Sounds like you have had bad experience with your kit and the way it has been dealt by your dealer and the distributor in your LATIN country
I can only speak for Leaf here as I've been dealing with LATIN countries for a few years now
In EAMER, AP, Japan and Latin America countries we do not have a chained channel, meaning that the person you buy the kit from deals directly with Leaf and not via a distributor.
More than 50% of our dealers are trained to a level that allows them to handle 80% or repair cases, basically anything that doesn't require a sensor being replaced. The backs are designed with this in mind and these people can replace the whole electronics package within a few hours and have it all re-tested and re-calibrated "while-you-wait".
In US the channel is quite different but the MAC group and Leaf America are doing a great job in taking care of support and service nation-wide. They also take care of repairs states-side.
I understand your frustration about "their bad" but still what do they do when you're on set on location and the software crashes or the camera won't boot up? Who do you call? Mon-Fri 8am-5pm Pacific doesn't cover a lot of grounds for outside-US customers...
Yair
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Leaf here in the US is absolutely fabulous (thank you rick) but the points mentioned by eronald do ring true to a certain extent.
I believe most of asia pacific is handled by the Hong Kong dealer for Leaf, which means any repairs need to go through them. Can you confirm this?
Dealers usually don't have the items in stock straight away, they need to order from their distributors.
I'm not surprised if B&H ships faster to asia than waiting for a local dealer to supply you with a pricey piece of equipment
The prices I see for a lot of different brands of equipment are also jacked up to the point where it's about 20-50% more than the price I can get directly in New York, which makes it almost worthwhile to just buy a second backup piece of equipment.
A local dealer CAN lend you a replacement back but whether he WILL is another matter.
Does Leaf or Sinar have any policy that is worldwide that allows a customer to borrow a spare back from their dealer in the event of repairs for their own back?
And speaking from having my 75S not work properly over 7 months until recently,
when my back breaks chances are I pick up my Canon, I don't have the luxury to sit around and make a phone call to my 9-5 dealer who can't do anything apart from tell me to bring it in for repairs.