Question about buying used 20D

[Jas123]

I found a camera that I am close to purchasing. This is going to be my first dslr. According to the owner, it has about 29,320 actuations on it.

He is asking for $200. it's for the body only.

Should I buy it?

If/when I see the camera, is there anything that I should look out for?

 

[jampat]

I found a camera that I am close to purchasing. This is going to be my first dslr. According to the owner, it has about 29,320 actuations on it.

He is asking for $200. it's for the body only.

Should I buy it?

If/when I see the camera, is there anything that I should look out for?

Where are you? The price and number of actuations don't seem terrible for canada (should be closer to $150 here). For $200, a body here would have <5000 actuations. It is interesting that he told you it has almost 30K actuations, the counter resets every 10K so you can't tell if it has 9000 pictures or 79000, most of the ones I have seen say they have less than 10K actuations.

My 20D has many more actuations than that one and is still going strong.. The shutters can fail, but that could happen with any camera.

Personally, if your budget allows it, imo, the 40D for <$500 is a better value (much much better screen, better low light performance), but if your budget doesn't allow that, the 20D is a great body. Make sure that the majority of your budget goes to glass, that is where the magic happens.

Good luck.