Camera Shop

Last night I discovered a small advantage to the location of my new apartment; it is just a couple of blocks away from what must be the best camera shop in the city. I had been facing the prospect of having to drive south to the factory in Kaohsiung city early this morning in order to remove a stuck filter from my 18mm lens. I had tried several different ways of removing it myself (including using rubber bands and bottle openers), and so had the owners of two other larger camera shops but a friend suggested trying that little shop first before driving down to Kaohsiung. Lo and behold the shop owner knew exactly what to do, and I laughed when I saw him do it; sellotape all around the rim and then twist! It came off immediately, and I immediately understood why. The filter is a disc with two rims: one with a screw-thread to attach it to the lens, and the other a freely rotating rim on top allowing the photographer to adjust the colour polarizer for different shots. The sellotape prevented the top rim from moving by sticking it to the bottom rim - allowing the shop owner to twist the bottom rim without losing his grip due to movement from the top rim. Simple. The shop also has a lot of relatively cheap second-hand camera gear - I saw a Cannon 7D on the shelf (without lenses) for something over NT$4,000 (which will be about U.S.$150 - compare that to the asking price on Amazon for U.S.$800+). Lots and lots of second-hand lenses too. I think I'll be in that shop a few times over the next couple of years.