Give me a break:
1) I have personally helped Snook with issues in the past, and help many forum members even when they are not our customers.
2) Canon/Nikon are not problem free; ask any rental department how many 1DsII firewire ports they've had go bad or 5DI shutters have crapped out. And most Canon/Nikon cameras won't tether to Leopard at all unless you know to remove Type8Camera from the System-Library; I can't think of a more obscure problem.
3) This, along with essentially ANY problem (other than e.g. dropping it in the ocean) is fully covered under the warranty, including a loaner during the repair if you opted for the 3-year warranty. While in-warranty the warranty can be extended 1 year at a time for around 5% of what Snook likely paid for the unit in the first place.
4) I will put my personal reputation of the incredible rock-solid stability of a Phase Back with C1 4.8.2 shooting tethered.
To respond directly to Snook: your back would need repair in DK as the battery for date/time is not user-accessible. Normally (based on our companies extensive experience - not on manufacturer claims) this battery lasts the life of the back; that's unfortunate.
It's probably not worth the time/money to have it repaired out-of-warranty but if you do ever have an issue that requires repair make sure to mention it so that it is repaired at the same time.
Doug,
I think this all boils down to the bottom line.
Yes, you guys help a lot of people that weren't your original customers. That's commendable, but it also drives business your way . . . nothing wrong with that.
Still, the bottom line is Snooks got a expensive camera that isn't worth the price of the fix (your words, not mine).
I do think it's somewhat off that to get a "lifetime" battery replaced shouldn't take a extra warranty that costs more than a 5d2.
As far as tethering with version 4, well I haven't tried it in a while but I know making version 4 tether to a phase back on a vista machine was impossible. Maybe you've fixed that, if so I stand corrected, I will download it and try it again, though I'd have thought since Phase and Microsoft got a deal cookin' vista would have been easy and high up on the list.
As far as Canon they had problems with the 1ds2 and paid dearly for it, though up to the moment I sold both of mine, they had about a billion frames through them and only lost one shutter.
The 1ds3; I can't think of anything it does wrong and honestly I think it would tether to a commodore 64, because I tethered it with Dells, Sonys, all flavors of macs and dpp just loads, tethers and works and it's free.
Still, it takes a lot of sifting through information to find out what works reliably and what doesn't, less with dslra, more with specialty cameras.
On a previous thread you mentioned the only way to get any digital back to tether without a problem of lines in the image is to use battery power from the back. Now that you guys are Leaf dealers hows that gonna work, cause the last time I looked the Leaf battery was hanging in the firewire slot.
But, back to the bottom line. How expensive is it to fix the internal batter of a p30?
BC