The Seven Things They Never Tell You In Camera Shops

You'll all be familiar with the social media trick of making lists of things..." Five Foods Never To Eat ", " Twenty Celebrities You'll Never Recognise ", " Fifteen Diseases That You Can Catch From Potato Crisps " etc. We've all clicked on one of them and been drawn further and further from the topic by wilder and wierder promises. It's basically how a federal election works... But did you know that there are...Seven Things They Never Tell You In The Camera Shops...and that you really do need to keep on clicking to find them out? Put down your muesli and pay attention: a. Camera shops are run by people who want to make money. The old business model where the owner of the shop placed all the goods out on trays for free and begged passers-by to favour him by taking some has finished - now the proprietors hope to take home more money that they brought in the door at the start. This has ramifications for clients. They might enjoy a good old-fashioned money argument as a method of passing the time and they can demand discounted discounts as their birthright, but in the future this is not likely to work. The management and staff have decided that they like to eat regularly too and are going to pitch the final price of whatever is for sale at a point that allows them to do it. They might be eating beans, but well-cooked, beans are wonderful. b. Camera makers are always going to bring out something new - even if it is not new. There is a terrible pressure on them to produce novelty every six months or so, and they are going to indulge in any and everything to cope with that. You will see larger numbers in everything. You may eventually see two-tone paint jobs and tail fins. Or perfume dispensers. Feel free to stop this sequence at any time by jumping in and pushing your credit card into the EFTPOS machine. c. Brides, photographers, wedding designers, caterers, dressmakers, celebrants, and venue operators are all intertwined in a terrible cannibalistic mélange known as the wedding industry. Danté would have made a journey into its darkness if he'd had the nerve, but he confined himself to hell and let it go at that. Camera shops are peripheral to this circus, but they still get to sweep up behind the elephants occasionally. So far no-one has had the nerve to try to sell a silver-coloured camera with little bows on it as a " wedding special " but we're watching the ads... d. The business of getting photographic equipment from one point to another at a whim - what Adam Smith referred to as the Carrying Trade - now consumes more of the world's oil supplies ( in the form of jet fuel ) and electricity ( in the form of emails ) than steel production or the defence budget. If people would be satisfied to wait until something appeared in the shops in the normal course of trade and then just called in and purchased it, the hole in the ozone layer would pop shut and Los Angeles would have clean skies. And Tasmanian tigers would re-appear. e. Photographic tourism, from the humble photo walk to the multi-continental safari, has resulted in vast areas being set up especially for the cameras. The tourists do not realise this, but most of South Africa, the Lake District, and all of Prague are film sets made by Pixar and Disney to provide fodder for the millions of cameras. Most of the lions in Kenya are clockwork. Even the southwest of Western Australia is artificial - every year on the off-season they beach and clean Canal Rocks to keep them going for another year of Chinese bus tourists. Working on scrubbing Bluff Knoll has replaced the wheat bins for a lot of students. f. You used to be able to purchase a 5mm to 3000mm f:1.1 zoom lens with 0% distortion and instant auto-focus for about $ 30 in any camera mount you liked...except the big manufacturers bought up the patent and suppressed it to keep prices artificially high. I know because a chap at the camera club has a cousin who saw it on the internet before they made him take it down. g. The business of cleaning camera sensors is made out to be difficult and delicate so that a big profit can be made. In reality, all the techs ever do is scrub around inside with an old bottle brush and then hit the back of the camera with a ball peen hammer to dislodge the snakes. The hammers last for ages so it's all pure profit. Someone ought to expose this. Have you ever been told these facts? No, of course not. That's what we said in the title. When you next call at the counter you can wink at them and tap the side of your nose. If you buy something expensive they'll let you tap the side of their noses.