Hallo Holger,
As far as I know, there are 2 camera malls in the city. One is located on the 3rd floor in Huainlong Mansion across the Shanghai Railway station. You can get there by subway (Railway station, exit 4). But it will be renovated from Jan to March 20th, 2007.
The address of the other is No288, luban Road (near Xietu Road). It is newly opened and the largest in town.
Anyone merely interested into photography HAS to visit this relatively new location in the XiJiaHui district. You can find it on the right hand side corner of Xietu Lu and Luban Lu. They also have a website, in Chinese here.
I found it by accident because my regular place next to the Shanghai Main Railway Station has been shut down. Basically all the little stores that populated the old Mall premises have relocated to this new location. As the photograph I am posting illustrates, the new location is a modern building of seven floors crammed with medium to tiny sized stores filled to the gills with every kind of photographic equipment, from the cheapest digicam to the 39MP Medium Format digital back. Imagine a store the size of B&H in NYC, but subdivided into small stores. The place is organized by categories, in the sense that on each floor you get a certain range of equipment.
On the ground floor you can find all new equipment from the big Japanese manufactures, Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Sony, Fuji, etc. I have found that they usually have a very wide selection of lenses for Nikon and Canon, pretty much everything with the exception of the most expensive glass which needs to be special ordered, not a big deal since in Shanghai both Nikon and Canon have a very strong presence, not counting the fact that Japan is only a couple of hours away by air. The Second floor is dedicated mostly to Point and Shoot, accessories, camera bags and tripods. There are also 2 book stores that are crammed to the gills with exclusively camera and photography related material. Mostly Chinese editions of foreign books, but also beautiful publications about Chinese photographers.
The third floor is dedicated to printing and acquisition both digital and traditional. You can find any size of Epson, Canon and HP printer units. CIS systems appear to be a big thing, with many Chinese manufactured inks and hardware for the big (44″-24″) printers. There are several companies that offer an incredible variety of printing and scanning services. I am planning to have all my slides and negatives scanned and saved to DVD’s. The best part is that I got quoted for 2RMB ($25c) per each 6×6 slide, and that’s before any kind of price negotiation.
The fourth floor is where the fun really begins. It is a serious candy store for camera collectors and for anyone looking into finding used equipment. The quantity, quality and variety is truly impressive. Vintage camera collectors can spend hours browsing and trying rare collectibles. Leica has a very strong following, so does Hasselblad. There are a few Large Format camera stores with more equipment than I have ever seen in the US. I have purchased a discontinued Auto-Topcor 58mm f1.4 F mount for my D2X from a store that had a wide array of Zeiss lenses in Nikon, Contax and Hassy format. I chose the Topcor, because it was clearly sharper and better built than the Zeiss. The owner also told me that I could still sell it for 3 to 4 times the price in Japan, where it has a strong following. My 2 recent posts regarding my portfolio updates are shot using the Topcor. I’m so happy I made this purchase.
The fifth floor is all about Photo Studio equipment; anything from strobes, MF digital backs, props, backdrops, rigs etc.
The sixth and seventh floor were still being populated by the camera stores that moved from the old Train Station location, although most of them will be similar to the ones on the fourth floor, meaning more and more used and hard to find camera gear.
As you can probably tell, I really enjoy visiting the place. I normally visit once a month, and spend a few hours browsing especially the used sections.
One thing to note is that I have seen and tried an impressive range of Chinese manufactured accessories, some of which rival or match their expensive foreign copied counterparts. One prime example was a manufacturer of ballheads that were beautifully machined and almost identical to the Arca-Swiss B1 at 1/3 of the price.
I also observed that Chinese photographers are very knowledgeable and sophisticated users, and most of them are very friendly, always willing to help and give advice. I had a 2 hour conversation with one that spoke good English about Large Format photography and equipment. We’ll eventually end up going on a trek together with our 4×5’s.
Sebastian hat natürlich Recht, bevor der neue Laden geöffnet hat, war der am Bahnhof die erste Adresse in der Stadt. Durch die Umbauarbeiten ist die Fotoabteilung für drei Monate geschlossen worden. Viele Ladenbesitzer sind dann umgezogen, weil die Miete auch für viele nicht mehr bezahlbar war. In dem neuen Laden an der Xietu Lu , Ecke Luban Lu hast Du 6 Stockwerke, in denen Du dich austoben kannst.
Gruß Thomas