Photo Video Zumstein AG — Casinopl. 8, 3011 Bern, Switzerland

I’ve been a loyal customer here for years despite some disappointing experiences like always having to wait over 30 minutes to talk to someone. Today I brought in a vintage Leica Summicron I originally bought from this shop a couple years ago. Instead of an honest evaluation, I was told it was basically worthless and would need to be sent to Leica because of light fungus. When I mentioned reddotrepair (one of the best leica repair companies in the world) they laughed saying I could possibly sell the lens for 150.- It’s extremely disappointing to see such a dismissive attitude toward a loyal client and such little technical understanding of classic Leica lenses. If you actually know your gear or expect transparency, I recommend consulting a specialist like Paepke Fototechnik or Red Dot Repair instead.

Dimitri Baer

I found the service today to be extremely inefficient. I understand it was quite busy as they had a big sale on, but they seemed to have about 100 people "working" also. In actual fact it seemed like many of them were just running around trying to look like they were busy but not doing much. With 3 desks to pay at, I waited in line literally 45 minutes to pay for a simple sensor cleaning kit while those at the Kasse just had a casual chat or they just left the desk without saying anything to go do something else. After 45 minutes and still not having anyone serve me, I put the cleaning kit back and just walked out. I imagine not every day is like this but if it's going to be busy like that again you need to have a better system in place, the whole place just seemed disorganised.

Brad Sefton

Very professional and customer-oriented. Bought a hard to source collimator from their website, they kept me updated about the progress and I got it without troubles.

Kevin Henzer

6 months and a hundred francs later I get my camera broken... I got in touch with Zumstein in order to get a medium format camera from the 70s fixed. The aperture was stuck in place since the grease has had plenty of time to sit in the mechanism and dry. At first it seemed like a team of professionals however as soon as I was told it was 100.- only to get a quote on the repair, I started smelling a foul smell. I sent it anyway thinking that since there was already such a stupidly high price just to get a camera looked at, that the repair quote would be reasonable. How wrong of me. After 4 months without hearing anything from anyone, I decided to pay my friends a visit. Nothing. No information wether it even got to the repair shop. Only a "we'll get in touch with the repair shop and get back to you". More weeks pass still nothing. I go once again to see if the shop didn't burn down with my camera. This time the sales rep sent me an email with the quote ! Sadly that email got lost in the cloud and never reached me. The quote for the repairs turned out to be 425.- (taking into account the initial 100-.) I kindly said that it was above my budget and that I'd like my camera back. This time I made sure they had the correct email address to avoid staying in darkness for weeks. Once again I did not hear from everyone for another three weeks before returning one last time to the shop. My camera was there in the end. It was just broken. Nobody knew what happened and was very very sorry. Here sat my camera handle broken. Not only I wasted 6 months waiting in hopes to have a fair quote for a repair, I wasted 6 months and got my camera back in worse state that I brought it in. The sales rep was so kind to give me the initial 100-. back while repeating over and over that I should be happy with that and that they usually never do that and that as a handle is only 30-. On eBay it was more than fair. Overall sad and disappointed that the franchise who has a monopoly on photography from Lausanne to Zurich behaves like this and just gets away with treating first time (and only) customer while gatekeeping analog photography with crazy prices. If you need anything photography wise get your info on Reddit and shop online far far away from Zumstein. If you need repairs I ended up meeting someone who works really well and cheap in the Neuchâtel region and I'm more than happy to share his info with anyone rather than going to get extorted by my friends over at Zumstein whilst wasting 6 months. I do not recommend and wholeheartedly wish to everyone to avoid them.

Tangui Roulet

I recently ordered a photography portable smoke machine from Zumstein Photo. The delivery was impressively fast, and their support was excellent. The item arrived promptly and in excellent condition. I highly recommend this specialized shop for its wide selection and professional service.

M

It would be better if the staff looked after the customers on site instead of small talking each other and making customers wait

nada nada