Lens & Shutter

Roy King and his staff at Lens are Shutter on Broadway are just great! They always have the latest and greatest products in stock and at excellent prices. If they do not have the product I am looking for, they order it right away for me. I give this company 5 stars and will always only shop here for my photography equipment. Thanks guys!

I had such a great experience here, the server helped me compare cameras and find the perfect camera for just my needs, they are helpful and thoughtful and offer competitive prices. The server was so enthused about photography that he even recommended places for me to visit on my travels in America. Great shop with a good selection, do NOT use Broadway Cameras their staff are stuck up and nasty, Lens and Shutter all the way, will give my custom to a business that treats their customers with value and respect, their enthusiasm is contagious.

Staff were very helpful in working with me on a repair issue for a camera I bought there a few months ago. Great service and a great outcome!

After months of searching for a replacement eyepiece for my camera with no luck, even at the largest camera inventory retailers, I finally found this place had one in stock. When I tried to order it, I noticed their website would not accept U.S. shipping or billing addresses. When I called in, they gave me some cockamamie story about calling my credit card company to change the billing address to a Canadian one. I asked if they would be willing to make an exception, since I had searched high and low for the part with absolutely no result, but they refused. The $ 21-​item I wanted could have been put in an envelope and sent to me for less than $ 2, but I guess that’s too much trouble for these sorry people. They’ll throw away a sale and lose a customer before they’ll lift a finger to help someone out. So much for putting customers first!

I needed to get a passport photo done for my baby. I had gotten our photos taken last summer but never ended up submitting the application. Since she has changed so much since then I wasn’t sure if here were still good. I asked the lady working if she knew how long passport photos were good for and was given a lot of snark in reply.
She says in an overly friendly, high pitched voice «I’m not the government, we just take the photos we don’t make the rules. We are a photo store not the passport office» and gave me a condesending smile. Bitch please! So rude. You’d think that wasn’t too complicated of a question. You’d think it would be basic knowledge by a store that deals with them daily.
I should have walked out right there and taken my business elsewhere but I was pressed for time.
So she takes a few photos of my kid and says «we have a few here that will work!» I said «Perfect.»
I was then told I needed to pay up front for them before they were ready. Fine, doesn’t matter. Cost? $ 25! So expensive. Ridiculous.
I go back the next day to pick them up and my kid has the weirdest look on her face. She looks posessed. That’s the photo she picked?! AND on top of that, when they photoshopped the background out they took a chunk of her skull off. I can’t believe they looked at that and decided it passed any kind of quality control whatsoever.
Steer clear of this shady place if you need passport photos done. You can get them done for $ 9 downtown

If you don’t know much about cameras don’t go here. The customer service camera guy (who ironically doesn’t have any customer service) makes you leave feeling incredibly stupid. Not a great experience. London Drugs on the other hand was awesome and will be buying a camera from them soon. The cameras are the same price but great customer service takes to prize!

Convenient location to print out your pics instead of going to Costco. You can load your pics even directly from your phone, but only to a maximum of the first 2,000 pics so not good for me, as I probably have double that lol. Worker nice enough to point out to download to a USB stick and then it’s no problem on their computers. Just 39 cents a pic, and depending on their workload, the 4×6 can be ready in 15 min or 1 hour.
So their services are located on the left; their retail side of cameras is quite impressive, bigger than a Best Buy camera section, and in glass displays. For a neighbourhood store, it’s quite spacious.
even a separate room for their specialized bags.
Metered parking all around.
Amex good.

Tried to price match at this Lens and Shutter to one of their local competitor (Broadway Camera) but they declined.
The price I wanted to match was only $ 30 cheaper, but since their competitor had «no stock», I was rebuffed. Really? For $ 30, they lost a $ 400.00 sale overall…
No wonder their competitor was out of stock, they had it on sale cheaper by a bit and it was an expensive camera. Most local retailers have dropped their «no-​stock, no price match» policies in the last few years as long as the lowest sale price was no so outrageous, but I guess not this place.
Absolutely terrible service! I recommend avoiding this place and go else where.

Good location (I love the area)
The lady that helped me out was very friendly and helpful — even though I didn’t really buy anything she still answered all my questions and helped me with product that would be appropriate to my situation without really pushing it on me. I actually plan to go back and buy some stuff from them (tripod) when I’m not travelling via bicycle.
Their selection seemed okay — it seemed like they had something for all the major brands and the major stuff, but their shelves didn’t seem to have a huge amount of stuff. Maybe it’s risky keeping it all on stock? Or not enough demand?

I went to Lens and Shutter to purchase a new digital camera. Once I arrived, I waited a bit to get served. A friendly gentlemen helped me pick out a camera. Their customer service was friendly and welcoming. The only reason I didn’t give it a full mark is because their prices can be generally more expensive than some of their competitors. Overall, It was a pleasant experience.

I came in here today to look at a new digicam that I’m thinking of buying. It’s an old school type of camera that is in the shape of a film rangefinder camera, with knobs and dials that are traditional in looks, feel and location.
The store has downsized a lot since the digital revolution decimated film cameras. Lots of gear available. Bags, frames, accesories, lighting equipment, and high end tripods and heads from Gitzo, and Manfrotto.
The staff are very knowledgeable about their product. Some of the staff here have sold me film gear eons ago. They’ve abandoned film cameras totally, and carry only digi. However they still stock film chemistry, paper, and film.
Parking is street or in the back behind Starbucks, but is pay.

I purchased a camera from this shop yesterday. I did my own research for the particular camera that I wanted and looked for the cheapest price which was at lens and Shutter.
The camera I bought was a sale item so I called before I went there to make sure they had it in stock. Barbara, the lady who answered and assisted me in store held the camera for me until I got there just in case. I didn’t really have that many questions so I can’t really rate them on their knowledge — I was purchasing a waterproof point and shoot camera (Nikon coolpix AW100 to be exact). A man there did show me how to «format» my new memory card and told me this was important though they didn’t explain why (don’t really care anyways haha).
I was in and out of this store in…20 minutes? I played around with the demo model just to make sure I liked the layout because their return/​exchange policy is no where near as good as Best Buys (which didn’t carry this camera!). They told me to keep the receipt for warranty purposes and if there are any problems that I could contact them to deal with Nikon.
The store was quite big and looked like they had quite a big selection of cameras. It was clean and there were 3 sales people working on a weekday afternoon. Overall my experience was good — quick sale, good price (sale price!), nice staff.

Probably the best photo staff in the city. Lots of selection, and have not once been in there and not have the staff let me take all the time in the world asking questions and playing with stuff. Amazon and Future shop have not been kind to independent camera shops, but you don’t get that vibe like you palpably do at the other shops in town. The atmosphere is always positive and upbeat.
That said, the prices aren’t the cheapest in town either.

After tirelessly reading various internet forums, review sites, and photography blogs I decided to walk into Lens & Shutter and see what they advise.
Staff was amazingly friendly, very knowledgeable, and helpful. I was very impressed, and felt like the experience I had there far outweighed the (potential) small savings I could achieve by ordering online, or shopping across the border.
I wrote this review 10 minutes after picking up a new lens. That’s how impressed I am.

Everything you want but can’t afford for your camera. Large selection, good knowledgeable staff, now open Sunday afternoons. They have the largest selection of papers for printing I have found in Vancouver. The selection of products is very good and almost everything is in house not back ordered.
I find it interesting they have such a large photo developing section, this is a dying industry, better get ready to re focus the space. The Canon section now separate from the rest of the cameras is very good.

Although I tend to find Lens & Shutter a little overwhelming, the selection of products is amazing. There are often sales at the store, with deals on all makes of cameras.
Whether you’re a Leica, Nikon, Canon, or Olympus aficionado this store has what you are looking for. There are plenty of options as well for professional designers, such as large format printers.
The photo printing here is of very good quality and the prices are reasonable for what you get. We got prints for Christmas presents here — about 15 photos, many of which were large-​ish, for under $ 16. The service is friendly and printing services are often available same-​day.
I’ve never had a staff member here approach me to offer assistance, so I will advise to ask if you are looking for something in particular. Otherwise you could wander through the store for quite some time and find far too many things to buy.

This large store features everything for your camera including cameras (digital and film), lenses of all sizes, flashes… and many, many other camera accessories for the true camera fanatic. They also have, believe it or not in this age of digital photography, a large selection of different types of film. You will definitely find the staff here to be knowledgeable and quite helpful as you make your camera choices.