526 | -44.2% |
| Leica M10 Good | $6,469 | $4,172 | -35.5% |
| Leica M11 Excellent | $10,149 | $6,710 | -33.9% |
| Panasonic Lumix S1R Excellent | $1,827 | $1,297 | -29% |
| Canon EOS 5DS Excellent | $799 | $589 | -26.3% |
| Leica SL2-S Excellent | $2,532 | $1,929 | -23.8% |
Rose the most
| Nikon D6 Good | $2,239 | $3,279 | +46.4% |
| Pentax K-1 Excellent | $858 | $1,210 | +41% |
| Nikon D780 Mint | $1,100 | $1,419 | +29% |
| Sony Alpha 99 II Excellent | $2,171 | $2,559 | +17.9% |
| Nikon D610 Excellent | $357 | $420 | +17.6% |
| Canon EOS 5D Mark IV Excellent | $764 | $895 | +17.1% |
The risers are almost all DSLRs: the D6, the D780, the D610, the 5D Mark IV, the K-1. One caution on reading them. MPB sells individual copies, so a grade's price is whatever copy happens to be in stock. The D6 in good condition sat at $2,239 for three straight months and then jumped to $3,279 when that copy sold and the next one was listed higher. That is still information about the market (nobody undercut it), but a single-copy jump is not the same thing as a trend built from dozens of listings. The RX10 IV and the Leicas, where every grade moved the same way, are the stronger signal.
Where the cheapest copy was
On the night of 23 October we had a live price for 1,365 models, and 930 of those had listings at two or more sellers. Among the 930, eBay had the cheapest listing for 428 (46%), MPB for 373 (40%), UsedPhotoPro for 64, KEH for 47 and B&H's used department for 18. eBay's figures are asking prices on active listings, often from private sellers, so a direct comparison flatters eBay a little: a dealer price includes a warranty and a return window, and eBay asks tend to settle below list in a way a dealer's sticker does not.
The spread between sellers is large. For a model priced at two or more sellers, the gap between the cheapest and the most expensive averaged 26.5%, and 566 of the 930 (61%) had a gap of 20% or more. Checking a second seller before buying is worth more than waiting a month for the market to move.
What a condition grade costs
Across 653 models MPB listed in both "good" and "excellent" during October, excellent cost 19% more than good on average. For the 431 that were also listed in "like new", that grade cost 30% more than good. If you are comfortable with a body that shows some wear and works perfectly, the good grade is where the money is.
How we measured
The trend numbers use MPB only. It is the one seller we have observed every night since 2 May 2026; KEH and B&H coverage only became reliable in August, eBay joined on 20 August, and UsedPhotoPro on 22 September. Mixing sources into the May-to-October comparison would have measured our own crawler's growth, not the market.
For each model and each condition grade we averaged MPB's daily lowest listed price over May and over October, kept pairs with at least five observations in each month, and used the grade with the most observations when a model had several. Change is October over May. "Fell" and "rose" mean a move of more than 2% in either direction. One pair (a Nikon Z fc that matched a $89 accessory in May) was removed by hand. The cross-seller and condition-premium figures use all five sellers and the October data only. Prices are asking prices in US dollars, before shipping, as described on the methodology page.
Cite as: Should You Buy This Camera, "Used camera prices, May to October 2026", published 2026-10-24, https://shouldyoubuythiscamera.com/reports/used-camera-prices-may-october-2026