Washington DC camera stores

[Sirius Glass]

Sorry to say all or nearly all of these mentioned by Ted are out of business. Penn Camera was bought by Calumet who then went out of business (declared bankruptcy). Eastern Camera is out of business as is Industrial Photo in Silver spring. Pro Photo is still open in the district and does very nice repair work (they have worked on a number of cameras for me). Dont think they rent much; nothing about rentals on their web site. There is a newish company DC Camera (dc-camera.com) that rents 35mm and video stuff including tripods, heads, lenses, etc. Heavily oriented to video work. Closest I know of is Trec in NYC. Rent various 4x5 cameras, lenses, lens/camera kits, etc. If anyone would know, it would be Karry Thalman..send him an email.

Welcome to Large Format Photography Forum

I left the area about 18 months ago and the Metropolitan DC area has become an analog photographic desert, but even the Mojave Desert has more plants than the DC area has real photographic stores.

[Scott Davis]

Sad to say the last man standing with anything resembling analog photographic sales and support is Pro Photo (now located at 20th & Pennsylvania). They stock black-and-white film and a little Polaroid. They have an interesting stock of used 35mm and medium format gear. What I do patronize them for is repair services - they handle my Rolleiflexes. I find them overpriced on almost everything, though. A pro-pack of Tri-X 120 is $32, whereas B&H has it for $25, for example. I'm glad they stock it just in case I run out of something and can't wait until it ships from NY, but I don't regularly pay 30% markups for something I don't have to if I'm even just a little patient.

[Bob Salomon]

Ace Photo in Ashburn near Dulles and the Smithsonian has quite a bit.

[Scott Davis]

Ace Photo in Ashburn near Dulles and the Smithsonian has quite a bit.

I keep forgetting about them (and their Dominion Camera cousin in Falls Church) because Ace Photo is so far out they're almost out of the thermonuclear blast radius of downtown. Dominion Camera has an interesting used gear case but mostly 35mm stuff. And while they do stock some film, as with most camera stores they're heavily geeked out over digital stuff these days.

[Bob Salomon]

I keep forgetting about them (and their Dominion Camera cousin in Falls Church) because Ace Photo is so far out they're almost out of the thermonuclear blast radius of downtown. Dominion Camera has an interesting used gear case but mostly 35mm stuff. And while they do stock some film, as with most camera stores they're heavily geeked out over digital stuff these days.

Have you ever visited the Ashburn store? If not, you will be surprised.

[Sirius Glass]

Have you ever visited the Ashburn store? If not, you will be surprised.

They specialize in packs for digital equipment and not much else. They have a sales person who likes to turn Graphic and Graflexes into lamps. He also thinks that film processing is worse for the environment than the digital equipment manufacturing.

[Bob Salomon]

They specialize in packs for digital equipment and not much else. They have a sales person who likes to turn Graphic and Graflexes into lamps. He also thinks that film processing is worse for the environment than the digital equipment manufacturing.

Last time I was there they had new Wista and Canham cameras, among others, every conceivable brand of tripod and heads including RRS, Novoflex, Gitzo, Manfrotto, a large room full of bags and lots of analog cameras as well as digital. Maybe we were looking in different places.

[Sirius Glass]

It has been three years since I was there. I would not go back after one of their people told me that home film development does more damage to the western US streams and rivers than all the mining and dumping of tailings has done since the discovery of gold and silver.