Stupidly funny things overheard at your local camera store

Overheard today at Leo's Camera, Vancouver, as a woman was buying a new SD card for her point-and-shoot...

woman: "Oh I thought all of the memory cards were the same!"

clerk: "No the higher-priced brands use better memory so you don't lose the images; cheap cards can just stop working and then you've lost your photos... but I only shoot important things on film. Film never crashes. Computers crash all the time and then you've lost everything. The only way I'd lose any important images is if I had a fire at my house."

---

Now this is a pretty good camera store and I've dealt with this clerk-- he is a smart guy, knows cameras, knows photography... but I had no idea he was such a luddite. Sure, buddy, the only way you lose your photos is a house fire (or a flood)... and that never happens, right? While those of us who welcomed the digital age have multiple 100% authentic backups of our entire catalog in various secure places.

So what stupid or funny things have you heard at your local camera store?

I never go to stores, I just buy online. The last electronics store I was at, however, I was browsing idly the camera section and the helper came over to start spinning the salesperson speech about the (at the time) newish nikon d90. I told him I was a canon-man and I had rarely used cropped cameras, as I shot full frame most of the time with the 5Dm2

"This nikon has 1.5x the size of the sensor as a full frame camera like your 5D mark II"

A bit of umming and erring so I tried to explain how focal length multipliers really worked, but to no avail

"No no, this camera we got here is BETTER than your 5D mark II, its got ISO up to 6400"

Told him the 5D mark II did up to 25600 and he said that was impossible, no camera did over 3200 it gets better...for the low price of 1300$ the d90 could be mine(just the body, though) !

Said thanks, but no thanks..I've invested too much money in canon mount glass...

"I'm 90% sure you can use any kind of lens on the d90 that was made after 2008. They just came out this year"

I went in Henry's to see if they had a 7D I could play with. The salesman said they were sold out but he could hold one for me on their next shipment. I said no thanks, it was a bit more then I wanted to spend and I was curious to see what the 60D will be about when it comes out. He said there will be NO 60d, that the 7D replaced it. A 60D would be "taking a step backwards". Well I guess when it comes out I will have to go back to the store and laugh in his face.

(ok that one wasn't very funny)

I overheard myself onetime saying "Yes I will buy that overpriced lens." And I did.

Eh, just tailoring his speech to make a few extra dollars in commission

So... years ago this guy tells me that he has to have a 20D... because his neighbor has one? I wonder what he's using now.

I once had a clerk at the local Fry's tell me that if I bought the more expensive, faster CF card that it would "make my pictures LOOK better"...

I haven't actually set foot in a Fry's since.

"The more you spend on a camera, the better the pictures you will get..."

Hence, all the Soccer Dads at this store buying AT LEAST a Nikon D90... :O

TheHoff wrote in post #8928529
.........

---

Now this is a pretty good camera store and I've dealt with this clerk-- he is a smart guy, knows cameras, knows photography... but I had no idea he was such a luddite. .....

That sounds like Peter to me.

I worked in a store while going through university and a true luddite asked me to process her flash bulbs. She said that the camera manual said to use flash bulbs at night .


At Kerrisdale Cameras I recently heard a customer say (to the clerk) that you should not erase frames with a certain camera as its erase facility was so powerful it would damage the frame next to it.

MY B-I-L wanted to buy a camera. He had his heart set on a D700. So the day before his son's wedding he was ready to open his wallet and we went to the store. The clerk had just sold her last D700 (and the 2.8 zoom trio) but she advised him that a D300 was every bit as good a camera and she was a photography student headed for a PJ career and it was good enough for her. So he asks me for my input, I told his it would be a great camera but to change the lens line up he had in mind. I recommended a couple of crop lenses.

The clerk then said but if he ever want to "upgrade" to full frame those lenses would not work.


I had guessed she would say that and I knew my B-I-L had the camera he wants in mind and would not go for another model. He still is using his G9, weddings are expensive.


Nothing she said was overtly dumb but if a customer has sold himself the sales job is done, it is time to write up a bill and get the customer what they want. Not to do so is the dumb bit.

This will take a little explaining: In 1966 I moved to Israel and settled in a kibbutz out in the boonies. The closest town was, at that time, inhabited mostly by refugees from Germany who had founded the town in the '30s. They were the very model of German, middle class, pedantic Luddism and I was a hot-shot street shooter from N.Y.C., grabbing candids with a Nikon F and push-developed Tri-X. The town had several camera shops but in every one when I asked for Tri-X the reply always was, "What do you want that for? Here's some nice 100 ISO Agfapan." In the end I had to go down to Tel Aviv and buy a roll of a hundred feet of Tri-X and some reusable cassettes. But the best was the shopkeeper who advised me to get a Leica, because, "Those Japanese cameras are junk."

Quad wrote in post #8929793
That sounds like Peter to me.

bingo.

Karl Johnston wrote in post #8928595
"I'm 90% sure you can use any kind of lens on the d90 that was made after 2008. They just came out this year"
[/I]

Nice. Like you're asking if some Windows software is compatible.

At a local Future Shop :

"The only difference between a high-end Point & Shoot and a consumer-level Canon Rebel is that one has interchangeable lenses."

Of course, he was trying to sell me the Rebel at the time.

WaltA wrote in post #8930578
At a local Future Shop :

Heh, I'm not sure if Future Shop counts Most of the employees there know nothing about any of their products... but hey they like to talk lots. If I ever need a good laugh I just go in and ask an open question about a computer or camera.