Bel Air Camera to close after decades in business

Andrew K · Jan 5, 2016

Sorry but it is a big deal. Here in Melbourne (there are roughly 3.2 Million people in the city) in the 80's we would have had around 100 camera stores. Of those you would have called 1/2 of them "real" camera stores - stocking pro and amateur camera gear, darkroom gear, with a nice cupboard of second hand gear somewhere in the shop.

Now we have maybe 25 camera stores, and if we remove the ones that are really more a "consumer electronics" camera store (no second hand, no film, limited range of cameras and accessories) there are only maybe a dozen left...

I've been involved in cleaning out 3 camera stores that closed down, and managed to save a bit of interesting stuff. These stores closed because the owners retired and couldn't sell the business.

Yes stores have closed because the industry has changed, and people don't print photos the way they used to, but it's still nice to have a few stores I can walk into that have not only pro cameras and lenses, but also film in the fridge, and a range of second hand cameras to buy...

SO I'd suggest buying local whenever you can, because you won't realise how much you miss a store until it's gone.....

lxdude · Jan 6, 2016

aoresteen said:
Not a big deal.

Well, not to you. You don't live here!

AgX · Jan 6, 2016

Andrew K said:
Yes stores have closed because the industry has changed, and people don't print photos the way they used to,...

At least in Europe there has not been a dramatic reduction of ordered prints. What has changed dramatically is the source for those prints.
Drugstore chains, here a majore source for print orders, have adapted by adding to their film-drop service a file-drop service as well as in-house printing. Thus still attracting people. Photo shops could have adapted similar.

Photo stores are affected by a change in buying habit as any other brick&mortar shop.
Thus a special technological change has been added by a general change in retail.

wiltw · Jan 6, 2016

Andrew K said:
SO I'd suggest buying local whenever you can, because you won't realise how much you miss a store until it's gone.....

Sadly, the public has gotten so driven to 'low price' that they order everything mail order or shop at the bigbox stores, where the expertise in photography (and in general hardware!) is missing because the stores are staffed mostly with 'which aisle?' staffers who do not / cannot provide much technical knowledge. I had warned folks to 'buy local' for a very long time (> 10 years).
Unfortunately the expertise in the dedicated stores also got harder and harder to find, as shrinking sales (sales losses to the bigbox store and mail order) caused staff reductions, and the dedicated professional sales staffs dwindled over time to better pay or retirement.

Now we are stuck with few professional local retail stores with any knowledge, delays waiting for mail order goods to arrive, and the handwriting is no longer 'on the walls' as the graffiti has covered the abandoned walls and left nowhere for the handwriting.

AgX · Jan 6, 2016

I knew stores for professionals with assistants lacking any knowledge even back in the good days.

But I also know young assistants now at camera stores aimed at the broad public that can tell even me something out of the analogue field.

Sirius Glass · Jan 6, 2016

I was going through a low point in photography and my youngest daughter was taking a photography class at Hamilton High School. She was required to use a manual film camera so I lent her my Minolta X700. For her birthday I bought her a X700 with a 35mm to 70mm Rokkor lens from Bel Air Camera. She was excited about the camera. I went back to Bel Air Camera for the Father's day sale with my girlfriend, the same one I am with now and you will see one of the reasons why. Bel Air Camera had a number of camera vendors there: Leica, Canon, Nikon, ... There was Tamron with a wheel of fortune so one could win a t-shirt or money off a lens. They lined up the wheel on the latest lens they had. My girlfriend spun the wheel exactly one rotation and won the Tamron 28mm to 300mm auto focus zoom lens. I could not use the lens on the Minolta so I needed to buy a camera ... Canon, Nikon, Canon, Nikon,... I bought the Nikon. That got me back into to photography and that month I used the camera to photograph my oldest daughter graduate from Emory University, my youngest from Hamilton High School and my girlfriends daughter from Cornell University.

That is part of the reason why Bel Air Camera closing is a big deal for me.

Trail Images · Jan 6, 2016

That is part of the reason why Bel Air Camera closing is a big deal for me.

S.G., reading your reasons are a nice tribute to this long time establishment. Those kind of personal interactions at the store and the resulting follow up history cannot be replaced.

Theo Sulphate · Jan 6, 2016

Trail Images said:
S.G., reading your reasons are a nice tribute to this long time establishment. Those kind of personal interactions at the store and the resulting follow up history cannot be replaced.

Exactly. One of the nice things about Real Camera Stores is that a rapport is developed between the customer and the staff. It's often a pleasant place to go to, even when not buying anything.

Sirius Glass · Jan 20, 2018

Yesterday I found that Rika and Frank from Bel Air Camera are now working in Samys Camera Culver City and Fairfax respectively. Good for them!

Peter Schrager · Jan 20, 2018

Interesting thread. We had entire camera rows near times square in NYC. It was lots of fun to go see the thousands of cameras that I couldn't afford!
In New Brunswick N.J. we had Freese camera. It was always intimidating to go in there so I never did. B+H was a hoot and nearly a junk place.
then you had many of the scam stores selling reboxed items; grey market film (remember that?) the good old days!!

Sirius Glass · Jan 20, 2018

There was something special about the 42 Street camera stores. We will never see something like that again.

Theo Sulphate · Jan 20, 2018

Sirius Glass said:
There was something special about the 42 Street camera stores. We will never see something like that again.

One in particular had an extremely bad reputation for mail order sales. In the old rec.photo newsgroup of the late 1980's there was a list maintained which had feedback and rankings for most of the stores. Camera World of Oregon was the best, I believe. At one point Popular Photography magazine "expelled" some of these advertisers due to complaints.

choiliefan · Jan 21, 2018

Cambridge cleaned up their act?

EarlJam · Jan 21, 2018

Theo Sulphate said:
Camera World of Oregon was the best, I believe.

Agree. They were also a great customer when I handled their Sony Pro account in the mid-90s. If memory serves, they were absorbed by Ritz Camera in the early 2000s and out of business shortly thereafter.

faberryman · Jan 21, 2018

I am convinced that the referenced competition is not price competition, but availability competition. My local store is price competitive with B&H; it just doesn't stock the stuff I need.

Peter Schrager · Jan 21, 2018

Olden camera,up on the 2nd floor...of course my favorite was lens and repro...the biggest candy store for l.f.

Sirius Glass · Jan 21, 2018

Sirius Glass said:
There was something special about the 42 Street camera stores. We will never see something like that again.

I meant walking down the street window shopping, and walking around the stores looking at and handling the cameras, I never purchased cameras through the magazine ads.

Bel Air Camera to close after decades in business

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