When was the last time you spring cleaned your camera shelf?

We’re all guilty of it. We have heaving shelves full of camera gear – unused bodies, unloved lenses, probably a few filters and some long-outgrown camera bags – and we convince ourselves that we’re proud of it. That it’s our “collection”. We probably even arrange it into a neat little display every so often. But do we actually take pictures with it?

“Spring cleaning” is usually a phrase I abhor and a practice I avoid. I used to bemoan my wife’s desire to “have a good blitz and get rid of the stuff we don’t use any more,” safe in the knowledge that my camera shelf needed no such thing.

And then the strangest thing happened: my camera shelf got too full. Actually, it was a camera cupboard (which was part of the problem, as the space masked just how much kit I had accumulated). And when I stopped and looked at the last time I used most of it, I realized that it really did need a blitz (shudder).

Spring clean your kit

In all, I blitzed almost £3,000 of unused (or, at least, underused) camera equipment with MPB. Yes, I genuinely was proud of some of the kit I’d accumulated – the first mirrorless camera I ever bought, the lens I took such-and-such a picture with, the multi-piece modular handgrip that I never actually used but absolutely loved because it made my camera feel like a James Bond gadget.

But it was just sitting there gathering dust. It would have been one thing if I used it all regularly, but some of it hadn’t been touched in years – and I owed it to my kit to let it have a new lease of life, to let somebody else take such-and-such a picture that makes them proud too. So I scribbled everything down on my phone, then tapped it into MPB.com with its condition and got an instant quote.

When you stop looking at your camera shelf as an abstract collection of technology and think about the fact that there’s three grand sitting on it, suddenly a spring clean seems like a great idea. I wanted to turn two grand into cash, to put towards other life expenses (we have a little girl on the way, so there’s plenty that needs buying), and I turned the remaining grand into another couple of camera bits I’d long had my eye on, but never had the funds for.

Packed up, picked up, paid in

I boxed everything up and MPB.com booked a courier to collect it all, absolutely free. A few days later I got an email after all the kit had been inspected by its trained evaluation experts. My condition grading was mostly spot on, but I was a bit conservative with some of it – they actually offered me more money for a couple of pieces, as the condition was better than I’d listed.

This is one of the reasons I love selling and shopping with this retailer. I’ve bought enough stuff on eBay to know that “mint condition” means very different things to different people – and that Facebook sellers will probably hope you don’t notice the things that don’t work, rather than tell you about them up front. But MPB.com thoroughly tests everything, so you know exactly what condition it’s in (and there’s a warranty if you do happen to have any issues).

I confirmed that I was happy with my quote and the cash appeared in my bank account super-fast, with the camera gear I’d traded for arriving just a couple of days later – exactly as picture, couriered to me in eco-friendly packaging rather than festooned in tape and bubble wrap. My bank account was happy, my old gear would soon be making new owners happy, and the planet was happy that I was reducing electronic waste.

Time for your own “blitz”?

You may have your own reasons for needing to do a spring clean. Upgrading is an obvious one; buying the latest camera is an expensive business, but you’ve got plenty of equity in the kit sitting on your shelf if you want to sell some of it – or even trade it in.

MPB has a mammoth range of equipment from all the big brands, so whether you want to turn your old DSLR into a mirrorless camera, move on those macro lenses you never use and get your hands on the wildlife glass you always wanted, or finally pick up those lights you’ve been meaning to take on a portrait shoot, you can do it all in the same easy transaction.

Heck, maybe you’ve got your own life expenses on the way and just want to free up some pennies without wading through the minefield of online marketplaces. Whatever your reason, do yourself a favor: go and take a look at the stuff on your camera shelf with an honest eye. Work out the last time you used it, then pop it into MPB.com’s quote generator to see what it’s worth. You might be amazed at just how much cash or potential trade-in value has been sitting there all this time!