When I moved to Indianapolis in '08, there were the aforementioned Roberts stores, as well as five Cord Camera stores. All five of the Cords have closed, the
last one shuttered in early '14. That whole chain was down to two stores in Ohio, according to the news article.
I guess Roberts must be hanging in there, though. I live in Texas, but I've bought film gear from them off eBay, then visited their Used Photo Pro website and bought even more gear. They have a good selection of Pentax 6x7 stuff, and their prices are at least as good as KEH's. I wish them all the best.
Here in Houston we have only two real camera shops left. It's kinda sad -- in a greater metropolitan area of over 4 million people, only two are left. The Wolf Camera and Prinz Camera shops all closed down years ago. But these two shops have good stuff. Both have a decent selection of used gear and sometimes really good prices on it. I've bought used items from both places on several occasions. I wish them well, also.
As to answering the question that opened this threat, I had to think about that. I don't guess I get as many questions as I just get looks. People often seem surprised to see me using film cameras.
A few years ago, I went on a photo shoot that a group of local photographers put together. I had recently acquired a Canon original F-1 and had just acquired an 85mm f/1.2 SSC Aspherical, and I was just itching to get to use that lens. I had my F-1 mounted to a winder, not the big motor drive, but the much more compact Winder F. But that winder made a noticeable grinding noise as it advanced the film.
So we had this model, and all the photographers were snapping away with their Canon and Nikon DSLRs with their big zoom lenses. And here I was -- every time I snapped a photo, the model would look up at me as my winder slowly ground its way to the next frame. I felt almost guilty about it, like I'd farted in church. My, how times have changed, I thought. Used to be the whir and grind of camera motor drives was common when a pack of photographers were taking photos. Not so anymore. The new DSLRs are almost as quiet as leaf-shutter cameras these days. That's as close as I ever got to feeling somewhat out of place.
My shots of the model were pretty forgettable, I think. But there was a guy named Dave there who had the only other film camera at the shoot. It was a 4x5 he had built himself, or rather scavenged parts from other cameras to assemble the one he had. I decided to take a pic of him working his camera. This ended up being the one shot that made coming to the photo shoot worthwhile.
Canon F-1, Canon FD 85mm f/1.2 SSC Aspherical @ f/1.2, Kodak Elite Chrome:
