The F-Stop Camera Shop, 1224-B Huger Street: 16 July 2011 10 comments
When I was around 10, I semi-inherited a bunch of darkroom equipment, and drove the guys at Jackson Cameras to distraction with all my questions, and my mother to distraction with all the chemical stains (still there today) on her kitchen countertops. Given that, and the number of film cameras I have salted away in storage somewhere (including a Kodak 616 format box camera that worked the last time I tried it..), I always figured I would drop by film haven The F-Stop Camera Shop someday. I noted when it moved here from Five Points, and somehow still didn't get around to it.
Hard to believe I haven't been in a darkroom since 1976..
UPDATE 12 September 2012: Added two pictures of the place in operation that I forgot to copy over.
10 Responses to 'The F-Stop Camera Shop, 1224-B Huger Street: 16 July 2011'
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tonkatoy
12 Sep 12 at 6:44 am
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By the way, the former owners ran for local offices in the last election. One ran for mayor, and the other for city council. I had a roll of special film, too, that they could have processed, but never got around to it.
badger
12 Sep 12 at 7:50 am
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I remember the window between the "Fulton" and the "Studios" would always have a small blue light bulb in it. I thought that looked pretty cool.
jonathan
12 Sep 12 at 8:18 am
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I'm with tonkatoy on the film...digital has opened up so many doors and I feel thankful to have gone through High School in the digital age as I believe it has opened so many doors for me on several levels
Andrew
12 Sep 12 at 10:31 am
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@ jonthan: Yeah, that light was pretty cool!
@ Andrew: You didn't miss a thing with film. I wish digital was around when I was a kid. There would have been a LOT more photos of cool old stuff from back in the day.
Electrons are much cheaper than film and processing.
tonkatoy
13 Sep 12 at 6:44 am
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Funny thing was that when they announced that they were re-locating they origanlly said Main Street. Bet they wish they had done that now?
Tom
13 Sep 12 at 2:58 pm
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Yeah, with all the fond memories I have of darkrooms I was really never very good at the chemical side (and of course could only do B&W that way anyway). I held off on digital for a long time because I was very comfortable with the Fujica I had had since 10th grade (30+ years!), but I would definitely never go back to film. It would be impossible to do something like this blog that way.
ted
13 Sep 12 at 11:34 pm
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Although digital is a far superior tool, there is a certain spirituality to shooting film. You pray you got the shot, you pray the film develops properly. But truly there is something very cool about the process - cracking open a film can and winding it onto the spool in total darkness, then watching the luminescent clock hands tick away the seconds until your film is developed. Plus, if you have never printed, there is the connection you get to the picture as you expose the negative on the paper, maybe dodge a spot or two and then take it over to the developer and watch as your picture begins to appear. With technology we have lost some of the magic that used to be in the world. Not that I would trade my digital and photoshop as tools, but I miss the magic.
Larry
14 Sep 12 at 4:37 pm
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I think there will remain a market for film cameras for a long time to come. There are still a lot of professional photographers that swear by their 35mm's. After all, everyone said that vinyl was going to die when CD's came out and it still has a niche in the market, especially for audiophiles (I still shop at Papa Jazz for vinyl). I have a Minolta 35mm in my bag along with my Nikon digital right now. The Minolta is no where near as good as the old one I had in the 70's. I would have put that camera up against any consumer digital for picture quality. Sure, with digital, you have the instant gratification of seeing the picture right after you shoot it and just re-shoot again if you don't like it. And, yes, I can't fire up Paint Shop to clean the pictures up before I share them. Seems like instant gratification, in many ways, has taken precedence over anticipation. I do agree with Larry; the magic is gone.
Homer
15 Sep 12 at 1:52 am
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I never saw the magic in paying out the wazoo for film and seven bucks or so for 27 shots. Or, i the case of the SX-70 my sister and I shared in the seventies, a buck a shot for the film and pic (ignoring the flash costs.
Never understood the fascination with vinyl over CDs, either. I guess its the same thought behind people who like Model Ts. Kind of nostalgia for simpler times and obsolete technology.
tonkatoy
17 Sep 12 at 6:41 am
I don't miss film at all. Digital is so much cheaper and the pictures so much better.