Where to Buy in Britain

Under this heading, I have collected my listings of places on the web where you can purchase computing and photographic equipment. As per the title, these apply to the U.K. because I have yet to import anything from beyond the shores of the island where I am writing these words. While I cannot claim to have patronised all of the emporia that are listed, the hope is that there’s enough there to enable some price checking and sourcing of goods that otherwise may not not have wide availability. You never know, they even might come in useful.

Computing Equipment

Photography Kit

As you might have guessed from the names, we are not just limiting ourselves to computers and cameras but include the accessories too. In fact, since the explosion of digital photography, a major crossover has development between two formerly very separate business areas. When film held sway, photography was a very analogue affair with most of the magic being made in the camera and in printing labs, including personal darkrooms. A scanner was an essential item for digitising any images. Film still lives on but the convenience of digital capture has won me over, particularly with its thrusting the processing back on my shoulders instead of paying someone else to do it. That costs time instead of money but the latter quantity is less plentiful this times. Just as my interest in desktop computing continues to persist into an age when everything is getting more and more mobile, the art of photography hasn’t been automated out of existence because it always has been the photographer that was the most important actor in the discipline.

It wasn’t for nothing that I mentioned that computing was becoming more mobile with iPhones and iPads arousing excitement by allowing you to carry around processing power that would have drawn envy in the desktop computing world not so long ago. Then, there are netbooks though you have to wonder about their future with tablet PC’s becoming commonplace. Just as film lives on in the world of photography, desktop computing has not become extinct either though change is very much in the air with cloud computing being unavoidable.

All in all, it feels as if we are moving through a period of massive change in the world around us. That includes innovation in the world of technology so we all are bound to go shopping for gadgets that might be useful. Speaking for myself, I have managed to keep away from smartphones so far but I cannot deny their attractions either. Having mobile Internet is very attractive and may win me over once my knowledge of the market improves; it has a long way to go because of the variety of phones on sale and my previous disinterest in mobile telephony apart from the basics. It’ll be a while before I go splashing out and I don’t plan to go overboard on things either. Maybe, it’d be an idea for another online store listing.