The Travel Photographer's B&H Photo's VIP Tour

B&H's Isaac Buchinger with Tewfic El-Sawy

B&H's Yechiel Orgel with Tewfic El-Sawy

I'll preface this post by saying this:...despite my spending over an hour at B&H SuperStore on a VIP tour, I managed to reach deep in my inner reserves of self-discipline and will power, and emerged without buying a single item from one of my favorite retailers! It took a super-human effort, and a high degree of self-negation. A note to Santa:  Write this down in my plus column.

My hosts on this exhaustive tour on Thursday were Isaac Buchinger and Yechiel Orgel of the company's Affiliate Marketing Department. I visited every nook and cranny of the SuperStore, and even though I'd like to think I'm a frequent visitor, I was shown areas I didn't know existed.

Nothing was left out; Isaac must've guessed I had a flashlight fetish and showed me one that doubles up as a weapon and that sells for many many dollars...he showed me headphones that cost almost as much as my car, and ushered me into B&H's TV studio...a jaw-dropping environment which made me feel I was at one of the networks.

All that, and we were still in the ground floor of B&H's 70,000+ square feet building. The second floor is, of course, where the photography stuff is...and where I frequently spend more than what I can afford.

Nothing new on the second floor that I hadn't seen before, except for two areas of interest to me. The first is that B&H has a new (at least to me) section for DSLR video rigs, and that it produces and offers a full line of affordable line of photo/video support gear under the name Pearstone.

For instance, I noticed a Pearstone intervalometer or shutter release for a very reasonable $50 instead of the pricier Canon. I recently bought mine from an eBay vendor in Hong Kong, and while it's perfectly fine, I would've chosen to buy it from B&H had I known about this product line.

Following the tour, we returned to B&H's corporate offices for a meeting.

Oh, and another thing...I still don't know what B&H stands for.  Now I know...see below.

Addendum: A number of readers informed me that Wikipedia lists B&H's ownership and history.