The Family Camera Shop part I

[Troll]

<p>Three points of notice:<br>

Small shops couldn't carry Leica because of the excessive inventory requirements. This meant there were no small-townLeica dealers.<br>

Kodak wouldn't sell direct to new dealers for 6 months, requiring them to buy through a third party at considerably higher costs. I never did understand the logic of this.<br>

So-called Fair-Trade laws meant that the little shops had the same prices as the large chains, which made them more competative, but of course their volume discounts made their profits lower.</p>

[Mike Gammill]

<p>Russ- we had quite a few young Super 8 enthusiasts that caught the film making bug during the late 70's. A couple of them actually persued careers in the film industry. Not Eumigs, but likely GAF or Chinon projectors (the main two projector brands we carried.). We had GAF, Sankyo, Chinon, and Yashica movie cameras. We carried a few Kodak models. The small GAF silent models were desirable because of the single frame setting for doing stop action animation. The larger GAF, Chinon, and Sankyo were sound models. The Yashicas we stocked were silent but offered lap dissolves.<br>

Bill- we started out obtaining our Kodak film and products from a wholesaler as Kodak's minimum order requirements were so high. This is one reason we first carried Luminous brand photographic paper. If you look at the movie table again you will see some boxes of Luminous paper. In later years we did enough business to have a direct dealership with Kodak. <br>

For a town with around 8,000 people, we were competitive on a lot of items with other shops, but of course, we couldn't touch the mail order houses. Many of their prices (if they honored the advertised prices) were only a few dollars above our dealer net. Berkey Marketing (sources of Konicas, Tamron lenses, Sunpak flashes, etc.) was very pleasant to deal with. We even visited our first Berkey rep in Nashville (around 1976 or 1977) while we were on vacation. He invited us into his darkroom where he demonstrated with Dichroic colorhead Omega enlarger (what else would he have had?) how to make color prints from negatives and from slides.<br>

For a while there were two other camera shops nearby: one in Columbus and one in Starkville, but both of them got near list price for camera gear. They both did offer in-house color processing, though, at reasonable prices.</p>

[gnashings]

<p>Wonderful stuff!!! thoroughly enjoyed this post, thank you so much for sharing!</p>

 

[aplumpton]

<p>Bill, I bought my first new Leica from a professional photographer who sold that brand as a side business at his studio. I think he had the reflex camera, but not sure about that, as I remember seeing only the M4-2 (the model at that time) and perhaps at the most a half dozen lenses (there were only about 12 in total). He didn't have that much equipment on hand, but perhaps because he was a Bavarian and had been using Leica professionally in his work, together with large equipment, might have had something to do with it. But you are right, not many stores were handling that brand then. Later on, the family store I was mentioning, and a larger store in the city, started carrying Leica, not I think because it sold all that well, but because it allowed them to claim having a fairly complete variety of brands. </p>

[tony_lockerbie]

<p>Really appreciate this post as I served time in camera stores in the early seventies and this brings back many memories to say the least.<br>

Camera stores really don't exist here any more as cameras are really just computer peripherals these days and are sold by electronic stores. Oh to see a fully stocked film shelf again!</p>

[Troll]

<p>Arthur, my experience in a camera shop was in theearly 50s when Leica was king. I wouldn't be surprised if they had gotten a lot less snooty about their dealer requirements by 1977 when the M4-2 came along.<br>

Even then when I got to a strange town and looked in the Yellow Pages (remember them?) to see what camera stores I might want to visit, it was still clear that the ones which listed Leicas in their advertisements were probably the premier dealers with the largest stock.</p>

[Raymond W]

<p>Thanks Mike and everyone for a nice thread. I cannot say it brings back memories because I was not into photography (audio/radio electronics was my only hobby) until the late 1980s. But it is certainly a nice trip back in time. So this was what it was like then. Absolutely fascinating!</p>

[Mike Gammill]

<p>Thanks for all the kind responses. Memories are great. Having photographs to go with the memories = greater. Sharing memories on photo.net = greatest. Thanks again.<br>

Part II (the new location) soon to come.</p>

[Member69643]

<p>I never worked in a camera store but as a youth, I spent way too many days playing hooky from school and visiting my two favorite camera stores, Linn Photo (local mom & pop store) and Kmart. Kmart was closer so I spent most of my time there, drooling over the many different cameras there, and usually being too poor to even buy the Focal stuff. </p>

<p>Remember the parking lot photo lab booths? Drop your film off and wow, in only a couple days it would be back! Anyone have a photo of one? Mellers was the local flavor.</p>

[Mike Gammill]

<p>Patrick, we never had parking lot photo lab booths around here. I do remember seeing them when traveling, though. I think Fox operated these booths in some areas.</p>

[marc_bergman1]

<p>Wikipedia has a little of everything. I did a search on "parking lot photo lab booths".</p>

<p>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fotomat</p>

<p>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Photo</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>I don't know if anyone here from Montreal, or who had visited the city then, has memories of the very small family MEM camera store (1960s, 1970s?), an array of 2 or 3 of family shops run by a genial Brit, Peter Hall. As a student I worked occasionally behind the counter and was able to put in enough hours to purchase my first system camera and to apply it as an events photographer for the college daily newspaper. I recall that Peter, who I never saw wearing an overcoat (just a light polo neck sweater and period blue blazer) in spite of the raw Montreal winter, allowed very generous credit to some professional photographers who were living from job to job. One of them, artist-photographer John Max, has a number of images in galleries, including the Canadian contemporary photography museum in Ottawa, which were likely made using the Nikon rangefinder he had acquired on a flexible buy now pay later plan at Peter's main shop, a small and crowded little store on a quiet side street off the main Sherbrooke street thoroughfare.</p>

<p>This type of small family run photography shop, distinct from the larger mainstream stores, probably existed in various forms in many cities and towns, serving amateurs and pros alike.</p>

[Mike Gammill]

<p>Another perk of being part of a family camera shop is getting to share some of sample film, paper, and chemicals that various sales reps sent us to try. I remember trying some Fuji N100 color negative film back when Kodacolor II was only rated at ISO 80. We also got to try a few rolls of Fujicolor 400 when it first hit the market. That was the first ISO 400 color negative film we stocked as I think Kodacolor 400 was either later, or maybe the initial quantity we had to order was too high. One of the most exciting products we tried was the Cibachrome Discovery kit. It came with 25 sheets of 4x5 Cibachrome paper, chemicals, filters, and a small 4x5 processing drum (that you had to roll back and forth on the counter agitate.)</p>