Nelson Photo & Video — Attraction in San Diego

I'm sad to do this but I have to share my experience. I have been coming here for 10+ plus years since I started my photographer/videographer hobby. Spent thousands of dollars every year getting new equipment every couple months. I don't know what happened with management or ownership but here's my story. The manager, David was helping two customers before he could get to me and one of the employees notified him that I was in need of assistance specifically from him. After dealing with two customer he had, David walked around a bit talking to employees then proceed to hop on a call and walk to the back room. I felt kind of ignored at this point. I was already waiting about 30-40 mins prior to this. One of the employee saw this and went into the back to grab him for me. God bless that employee. She deserves a raise ! He finally got to me shortly and He told me he couldn't return the items back despite being brand new still and also the gift certificate I got from them isn't valid anymore. 600+ plus dollars not being valid anymore ? I plead my case with him and he insisted that there was nothing he could do for me despite me being a loyal customer to Nelson's. So basically I sold all my equipment and now I get nothing really out of it ? He told me at least I got something out of it because the previous owner scammed a whole bunch of people. That’s just not right.The customer service with David was horrible. smiled in my face and told me he couldn't help me because of someone that was affiliated with the company had messed up. That is not my problem that the company had its issues and now it’s pouring into your loyal customers This is your reputation that you're representing and to tell a customer your money is basically no good ? When you bought out or bought into Nelson’s, you acquire everything that comes with it. It doesn’t matter what it is. You are still Nelson’s photo that everyone dearly loves. The Nelson that been there for years and years and continue to be there for the next generation. ! You took that name because of the history and loyal customers to the people that work there. I'm sorry and sad to say they lost a loyal customer. Paul is cool though. He's been taking care of me since I started going there. hope they treat him right ! thank you for listening to my rant ! hope this helps anyone...

I have a Canon M50 that I was looking to get a new lens for. Went in hoping to get some guidance from the store reps since I know next to nothing about cameras/photography. I don’t know if I could even be called an amateur since I can’t make heads or tails of my lens measurements.

Well, it seems the store reps can’t figure out basic features, either. I went into with my camera asking for a telescoping lens and the rep kept asking what model I had. I told him three times that it was an M50 and he was fumbling around with it. He showed me a lens that didn’t fit and tried to look up what mount an M50 uses. Not only did he tried using two separate computers to look up information about the camera, but he asked me to look it up on my phone right there and then!

The whole 20 minutes I was there I was just waiting for this guy to figure out the measurements of a M50 camera lens. All this ended up with him telling me to look online for the mount and his excuse was that this was an “old” camera. He went on about how after 2-3 years the technology changes and it’s hard to keep up. He made it seem like I had brought in a Rolleiflex and not an M50!!!

Whoever owns this store; hire younger people that actually know what they’re doing because it seems like this employee was hired out of pity for being old. What a way to drive away someone new to photography. This is why mom and pop shops struggle. I’d rather get my information from YouTube and buy the lens off of Amazon than go back...

Tell me why it took a month to get all my film back, with several hiccups along the way. Dropped off 3 rolls on the 9/3 and finally picked up the final one around 9/26 after two phone calls and 1 in store visit. Idk what happened here, my last experience at Nelson's was years ago and it went 10x smoother than this last time. My prints also had some printing errors, a black bar on the bottom of the pics that isn't on the negatives or scans. Baseball cap girl employee was fake nice in person but not over the phone, she tersely asked if I "checked my spam" and I could hear in the voice they didn't care so I said "thank you bye" and hung up the phone because I would rather deal with someone else. The next day in person her tone was completely different and she was pretending to care now and said I'd get a call back for that final roll which they couldnt find and thought might be at their sister office (never did get that call back). Keith was the only helpful one and offered an apology for the confusion and didn't know why my prints and negatives weren't at the store the previous week I had come to pick them up. Also never got a confirmation email or text (I opted in) for pickup. Only got emails of...