My local camera shop, business booming. Anyone else?

Samuel Dilworth · Jan 24, 2020

perkeleellinen said:
I have a dream of inner-city community darkrooms perhaps with studio and exhibit space and a 2nd hand camera store and a cafe. Could be a nice gateway into darkroom work...

I think there’s no better time than right now to try that. The market is growing steadily after a period of contraction that cleared out the companies and services that weren’t able to adapt. Just five years ago you would have had fewer potential customers and more competitors chasing them.

I think there would be a clear demand for such a service if you made it an inclusive and pleasant place to hang out, ran a tight ship safety-wise, and managed to spread the word about your offer.

Perhaps look to the new style of cycling cafés in the UK for some transferable ideas.

Sirius Glass · Jan 24, 2020

CMoore said:
I wonder what the future will bring.?
It "bothers" me that Most/Many of these "young people" that are driving this film renaissance seem to have no desire to have a darkroom.
Is it just a Fad.? Right now it seems to be Cool or Hip to say..... "Yeah, i shoot film".
But how long will it last i wonder.?
I do not see how this will survive and grow to the next generation of young people.
At some point it seems like the cost of shooting film and then having to scan it anyway, will just be .....Silly, a Bummer, a PITA, a Drag.
I shoot film so that i can get in my darkroom.
If i could no longer do that, i am not sure i would have a reason to shoot film.
But maybe that is just me. ?
Perhaps all these young people would still shoot film, and have no reason to lament the last enlarger going to scrap.

At lease they buy and shoot film.
Some of them with continue to use film.
A few, as always, will be motivated to develop film and a few of them will enter the darkroom.

I do not see a downside. When there was only film, very few did darkroom work. Be glad that they are interested.

Sirius Glass · Jan 24, 2020

Samuel Dilworth said:
But any sort of darkroom has a higher barrier to entry than shooting a roll of film in your mum’s old Pentax.

It’s easy and cheap to give film a try. It’s hard and expensive to start wet printing at home.

And for what? It’s all getting scanned for online sharing anyway. Scan the film or scan the print, it looks “analogue” either way.

Plus, the Ilford survey showed many reasons for shooting film that don’t involve a darkroom.

If a broader darkroom revival happens, I think it might happen down the line when (a) there’s a general backlash against over-sharing, expressed as a shift toward handmade prints and artists’ books and (b) the current new film shooters gain more disposable income and start moving out of the city … if that ever happen as it happened to their parents, because the times they are a-changin’.

It strikes me as churlish to complain that kids aren’t building enough darkrooms when they’ve just saved film.

Darkroom space is expensive and people do not have the luxury of having the space to spare for a darkroom.

Andrew O'Neill · Jan 24, 2020

I would say, yes. The manager at the Kerrisdale Cameras near me is a film shooter. He stocks a nice selection of 35 and 120 film in several brands (including Ilford ortho 120!)... B/W or colour, Instax, Polaroid...Some used film cameras. He has B/W paper in stock, as well as processing chemicals. The times they are good!

zischga · Jan 24, 2020

I live in the second largest german-speaking city with a population of about 1,8 million (Vienna, Austria) and I can say that shooting film here is very convenient.
Maybe I'm a bit biased, because I live in a district where all the photo-stuff happens, but here is my opinion:

Within walking distance I have 3 professional labs.
They all charge about 5€ for C41 negative development and 2 of them still do E6 developing and charge about 6-7€ for that, which is perfectly fine for me.
One of these labs even does ECN-2 with the proper chemicals, I think the guy uses a jobo processor and removes the remjet by hand before developing.
Everytime I'm at one of these labs, there are some other customers and they usually collect or drop-off film.
Normally I wait around 1-2 days for development, but same day processing is (usually) also possible.
I think there is a clear uptrend, lately it takes 2-3 days for development, because there is so much demand.
Slides still seems to be a niche thing though, at least where I live. I talked to the owner of one lab and he said he develops more ECN-2 than E6 rolls.

I think the economical situation for these labs is in general better than in Germany, because our drugstore chains discontinued their film development service a few years ago.
In Germany you can still get C41 + prints for something like 5€ if I remember correctly, which is very competitive and hard to beat for a prof. lab.

In general I'm very happy with the services, I have labs within walking distance, as well as multiple camera shops that sell and service vintage gear (Hasselblad, Leica .... everything)
and they also sell darkroom accessoires like spare bulbs, chemistry, paper.
Everytime I walk by, there are different cameras in the store window, they seem to sell very fast.
Most of it is via mail order I guess, because these local shops also have online shops.
I cannot comment on public darkrooms, as I have a personal darkroom.
Recently I sold my Opemus 5 6x6 enlarger on the local ads, it took less than a week,
which surprised me.
I was looking for a Durst enlarger and searched the ads for a few weeks and if one popped up, they sold within a few weeks.

I think we will see an increase for darkroom stuff (Enlargers, paper ...), but it will be in a few years time, because a lot of the people that are responsible for the uptrend in film photography just got started.
You don't go from just trying something to "I want a full darkroom in my house" within a few months,
at least that's what I believe.

foc · Jan 24, 2020

zischga said:
I think we will see an increase for darkroom stuff (Enlargers, paper ...), but it will be in a few years time, because a lot of the people that are responsible for the uptrend in film photography just got started.
You don't go from just trying something to "I want a full darkroom in my house" within a few months,
at least that's what I believe.

A very good point
I remember shooting my first film, developing my first film and the wait (3 years) until I could use a camera club darkroom and making my first print.
The joy of watching my first print develop in front of my eyes is something I will never forget. (I have heard a similar squeal of joy when a customer watched their first Fuji Instax print develop in front of their eyes).

Henning Serger · Jan 25, 2020

foc said:
A very good point
I remember shooting my first film, developing my first film and the wait (3 years) until I could use a camera club darkroom and making my first print.
The joy of watching my first print develop in front of my eyes is something I will never forget. (I have heard a similar squeal of joy when a customer watched their first Fuji Instax print develop in front of their eyes).

Agreed.
In economic research you differentiate between "Frühindikatoren" and "Spätindikatoren" (early indicators and later indicators) which demonstrate market changes.
We are currently still in the beginning phase of the film revival. We see several early indicators. These have become significantly stronger in the last two years. Step-by-step the market will become stronger in the coming years. And as a result over the years more of the later indicators will also show the market changes.
And that more photographers start using an own darkroom is one of these later indicators. Because young film photographers who have just started now using cheap amateur colour negative film will improve their skills over the years, then add professional CN film, transparency film and BW film to their portfolio. Start developing at home, and later printing at home in their darkrooms.
Another later indicator will be new film camera models.
We have just to be a bit patient. All these processes take time. "Rome was not built in one day" .

Best regards,
Henning

AndyH · Jan 25, 2020

perkeleellinen said:
I have a dream of inner-city community darkrooms perhaps with studio and exhibit space and a 2nd hand camera store and a cafe. Could be a nice gateway into darkroom work...

Like this one?

https://vcphoto.org/

Not even located in an urban area, but it has community dark rooms, used gear, classes, shows, and other activities. I’m lucky that it’s only a few miles from me.

Andy

perkeleellinen · Jan 25, 2020

Looks great! There was something a bit like that in Gothenburg, Sweden, when I lived there. I think they're great ways to get like minded people together.

CMoore · Jan 25, 2020

San Francisco and "The East Bay" have some well noted community rooms.
When i moved from there to a much smaller city, those things disappeared.
Now we live in Elk Grove/Sacramento and i am surprised that there does not seem to be anything similar.

Any of you guys live in the Sacramento area, are there any camera clubs with darkrooms in this area.?
Thank You

Sal Santamaura · Jan 25, 2020

CMoore said:
...Now we live in Elk Grove/Sacramento...

Time to update your profile location from "USA CA 94585."

CMoore · Jan 25, 2020

Sal Santamaura said:
Time to update your profile location from "USA CA 94585."

Fine...OK...... 95624.
You happy now.?

Sal Santamaura · Jan 25, 2020

CMoore said:
Fine...OK...... 95624.
You happy now.?

Thrilled beyond words.

jtk · Jan 26, 2020

With a million population we have ONE camera shop ...sells no new equip.....good industrial neighborhood...mostly buys sells used stuff online.

benjiboy · Jan 26, 2020

" My local analogue camera shop is booming" and my bank balance is rapidly diminishing.

Agulliver · Jan 27, 2020

Thinking of the age of people buying film and equipment at camera shops....a few months ago I was at a sizeable camera shop in Cardiff which clearly is mostly film based. Indeed they proudly sell "almost every film currently made", had all film and no digital cameras on display in glass cases for sale, the staff engaged me in a lovely conversation about Yashica-MAT TLRs....and I was easily the oldest person in that shop by some margin including the staff....I am 46. I doubt anyone else in that shop that day was a day over 35.

It's worth mentioning that the percentage of even serious amateur photographers who bought enlargers and built or improvised dark rooms in their homes was always low. And for today's younger people, owning or even renting the kind of home where you've even got space to store an enlarger for occasional use in an improvised bathroom dark room is not even an option.

I will take the opportunity to point out that my local camera shop has a most lovely window display of two 16mm movie projectors, a 35mm slide projector and a bunch of NOS compact film cameras with a sign saying "bring your film here"...and it's doing great business.

AgX · Jan 27, 2020

Agulliver said:
A few months ago I was at a sizeable camera shop in Cardiff which clearly is mostly film based. Indeed they proudly sell "almost every film currently made", had all film and no digital cameras on display in glass cases for sale.

To my that is like a story from another world.

(I can speak of local major camera stores which together have a draw of more than 2mill people, including several arts and design academies.)

Agulliver · Jan 27, 2020

Here is how my local shop trimmed up their front window display for Christmas. the two 16mm projectors were brought up from the basement and within a week offers had been made for them. As the shop owner is unsure if they're working they are, for now, just for display. They're still there, sans tinsel, and there are now more Olympus compact 35mm cameras in the window.

When I visited the shop a local "celebrity" who is a stage magician and DJ as well as columnist in the local paper was in there dropping off film for development.

foc · Jan 27, 2020

Agulliver said:
Here is how my local shop trimmed up their front window display for Christmas. the two 16mm projectors were brought up from the basement and within a week offers had been made for them. As the shop owner is unsure if they're working they are, for now, just for display. They're still there, sans tinsel, and there are now more Olympus compact 35mm cameras in the window.

When I visited the shop a local "celebrity" who is a stage magician and DJ as well as columnist in the local paper was in there dropping off film for development.

View attachment 238964

Nice window display and great to see the Bell & Howell 16mm filmosound projectors. (brings back great memories of when I used to operate them back in the late 1970's)
Is this the same shop that has the processing lab with the very knowledgeable lady?

Agulliver · Jan 27, 2020

foc said:
Nice window display and great to see the Bell & Howell 16mm filmosound projectors. (brings back great memories of when I used to operate them back in the late 1970's)
Is this the same shop that has the processing lab with the very knowledgeable lady?

Yes it's the same place. They also repair film cameras and offer a sensor cleaning service for DSLRs all under the one roof. Lately I've seen the upper floor lights on with repair engineers clearly working after the shop has closed.

benjiboy · Jan 28, 2020

What do they call this shop in Cardiff,? because I visit one of my sons occasionally who lives there and I would like to see it.

Agulliver · Jan 29, 2020

Camera Centre UK in Morgan Arcade....right around the corner from Spiller's Records which is the oldest record shop in the world - and which was my reason for visiting Cardiff. The camera shop was a lovely bonus. I thoroughly recommend both if you have interest in vinyl records as well as cameras

Agulliver · Jan 29, 2020

Here is the window of Luton Camera Repairs today 29/1/2020

Tom Kershaw · Jan 29, 2020

Does 'Luton Camera Repairs' sell cine equipment or are they using it for window dressing? Would be interesting to know how many Steenbeck editors etc. are left in the UK. I know City College in Norwich had one over 15 years ago...

cmacd123 · Jan 29, 2020

Downtown Camera in Toronto recently posted on Facebook that they are installing a larger C-41 processor.

My local camera shop, business booming. Anyone else?

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