Many local camera shops have found a niche in this world of big box retail and online vendors for nearly everything we buy. Nearly, that is. Right here in the Portland-Vancouver Metro area several camera shops still operate in spite of the trends pushing more and more people to the big retailers online and in giant warehouse stores.
There are two shops in Portland, OR that offer some really cool services and gear that you wont find at Amazon or Best Buy. These small businesses have found the niche that fills the needs of photography lovers all around the country and probably the world. Young people are discovering the word of film. Yes that ancient chemical process whereby images are stored chemically latent in a silver-halide emulsion until which time they are developed and printed into masterpieces of art and culture. Yes film! It’s back and better than ever.
Citizens Photo on Sandy Blvd. in the Hollywood District, Portland has a fine selection of film, paper and darkroom supplies in the store. They offer C41 color negative, B/W, and E6 transparency processing as well as an impressive suite of film scanning. Take a look at their website. Citizens Photo also has a selection of used film cameras, lenses and accessories as well as enlargers and other darkroom gear.
From Wikipedia
Blue Moon Camera and Machine on Lombard in St. Johns, North Portland has a nice upscale shop with used vintage and semi-modern film cameras, lenses and accessories. This shop is a drop point for Knight Camera Repair in Vancouver and Micheal Knight works in the store Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Blue Moon has two amazing niche markets. First is the fact that they are a licensed manufacturer of Minox Film. Those amazing little German spy cameras can once again be used to make pictures! Blue Moon makes the film, packages it, and sells it and then they can even process and print it for you. They offer all optical photo processing. The other niche helps explain the “Machine” part of their name. Blue Moon has a selection of vintage typewriters and even offers service on the classic writing machines. Take a look at their website.
I spend a lot of time talking about old lenses on modern cameras, but these fine shops offer you the ability to go all vintage if you so desire with services, equipment and expertise to set you up like a boss from 1979!
What lens is next?
Over the coming issues of this blog I will be reviewing lenses I keep managing to acquire at Camera Shows, Like PhotoFair and Ebay. I have several including a late-model Zeiss Biogon 35/2 that is spectacular, I picked up a sweet Canon FD 200/4 with rear group internal focus, and three, count them three vintage 135mm lenses. I have a Super Takumar 135/3.5 in M42 Universal, a Nikon Series E 135/2.8 and a 135/2.5 Canon FL mount lens. Which one do you all want to read up on first. Take the poll below and have a say in the content of the next issue of this blog.
'Couv' Camera 