Payment methods
We happily accept the following:
Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and debit through our payment processor: Chase Integrated Payments - Powered by WePay. This processor charges us a 3% transaction fee, and as such this is the fee that will apply to applicable returns as outlined in our Terms & Conditions.
AfterPay: Credit and Debit according to AfterPay's terms of service. They split up your purchase into 4 interest-free payments. Yes, interest free. This processor charges us a 6% transaction fee, and therefore this is the fee that will apply to applicable returns as outlined in our Terms & Conditions.
Interac e-transfers in Canadian funds, sent to: info@lasalamandra.camera. Typically there are no associated fees with payment via e-transfer, and thus there will typically be no transaction fees related to returns via this payment method.
Cash on purchases for local delivery or pickup. There are no fees associated with this payment method, and thus no transaction fees related to returns via this payment method.
We have discontinued payments through PayPal due to rising transaction fees for us and exchange rate fees for our customers, coupled with reduced quality of service.
Currency
The list prices in our store are in Canadian Dollars. International buyers, such as those from the United States, will experience an exchange rate when paying via the methods above. For international customers, please be aware that your specific financial institution will charge according to it's own internal exchange rate for that day.
Prices are subject to change without warning due to changes in currency exchange rates.
Domestic Taxes
Domestic Canadian orders: by law we are required to collect Federal and Provincial tax according to the GST/HST percentages that are applicable to your province.
International orders: orders being exported from Canada are not subject to domestic Canadian taxes. They may, however, be subject to taxes and duty rendered by the country you are importing into. Please see the support page
Shipping for more information.
Refunds and Returns
As a small operation dealing in one of a kind physical goods, we offer refunds and returns that are subject to situational context. We're not Amazon, and cannot afford to issue blanket, sight-unseen refunds all while dumping any returned merchandise into industrial shredders in order to bank tax write-offs (lemme tell you how I really feel, eh?)
Our refund policy is covered exhaustively in out Terms & Conditions, so please read more there. Broadly, amounts that are refunded may be in full in some situations, or may be partial in others depending on shipping and processing fees associated with the original transaction.
An example of a situation where a customer would receive a partial refund is as follows: If a customer orders multiple items and only wishes to cancel part of their order after payment but before it is shipped (either because they changed their mind or accidentally added something they wish to remove) then that refund will be partial and will be the full amount of the cancelled item(s) less the relevant transaction fee (as our payment processors don't refund the transaction fees for partial refunds). In these cases it is sometimes more economical for the customer for us to cancel the entire order and have the customer place their order again, minus the incorrect or undesired items of course, as our payment processors often (but not universally) refund the transaction fees on fully refunded transactions. If a customer places an order for an item and wishes to cancel that entire order before shipment, then it may be possible to refund the entire purchase in full, as long as it has not shipped, depending on payment method. Again, based on payment processor and transaction fees.
Please call or email us for clarification if you need it. At the time of writing, WePay offers full refunds if an entire transaction is cancelled, but AfterPay does not.
In short, please take care before placing your order.
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These policies are subject to change without notice. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Why "La Salamandra" anyway?

As with many things that I do, I find it difficult to not work some kind of joke into the mix. The story of La Salamandra starts sometime in the summer (or was it spring?) of 2020. Ugh, I know, right? Anyway, a film-addled camera collector friend of mine started sending me instagram links to all these fancy-AF refinished film cameras. As I came to discover, there's a company in the States called Cerakote that makes a line of resilient ceramic coatings. In addition to a bunch of people stencilling rainbows and unicorns onto their surrogate penises guns, some other intrepid souls had started doing the same to cameras…

I was intrigued! I started researching how they were accomplishing this. I was already quite comfortable inside of most cameras so painting the outside was pretty trivial. But oh-hoh, it wasn't that simple! They needed to be baked, for lack of a better word. And there were acetone baths involved. And abrasive blasting. All kinds of nonsense. So in September of 2020 I decided that I would give it a go, and I bought an oven. It was on sale. And then I did nothing for about another year-ish.

As I write this it's the start of 2022. So there you go.

Oh, wait, I didn't explain the name! Ok, well:
I only use assumed names on social media (they aren't getting anything from me for free!) and one day my film-friendly friend discovered this, coming to the realization that my online identity wasn't totally congruent with my offline identity. I explained why I feel the need to deny the big sosh meeds monopolies my identity. At some point thereafter I noticed that he seemed to follow suit, changing his social media handle - to Elle Salamander! In my head I started referring to him as "El Salamander" which started to morph into "El Salamandor." Pretty cool nickname material, frankly. So I decided to look it up just to be sure I wasn't committing an oopsy goofer and… discovered that in Spanish, salamander is actually a feminine noun. Which means it's La Salamandra.

So when it came time to call this venture something I asked him if I could use the nickname, since he was the one who introduced me to this Cerakote nonsense in the first place. And thus, La Salamandra is named in his honour.

Oh, and one day I texted him a photo of nail polish that I use to colour recessed lettering and he asked "Starting a salon?" and I responded "You know it! A salon… but for cameras!"

And there you have it. La Salamandra Camera Salon.
At your service.

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The irony of the placement of these social media links is not lost on me.

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