russelljtdyer
Writer
This is a difficult post for me to write. I am so upset about this that for over a day now I have been trying not to think about this. I've also been trying to keep my upper and lower teeth from touching each other, lest I start grinding them in anger. But, I need to resolve the problem and I need help doing that.
A month or so ago I bought a Leica M-8.2 camera. I'm enjoying it very much. As I tend to do, I started tweaking it, personalizing it. I bought a thumbs-up from Match Technical the first week. Last week I ordered one of those mini bug soft-releases from Pop Flash. I ordered an IR/UV filter for one of my lens. And then I decided to get my two Leica lenses 6-bit encoded, so it'll adjust for them and record the lens used in the Exif data in the image files.
Looking into this I found that the simplest and cheapest way to do this is to remove the flanges or bayonet rings from the lenses and send them to Product and Design Metalwork in Brooklyn, New York. It's a great idea: they're small and light, so they don't cost as much as shipping the lenses. Since I live in Italy, I don't have to worry about U.S. or Italian customs charging me anything as they enter each country. I contacted John Milch at P&D Metalwork. He quoted me a price of $160, which included express mail back to me. I paid him by PayPal in advance. I heard that new flanges would be about €300 each, so this was much cheaper.
I marked each flange with a permanent marker to indicate where it is positioned on the lens in relation to the red dot on the side of the lens. Then I removed carefully the six tiny screws from each. I stripped one, though, and was very upset with myself. But after working it with acetone, it came off. I put each flange into separate plastic bags, along with a note stating as to which lens each belonged. I then wrote a note explaining what I wanted done to the flanges and included my return address. I put all of this in a simple business envelop with a self-adhesive flap that you can easily pull open and reseal. I was using it just for transporting everything to the Federal Express office. I intended to go there the next morning, put the envelop in one of their stiff cardboard envelops to send to New York. It would cost me about €40 to ship it to them. That's a little pricey, but it's still less than buying new flanges.
The evening before I was to go to FedEx, a friend of mine came by. She lives in Milan, but was flying to New Jersey the following morning. Her parents are there. She offered to take them with her on the plane and mail them from NJ shortly after arriving. That would be much cheaper than FedEx from Italy and they would arrive sooner. She would be mailing it from a post office less than 100 miles away from Brooklyn. I thought that was a cool idea. So I gave her the envelop and gave her a print-out of the mailing address. I asked her to buy a padded envelop from the post office when she went to mail it, and to put my envelop with the flanges in it and then to send it Priority Mail so that I'd have a tracking number. She said she would see what she could do--that was my tip that I should have told her more emphatically what to do and not to see what she could do, or I should have taken the envelop back.
Two weeks have gone by and the machine shop in Brooklyn hadn't received them--they said that they would encode the flanges and mail them back to me the same day they received them, and would send me an email with the tracking number. I asked my friend about how she mailed them. She said she put two thin pieces of styrofoam in the envelop I gave her and mailed them first class. She stressed first class as if that was necessarily the best class. I reminded her that I wanted her to put them in one of those padded envelops. I said that in the envelop I gave her, the flanges may tear open the sides and they'll fall out. She seemed unaffected by my concerns.
I called yesterday the shop in Brooklyn to see if they had received them. They said they hadn't received anything from me. Then I said it was sent from my friend from NJ. Then they said they had received an envelop from a woman in New Jersey. They read her name to me: it was my friend. The envelop arrived open and empty with a note attached to it from the post office in Brooklyn saying that that's how they received it. The lens flanges apparently fell out during shipping.
I am so furious that I can't talk to my friend. Instead, I wrote a note to her in skype saying that the envelop arrived open and empty. She hasn't responded yet, but I don't want to here what she has to say. I'm sure she'll say something like, "Oh, I'm so sorry." and then she'll forget about it. I had a friend who one night came to my apartment and snorted cocaine in front of me twice, although I told him not to do it. I've never spoken to him again. Losing the mounting rings for my Leica lenses is tantamount to doing cocaine in my home: it ends the friendship.
I traded some emails with Leica this morning asking how much it would cost for new flanges. They said I have to send the lenses to them to install the flanges. I'm not sure why I can't be trusted to screw in six screws into each lens. I asked how much it would cost, but they haven't told me yet.
What are my other options? Is there a store somewhere that sells these flanges--ones with the six-bit coding so I don't have to go through this again? I'm desperate to resolve quickly this problem. Not because I need to use the lenses any time soon, but because I'm so stressed and upset about it. I feel disconcerted and disconnected. Thanks in advance for any ideas or just sympathy.
-Russell
A month or so ago I bought a Leica M-8.2 camera. I'm enjoying it very much. As I tend to do, I started tweaking it, personalizing it. I bought a thumbs-up from Match Technical the first week. Last week I ordered one of those mini bug soft-releases from Pop Flash. I ordered an IR/UV filter for one of my lens. And then I decided to get my two Leica lenses 6-bit encoded, so it'll adjust for them and record the lens used in the Exif data in the image files.
Looking into this I found that the simplest and cheapest way to do this is to remove the flanges or bayonet rings from the lenses and send them to Product and Design Metalwork in Brooklyn, New York. It's a great idea: they're small and light, so they don't cost as much as shipping the lenses. Since I live in Italy, I don't have to worry about U.S. or Italian customs charging me anything as they enter each country. I contacted John Milch at P&D Metalwork. He quoted me a price of $160, which included express mail back to me. I paid him by PayPal in advance. I heard that new flanges would be about €300 each, so this was much cheaper.
I marked each flange with a permanent marker to indicate where it is positioned on the lens in relation to the red dot on the side of the lens. Then I removed carefully the six tiny screws from each. I stripped one, though, and was very upset with myself. But after working it with acetone, it came off. I put each flange into separate plastic bags, along with a note stating as to which lens each belonged. I then wrote a note explaining what I wanted done to the flanges and included my return address. I put all of this in a simple business envelop with a self-adhesive flap that you can easily pull open and reseal. I was using it just for transporting everything to the Federal Express office. I intended to go there the next morning, put the envelop in one of their stiff cardboard envelops to send to New York. It would cost me about €40 to ship it to them. That's a little pricey, but it's still less than buying new flanges.
The evening before I was to go to FedEx, a friend of mine came by. She lives in Milan, but was flying to New Jersey the following morning. Her parents are there. She offered to take them with her on the plane and mail them from NJ shortly after arriving. That would be much cheaper than FedEx from Italy and they would arrive sooner. She would be mailing it from a post office less than 100 miles away from Brooklyn. I thought that was a cool idea. So I gave her the envelop and gave her a print-out of the mailing address. I asked her to buy a padded envelop from the post office when she went to mail it, and to put my envelop with the flanges in it and then to send it Priority Mail so that I'd have a tracking number. She said she would see what she could do--that was my tip that I should have told her more emphatically what to do and not to see what she could do, or I should have taken the envelop back.
Two weeks have gone by and the machine shop in Brooklyn hadn't received them--they said that they would encode the flanges and mail them back to me the same day they received them, and would send me an email with the tracking number. I asked my friend about how she mailed them. She said she put two thin pieces of styrofoam in the envelop I gave her and mailed them first class. She stressed first class as if that was necessarily the best class. I reminded her that I wanted her to put them in one of those padded envelops. I said that in the envelop I gave her, the flanges may tear open the sides and they'll fall out. She seemed unaffected by my concerns.
I called yesterday the shop in Brooklyn to see if they had received them. They said they hadn't received anything from me. Then I said it was sent from my friend from NJ. Then they said they had received an envelop from a woman in New Jersey. They read her name to me: it was my friend. The envelop arrived open and empty with a note attached to it from the post office in Brooklyn saying that that's how they received it. The lens flanges apparently fell out during shipping.
I am so furious that I can't talk to my friend. Instead, I wrote a note to her in skype saying that the envelop arrived open and empty. She hasn't responded yet, but I don't want to here what she has to say. I'm sure she'll say something like, "Oh, I'm so sorry." and then she'll forget about it. I had a friend who one night came to my apartment and snorted cocaine in front of me twice, although I told him not to do it. I've never spoken to him again. Losing the mounting rings for my Leica lenses is tantamount to doing cocaine in my home: it ends the friendship.
I traded some emails with Leica this morning asking how much it would cost for new flanges. They said I have to send the lenses to them to install the flanges. I'm not sure why I can't be trusted to screw in six screws into each lens. I asked how much it would cost, but they haven't told me yet.
What are my other options? Is there a store somewhere that sells these flanges--ones with the six-bit coding so I don't have to go through this again? I'm desperate to resolve quickly this problem. Not because I need to use the lenses any time soon, but because I'm so stressed and upset about it. I feel disconcerted and disconnected. Thanks in advance for any ideas or just sympathy.
-Russell
