Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: ALPA on February 08, 2016, 06:53:39 pm
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My name is André Oldani and I am co-owner of ALPA of Switzerland. After some abstinence from the forums I decided to start contributing from time to time to LuLa as Michael and Kevin are good old friends. Some of you may know me personally or from the good old times at photo.net, robgalbraith.com and others.
Please accept my apologies in advance: We at ALPA are a small yet worldwide acting company. Our ears have to be on so many channels simultaneously and therefore my time on LuLa cannot be a full time equivalent. Anyway, customers and interested parties have always been welcomed to interact by e-mail. You can reach us on [email protected] and we try to answer asap, also in the evening and over the weekend if possible or necessary. For that reason please understand that private forum messaging should not become the standard. And yes, I am neither an English nor American native speaker so my writing might not be perfect at all.
I will restrict myself - hopefully - and try to stick to the facts, be of help if needed and add or introduce our point of view here at the MF forum as "ALPA of Switzerland". Well, I really hope that this will not be received as pure marketing as we at ALPA do what we love and love what we do. Nevertheless I will not take part in „religious“, philosophical or hardware wars. Contributing here should be fun and not duty. Live and let live 8).
Thank you in advance
André Oldani
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Welcome André!
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Welcome Andre!
Looking forward to you contribution here.
A first question: can you tell us about future prospects for the Alpa FPS in light of the new 100mp CMOS backs and its potential for MF 'mirrorless'- HDMI out, great Live View, high ISO, etc? It seems this opens exciting new options for that body, and what it will be capable of. You must be fairly excited yourself at this development!
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Hello Andre and welcome!
Dave
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Hi,
You are most welcome and I really looking forward to good comments from the manufacturers side.
Best regards
Erik
My name is André Oldani and I am co-owner of ALPA of Switzerland. After some abstinence from the forums I decided to start contributing from time to time to LuLa as Michael and Kevin are good old friends. Some of you may know me personally or from the good old times at photo.net, robgalbraith.com and others.
Please accept my apologies in advance: We at ALPA are a small yet worldwide acting company. Our ears have to be on so many channels simultaneously and therefore my time on LuLa cannot be a full time equivalent. Anyway, customers and interested parties have always been welcomed to interact by e-mail. You can reach us on [email protected] and we try to answer asap, also in the evening and over the weekend if possible or necessary. For that reason please understand that private forum messaging should not become the standard. And yes, I am neither an English nor American native speaker so my writing might not be perfect at all.
I will restrict myself - hopefully - and try to stick to the facts, be of help if needed and add or introduce our point of view here at the MF forum as "ALPA of Switzerland". Well, I really hope that this will not be received as pure marketing as we at ALPA do what we love and love what we do. Nevertheless I will not take part in „religious“, philosophical or hardware wars. Contributing here should be fun and not duty. Live and let live 8).
Thank you in advance
André Oldani
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Welcome, Andre.
I'd really like to know your view on the "death" of copal shutters and how Alpa (and indeed the competition) see a way forward. Do you think that there will be a workable solution soon that could be used in place of the Copal shutters across platforms, i.e. is someone working on a simple replacement (mechanical or electronic) so our treasured technical cameras that utilise Copal units aren't rendered useless in a few years when supplies and spare parts wear out?
I ask this question as someone who owns a competitive product but who has always dreamed of owning an Alpa Max.
Thanks,
Tim
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Welcome Andre -
We are all delighted that you join us.
I had the privilege of meeting you and your team at Alpa (Zurich) visit. You graciously showed all your current product line, including your adapters for the Rollei (and other lenses) for the FPS. A most impressive body of work, and of course, the materials, engineering, and execution were all absolutely top-tier. Thanks again for the kind demonstration.
Hopefully you will find the forum here to be entertaining and useful, and we'll all try to behave!
Very best.
Geoff
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My name is André Oldani and I am co-owner of ALPA of Switzerland. After some abstinence from the forums I decided to start contributing from time to time to LuLa as Michael and Kevin are good old friends. Some of you may know me personally or from the good old times at photo.net, robgalbraith.com and others.
Welcome back to the forums! We're glad you're here.
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Thanks a lot for the warm welcome to all of you! If you don't mind I will open two threads for the respective topic soon. There I will answer to the questions and the outlook for a) the shutter (tjv) as well as b) the ALPA 12 FPS (narikin) questions. This is intended build up over time. Some aspects are still under NDA as in any industry but I will try to give you a general idea and to listen to your points :)
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Thanks a lot for the warm welcome to all of you! If you don't mind I will open two threads for the respective topic soon. There I will answer to the questions and the outlook for a) the shutter (tjv) as well as b) the ALPA 12 FPS (narikin) questions. This is intended build up over time. Some aspects are still under NDA as in any industry but I will try to give you a general idea and to listen to your points :)
Hi André -
You had me at NDA. ;)
Glad to see you here. While I fully respect those manufacturers who choose to remain invisible I more fully respect those who brave the rough seas.
Steve Hendrix
CI
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Steve,
You are developing an interesting sense of humor ;)
André
Welcome. I trust you can give as well as you can take.
BTW, I have a question: Are you going to make CAD files for Alpa frames, accessory fittings etc available so people can print an Alpa part on their mill, or a handle on their 3D printer? Or will you wait until the world does it to you anyway?
Edmund
Hi André -
You had me at NDA. ;)
Glad to see you here. While I fully respect those manufacturers who choose to remain invisible I more fully respect those who brave the rough seas.
Steve Hendrix
CI
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Thanks for participating.
I have to say, the cameras are wonderfully designed and crafted.
I owned a 12TC for a very short time. Ultimately, I sold it. It wasn't for a distaste of the system but rather a lack of budget to purchase a system of focal lengths. Otherwise, wow... What wonderful craftsmanship in an age of Thailand made plastic.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Great to see you here André!
Faran
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"BTW, I have a question: Are you going to make CAD files for Alpa frames, accessory fittings etc available so people can print an Alpa part on their mill, or a handle on their 3D printer? Or will you wait until the world does it to you anyway?"
It looked at first as if the various trolls here would behave, at least for a while. I guess not.
ER, perhaps you could take a break from your digital back project to produce some really inexpensive (and superior [or is that "yuuge"]) ALPA clones.
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Welcome to the forum Andre, I'm sure you can contribute many valuable information to users here...
Here is a question you may be able to help if you have tried or may able to try the Nikkor 17-35mm f2.8 lens on an ALPA FPS: How wide is its image circle as the lens is zoomed out towards its long end at f8 f11 & f16? I'm particularly interested for the 24, 28 & 35mm settings. Thanks.
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Welcome to the forum Andre, I'm sure you can contribute many valuable information to users here...
Here is a question you may be able to help if you have tried or may able to try the Nikkor 17-35mm f2.8 lens on an ALPA FPS: How wide is its image circle as the lens is zoomed out towards its long end at f8 f11 & f16? I'm particularly interested for the 24, 28 & 35mm settings. Thanks.
Thank you Theodoros. Unfortunately we never had this specific lens in hand. So I cannot give you a precise answer. I am sorry. We did the PC-E integration (electronically controlled aperture) as these are the lenses with the interesting image circles. The general rule may also apply here: The shorter the longer the focal length the more image circle you may have in reserve. Stefan Steib does some interesting modification for specific lenses with "image circle potential", AFAIK. We at ALPA do not perform such modifications. If Nikon is coming with substantially more "E" lenses we might start a new development round ;)
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If Nikon is coming with substantially more "E" lenses we might start a new development round ;)
That's seems interesting.
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BTW, I have a question: Are you going to make CAD files for Alpa frames, accessory fittings etc available so people can print an Alpa part on their mill, or a handle on their 3D printer? Or will you wait until the world does it to you anyway?
As you know we offer the ALPA Lens Corrector (including profile for over 100 lenses) for free download since years. Therefore yes, there is a good chance that we make 3D models of accessories available for additive manufacturing for free in the future. At least where it doesn't make sense to produce it on our own. In contrast to the general idea the "batch size 1" is not always reasonable in additive manufacturing too. At least if you do not intend to subsidize them heavily (read sell it below cost). Participation can also create great new products.
Regarding unauthorized production: Well, you are too late. There are already people trying heavily to benefit from others ideas and work. You will find them on ebay et al.
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I'd really like to know your view on the "death" of copal shutters and how Alpa (and indeed the competition) see a way forward. Do you think that there will be a workable solution soon that could be used in place of the Copal shutters across platforms, i.e. is someone working on a simple replacement (mechanical or electronic) so our treasured technical cameras that utilise Copal units aren't rendered useless in a few years when supplies and spare parts wear out?
Tim
Just as a short interim answer: Yes, endeavors are being made replacing the Copal 0 across platforms without locking out part of the community. At least in the area were we are involved we advocated this fact strongly. The chance for a mechanical replacement is rather small to nil. But you never know as wonders will never cease... at least if somebody is willing to invest a substantial amount of money into such a project :-\
Furthermore you are right as existing units of the mechanical Copal do still work in their lifespan if you treat them well. The cocking/releasing sequence is key: The correct sequence is always SCS... Set, cock, shoot! Do NOT change the shutter time after cocking. This will stress the mechanical clockwork way to heavily over time. Written manuals stand not always correct.
BTW, we still sell units with Copal shutters for the time being. So we invested into our own sync solution also in order to smoothen the triggering signals (our sync cabling features the respective electronics inside) when worn out units start to produce a jittering sync signals.
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As you know we offer the ALPA Lens Corrector (including profile for over 100 lenses) for free download since years. Therefore yes, there is a good chance that we make 3D models of accessories available for additive manufacturing for free in the future. At least where it doesn't make sense to produce it on our own. In contrast to the general idea the "batch size 1" is not always reasonable in additive manufacturing too. At least if you do not intend to subsidize them heavily (read sell it below cost). Participation can also create great new products.
Regarding unauthorized production: Well, you are too late. There are already people trying heavily to benefit from others ideas and work. You will find them on ebay et al.
André,
As you manufacture very high quality products, a lot of people will want the original rather than the copy. The question about 3D models was because I think flexibility is a big advantage of the Alpa system, and in some cases getting a side handle or a clip-on iPhone holder does not require fine tolerances but may be something a customer needs in a hurry/cheap. And of course a wooden Alpa handle and a user-printed piece of ABS plastic do not exactly compete.
Frankly, I understand that people who "invent" something want to "protect" it, but sometimes when the "invention" is a thread size eg. M42 or Leica screw mount or a random mount bayonet, there would seem to be more protection than invention going on, and it seems that the original manufacturer's warranty of precise tolerance manufacture and calibration of a lens plate would be worth much more to an Alpa client than the "protection" of the shape of an accessory shoe, just as the quality of the materials used. I don't see a 3D print competing with an Arca Cube - but who knows.
I remember with amusement a day in my youth as a journalist when I destroyed the boot sector of the hard disk of a cheap Toshiba laptop I carried around. So I asked an editor at my magazine group whether he could lend me a DOS boot floppy to rewrite the sector, as the rest of my disk was probably still intact - the alternative was to go home and dig out a floppy. And the editor, a well respected member of the community and editor in chief of Science et Vie Micro, a man who got wined and dined well by Microsoft, explained to me with great patience that letting me use a boot floppy was a copyright violation which he could not allow to take place. I remembered this lesson well, and when I went back to teaching and research, I installed open source software on every computer I could find. It's not that I like it, it's that I hate being a hostage.
I think camera electronics are going to be going cheap within a few years - you will have a lot of users who buy your camera hardware as part of a home-construction project.
Edmund