1.28.2009
somuchtosay:
Hey boo. I am at my new job right now. Cant type much but I read all of your previous posts as to which I was bad to not read sooner. I was cruising w/ Hanson for 6days and then I have no internet but as soon as I get a chance I will respond. I have a lot 2 tell u.(obviously). will write soon. =)
1.14.2009
b&h photo : diamond importer?
What's up chica.
Nothing ever goes as planned, eh? As i wrote before, i was planning on purchasing my camera from b&h last friday (aka payday), but then a couple things happened and goddamnit.
So. Friday. I'm on bhphoto.com, my camera is in stock, and i have the money in the bank. But i'm impatient. I WANT MY CAMERA LIKE NOW! So i have the bright idea of printing out the webpage and driving over to our local camera dude. I'll walk in, the camera will be in stock, then i'll demand that he meets b&h's prices. A perfect no-waiting plan.
I make the 6-minute drive and park. Then i remember that i'm not a complete asshole and fold the printed webpage and slip it into my purse. I figure I'll go in, see if he even has it, feel him out, then spring the Gimme-A-Deal print-out on him. Definitely didn't happen that way.
"local camera dude" is a man named Richard who owns Monterey Bay Photo Mart.
He owns and operates his store, and his is definitely the face you are going to see no matter what day you shop there. He and his store are basically the opposite of b&h. He's small, he's local, he'll be there in-person to help me out should I need it. I have a soft spot for that kind of shit, what with my Environmental-Studies-UCSC-Farmer's-Market-Fair-Trade-Buy-Local background.
Whatever. So I ended up ordering it through his store Monday evening. Maybe I'll have it in my hands this friday...
The interesting part of all this is what Richard told me about b&h. They are setting price standards within the resale industry by selling equipment so cheaply. As with any reseller, b&h buys the epuipment from the manufacturer and then resells it to the consumer. The common business plan is to resell it for a profit, but not so with b&h. According to Richard, they actually sell the equipment for less than they buy it. Makes no sense, right?
Richard knows the owner of another camera shop who matched b&h's prices for an entire year. They lost $50,000 because of it, showing that b&h does lose money on their camera business.
As he is telling me this, I am just totally confused. Then he says, "Well b&h has other sources of income." So I ask him what that could be, and he says "Well, they're the second largest diamond importer in the united states."
HUH?!
All of this of course is what I heard from Richard, but he said that b&h uses their photo/video/audio customers as "the bank" because using the real bank costs $. They undersell their cameras, losing, say $100 on a sale, then they place the money from your purchase into their diamond business. There, they turn a 400% profit overnight.
Good for them of course...
But why? Fuck, if you're in the camera business, why do you need to be in the diamond business, too?
Money.
Duh.
I just carry this feeble hope that maybe people would have moral standards to not ruin one industry (local camera shops) simply to make money through another, completely unrelated field. Especially when diamonds are so strewn with controversy...
Well, after this whole tirade i supppose i should let you know that i haven't been able to verify any of this for myself. I spent considerable time googling phrases like "bh diamond import" and "h schreiber diamond" but to no immediate avail... The closest I came was one comment on some Texas fishing website by a guy who also thought diamonds were the Schreiber's first business, and b&h their second (http://www.2coolfishing.com/ttmbforum/showpost.php?p=1533000&postcount=4) . I highly doubt that we have anyone else reading this site, but hell, if you are some random person and happen to know whether any of this is true or false, please leave a comment. Lemme know if you happen to discover anything, autie.
Anyway, camera. In my hands. With any luck, before next wednesday. Which means pictures! For you!
Love ya!
Nothing ever goes as planned, eh? As i wrote before, i was planning on purchasing my camera from b&h last friday (aka payday), but then a couple things happened and goddamnit.
So. Friday. I'm on bhphoto.com, my camera is in stock, and i have the money in the bank. But i'm impatient. I WANT MY CAMERA LIKE NOW! So i have the bright idea of printing out the webpage and driving over to our local camera dude. I'll walk in, the camera will be in stock, then i'll demand that he meets b&h's prices. A perfect no-waiting plan.
I make the 6-minute drive and park. Then i remember that i'm not a complete asshole and fold the printed webpage and slip it into my purse. I figure I'll go in, see if he even has it, feel him out, then spring the Gimme-A-Deal print-out on him. Definitely didn't happen that way.
"local camera dude" is a man named Richard who owns Monterey Bay Photo Mart.
He owns and operates his store, and his is definitely the face you are going to see no matter what day you shop there. He and his store are basically the opposite of b&h. He's small, he's local, he'll be there in-person to help me out should I need it. I have a soft spot for that kind of shit, what with my Environmental-Studies-UCSC-Farmer's-Market-Fair-Trade-Buy-Local background.
Whatever. So I ended up ordering it through his store Monday evening. Maybe I'll have it in my hands this friday...
The interesting part of all this is what Richard told me about b&h. They are setting price standards within the resale industry by selling equipment so cheaply. As with any reseller, b&h buys the epuipment from the manufacturer and then resells it to the consumer. The common business plan is to resell it for a profit, but not so with b&h. According to Richard, they actually sell the equipment for less than they buy it. Makes no sense, right?
Richard knows the owner of another camera shop who matched b&h's prices for an entire year. They lost $50,000 because of it, showing that b&h does lose money on their camera business.
As he is telling me this, I am just totally confused. Then he says, "Well b&h has other sources of income." So I ask him what that could be, and he says "Well, they're the second largest diamond importer in the united states."
HUH?!
All of this of course is what I heard from Richard, but he said that b&h uses their photo/video/audio customers as "the bank" because using the real bank costs $. They undersell their cameras, losing, say $100 on a sale, then they place the money from your purchase into their diamond business. There, they turn a 400% profit overnight.
Good for them of course...
But why? Fuck, if you're in the camera business, why do you need to be in the diamond business, too?
Money.
Duh.
I just carry this feeble hope that maybe people would have moral standards to not ruin one industry (local camera shops) simply to make money through another, completely unrelated field. Especially when diamonds are so strewn with controversy...
Well, after this whole tirade i supppose i should let you know that i haven't been able to verify any of this for myself. I spent considerable time googling phrases like "bh diamond import" and "h schreiber diamond" but to no immediate avail... The closest I came was one comment on some Texas fishing website by a guy who also thought diamonds were the Schreiber's first business, and b&h their second (http://www.2coolfishing.com/ttmbforum/showpost.php?p=1533000&postcount=4) . I highly doubt that we have anyone else reading this site, but hell, if you are some random person and happen to know whether any of this is true or false, please leave a comment. Lemme know if you happen to discover anything, autie.
Anyway, camera. In my hands. With any luck, before next wednesday. Which means pictures! For you!
Love ya!
1.07.2009
Tilt & Shift
Happy Wednesday!
This article: http://photo.net/equipment/canon/tilt-shift How Shift Lenses Change Your Life was written by a guy named Frank Sheeran in 1997 & explains what tilt and shift are and how you can use them to manipulate your images. He explains how it is useful for taking a picture of a mirror without showing your reflection AND while avoiding a parallelogram effect. ...i always wondered about that... He also explains that back in the day when cameras all had bellows, adjusting your tilt and shift to control perspective was just as common and necessary as adjusting your focus and selecting your shutter speed & aperture. Seems like the sort of perspective control that tilt & shift offer the photographer is pretty handy... as of his writing, Canon didn't offer an acceptable 35 mm lens option--according to Mr. Sheeran, at least--I wonder if that has changed since 1997.
oh and i buy my camera in like...... 34 hours. I CANNOT tell you how excited I am!!!
I learned something today. Hooray! My friend Dylan sent me this link earlier this morning:
50 Beautiful Examples of Tilt-shift Photography (Vincent Laforet in Smashing Magazine)
The images are really cute--using a tilt-shift lens (or creating the effect in Photoshop), these photographers make huge real-life scenes look like miniature models.
Toni Hafkenscheid has some interesting T/S landscapes in his fine art section:
http://thphotos.com/index.html
http://thphotos.com/index.html
This article: http://photo.net/equipment/canon/tilt-shift How Shift Lenses Change Your Life was written by a guy named Frank Sheeran in 1997 & explains what tilt and shift are and how you can use them to manipulate your images. He explains how it is useful for taking a picture of a mirror without showing your reflection AND while avoiding a parallelogram effect. ...i always wondered about that... He also explains that back in the day when cameras all had bellows, adjusting your tilt and shift to control perspective was just as common and necessary as adjusting your focus and selecting your shutter speed & aperture. Seems like the sort of perspective control that tilt & shift offer the photographer is pretty handy... as of his writing, Canon didn't offer an acceptable 35 mm lens option--according to Mr. Sheeran, at least--I wonder if that has changed since 1997.
I tried to find tilt-shift portrait photography but didn't really find anything of note, yet.
Dennison Bertram has a tutorial for making your own T/S lens using a small plunger...
He has a portrait posted at the bottom - that is pretty much the only one I found. Surprising, I would think this would be a fun effect to apply to portraiture...
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