Jessops expert

Whilst in the afore mentioned establishment I over heard the following conversation,

Customer " What about shake reduction?"
expert " Oh the canon doesn't need that"
C "I thought that it was a good thing to have?"
e " Well... it can be. Canon do do lenses that compensate for shake."
C " I understand Pentax cameras have it as standard?"
e " Oh that! It doesn't work, it's just a gimmick.."
C " Well it seems fine on my K20, Goodbye."
e "?"

By the time I got outside he'd gone, I wanted to shake his hand for not being conned into a mega-expensive body/lens combo.

A gimmick, like his job title "costumer support personnel". Just a title doesn't really mean anything...
LOL

Works very well on my K-m, I took a shot in near darkness hand-held and only got a bit of blurring in the foreground!

Jessops staff are no different to those in any other electrical retailer. They're employed to sell, not for their expertise. It is seriously funny seeing their reactions when you mention Pentax though, especially if you say something like "Well, I have a Pentax K-m that I'm very happy with so I'm just looking to see if the competition have caught up yet" (Canikon still couldn't beat it for the same money last time I checked).

I was in Currys on Friday - just seeing what new televisions were around. Wandered past the photographic section and a salesman approached. He actually seemed to know what he was talking about - a Pentax and Samsung compact user - never tried SLRs but knew that Pentax offered a great product at sensible prices.

I asked another costumer support person why there was a shortage of Samsung,Olympus and Panasonic cameras in the display cases.

His reply was that they couldn't supply any cameras so Jessops didn't bother with them.

Funny really, have you looked at their website lately, he obviously hadn't!

Interesting...because they will take Panasonics in for repair! My brother sent his Lumix bridge camera in to Jessops when the zoom in button ceased to function. The servicing people they use seemed pretty good, as it came back in full working order.

I was picking it up when the above exchange occurred

Hmm, It was the Jessops repair centre that killed my Optio 550.

It went in with a squeaky lens, was returned only to do the same 6 weeks later.

Second time around they couldn't fix it, 'beyond economical repair' they said and didn't return it.

I got a service charge refund but had to buy a new camera...

... my K110d...

...I'm not letting them near ANY of my cameras now!

I think the rot set in when they stopped stocking used gear. At that point their staff no longer needed to really understand photography, and they changed from being a camera shop to being an electronics retailer who sell cameras.

Mind you, when I see the prices in local independent camera shops compared to ebay I'm not surprised that Jessops got out of that side of the business. The fact that people can now buy and sell gear directly without a dealer getting involved and needing to add their own markup must have done serious damage to shops.

Jessops expert = oxymoron.

G

Weren't they a good shop in the past or have they always been like this?

They were a good shop, full of expertise.

Sad they went down hill then

Some of their shops still have very knowledgable staff, and knowledgable about Pentax too even though they dont stock them.

Jessops were once a great camera shop. They admitted that it all went wrong when they stopped focussing (no pun intended) on SLRs and started pushing compacts.

They then ended up in a battle they couldn't win with the internet and supermarkets.

They used to be the place for film, darkroom chemicals, enlarger bulbs, etc but that part of the business no longer exists.

And the staff were all enthusiasts who knew their stuff. Some of them are still around, guys who have been with the company for a lot of years and if you were buying your first SLR you would still get a better overall service from Jessops than Amazon, Tesco or Asda.

It's a hard game to be in and since they are practically 'owned' by Canon now, they are never going to push Pentax.

I , when trying to decide on a replacement for the deceased Fuji , went into the local Jessops to try some Canon Compacts in my sweaty little paws

Got a nice young man serving me who asked what I was using - said I " a Kodak 703 P&S " and to my utter astonishment he said -" oh that's an American model !! " and he was right - mine did come from the USA

However he then let himself down when he showed me the camera I wanted to see , let me play with it for a bit and then told me it had been superceded by a new model - and it hadn't

I ain't been back since