Woodward Camera — Attraction in Birmingham

First a short history lesson. I am 64 years old and I have been frequenting one of several camera stores that, to my knowledge, have been in business continuously at this Birmingham location since I caught the photo “bug” at the age of 13. I used to ride my bike from Southfield. Woodward Camera & Sound was one of three camera stores in the North Woodward corridor back then. Lobby Hobby and Century Camera are just a faded memory…. I was about to write: “Kind of like LP vinyl records or film photography”, although those have been making a comeback. The Camera Store; not so much. I must say I am very impressed with the new ownership. I’m not sure how much of a secret it is that Woodward cameras is now owned by the same person or group that owns Camera Mall in Ann Arbor. I stumbled into that Ann Arbor store last fall after Thanksgiving after deciding to sell a boatload of my old 35 mm “doorstops“ plus some older micro 4/3 equipment. I had seen they were running a promotion in trade-ins.. I was looking to get into a new Nikon Z9 body to supplement my Z6. The vibe in that store was excellent. A few months later, looking for a new lens, I went to Woodward Camera where I hadn’t been in a few years. The store was clean, hopping, well-stocked and had competitive prices. The staff was very helpful, friendly, knowledgeable and professional. It is harder and harder to find a real brick and mortar establishment catering to the photographer. Sure there are the big box stores… Just try and find sales help from anyone working there with any photo knowledge or know-how. I haven’t seen it ever. In my experience, there no substitute for actually holding a camera (and lens) in your hands to determine how well you can reach the controls and how the whole thing balances. Are the menus logical and intuitive? There is just no parallel experience to that in the online shopping world. What about price you say? Well, today while purchasing a new 14-24mm f2.8 wide angle zoom lens, my main man Reuben actually went online to check the current. price at B&H (a well known NYC retailer and probably the pinnacle in online photo retailing as far as sales support and fair pricing IMHO) to be certain they were not overcharging me. That whole package of actually being able to hold and try equipment in your own hands before you buy, sales help that can answer questions about the products they sell and to know you are buying at a fair price is a very rare find these days. If you are serious about photography or possibly just starting out, and are looking for new equipment, or even some advice, you owe it to yourself to check out...

I’ve been going to Woodward Camera for film developing for the last two years. They always return my photos to me in a reasonable timeframe, and one time they delivered ~6 rolls of photos that I had dropped off in under two weeks. Needless to say, I should’ve left them a positive review a lot sooner. I am guilty of forgetting to leave reviews… but after my last visit, Woodward deserves some love.

I placed a print order specifically for one photo… a self portrait. The reason I needed it was for an anniversary gift. I thought it would be nice to gift my partner, who is also a photographer, a photo of myself in an elaborate frame. Naturally I waited until the day of my anniversary to go and pick-up the portrait, because I was 100% convinced I had added the photo to my order.

I included multiple other images in the order because I didn’t want to have to place multiple orders during the holiday season.

When I picked up my order, the self portrait wasn’t included. I think I was so focused on getting the one photo printed that it slipped through the selection. I also probably just overwhelmed myself trying to think of all the people I needed to frame a photo for.

Anyways, I realized the portrait was missing and went back inside to make sure that it never was apart of the order. Asia looked over my order and told me it wasn’t, in that moment I started to panic because that meant I had no gift for my partner…

During the busiest time of year for printing…. I asked Asia how quickly they were able to print, and somehow they were able to print off what I needed in less than 20 minutes. I did have to pay a rush fee, but I honestly didn’t even care. I am so grateful that I was still able to leave there with the print I needed.

The people who work here are kind, considerate, and willing to help you out (especially when you’re in a pinch!)

Regardless of their ability to deliver what you need in a short period of time, I still strongly suggest ordering...

I needed a way to mount a Samsung Tablet on a lightweight stand designed for an iPad. As you can see in the pictures, my tablet, at 11" is larger than the flip up holders built into the stand.

The Tablet Mount (on the left) I bought didn't quite have the parts needed to use it with the stand, it came with a Metal Ball Head mounting piece that would attach easily to a tripod. Unfortunately I wanted to attach it to a clamp which could then be attached to the stand framework. This meant I needed to find a part to make these items work together the way I needed them to.

A quick search for camera stores led me to Woodward Camera where I met some really nice employees who tried to help me find the one part I thought I was looking for, which was, unfortunately, out of stock. After talking to Joe for a few minutes more minutes about what I wanted to do with this tablet stand he had an idea and showed me the item on the right, a SmallRig Crab-Shaped Super Clamp with Ballhead Magic Arm. We tried it out and it turned out to be even better than my original idea of using a double head screw adapter to join the Ball Head to a clamp that could be mounted on the stand framework. His idea allowed me to change the balance point of the Tablet in relation to the stand itself, which made it far more stable and harder to tip when the heavy tablet was mounted on the stand!

The service was very good, the staff friendly and knew their product lines. The merchandise was reasonably priced and the store was brightly lit and clean.

The best part of this shopping trip was this:

Joe and the Woodward Camera Crew kept me away from Amazon, and having to waste both time and money over buying in order to not get gouged by super slow Amazon Delivery rates!

Thank you Joe and everyone at...