urban ku # 198 ~ Ali Baba and the 40 thieves

Honk if you love Makers • click to embiggenIf I were ever to return to the land of un-square, I've found the perfect lens for making ku pictures without the attendant PS work I currently employ to obtain my vignetted look.

To be accurate, the glass in question is not a full-fledged lens, rather it is one of those hunks of glass that you screw onto the front of "real" lens in order to effect a change of focal length - in this case, expanded wide angle coverage. In the past, converter lens were of very questionable optical quality. More recently, some manufacturers offer some pretty decent wa/tele converters for their P&S cameras but, I am delighted to report that if you look for bargained-priced converter lens for use on a dslr, there a decent selection of glass that can turn any high-priced, high-quality lens into a piece of optical crap.

That said, it is not about the joys and delights of destroying the fine optical quality of a high quality lens that I wish to ruminate upon herein. Rather, it is the manner in which I "discovered" the aforementioned converter that I find to be much more interesting.

This entry was instigated by the recent disclosure of the bankruptcy protection filing by Ritz Camera - the largest dedicated camera retailer in the US, a chain of 800+ stores (operating under a number of names). Those stores have not exactly been a favorite of "serious" amateur photographers and certainly not so for pros, so the announcement does not exactly come as an earth shattering blow to many.

Although, Nikon Inc. (the US subsidiary) may not be quite so taciturn - Ritz has reputedly left them holding the bag for $27M - an amount that represent somewhere in the region of 20% of Nikon Inc's expected annual operating income.

Ritz had a business model based on a zillion locations dedicated to delivering 1-hour processed film with prints to the seriously amateur/casual/average-Joe P&S shooter - a market which has all but disappeared with the advent of digital picture making. Sure, they sold cameras including a fair number of entry level dslrs kits but their bread and butter was the high-volume, high-profit 1-hour minilab thing.

Since moving to the Adirondacks I have developed a kind of old-timey camera store relationship with our semi-local Ritz Camera store. That relationship was kindled by default - it's Ritz or nothing in these here parts. My main interest with them was in purchasing large format (24×24 inch) epson prints that were my "proof" prints. I would never use them for final high quality prints but suffice it to say that more than a few of them are hanging on my walls.

I found the staff at this particular Ritz to be friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable in a manner that was reminiscent of my old-timey experiences with "real" independently owned camera stores. Stores that catered to the entire spectrum of picture makers simply because they were virtually the only place one could purchase a camera (with the exception of the Kodak counters found in a zillion drugstores).

Those were camera stores where the person behind the counter was undoubtedly a serious picture maker who was very knowledgeable about just about everything in the store. In many cases they were people who actually made a career out of standing behind a camera store counter. After a few visits to the store they knew who you were and what your needs and interests were.

If you regularly used a film that they didn't stock, they would start to stock it for you. For pros like myself, if you were interested in a piece of equipment but wanted to test it out, no problem - take it for a spin for a day or two. If you purchased equipment and it broke, a replacement or a loaner was always available. And, amazing at it might seem, they delivered whatever you needed right to your door (no charge).

Unfortunately, most of those smallish independently operated camera stores are a thing of the past. With the advent of digital, camera manufacturers - who had previously depended upon these stores for their very existence - essentially abandoned these stores in favor of the big box discount electronic stores. Add to that insult the emergence of online sales and the result was a rather sudden and dramatic end of the line for small local independent camera stores.

More's the pity. One of the things I really miss, even though I am not a gearhead, is the ability to walk into a store and check out the stuff. Like the opportunity to hold a lens in your hand, put it on your camera, and take a look through the viewfinder. Like the opportunity to hold a camera in your hands and get a feel for it before you have plunked down your bucks and it arrives via FedEx. And, god forbid, actually get informed information about whatever it is you are interested in.

OK, enough of that silly old-timey stuff and onto the converter.

I discovered the converter after I was basically abducted from a NYC sidewalk in front of one of those quintessential small NYC "discount" camera/electronics stores. If you've ever been to NYC you know the ones I am talking about - they are invariably small and stuffed with stuff, have a display window(s) crammed with cameras / binoculars / telescopes / small electronic devices, and are owned and operated by someone who is of middle-eastern descent - a fact that creates an experience that I imagine is much like that of a true middle eastern bazaar.

If you aren't prepared to barter and bargain - (the more you can engage in theatrics or even histrionics the better), you'll get skinned alive. Hell, even if you do, you still might get skinned alive. FYI, I don't mention this as a "negative" per se - it's just the culture of such places.

In any event, there I was just looking in the window - I think I had a Panasonic DMC LX3k on my mind - when, in typical fashion, a "representative" of the store came out to greet me and, eyeing the Olympus E-3, started in telling about the new wide angle lens he had for my camera. And, again in typical fashion, he grabbed my camera and headed into the store where he set in on the counter and proceeded to affix the converter to my 11-22mm lens.

Finishing that, he again grabbed the camera and headed out of the store to the sidewalk where he actually handed me my camera back and said to point it up and take a picture. He then removed the converter and said to repeat the picture making process with just the 11-22mm lens after which he again grabbed he camera and showed me the results on the LCD as he headed back into the store.

At this point I informed him that I wasn't really interested in the converter and that what I was looking for in the window display was the aforementioned LX3k. No problem. He produced one almost immediately but, alas, he only had the silver body not the black body (k) in stock. No problem. He could get one and fast. "How much?", I asked, where upon he quoted a ridiculously low price - so low that the phrase "grey market" came immediately to mind along with an endless procession of extra-cost "options".

You know, options like a battery, a camera case, USB cables - all things that are suppose too be in the box - and. of course, the ever popular extended warranty. The costs of which would undoubtedly drive the price of the camera to that equal to or greater than that to be found at a place like B&H, Adorama and the like. At that point, I managed to withdraw from the proceedings and leave the store but not before he gave it one last try by yelling out even lower prices for the converter and the LX3.

Man, oh man, I was left pining for the good old days of the local camera store.

That said, I should mention that I was previously very pleasantly surprised by a visit to B&H in NYC. The experience I had there, if you can ignore the football field-sized display room, was actually rather delightful. Fast, friendly, relaxed, and very knowledgeable service from a rather chatty (in a good way) counter person that made me feel like I was in one of the aforementioned local camera stores.

B&H ~ NYC • click to embiggen

No hassles, no hustles, and they seemed to have everything photographic ever made in stock. I wasn't rushed in any way as I tried out a few lenses for my Pentax K20D. I was in the store to purchase memory card for the Pentax but I ended up leaving with both that and a 14mm wide angle prime lens for the camera.

What I found amazing was the ease with which the counter person was able to call up my entire online buying history with B&H and from that have a pretty damn good sense of how he should deal with / relate to me - it felt remarkably like we had been dealing with each other personally for quite a long time.

Next time you're in NYC, I would recommend a visit to B&H even if you're just window shopping. And speaking of window shopping, I would also recommend doing so at at least one Times Square camera "bazaar. And don't hesitate for a moment to allow yourself to be "abducted" - everyone should have that experience once in lifetime.

Comments

[Martin Doonan]

Ah, that takes me back. When I was in NYC years ago (back in my early days of SLRdom) I actually bought one of said converter thingies from one of said Times Sq. stores. At the time it was pretty much the device I was after and I paid what I thought was reasonable money for it. Took some decent photos with it, too. And yet, I came away from the experience feeling that anything I bought, at any price, would still make me feel like I'd been had.

But then, Holy sh*t, Batman! I had no conception of what the inside of B&H might look like. I must re-double my efforts to make time to get to NYC again.