Camera Store - The Hell of Retail

400mm, f 2.8, I.S. ... What does that mean again?

In the time I've worked at the store (two months now), we've had two customers who spent a ridiculous amount of money on SLRs and lenses and so on who clearly did not know how to evaluate or use what they were buying. Personally, I think you should learn a little bit about photography before you spend $1500 on equipment, so that you know what you're getting. But hey, I wasn't gonna tell THEM that.

First, about a month ago, this guy comes in, wants to get a nice camera to take pictures of his kids' soccer games. All right. You probably want a lot of zoom, right? Let's look at the Fuji S5100, the Panasonics... "What's this one?". Ah, I see you're interested in the Nikon 8700, the most expensive fixed-lens (non-SLR) camera in the store. "Well, it seems to have the most megapixels, and a pretty big lens". Yes, that's right, did you figure that out by yourself? (You can tell I love sounding bitter when I write about my job). Anyways, I show it to him for a while, and then he asks why the D70 and D100 are more expensive (those are Nikon's entry-level SLRs, by the way). "Why are they better? What do you get with them that you don't get with the 8700?". All very important questions.

So I pretty much define for him what an SLR is: You can change the lenses in the front, so you can get a fish-eye lens or a huge telescope-like zoom lens or anything in between, and they're all sharper than any fixed-lens-camera lens. You can use filters to bring out detail or for special effects. You get an optical through-the-lens viewfinder. Response time is very fast. The focusing system is very smart. And, among other neat features, the camera will tell you how you exposed incorrectly, if you did, and show it to you when you review the picture in the little screen. SLRs have fast burst modes (lots of pix one right after the other). Flash shoe above the camera. Remote control. Focus and Exposure bracketing.

"All right, that sounds great! Let me take a look at that!"

This is the D70. Comes with an 18-70 lens...

"What does that mean?"

So I explain to him what the focal lengths and aperture ranges mean on a lens.

He walks to the door, takes pictures of cars on the street. Reviews the pictures, and some glare on some cars make for big white blobs on the image. "What happened? How do I fix it?" You overexposed... See, the camera is flashing those areas, showing you they're just white. You fix it by pointing the center of the viewfinder at the brightest areas when on auto mode, or by making the shutter faster. "How do I do that?". So I give him a quick lesson on shutter speed. He takes more pictures of the car, better exposed. "OK, this is great! I'll take it!". So, someone who didn't know about shutter speed, aperture, focus lengths, SLRs, etc etc, just half an hour ago, is now making the decision to spend $1500 on a camera. Um, ok. I'll go back there and get you one.

The other time that happened, about a week ago, a guy came in wanting to buy a nice camera with tons of zoom so he could take pictures of his friends surfing. My manager handled this one, so I didn't get all the details. All I really know is that I caught him saying to her "So if it's darker, you shoot slower... Ah...", and not much later he was walking out with an SLR, tripod, bags, some accessories, and a 500mm lens. Doesn't it just seem wrong that someone who says "So if it's darker, you shoot slower..." spends $1500 on equipment he probably doesn't appreciate or know how to use well? I mean, he got some great stuff, and he'll be taking great shots with it (probably), and we did make a lot of money off him, but still...

posted by Remus