It was nice to have a dedicated photo store in Cambridge just a few minutes away from my home just in case I needed to get anything. I picked up brand new 4x5 film holders from them last year for a huge discount.
It was nice to have a dedicated photo store in Cambridge just a few minutes away from my home just in case I needed to get anything. I picked up brand new 4x5 film holders from them last year for a huge discount.
Bummer about Calumet. I had no idea.
But Helix? Their site is up today. I bought my dslr from them late 2012.
Their retail store in Chicago closed quite a while back.Originally Posted by paulr
A sure-fire way to send equipment manufacturers down the bankruptcy (or LF product abandonment) road too.
So you don't really give a crap if there's a local camera store. Sounds like you just use one to check out gear then go buy online.
Bob
There's mosquitoes on the river, fish are rising up like birds. It's been hot for seven weeks now, too hot to even speak now, did you hear what I just heard?
The sad part this is true of many people.
The big problem is just the price difference, if there were only a small price difference I'm sure people would support local, and add the fact photographers earn less per job than they used to (by a significant margin) and you get photographers who literally can't afford to spend the extra money with local, add to that the fact that local doesn't often carry everything you need, and it becomes more difficult to budget a bunch of items you want into one purchase and keep track of expenses (especially if you're disorganized like me).
So it all stacks up.
I but from 3 places, one local "Milford photo" which have an online store that's atrocious and all digital, and 2 online freestyle and B&H.
Whenever I brows the local, I try and pick up a few rolls of films I like... Sadly they aren't re-stocking, and are trying to get out of from altogether they've told me.
The sad truth is that if 3ish years ago they had never had PanF+ in stock, I would never have gotten the old kodak 1A folder Autographic I found at a tag sale, to work.
I never would have fallen in love with film, and I never would have been down this rabbit hole (and I would probably be a much crappier photographer).
So now I think about what if someone just like me comes in looking for some 120 film and just can't get it...??
The fact is they just recently haven't been stocking any of the films that I use, on top of that, they change almost DOUBLE what B&H does!
I just can't justify that cost and I would bet that many other people cannot either.
If local stores could find a way to get closer to the big stores in terms of prices for stuff that they normally jack up, I think that it would bring a lot more local purchases, but they can't see it and like other companies are placing themselves out of the market, suddenly finding no sales, questioning why that is and not understanding that they're doing it to themselves because they are getting a reputation for having prices higher then the other guy who is more organized and easier to deal with and has stuff in stock...
I don't exactly understand what functions the distributors have and how much they upsell the local stores, but when I went in and asked if they would be willing to sell me some HP5+ in 35mm at the price that B&H sells it, their reply was that they couldn't even do that if they tried, that THEIR cost was higher than what B&H was selling it for... I kind of think he was just giving me that line, because he didn't want to drop the price, but at the same time it's possible that because B&H Buys such large quantities, they are able to get a significant discount over the other stores, who knows, all I know is that it just doesn't make sense for most photographers to purchase locally, the prices are just too extremely high compared to the big online stores, and you really can't blame people for that. It sucks, but they aren't being bad people, just being a normal logical consumer...
Having worked for Calumet for a short period of time I am not surprised this has happened.
What Calumet have actually said “Right now, we are developing plans for a return to the US market with retail locations and an online presence.”
The European side is fine, apparently they lost a financial supporter in the US which meant their re-structuring failed.
Ian
The problem is that folks do not think there is anything important about having a local community. And in the age of instant satisfaction smartphone internet it really is a hard thing to see how social capital is important to ones life. But this is almost socialist talk in american.
You might not believe this - but its true.
You can call Wynit (the ilford distributor) and ask for a dealer price list, and you will see that the best dealer prices are ALL and ALWAYS higher then BH actual retail prices, and that does not include shipping to the dealer, or the free shipping BH offers on many items.
BH and Freestyle are just doing what is expected from them in an unregulated, free market capitalist society, and that is to create an envrionment in which they corner a market and do not allow anyone else to compete. All through the use of antics that are stipulated by the economics of the free market, which in turn as we can see here means less choice, and no competition. They did this by slowly forming relationships that exclude other retailers form participating, if through "exclusive" deals for distribution or pricing, and by offering certain products at an operating loss, while selling others for 2-3% margin. When you sell a billion $ a year you can do that, but when you are a local store, your overhead is usually higher then that.
It is important for us as humans, and community members that social capital is increased and not decreased. This often means investing some actual monetary value in maintaining it. But in a place where things like human rights and health care are a privilege there is no room for local business, competition or a community.
Yea keep it! I would!
If no one calls... It's yours!
If they call in 6 months after doing their books and ask for it back, either give it, or say you left it in front of the door when you went to return it... Hehe...
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