The Big Smoke

Drove to The Flash Centre in Birmingham which lies on a small business trading estate next to the Smurfit Kappa factory on Mount Street, seen here belching out smoke or steam.

Smurfit Kappa is Europe's largest corrugated packaging company, according to Wikipedia. Huge volumes of waste paper are stacked just beyond the boundary of the trading estate.

Brian and Kevin, who run The Flash Centre, are gems. They know their stuff. They stock lighting kits, tripods and bags, also some cameras and lenses. It may not be a smart High Street outlet with ambience to match. In fact, much of the stock is stacked up on shelves but there is a display of the tripods and bags, and they can advise on the products knowledgeably.

Thus I discovered that Sirui and Godox, makers of tripods and lighting kits respectively, restrict themselves in selling to UK by not having a nominated importer. Of course, that would probably increase the prices of their wares. In the meantime, Benro, also a Chinese company, quietly soldiers on. I bought a sturdy Benro carbon fibre tripod without central column, which means it can lie almost flat on the ground. It's also amazingly light for its size and balances well in the hand. ALSO, it can pack away neatly in a suitcase. The company has obviously studies Western markets.

The weather was wonderful. It seemed a shame in a way driving to and from Birmingham but this was a Tuesday when I had no other commitments other than a visit to Sileby Photographic Society in the evening to view their annual exhibition. The standard seemed higher than last year.

Two of my prints were in the Shepshed Camera Club panel. I wish CompSec would realise that panels do better when assembled from prints with a related theme. I was surprised that last year's winners hadn't repeated their success this year.