Lens tools

If you're in Hong Kong and looking for some lens tools to open up your 35mm and Medium Format lenses, the only place I've found which does them is "Camera Repair", Room 17B, Champagne Court, Kimberly Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong. It's a few doors away from David Chan's shop. I went in with a vague request, and they were helpful very courteous, and spoke perfect English too.

I bought a little tool to open up a lens, and the shop owner tested all the workings himself, replaced a bit that was a bit wrong, and put bits of two tools together to make one for me.

Also, their rates for cleaning fungus out of lenses sounded quite good: HK$500 for an FA* 80-200 f2.8 Pentax lens.

If you're a tourist to Hong Kong, or a potential tourist to Hong Kong, and you're considering buying a camera in Hong Kong, check out this thread: Camera Stores in Hong Kong at photo.net, and never, ever, buy a camera in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Note on that thread: rude shop assistants are a fact of life in Hong Kong. Just because the guy behind the counter isn't bowing and sweet like what you *think* an Asian shop assistant should be like doesn't mean he's dishonest. He's probably treating you like he'd treat anyone else. Only worry about actual criminal intent.

Actually, I've bought a lot of stuff in Tsim Sha Tsui (I hate that TST abbreviation - it smacks of colonial "some names are just too hard to say" arrogance), and you need to learn to spot certain signs, like the lack of prices in the window and the fact that there are no Chinese people inside the shop.

If there's no prices on everything in the window, DON'T GO IN. YOU'LL GET RIPPED OFF! If they won't let you look at a camera unless you buy it , WALK OUT, YOU'RE BEING RIPPED OFF!.

I should point out that, whenever I go shopping for camera gear in Hong Kong, I'm usually wearing bright floral shirts, shorts and sandals.

(All of which is actually designer clothing from the sample shops in Wanchai, so I've paid maybe HK$300 for Armani shirts, shorts and Adidas sandals. It's all natural fibres and very comfortable for the incredibly humid summers we get here.)

But the guy in the camera shop just sees a foreigner who looks like the quintessential tourist with Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and sandals, with a camera bag attached. It always brings out the worst in the camera shop guys. Those that react to me in a polite and professional fashion get the business, the guys who go into the tourist spiel get short shrift.