TheFlyingCamera
Membership Council
I stopped by Ars Imago yesterday to check out what the shop is like- I always enjoy seeing what camera
Shops are like in other countries. They're just a few blocks from the Linea A Metro stop Ottaviano/Musei Vaticani, and a couple blocks from the entrance to the Vatican Museums (which, by the way, you absolutely should pre-book your tickets for online. If you don't, you're facing a good 2-3 hours in line, outdoors, in the sun or the rain. Pre-purchase and you can literally walk right in!). The shop itself is much smaller than I expected from how well organized their website is. While I wasn't expecting B&H, I wasn't expecting two rooms totaling maybe 350 square feet! There are three folks working in the shop, all of them very young (I'm guessing nobody over 30). They were very nice and friendly, and even though they were still technically closed for their mid-day break (they close from 1:30-3:30 every afternoon to handle shipping and business minutiae), they let me in and talked with me. They have a surprisingly deep stock of film and paper for such a small shop- they had Kodak, Ilford, and I think Foma (I didn't see it but I wasn't looking for it either) films in 35, 120, and 4x5 in stock, along with some exotic things like the film Washi in 4x5. I was looking to try the film Washi which is a Japanese film coated on a heavy rice paper stock, and can be processed under red safe lights in open trays. They were out of stock of it, so I couldn't buy any, but they had a roll that was somehow "defective" (it may have been loosely rolled or something- they said it would probably have light leaks on some frames) which they gave me for free to try it out.
Shops are like in other countries. They're just a few blocks from the Linea A Metro stop Ottaviano/Musei Vaticani, and a couple blocks from the entrance to the Vatican Museums (which, by the way, you absolutely should pre-book your tickets for online. If you don't, you're facing a good 2-3 hours in line, outdoors, in the sun or the rain. Pre-purchase and you can literally walk right in!). The shop itself is much smaller than I expected from how well organized their website is. While I wasn't expecting B&H, I wasn't expecting two rooms totaling maybe 350 square feet! There are three folks working in the shop, all of them very young (I'm guessing nobody over 30). They were very nice and friendly, and even though they were still technically closed for their mid-day break (they close from 1:30-3:30 every afternoon to handle shipping and business minutiae), they let me in and talked with me. They have a surprisingly deep stock of film and paper for such a small shop- they had Kodak, Ilford, and I think Foma (I didn't see it but I wasn't looking for it either) films in 35, 120, and 4x5 in stock, along with some exotic things like the film Washi in 4x5. I was looking to try the film Washi which is a Japanese film coated on a heavy rice paper stock, and can be processed under red safe lights in open trays. They were out of stock of it, so I couldn't buy any, but they had a roll that was somehow "defective" (it may have been loosely rolled or something- they said it would probably have light leaks on some frames) which they gave me for free to try it out.
