Ritz Camera

This entry refers to a departed business that has closed or left town. All information here is for historical reference only.

 

Ritz Camera is a former store that was located at University Mall. It had various photography related items (film and digital) plus cellular phones for sale. They used to do one hour developing and passport photos, as well. Though gearing towards digital with the rest of the industry, Ritz Camera did develop traditional film in 35mm, 120 medium and 220 large format. Other formats and sizes were available, though anything beyond 35mm film was developed and printed "off-site", generally requiring 10 business days. This was one of the only places (the only?) in Davis to develop larger film formats. They did not offer cross-processing of any film types.

Ritz Camera announced that it was closing 300 of its 700 locations and selling off some $50 million in retail inventory as part of a court-supervised bankruptcy reorganization, according to TWICE Magazine, a trade publication that covers the electronics retail industry. Store closing sales began on April 4, 2009, and continued until all inventory and fixturing was liquidated.

Update: A friend of mine stopped by the Davis store this afternoon and the clerk informed her the Davis location is "not" closing. (April 6, 2009)

UPDATE: 04/16/09 They are closing and it will be a yogurt place

UPDATE: 05/13/09 Gentleman working behind the counter at Ritz informed me that the local Ritz Camera is not closing. He said that half of the Ritz Camera stores around the nation will be closing, the Davis branch will not since it makes a great deal money from developing and printing.

UPDATE: 07/25/09 The store is closed. A sign on the door reads that the store is closing on 7/25/09 and directs customers to the nearest location in downtown Sacramento.

Now SugarPlum.

I heard their salespeople get commission when selling Nikon but not Canon. Overall I think they're a pretty friendly bunch, and let me play with their dSLRs for a good while. —PhilipNeustrom

• I believe this. They definitely pushed Nikon cameras instead of Canon ones (even though I was more interested in the Canon). -JH

2006-01-28 18:31:02   They always gave me a Nikon camera when I asked for a particular type of camera (DSLR, ultraslim, midrange, etc.) Still, it's nice to touch a camera before buying it online. —ApolloStumpy

2006-10-30 23:56:50   I think the print quality of their Kodak kiosk is pretty crappy, but their Fuji kiosk makes decent prints. —NilaGurusinghe

2006-12-07 18:12:31   i go to costco when possible for prints. —MatthiasGropp

2007-09-11 19:18:17   it's mentioned elsewhere on the wiki but if youre doing 35mm, you can save money by not ordering prints and using the free ucd negative scanner (in meyer or hart?) —ChrisThielen

2007-11-11 16:00:23   According to the person on the telephone and without needing to know what was wrong with it, I was told that to send a malfunctioning camera away will take 6-8 weeks and cost at least $100-$150. —Angel.York

2007-11-11 20:21:17   They did a great job printing the pictures that I sent to them through the RitzCamera website. —jess&will

2008-05-17 16:22:07   really great service from their new manager, named alex, who is transferring to UCD soon. he's very knowledgeable, an experienced photographer, and not at all biased. their prices seemed pretty competitive, the camera i was looking at has the same price as online —JoshBurkart

2008-06-07 18:28:56   Random, but they have a decent selection of digital camera cases there. —Ash

2008-10-08 19:55:13   I went there with 120 film two weeks ago and an employee said they couldn't develop it there, that no place in davis could, and that the closest place would be in Sacramento A friend told me that the UCD Bookstore could develop it, but it would take 3-5 days which makes me believe that they're not developing it here in Davis either —AldenSeabolt

2009-01-16 10:24:16   I have some pictures from my digicam develop here. Great quality, much better than rite-aid or walgreens. —KirbyCartman

2009-05-13 18:15:07   I went there today and they don't carry film anymore. Ok, they still sell a 6 pack of 400 ISO Fujifilm but that is all they carry and they happened to be sold of it. This devastated me since they used to have the best selection in town. Davis needs a good supplier of 35mm film. —Edward