Oh man that's frustrating! I can see why some people get fed up with Leica and switch to some other brand.
I'll keep it quiet, it's your story to tell or not. dh On Mar 11, 2007, at 11:55 AM, David Young wrote:
Good mornin' Doug!A package arrived the other day, containing a small, hand made device which I'm sure you're familliar with!It looks bloody marvellous! And I cannot thank you enough!It will be used, as you can imagine, for general close up work...but it will also be used with the Telyt 400/6.8, for until now, I've only had the Nikon 6T (for the 80~200 Vario) and Elpros for the 50 Summicron. Nothing for when I get too close to the birdies! (Hah!)However, it may be a few days (perhaps weeks, maybe months!) before I can try it out.You'll recall the stories of my R8+DMR being water damaged, last October 2nd, while in the Solms factory for repair. Well, to make a long story short, by late November, they'd replaced the R8 with a new one, which had been in the warehouse for 10+ years, and repaired the DMR. The repaired DMR lasted 48 hours before giving intermittent troubles and was returned to Germany. In mid-January they returned the R8 to me with a new DMR. That DMR was fine, but the R8 failed, in the identical manner to the original R8's failure, within 72 hours. Finally, a few weeks ago, after a long email (it ran to 8, single spaced, typewritten pages) was sent to Steven Lee, the CEO, they replaced the R8 with an R9 and another, new, DMR! Finally, all was perfect!The operative word, here, is "was" perfect.Last Thursday, I was up at Mile High Lodge (where Rose works, on a part time basis) and took about 60 shots, all perfect. Then, I came home and Rose asked me to make a couple of table top shots for her. I set up the tripod, plopped the camera on it, and turned it on....As you know, when you turn the camera on, and the DMR turns on, as well. After a couple of seconds, the Leica logo appears. A moment or so later, the DMR "beeps" and the DMR's lower display shows all it's information except the battery status and the number of photos remaining on the card. A few seconds after that, the battery status appears, the DMR issues a second "beep", and the number of shots remaining on the card appears. We are then ready to make photos!Now, everything is identical to the sequence above, except that after the battery indicator appears, the DMR fails to issue the second "beep", the number of shots (even on a freshly formatted card) remains at zero and it is not possible to fire the camera with any of the three shutter release buttons.Meanwhile, I have tried, as you can imagine, everything I can think of, to no avail. If I take the DMR (digital back) off the R9 and reinstall the film back, the camera works perfectly. Put the DMR back on, and it won't finish the startup cycle. :-(I am now waiting for a reply from Jeorg Kaufmann - the head of Customer Service, in Germany, which I expect by tomorrow morning.The sad part is that our daughter's wedding is in less than 4 weeks (in Jasper, AB) and, at this point, I have little faith that I will have a functioning DMR by then. So, I am going to have to buy a backup camera ... most likely the Pentax K10d, as Rose has 2 lenses that will work with it, and it can be her camera, afterwards. Still, it's $1100 I had not planned on spending, at this time. :- ( (I could use film in the R9, it's true ... but at the last family wedding, I shot 20 rolls... that's $400 in film & processing. I'd rather put that towards a camera for Rose.)For reasons of my own, I ask that you not make any mention of the current troubles or the replacment of the R8 with an R9 on the net. (It's a long story.) But I thought I should explain why it may be a while before your nifty tube gets tested.I realize that my troubles with the DMR are mild compared to what you have had to deal with, in recent times, but I still find them frustrating!Thank you, so much, for the extension tube. We were truly pleased, both to be able to help, and because others were willing to chip in, too. I hope that your daughter is getting settled in the US, and life is looking up for her. (It sounded as if it only had one way to go!)Many thanks, once again, for your generosity. It was unexpected and unnecessary, but very much appreciated!Best wishes to you and yours, David & Rose. --- David Young, Logan Lake, CANADA Wildlife Photographs: http://www.telyt.com/ Personal Web-pages: http://www3.telus.net/~telyt
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