The Best Pattaya Camera Shop is one I can recommend to both professional photographers and amateurs.  Recently I bought a tripod, a Nikon D750 SLR,  then a 50 mm Sigma F1.4 lens.  I will explain my experiences with the Best Camera Shop below in detail.

 What is important is

1.  This shop is run by the owner, and it’s a one man operation.  This means you are always dealing with the top man.  2.  The Best Pattaya Camera Shop owner is from Bangkok where he was a professional photographer for 15 years.  What does this mean to you?  It means you are always dealing with a man who has a thorough knowledge of everything he sells.  From cameras, to lenses, flashes, camera bags, tripods, and just about every important camera accessory you can think of.  3.  The owner of this shop is, in my opinion a man of integrity.  This is a rare commodity in Pattaya these days.  4.  He has excellent English skills.

My association with the Best Pattaya Camera Shop didn’t really start with the tripod.

 A tripod’s only a tripod after all.  I will have to say, however, that I went to several camera shops in the tuk.com building before I decided on the tripod from the Best Pattaya Camera Shop.  So  I must have felt I was getting the best features and quality at a reasonable price.   But it was when I handed my credit card over to the  shop owner that I became convinced  I had found a professional photography shop that was well above the norm for this part of the world.  I had looked at a Nikon D610 SLR in Hong Kong several years ago and had decided that it was a worthy successor to my Nikon D300.

I still felt well-equipped with the Nikon D300 and its 18 by 200 mm lens.  Since the D300 has a DX sensor, this DX lens is effectively  a 28 by 300 which makes it an exceptionally versatile combination from wide angle to heavy duty telephoto.

But I still had two extremely high priced lenses in my arsenal

and those lenses were simply not getting the use they deserved.  I had shot over 100,000 pictures in the U.S. with my 28 by 70 mm 2.8 Nikon and had liked it so much that I had bought its sister lens, a 17 by 35 mm 2.8, which was reputedly the finest wide angle lens that Nikon had ever produced.    But, on the Nikon DX 300 body the two lenses performed at 41 by 105 mm and 27 by 52 mm respectively.  Other than what amounted to somewhat superior optics the wide angle Nikon provided no advantage to the 18 by 200 lens I was already using on my Nikon D300.

And as to the Nikon 28 by 70 mm 2.8 zoom lens the same 1.5 multiplier effect allowed this lens to operate at only 42 mm for its widest angle.  So I was not getting optimum wide angle results with either lens due to the limitations imposed on them by the DX sensor on the Nikon D300 camera body.

Together those two lenses would cost close to $4000

if I had to replace them and here they were hardly getting any use.  But no one in the Hong Kong camera shops was able to convince me to switch over to a Nikon D610 camera body with the full frame sensor that would bring out the best of my extremely expensive Nikon lenses.  But when I brought my Nikon D300 into the Best Pattaya camera shop, the shop owner had me filling out the credit card form in no time at all.  Essential to his success was that he allowed me to try my Nikon 2.8 wide angle lens on a Nikon D750 full frame body.  For the first time I was truly able to see my expensive 17 by 35 mm Nikon wide angle lens perform in the way it was designed to perform.  The field of view I was getting was phenomenal.

Once I got my new Nikon 750 home and started trying it out,

I noticed that the automatic focusing of my 28 by 70 mm Nikon 2.8 had become next to useless. My Nikon 300 would still perform wonderfully at anywhere from 28 to 300 mm but due to my now emasculated 28 by 70 mm top of the line Nikon lens I’d be  stuck with only a 17 by 35 mm lens for my new Nikon D 750 full frame camera.  Should I buy another $2000 lens?  I had already had Nikon repair the 28 by 70 lens once and that repair cost me almost $1000.

So back I went to the Pattaya Best Camera Shop.  I wound up spending about $350 for a new Sigma 1.4 50 mm lens.

Had it not been for the owner of the Pattaya Best Camera shop,  I probably would never have bought a Sigma lens in the first place .

I would have bought a Nikon, but the shop owner convinced me that the Sigma lens was ever better than its Nikon counterpart.

I took this lens home with me and started to take low light pictures down on the beach.  That’s when I realized this shop owner certainly knew his cameras and lenses.  The Sigma had excellent low light capabilities, was very sharp, and it did a fantastic job of blurring the background  shooting wide open.

But what should I do with the Nikon 28 by 70 lens?

For a few nights I pondered my choices.  I could send it back to Nikon for repair as I had once before.  But the thought of once again paying close to $1000 for the same lens was not very appealing.  I buy a 1.4 Nikon 85 mm  prime lens which was getting outstanding reviews.  Or I could go for the new lens that had replaced it in the Nikon stable –the Nikon 24 by 70  2.8.  But I pretty much decided to wait until I traveled back to the U.S.  By this time I’d have over $500 worth in points on my credit card which I could apply at Amazon on a new lens.

But I went back to the Best Pattaya Camera shop.  The shop owner took the 28 by 70 mm lens off my Nikon 750.  After studying it closely he said to me, “All you need to do is to have this lens cleaned.”

“Cleaned?  Why I hardly used it since sending it to Bangkok Nikon for that very expensive repair.

“Are you sure that’s all there is to this problem?” I asked the shop owner.

“I am  sure,” he promised me.

“How much will that cost me?”

“Around 2000 baht.”

The first time I had to send this lens to Nikon for repair,  I had to package it myself and take it down to the Post office.

This time the shop owner did all the work for me.  Two weeks later I came back to the shop to see if the  2000 baht repair had been successful.

The lens now focused perfectly.

After I explained to the shop owner that I wouldn’t be doing a lot of telephoto work with my cameras, he told me, “Those two Nikon 2.8 lenses should last you for the rest of your life. They are the finest lenses made.  You don’t really need any new lenses.”

I’m keeping my Nikon D300 DX.  It feels identical in hand to my new Nikon D750.

I have the original 18 by 200 kit lens attached to it.  And I have a great trio of lenses for my D750 with the two very expensive Nikon zoom lenses and that very appealing 1.4 Sigma Prime lens.   I also have the Panasonic LX7 for a lightweight carry camera.  So I feel very well equipped now.

So what else do I need from the Best Pattaya Camera  camera shop?

 The owner of Best Pattaya Camera is absolutely first rate.

He’s fair, he really knows his stuff, and he’s a one man operation so one will always be getting the top man to take care of one’s photography needs.

I am not alone in my assessment of the excellence of the Best Pattaya Camera Shop and how good this shop owner takes care of his customers.  Consider the following comments from Thai Visa.