The bad, the good and the awesome= Real Value

[Guy Mancuso]

I wanted to report a situation that went from terrible bad to turning into something very positive. First let me say you can put any spin on this as you want and it means very little to me because I maybe viewed as somewhat bias which in reality is i am not. I will flip a system on a dime ( too many times) if it gets me the gear i want but let me add I will admit I have my favorites and I pick a system based on many things this story is one of those main reasons why I pick what i pick to use in a professional setting everyday. I find this as a extremely valuable decision when you buy.

The Bad:
Last Friday night March 13th ( YES Friday the 13th) I was hired to shoot a 4 day event and it came time to setup my strobes and shoot a very important board of directors. I had 15 of them to do a portrait and than a shot with there wife also. I set up my Elinchrom with my Skyports and did some final testing and was literally starting on the first person and had everything dialed in the way i wanted. Well the first person stepped to the plate. Grabbed the Phase/Mamiya AFDIII with my 150 and went to shoot the first shot. Pressed the shutter and NOTHING and I mean NOTHING. I looked up on the top LCD and every number and letter that could possible come up was showing. I will explain if you ever looked in a camera manual and they show a illustration of all the possible settings on a top LCD well that is what I had. Obviously my heart slipped into my feet and than I tried pulling the rechargeable put in a new set . No go, pulled back off ,lenses and every possible combination you could think of I tried. Okay I have been around the block for 35 years so i knew i was fried. Than tried alkaline batteries and still no go. Now i have to do something and backup AFD body is at home. I know I know but I never in 16k frames had a issue. I tell the client I am screwed for at least 40 minutes to go home and retrieve backup. No problem from client but still embarrassed and stressed. In town don't normally bring the AFD but out of town for sure. May have to rethink. LOL

The Good:
Okay jump in car and make the call to superman. Rocket over with new body. Oop's sorry he does not have a rocket pack. Doug Petterson is a great guy from Capture Integration but rocket launching to Arizona is just not in the cards. I chatted with Doug to try and figure out some things I did not do and great advice but I tried all of them and the bottom line he thought it was fried also. I felt bad i know being a young single stud in South Beach he was out on a hunt for some action. LOL

So on return with backup I finished the gig with no issues and got it done. Next morning Doug already filed a report with Mamiya and had a RMA number ready to go for repair and address to ship to the Mac group. Sunday morning i decided to send Dave Gallager owner of CI, Chris Lawery
Sales Manager of CI , Steve Hendrix and Kevin Raber of Phase One a e-mail of what happened since I never seen or heard any type of reports on this type of issue.

The Awesome:
Dave and Chris immediately got a loaner out Monday morning to me to cover me until the repair was finished. Steve and Kevin took note of the situation and we had a few e-mails between all of us with some good chatter .Some great folks here that wanted to get everything worked out and me back and running up to sped. I shipped the camera out but I did not get it to the Mac group until Thursday since I had a loaner i was pretty comfortable of the time issue . Thursday morning I get a e-mail from Doug they received the camera in shipping dept. and low and behold the very next day today the camera was overnighted to me back and running. The issue turns out they replaced the Power Panel on the Phase Body and also when there they updated the firmware to 1.5 . All under warranty and all I paid for was shipping to them.

The Value:

First i will admit I am a good customer to CI and to Phase One but I don't think any favors where being done out of the ordinary for there customers. I tell this story only because of the value i see in working within the warranties and working with the dealer network out there. Not saying Hassy, Sinar or leaf is better or worse but I do see the value with Phase and I do see it with working with dealers on making these very large purchases. Bottom line **** happens and how much support you need depends on you and what your needs maybe. Me i like my hand held and that is my bottom line. I chose the dealer and OEM that I thought would be best for me and obviously those choices I made are of value. I hope folks make good choices when they purchase no matter what brand and what dealer you chose , make sure it works for you.

Thanks for taking the time to read this very long report. Guy

[Ken Doo]

Good dealer support is worth its weight in gold---and is just as important as the initial investment.  I went with Capture Integration too.

I'm glad it all worked out for you, Guy.  But the absolute funniest thing is----Doug is answering his phone on a Friday night.  I know personally that he answered his cell phone on another weekend evening from someone asking him about attaching a purple Holga to a P45+....

 

Last Friday night March 13th ....Okay jump in car and make the call to superman....Doug Petterson is a great guy from Capture Integration.... I chatted with Doug to try and figure out some things.... I felt bad i know being a young single stud in South Beach he was out on a hunt for some action. LOL

[ziocan]

............

[bcooter]

May have to rethink. LOL

Guy,

I'm trying to see the positive spin about what you wrote because I assume your giving credit where credit is due.

The Capture Integration dealer did a good job and I've used them for  purchases . . . they work hard  and give every effort to get a quick resolve.

No knock on them, or Phase  but so does Yair with Leaf in Europe (actually everywhere) , same with Rick at LOA, I hear Hasselblad has good service and PPR in Atlanta has always been stand up and this is just my direct experience, I'm sure there are many others.

Now trying to keep this positive, I think it would be "nice" if your heading for this post didn't come off as an informercial.  The bad, the good and the awesome= Real Value.  Hmmm.   OK, most of us kind of know that, but you also have to keep in mind it doesn't make anybody feel warm and fuzzy to think that your virtually new Phamamamaiya crapped out at 16,000 frames and you can find an upside to this.

Anything can break, but 16,000 frames is pretty much just the warm up period for most cameras and I am positive 100,000 frames would probably just get a Contax, a Canon or a $900 Nikon to the point that it finally losses it's new camera smell.  (if there were any new Contax' left.)

I'm sure you felt the same way about your Phase/Mamiya, , because you shot without a backup, which (once again positive spin) leads me to believe you have a lot of faith in your camera.   A lot of faith.  

Still, your post illustrates the  bottom line of medium format ownership.    

Few photographers I know have an identical medium format back and camera as a backup.  

Whether you dealer is across the country of across midtown, rarely does the loaner system work for backups once production begins.  If medium format has a downside it's the fact that you just can't walk around the corner, or hop in a cab and easily grab a spare.  Maybe in an H mount, but anything past that will probably take a wait or a special order.  I've always felt that medium format pricing and proprietary camera mounts force most photographers into owning a DSLR for backup, even photographers that don't need high iso and fast autofocus lenses.

On the flip side of your story Canon replaced a sensor in one of my 1ds3's in 6 hours in Hong Kong, and you don't have to be Demarchillier to sign up with CPS or NPS and get loaners for specialty mega expensive lenses,  so there is a lot of good camera service out in the world.  

It's interesting that the news today is all about accountability.  We see large, actually huge companies on the brink of disaster and everybody blames it on somebody else, but the at the end of the day the companies large and small that will make it through are the ones that offer amazing service and the very best products. at the very best price.  Nothing can be out of place anymore.  

Good dealer or manufacturer service is important and obviously your dealer pushed hard for you and that is commendable, though that is also their job.  Maybe after hours is a little beyond the call, but I know few photographers (i.e. medium format customers, that don't work way past 9-5 so in this business after hours is the  standard).

Obviously you like these guys and have a published relationship with them but honestly there is no extra points for doing it right.    We are all suppose to do it right.