My stroll through Yodobashi Camera

Anything else you want to get off your chest or any public chat you want to continue away from a main topic
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bakubo
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My stroll through Yodobashi Camera

Unread post by bakubo »

This morning I was walking through Yodobashi Camera. Didn't even pick up any cameras, but just surveying the usual, extensive landscape of row after row after row of camera gear all begging to be touched. :-) Anyway, it got me to thinking about my most expensive camera I have ever bought in my whole life, the KM 7D. I paid $1500 for it in February 2005. That's about $1850 in 2015 dollars -- about 230,000 yen. Although it had many wonderful points and I loved the IBIS it was a stinking lemon. I had to return it after only a few days because the sensor was not installed flat and perpendicular to the lens so no matter what lens I used the upper half of the frame was focused severely differently than the bottom half. KM replaced it and then the long torture of sending that second one in to KM U.S., twice to KM Canada, and then twice to Sony and each time them not fixing the AF problem I had with it. Finally, after 2 years Sony refunded the full amount for my KM. I thought of this as I was walking through Yodobashi because as I scanned prices of DSLRS and mirrorless I realized that almost every single camera was less than my ill fated KM 7D cameras. The closest in price was a Nikon D810. All the Sony bodies (A99, A7II, A7s, A7r, etc.) were less except for the new A7rII. The higher end Nikons and Canons were more though. The Fuji X-T1 is much less than what my KM 7D cost. And so on.

No real point here except I decided after the KM debacle to never again spend that much money on a camera body. :-) The funny thing is that my second most expensive camera was the A700 I paid about $1250 for in 2008. About $1400 now. That was a camera that I liked the features of even more than the KM 7D, but it was also defective and Sony wasn't able to fix it. Still have that one packed away in the States. Fortunately, all the cameras that cost less (Canon 60D, 30D, 300D; Olympus E-M10, E-M5; Panasonic G3) have all been wonderful and I have not discovered any manufacturing defects with any of them.

Anyway, just some musings on this late afternoon. About time to crack open an Asahi Super Dry, I think. :D Kanpai!
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bakubo
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Re: My stroll through Yodobashi Camera

Unread post by bakubo »

By the way, if you want to see some photos of the inside of a big Japanese camera store you can take a look at this thread I made a few years ago:

http://www.photoclubalpha.com/forum/vie ... =21&t=6548
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bakubo
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Re: My stroll through Yodobashi Camera

Unread post by bakubo »

bakubo wrote:Anyway, it got me to thinking about my most expensive camera I have ever bought in my whole life, the KM 7D. I paid $1500 for it in February 2005. That's about $1850 in 2015 dollars -- about 230,000 yen. Although it had many wonderful points and I loved the IBIS it was a stinking lemon. I had to return it after only a few days because the sensor was not installed flat and perpendicular to the lens so no matter what lens I used the upper half of the frame was focused severely differently than the bottom half. KM replaced it and then the long torture of sending that second one in to KM U.S., twice to KM Canada, and then twice to Sony and each time them not fixing the AF problem I had with it. Finally, after 2 years Sony refunded the full amount for my KM.
I forgot to mention that in the end my KM 7D developed the FFB (first frame black) problem. That was probably the final nail in the coffin that got Sony to refund my money. I think later they developed a fix for it, but I was one of the early people to get hit by it when they had no fix.
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bakubo
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Re: My stroll through Yodobashi Camera

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Since this is sort of a meandering, more or less pointless thread I thought I would post this here. :lol: It isn't complete madness though because there is a related point I want to mention. Which I will do further down.

2015 Calgary Stampede Portraits with Deardorff 8x10 View Camera

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nat ... e25404276/

About half way down there is a portrait of William Albert Allard with the following caption under it:

World renowned National Geographic photographer William Albert Allard visits friends in Calgary and continues his work on cowboy culture. Mr. Allard, one of the most important and influential photographers of the 20th century, created a seminal body of work around cowboy life and culture. The 77 year old photographer has been capturing poetic images of American culture and on international issues for more than 50 years, including photographic documentaries on the Pennsylvania Amish, India’s ‘Untouchable’ caste and Thailand’s street elephants.

In the photo Allard has an old Panasonic GX1 m4/3 camera with accessory EVF. Today I read a comment by someone who worked with him this year in Thailand who said that he uses 2 GX1 bodies with 20mm f1.7 and 14mm f2.5 lenses along with a Leica digital also. The GX1 came out in 2011 with a rather old 16mp sensor. Not the better 16mp sensors from Sony and Panasonic that came out later.

It reminds me how much I mostly liked my 12mp A700 (except for the nightmare of the unfixable faulty control wheels :( ). I took more photos with it than any other camera I have ever owned in my life: 18,553! Used it in the U.S., Japan, Vietnam, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, Canada, etc. The old 2007 camera with the old 12mp sensor, I still think, is satisfying. I always shot in raw and newer raw converters get even better results from the old raw files. LR/ACR got a pretty good jump in 2012 with the 2012 raw process and I noticed when I processed some old 2006-2008 8mp Canon 30D raw files a few months ago that they looked better than they did back then using a much older ACR.
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the_hefay
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Re: My stroll through Yodobashi Camera

Unread post by the_hefay »

Interesting meander here Henry. :)
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bakubo
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Re: My stroll through Yodobashi Camera

Unread post by bakubo »

Thanks. Just some ramblings about things that were rolling around in my head a few days ago. :lol: By the way, here is another thread that had some rambling about various subjects in it:

Radical Transformation: Magnum Photos into the Digital Age

http://www.photoclubalpha.com/forum/vie ... =52&t=7965
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