Friday 27 July 2007

Hand held in Black & white

Mention of Super 8 films in my post below reminds me of one fo my favourite shops in London; The widescreen Centre. It's one of those shops you only get in the Smoke, in that it's incredibly specialist. See also the flute and recorder shops just round the corner from it, between Baker st and Marlebone High st (Dorset st, I think?)

The Widescreen Centre sells all things optical that aren't video or 35 mm cameras so, telescopes, 3d cameras and super 8 film stuff. It's a joy! Most of the grainy B&W film you see as reconstructions in tv documentaries (why is that the convention?) are still shot on super 8, mostly bought from this shop.

Hurrah for niche specialist shops!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hooray for niche shop, boo to Londoners thinking they're unique. For years, the Super 8 mecca was Derant in Dudley.

Or in Leamington, there's "Classic Train and Motorbus", a tiny shop selling scale models. I've never had cause to go in there myself...

BLTP said...

John nice to have you along.
RE Shops: Yes, hurrah to niche shops everywhere, my point was mainly that because of it's size London can still sustain tiny interesting shops (there's one just for chess fans!). Which wouldn't have the custom elsewhere. Things are changing and the savy ones now sell via the net and just use their shop as a"warehouse", so location is less of problem.

Anonymous said...

Yeah boo to Londoners!
Our high street has specialist shops for Pot Belly Stoves, Sewing machine parts, Model Engineering, Comics, Prog Rock and Panama Hats. It does however have more latte outlets than a small northern town ought to need.

BLTP said...

Yeah but it's a crap comic shop with boring golden age comics in mylar bags. Panama hat shop is your town full of retired wine critics! tee hee let's close down all the chain stores.