Have you ever dreamed of stumbling across a Rolleiflex for $180, or a Widelux for $1,400?
These are exactly the kind of deals waiting for you at Karachi's Hakeem Centre in Pakistan, as captured by Karl Rock in this incredible video.
As one of the last surviving camera markets in the world, dozens of shops and stalls are packed floor to ceiling with the latest tech, vintage cameras, camcorders, lenses, and accessories. You can find everything here, from a [Fujifilm GFX](https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?q=Fujifilm%20GFX&sts=ma) to Canon rangefinders, from classic DSLRs to MiniDV players.
Watching Rock walk through the market feels like a fever dream for camera lovers. Around every corner, he finds vintage cameras sitting on shelves, just waiting for someone to pick them up. Rock interviews camera shop owners to learn more about the items, discovering hidden treasures tucked away from first glance.
Although the range of cameras sold here is incredible, what truly sets this market apart is its repairers. Skilled technicians still work on repairing cameras, lenses, and even drones, a dying art almost everywhere else in the world. One craftsman proudly displays his hand-annotated repair manual, packed with detailed diagrams covering dozens of models.
What's even more fascinating is the fact that this is just one market in Pakistan — right next door is a market for watches!
6 Comments
Cool video. I use to travel around Asia quite a bit over the years and the countries that I have visited had a lot of these kind of stores. As you walk through the markets, you wonder if you bought one of these old cameras how it will work. I
Although, many many years ago, I was in Singapore, and was out and about taking pictures with a Canon AE-1, I walked into a camera store and I did purchase a telephoto Vivitar lens which I got dirt cheap and it worked really good.
I wish I could go back to the camera stores I visited in Hong Kong in 2019, prices were cheap compared to today!
YES - Hong Kong, another country place that I use to go and visit and would walk through the stores...
I understand the cultrural differencesl and I'm not making any judgement, but what struck me I did not see one woman either in the shops or even outside on the streets.
Yes, I noticed that too!
Awesome to watch here in the U.S.. Way years ago there were camera stores in most cities where you could hold a camera to see what it would do. But with the failure of a major brand store it is all mostly gone to the internet.
When Sony first came out in 2013 and I saw it in magazines and a book in a Barns and Noble in Jacksonville Fl. I had to travel all the way to Orlando where there was a Sony store, gone now! Today Best Buy camera area.
Flea Markets here in the US is where you will find things like in the video but I always go to Estate sales where just having an interest in a camera like old film cameras you may get for free or just a few $ I get and donate to photography classes in colleges. Great for starters. How popular, Kodak is back to 24/7 production, people want prints for info on the back not available in the digital world.
Most all photographers today have a great digital camera BUT just look around more film cameras, see what other do not, due to cost or whatever a majority of people do not have the time to edit or do not care just want a remembrance image. What do you see in a big box store is cell phones hooked up to a print station or even SD cards, no editing just an image.
The place to get your old film camera lenses complete set, and there is away to rid the cloudy film on the lenses.
Just for info, a Canon Ftb of the mid 70's is just about as auto as one could think except AF but with the prism focus glass manual is fast and sharp and it has a light meter built in with one needle that moves with the light brightness and a circular one for the armature setting a little help you can have the needle top and mid then low for a set of three images like HDR today to get the perfect capture. and a find would be the old prism filters also can be used on todays lenses that would take many hours (for me) to do in PS. but like I always say a camera is never cheap just lower in cost and last forever too!