B & H Photo Video

[Uncle Greg]

This place makes the big box stores look like a 7-11.

 

[nordkin]

I went to the store about a month ago, spent over three hours in there and came out about $1500 poorer. The store is awesome and the day I went the line was around the block when they opened just to get in. I go to NY often and am now going to have to fight the urge to go to the store. Did you know they actually have their own parking lot around the corner from the store?

 

[Marlton Mom]

I went to the store about a month ago, spent over three hours in there and came out about $1500 poorer. The store is awesome and the day I went the line was around the block when they opened just to get in. I go to NY often and am now going to have to fight the urge to go to the store. Did you know they actually have their own parking lot around the corner from the store?

Yes and if you spend 100 bucks in the store you get one hour of free parking. Just think, you could have spent 15 hours in there, but then you would have spent even MORE money, but then you could have parked for EVEN LONGER, but then you would have spent.... Oh never mind! You're lucky you got out when you did!


Marlton Mom
P.S. We took the train.

 

[Marlton Mom]

I thought that I would post this over here.

Tips for shopping in store at B and H

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jax1023 View Post
Thanks for the advice everyone one! I will be at home in NY next week, so I will maybe take a field trip to B and H and look at some of these.


The family and I just took another field trip up to B an H today. My husband wanted a point and shoot (Canon Powershot G12) and I ordered a Lowepro Pro Runner 450 AW Backpack. This bag is huge and probably not what you are looking for but I wanted to pass along some B and H advice.

The store is really great for checking out bags. They have them on tethers so you can pull them off the shelf for about 3 feet and try one on for size and carrying position. However, what is missing from the sales floor are model specs like size and weight, tripod carrying ability and other info like customer reviews.

B and H can be a bit overwhelming due to the endless variety of the item you are considering. What I found works best for me was to go to the web site and narrow down the choices. I do that by looking at the specs and reading the customer reviews on the B and H site. The customer reviews are awesome because they will point out things that others have discovered about the product that you might not even realize may be important to you.

I'd look at the specs, especially for details like product weight. I knew that the Pro Runner 450 AW Backpack weighed 6 pounds but a used Lowepro Pro Trekker AW Camera Backpack bag became available that looked absolutely fabulous until I saw that empty it weighed in at 9 pounds..... PASS!

So it really pays to know before you go, or at least have it narrowed down.

The other tip I have is to grab one of those 10 pound B and H catalogs they have all over the store and use it to provide some of the details that are missing where the product is displayed. For some items, like bags and cameras the info listed in the catalog may be good, but for other items, like camera straps, the info in that catalog is poor.

Narrowing things down via the website at your home is really the way to go. Make a list of things you want to physically check out and then 'go to town' at B and H!

They also have a million people working the sales floor to assist you. They can access the catalog at their work stations but I don't think you can read the product reviews from their in house computer stations.

While I was waiting for DH to make up his mind (an epic story in and of itself!!! ) I spent a chunk of time looking at tripods in the catalog and then running over to the tripods on display. This was a pain because I didn't know exactly what I wanted and there were a Forrest of tripods for me to weed out. The tripods on the floor just had model #'s on them and no other info or specs! I could have asked for help from the sales rep but I just didn't want to go there and I decided I needed to do my weeding at home where I have all of the info via computer but none of the hands on ability that you get at the store. One day I'll go back to the store and start picking up those tripods, only the next time I will have a list with the model #'s and specs on me and have a plan.

Good luck with your bag search. I hope the above advice makes shopping that much easier.

Merry Christmas!
Marlton Mom
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