Hi,

I am afraid the OP here clearly has a 'superiority' complex..I hope all the other LCP students are not the same.

To suggest wedding photographers are somehow not 'pro' is just plainly stupid and very demeaning to many professional social photographers all over the world. Photography does not start and end with large format 'fine art' work. ANYONE who earns their living from photography FULL time deserves serious consideration AND RESPECT. It is very, very hard to break into professional photography and even harder to keep in for a long time.

I went to photo college full time, worked for nothing for various advertising photographers and finally became a pro studio photographer..so i know how hard it is..but I never came across this ludicrous 'I shoot fine art so I am superior' attitude this student seems to have. I do so despair of these London based 'art' people who have NO IDEA of reality. They should be made to work in a wedding studio in Barnsley for 6 months....

Cheers in despair Steve.

Hi..

Boys...calm down, please, this thread looks like something on photo.net with the C & N boys at war again...the first post on this thread was actually a totally reasonable and fair one, seemingly posted by a Pentax user just asking effectively why in his opinion, has Pentax seemingly left a lot of the market to other camera makers...it just got out of hand... the original Q was well worth investigating..

Cheers Steve.

Hi all,

I admire Pentax products, especially the lenses and their place in camera history...but, this thread illustrates why they dropped such a huge clanger (along with Minolta & others) by not trying anywhere near hard enough to corner the pro market. It is no coincidence at all that the 'last two men standing' are effectively Canon & Nikon....

Cheers Steve (another minority and often abused user..Contax)

Hi all,

Just spotted a dubious seller with lots of Pentax items called fototrader..lens caps price £4.75 just for post cost!!! they are in London and have made their feedback private, which is a shame because there are LOTS of negative feedbacks which might have made interesting reading..

Check out item number 7617894117

Anyone used them at all? any comments?

Cheers Steve.

Hi Again

.... a retailers story....some years back I owned my own small retail shop selling CD's. We did well to start with, concentrating on superb service, ordering & sourcing items from all over the world, which all others shops could not be bothered with. When the retail recession hit, we had no financial reserves to keep us going until better times and we had to shut..I still got old customers years afterwards stopping me in the street saying how sad we closed and could we ever re-open..this just illustrates one problem facing small shops.....

......more recently I worked as an area manager for one of the UK's largest home improvement stores (not B&Q) they sold tiles, kitchens, bathrooms etc...they had 80+ stores and could afford TV ads. They were run and owned by a family and I was told more than once directly by the directors to lie to customers who had problems. I ended up in dispute with them and left after a few years.

They sold 'seconds' as new items, they illegally fly-tipped huge amounts of packaging, were warned by the environment agency, given large fines at least twice and were named & shamed in the house of commons as one of the UK's worst offending companies...they still sold loads of items, but finally went into administration recently and were bought out, thereby avoiding going bump....approx 33% of the staff were laid off and the company had avoided paying any redundancy payments of any kind.

This is by no means an unusual story and just shows what many large retailers are like.

Jessops bought up huge amounts of small camera shops, turned them into computer stores and effectively killed them. Retail has been cuthroat for some years and the internet has now sounded the death knell for most sooner or later. The power of the supermarkets is killing many more.

To be fair though, many small camera shops have themselves to blame, I went to London last year round most of the small stores left and was shocked at the awful retailing skills shown by most of them, with terrible display, bad customer facing skills and generally very dated attitudes and a head in the sand approach.

All sad, but it can only get worse as the government we have has no clue at all. I too love Spain for the way of life and the 'back in the past' feeling.

Cheers Steve. (grumpy)

Hi Peter,

Agreed..there is a revolution and it is fine for me and clearly for you also, however it is not at all convenient for a great many people and I have lots of sympathy for them.

There are still many non internet people and also many who want to handle and view items before an expensive purchase, also many who would like good old fashioned face to face advice...I am a retailer at heart and loved to give superb one-to-one customer service and you may be shocked how many people actually really appreciate this.

I do worry as so many innovations appear on the face of it more convenient, but often when you really assess things, they are often not nearly as convenient as they first seem.

Cheers Steve.

Hi,

The only place I see fairs advertised is in Amateur Photographer magazine, in the back pages..although I think in Edinburgh you may struggle to find one anywhere near you...

John...even with ebay, I still expected fairs to do well and am surprised and saddened they seem to be in trouble. I also use ebay lots, but do like to see gear in the flesh...a trip to London is the only thing left now to find any meaningful amount.

Cheers Steve...

Hiya,

I still find it amazing that I can post a question and within a short time I am exchanging views with someone from Switzerland & Canada !!!

UK folk, please do give views on UK fairs...

Thanks Steve.

Hi all,

The number of camera shops closed in the last 2 years has been frightening and the ones left, almost to a man are no longer stocking used items, amazingly in Birmingham City, the UK's 2nd city of over 2 million, only ONE camera shop in the city now stocks used...a rather poor & very neglected selection at Cecil Jacobs...which brings me to my point...

Even taking into consideration the 'ebay effect' you would think camera fairs would be thriving by filling the gap left by the shops, but I do not see this. The Wolverhampton fair, which was the 2nd largest UK fair I think, seems to be dying on its feet, last sundays was awful, with several dealers not showing and gaps all round the hall and even worse, the dealers that did show had less on their stands than normal with lots of rubbish and very few quality items.

Is this happening with other UK fairs? are there any that are thriving, with lots of stalls with decent gear? what does everyone think? do you go to fairs? if not, why? if yes. then how do you see them going?

I do get the impression that many who do go to them just go to tinker and chit chat, with no intention of buying...which drives the dealers barmy...lets hope Photographica this Sunday is better...

Cheers Steve.

Hi,

Because of the 'medium format' style strap lugs on the LX body, you have less choice.

1. Find the original LX strap...they are VERY scarce and even on ebay only appear every few months.

2. Find the LX strap connectors separately..many LX bodies have them already fitted..you may find someone with an old LX body who might take them of and sell them to you separately. Once you have the connectors you can use any strap on the LX.

3. OPTECH (USA) make some superb straps, one of which has connectors on the strap ends to fit directly onto the LX body lugs...the strap is made specifically for the LX and hasselblads. These straps are sold in the UK by several camera dealers & also on ebay.

Cheers Steve.