Norman Camera — Attraction in Kalamazoo

DO NOT DEVELOP FILM HERE!! 33 dollars PER roll which they don’t tell you until after you pick up the film… They sugarcoat it with a 20 dollar deposit making you think that’s the actual order cost. On top of that they’ll try to charge you another 10 dollars for a USB drive because unlike every other modern film lab they still use USB flash drives. 75+ dollars to dev and scan TWO rolls of film with ONLY 24 exposures. Salesman also told me they develop in house which doesn’t seem like the case considering my packets have “Kzoo” written on them and are beaten and battered… It also takes an insane amount of time 3-4 weeks to get your scans back where as you can ship your film to a place like the Dark Room and get scans back within a week…. These guys are fishy and won’t tell you half the info until you find out yourself. Also they sold me on some low grade film that was much cheaper online, on top of that, the film was about to expire in less than 2 months… Even buying film online it comes new and doesn’t expire for atleast 2 years. They’ll also try to sell you on all their overpriced camera gear and won’t stop bugging you until you leave. I really don’t know how the reviews are so high on this joint, maybe they are fake or their digital services are actually okay. For film purposes...

Staff are very knowledgeable and helpful as soon as you walk in. I also appreciate that the staff are patient with those of us who aren't experts (yet). Prices are okay, sometimes they are on par with what I have found elsewhere and sometimes they are less or slightly more, but never a big deal. I like giving my business to a local business and everyone I have spoken with about Norman's has good things to say. I will be there this week for some things. The only reason I didn't give 5 stars is because the last time I came in, it took a while for the clerk to come and check on me as I browsed and from what I overheard, it was not due to him assisting a customer, but it sounded very much so like a personal conversation. As far as customer service goes, I would expect any non-work related chatter to be halted when a customer enters the store. Eventually he came over and was very helpful when he did, so no...

Spectacular camera store, well-worth driving a couple of hours (as I do) to interact with its expert staff in order to make informed equipment purchases. It's the one of the few remaining of a dying bread; we're lucky to have it.

I've done business with Norman since I shot weddings with Hasselblad and Nikon film cameras in the early 1980s. To this day, they remain my go-to source for digital still and video equipment: Canon, Nikon, and Leica, primarily (though I've kept up with them on Fujifilm as well). Also a great selection of studio gear, tripods (including more exotic rigs), lighting (strobe and continuous), and backgrounds.

Nothing beats being able to experience such equipment.

Highly...