Keep in mind as you read this that I don't mean to flame. I'm asking and
responding, and can seem harsh. So, no flame, just my thoughts.
On Sat, 21 Aug 1999, Samuel Morales wrote:
>I would like to paint a scenario if I can in regards to turn around time
>whether it is Photosphere or CamTech (John Hermanson's) I have never tried
>CamTech mainly because of geographic location. I am sure he is an
>outstanding camera technician and he's dedicated from what I have read.
So you've never tried. But you say turnaround time doesn't matter. What's
another couple days in the mail on top of the turnover once it reachs
John?
>If you were to go to a Doctor would you prefer to stand in the long line or
>the line to the Doctor's office with no one standing. I prefer to wait the
>extra time for quality of work.
Non sequitur. If the fellow has a long line, then obviouly he's not good
at time managment or scheduling appointments. If says "be here at 1" I'll
be there at 1 and expect to see him shortly (as in within 15 minutes). You
can further draw out that if he's no good at scheduling, his SECRETARY is
crappy at the same. Crappy secretary->doctor doesn't care about
standards->who know what he might diagnose you with or whatnot. I could go
on and on and on. In short, turnaround time has no direct bearing on
quality of work. Another thing is, John's workload is prolly higher given
that he gets gear from all over the world. A local store, being a local
store, serves locals, (how's that for redundancy) meaning smaller
workload. In fact, they probably refer harder jobs to more experienced
centres. This way, the simple stuff is taken care of, instead of all the
junk ending up infront of a pro-fixer-upper.
A camera from what I hear is very tedious
>to work on and it's something that cannot be rushed. They are precision
>instruments. Moreover there is a Technician shortage especially on the
>older cameras. Many Technicians have left the field because there is no
>money in it. From what I hear , there is more money to be made repairing
>computers . They average repair time on a broken camera can be 4-5hrs ,
>sometimes more. There is only 8 hours in a common work day , you can do the
>math.
I had mentioned a simple CLA, not repair. I gather this post is in
response to mine. If I wanted to fix up an OM, say a 4, that had gone
beserk, I would by all means send it to Camtech. To CLA an OM1n, I'd
rather not wait so long when I can get it done locally (and I did say that
the store was excellant, like the B&H of Riverside). If I had the time and
a second backup body, that's another matter. Even then, I would be
hard-pressed to come to a rational decision to send it to NJ when I can
get it done locally. Perhaps I would think different if I had more bodies.
>Moreover , have you ever seen what Canon charges or Nikon charges for their
>repairs , you better sit down when you hear their estimates.
No idea. Heck, why not toss Leica and Contax and MF and LF and
Voightlander and all those German ones for that matter.
>So , I say support Camtech and Photosphere they are a dying breed of
>specialists.
I never said otherwise. Or how's this: would you rather put extra work on
them doing simple CLAs that can be handled locally just as well? I would
rather have John working on more worthy repairs.
>Also , everyone on this site should look into buying a brand new OM3Ti or
>OM4Ti and support Olympus. Just think what the power of 1,000 OM3Ti's
>selling in one day would be (probably not much). The reason they are so
>expensive is because there is a very small market of Pro-35mm enthusiast
>using them and the have to recover a profit. If it wasn't for Olympus's
>Medical and Point and shoots , who knows what they would be. The same with
>the Canon EOS1n and Nikon's F-5. Point and shoot camera's out sells them
>100-1.(a guess , not official stat)
That would be utopia (not sure that's such a good idea to start with).
Hey, why not all of us spring for Mitchell Gyro turntables, Omega
speedmaster chronometers, Rolls-Royces, blah blah. Supply and demand,
right? (with production volume and prestige to a smaller degree, altho all
of them are intertwined). Nothin' wrong with p/s cameras either. We may,
by virtue of being subscribers to this list, forget that we are a minority
in the population. Ditto for car enthusiasts, or any other hobby. It's
just not gonna happen. Given a number of shutter bugs, a fraction will be
using Oly, and a fraction of that fraction can afford new gear. A decent
looking number suddenly becomes negligible.
I'm not yet well-versed in economics, so I'll stop here before digging
myself into deper muck :-0
>Take care... Sam...
Likewise.
/Acer "steppenwolf" Victoria
--
goosnargh
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