Re: [Leica] Zone blues - value of a local photo shop

[Godfrey DiGiorgi <ramarren@bayarea.net>]

> As long as you can get what you want from _somewhere_, reliably and at
> a decent price, and within a reasonable time, what advantage is there
> to having a local photo shop, anyway?

The local photo shop used to be a place where an inexperienced
photographer could talk with people who knew a good deal about the subject
and thus learn how to solve problems. That's long gone, for the most part.
But a good local photo shop remains a place where you can go on a Saturday
afternoon to pick up some obscure item or another for a project that
you're in the middle of ... you'd otherwise have to stop what you're doing
and wait for an item to be shipped to you. Such shops often have piles of
useful widgets and miscellaneous accessories, etc, for older cameras.
Twenty years from now, a new M6 TTL or F5 will likely still be a perfectly
excellent camera, but as an older model you'll want to know a good shop
that still has some NOS bits for them. 

Additionally, a good photo shop is somewhere you can build a relationship
with a salesperson who sees a lot of new and used photo equipment going
across the counter and who can advise you of the availability and value of
stuff you might desire or need. As handy as the 'net is for this, there's
nothing like having a knowledgeable person in the business who can give
you a hand at certain times. 

I grew up poking around in camera shops, watchmakers, and places like
that. I'm saddened to see them rapidly disappearing into the maw of modern
"business & profit first!" chain stores, staffed at minimum expense with
people who have no simpatico with the products they are selling.

Godfrey