New york new york!!

fdigital said:
I'm a little worried of this passover thing, how long exactly does it go for? I'll be in the US for about 2-3 weeks, and Canada for about 1. I think I definitely want to see adorama and B&H.
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B&H and Adorama are closed from April 2-10. I sure wouldn't change travel plans over them. B&H, while big, is a zoo, and Adorama's physical space is no bigger than that of any other camera store.

New York has a photo district which contains a high percentage of the stores and laboratories. Here are some places that are all between 17th and 30th streets. If you go to them on Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Saturday, you can catch the Union Squre Greenmarket, which is at Broadway and 17th Street. They will all be open during Passover:

Foto Care, 136 W. 21st Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, in my view far and away the best of the New York stores. Not a place to go for bargains, it is a professional operation for professionals, with knowledgeable and very helpful staff: www.fotocare.com

Lens and Repro, 33 West 17th St, 5th floor, between 5th and 6th Avebues, strong selection of second hand camera gear, including a lot of stuff that is downright quirky: www.lensandrepro.com

Calumet, 16 West 19th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues, major photographic chain with a professional orientation: www.calumetphoto.com

Color Edge Visual, 127 West 30th St. at 6th Avenue, excellent lab, open 7 days a week, late hours, 4 hour turnaround on transparencies and one day turnaround on negatives, also sells film: www.coloredgevisual.com

John Stevenson Gallery, 338 West 23rd Street btwn 8th and 9th Avenues, excellent photographic gallery: http://www.johnstevenson-gallery.com/

Barnes and Noble, corner of 21st St. and 6th Ave.; this particular branch of a major US bookstore chain is strong on graphics and photography. The Barnes and Noble at Union Square is also very good. www.barnesandnoble.com

Photo Village, 1133 Broadway at 26th St, Suite 824, for rangefinder stuff: www.photovillage.com

Tamarkin, 215 Park Avenue South between 17th and 18th Streets, Suite 1914, for rangefinder stuff: www.tamarkin.com

If you are at Union Square, and you're into sports or are interested in a backpack or whatever, you might check out Paragon Sports, a big sporting goods store on about three levels. There's also a restaurant called Republic that is good if you like Asian food and want a quick, reasonably priced bite to eat.

Re New York, without repeating suggestions from others. As traditional as it sounds, it is worth taking the Staten Island Ferry. Organize yourself so that you take the trip over to Staten Island shortly before sunset and come back at sunset. The ferry is free and runs pretty much non-stop. The crossing takes about 20 minutes.

West Harlem aka Black Harlem is well worth it, especially on a Sunday.

Manhattan, although it has many virtues, is one of the worst major cities in the world for signage, and the subway system is very confusing. Make sure that you take a good plasticized map. If you plan to use the subway, you will save yourself a lot of time and aggravation if you study it before you go, taking special note of the difference between local and express trains: http://www.mta.info/index.html

Re Vancouver, I'll repeat what someone else said. Take the ferry across the Strait to Vancouver Island. Tofino is gorgeous. If you have a bit of time in Victoria, drop by the Oak Bay Beach Hotel to enjoy a glass of wine on the back deck, with a view across the Strait to Washington State.

Hope this helps
 
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small correction to Breeze's excellent list above, Calumet is now at 22 W 22nd St. I just came back from K&M and they confirmed that they will be open next week (closed on Sundays).
 
mich8261 said:
Calumet is now at 22 W 22nd St.
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Thanks, I thought that I'd changed that address in my address book.

There's also a decent camera store just off Union Square on 14th, maybe 15th, west side of the square, a good place if you're at Union Square and want to pick up some film. I can never remember the name of it. Do you know?
 
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wow, thankyou so much breeze, that's incredibly helpful.

I can't wait for this trip, it really is going to be fantastic!

I've been playing around with fuji 160c and the new 400h so far - both awesome
 
Hi fdigital,

Now let me give you the short version.

If you go to all these photo shops, you will kill a good part of a day. If you are a photography freak, fine, but otherwise, there are better ways to spend time in New York.

If you like markets, Union Square is worth visiting. If you decide to go there, have a look at the web sites for the photography stores that I listed, and a map, and decide which ones, if any, that you really want to go to. Just realize that none of them is going to be a revelation. If someone said to me, which store would you suggest that I go to on this entire list, my answer would be John Stevenson Gallery. The space is very nice, and they always have an interesting exhibit. In addition to whatever the current exhibit is, if you study their site to know what they have, and call in advance or just show up knowing what they have, you might be able to arrange to see some pretty amazing prints. Walking in, it can seem a bit proper and intimidating, but if you know what you want to see, the people there are likely to be very accomodating.

There are great ways to spend time in New York. Hanging around photo stores is not one of them 🙂
 
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fdigital said:
So on monday (only a few days away), I'm leaving lovely Australia for a few week trip to New York, Vancouver and LA. It's my first time in the States/Canada and I'm following a very simple photographic style.

I'll be taking my Oly om2n with 50 1.8, and I'm hoping to find a shop that has some zuiko lenses - buy a 20-35mm lens there. Also taking my Minolta Hi-matic7s.

For digital, I'm sharing a 30d with 17-40L + a 50 1.8 + sigma 10-20.

I'm going to be shooting both colour and BW, probably fuji neopan 400+1600 (decided I REALLY don't like Tmax 400) for the BW.

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1st Question - What color film should I be using. My experience with color only extends to kodak gold (yucky) and fuji Superia 400 (pretty good)
I get the feeling I should be using Slides or something, however I've never used them before, nor do I know much about them.

Recommendations? If a slide entails the same process as c41 stuff, including getting the negs, scanning with my minolta dual IV with it set on "positive neg" mode, I will probably be keen on doing that.
I'm worried about the meter on my om2n (which is accurate for c41) not being accurate enough for e6. What do you think?

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2nd Question - Please give me some camera shop sugar! I'd like the names of some really good shops - both digital and film related. Also if anyone knows of anywhere that may stock some wide zuiko primes, I'd love them.

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3rd and Last Question (for now) - What are some interesting things to do and places to go with photographic relevance in NY? I'm not talking about the general touristy statue of liberty sort of stuff, more the local stuff - get into what really makes NY buzz!


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I'll post up the best of the images here - I think you guys may be interested in how an Australian with a multicultural past sees NY/LA/CAN. I will be doing a lot of shooting!


Thanks so much for your help,
Gavin
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OMG 😱

Another photo tourist "hits" NYC and wants the inside "skinny".

Did you ever stop to think that if we locals told you the real good places it would ruin them?

Camera stuff is pretty obvious - but if you're coming in the next week or so - be advised that it is Passover and B&H and Adorama are likely to be closed. Anyway, the former is now more of an applicance store and both of them are an unpleasant shopping experience (unless you like to be treated like....).

As to things to shoot that are not "touristy" - visit Sunset Park in Brooklyn and Flushing in Queens for a good overview of the Asian-American communities. Ditto East Flatbush, Brooklyn for West Indian (particularly Haitian). Go to real "uptown" Mahnattan in the 160's to 190's for current day Hispanic-American culture (espescially from the Dominican Republic).

You might want to check out both Besonhurst and Borough Park in Brooklyn which are transitional neighborhoods with Asian and Middle Easterner immigrants (and families thereof). For Russian, you could go down to Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn.

"Hip" life can be found in what is called "Lower Manhattan" but getting very "pricey". As is Williamsburg over in Brooklyn. Still some "edge" artists over in Long Island City, Queens - but the condo developers have "arrived" there too.

For a bit of Greek and increasingly Middle Eastern, you could check out Astoria in Queens (north of LIC).

At the end of the day, you don't have enough time to "learn" NYC given your time frame. So maybe, since Spring is arriving - you should just spend a day or two wandering around Central Park?

Good luck, have fun and spend lots of money in NYC because we locals (ahem, choke, gag, cough) really do love tourists! 😉
 
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