LUMIX BASE TOKYO

I decided to have my Lumix G99 cleaned. It is not that there is any visible dust in the camera or any problem, but I have been using it for 20 months since I bought it, taking it from place to place on trips without doing any kind of maintenance, so I thought I should clean the imaging sensor and other parts of the camera once.

I would like to ask the manufacturer to clean the camera. I decided to use this as an excuse to visit Panasonic’s service center, which I have never been to before, and set out for LUMIX BASE TOKYO on Aoyama for the first time.

LUMIX BASE TOKYO
「クリエイターとともに創り上げる、クリエイターの活動拠点」として、LUMIXをメインとした様々な展示スペース、専門的な知識やトレンドを学べるワークショップ、専門スタッフによる充実のサポート体制が整ったLUMIXの新拠点。

From the Aoyama 1-chome intersection, walk along Aoyama avenue toward Shibuya (toward the Honda building).

After a three-minute walk, you will see the famous gingko trees of Jingu Gaien.

Lumix Base Tokyo is located on the first floor of a building directly in front of the tree-lined street, almost at the end of a T-junction. It is located between Aoyama 1-chome station and Gaien-mae station on the Ginza subway line.

Actually it’s not a “shop” or a “service location” but more like an event space that doubles as a showroom for the product, where they also accept repairs and cleanings.

On this day, there was also a workshop being held.

Sorry for the weird picture, um …

*This is not related to the main point of the article. This was originally a snapshot taken from directly behind the workshop from a little further back, without any effort on my part, to get a full view. However, when I finished the photo and uploaded it to the cloud, for some reason, it was saved as a distorted picture with a portion cropped out like this.
Only for this picture, the same result is obtained no matter how many times I repeat the process, but I don’t know the cause of it… What is it, a bug? Or is it some kind of curse? Is it because it’s near the Aoyama Cemetery?
It’s weird, but it’s an interesting summery ghost story, so I’ll leave it as it is.

I digress, but back to the story.
All the attention of the people there was focused on the workshop, and I, who happened to blend in, was in a state of being an stranger. I took out my G99 at the reception counter and asked for “cleaning please…” in a whisper so as not to disturb the workshop. I was told that it would only take about two hours, but since I had other business to attend to after this, I asked to pick it up the next day and quickly completed the request procedure.

If it is a simple cleaning, the work can be done at this location in as little as 2 hours.But if you want to have it repaired, you need to send it to a specialized workshop (outsourcer?), so it takes a few days. I think Pentax has a similar system.

I asked a staff member who was watching the workshop if I could take pictures of the workshop, and he said yes, on the condition that I not take pictures of the participants’ faces.

LUMIX BASE TOKYO was interesting because it had a free-space-like atmosphere with an noncommercial flavor. Panasonic showrooms are usually associated with the glamorous image of beauty appliances and home building materials, but this was a different story.

It is a small showroom at the end of a small digital camera business within the large Panasonic Corporation, so I imagined that the people involved in the business were running the showroom freely and without any commercial interest, putting their tastes and preferences on full display (in a good sense).

I like this kind of atmosphere.
This is the report of my first visit.

Equipment used for this photo: FUJIFILM XF10

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