SPT Newsletter 4.18.08

SPT objective is to give a high rate of return to its members. Sine qua non, members make more money.

SPT is supported through dues, donations, information sharing, repair tips, parts and more. These supports make SPT successful! Dues enable us to provide interlocking benefits. An active membership makes it a joint effort.

SPT is also functions as an organizational hub to increase member resources. Our objective is to help members complete more repairs, do them quicker and more professionally.


Currently our time and money are going into this newsletter, the Parts Project, the Library and trying to make inroads into Adjustment Software. We also see the need to cover technical topics such as PCB repair and D P/S lens repair. We have plans to move away from the journal format into QuickTime videos posted to the library.

SPTNET. Our instant email link, modern green pages. Open to all in the CR field, sptnet continues to improve and evolve. An important resource! Contact SPT at cc5@earthlink.net to be put on sptnet.


Parts Project. SPT has been working for years to increase the supply of parts. Our first objective was after market part suppliers. Currently we have three partner suppliers. We also notice that there are now a host of other parts suppliers on the web including eBay.

Last year we decided to offer custom short run manufacturing. Our intent is to offer a controllable part supply and perhaps act as a goad to manufactures.

“The 2 gears we need for this model are (The one who use to break): CY1-6647-000, CY1-6648-000. They are from A550 and now they are sold separately from Canon. They are common to A520/530/540/550” … cause and effect ???, hard to say but it doesn’t hurt.

Although we are able to make custom parts in four weeks with minimum investment, we still have hurdles. Our principle difficulty is predicting the parts we need before the repair becomes hot. Hopefully SPTs partnership with NAPET will enable us to overcome the remaining impediments. If you want parts manufactured contact SPT at cc5@earthlink.net for details.

Adjustment Software. SPT views this as a restraint of trade issue. A secondary concern for many but an important goal long term. There are legal issues, availability, costs and training for smaller shops. It will take time to resolve, SPT is working on it.

Library. Expanding, Expanding, Expanding.



You can’t beat the Photo Industry Reporter for details on the show and cameras. We aren’t going to try. What you’ll get here are some of our own impressions.

First stop was the NAPET reception and meetings. As always they were great for meeting people one on one, learning from speakers first hand, making and renewing alliances. Overall the meetings were happy, relaxed and productive.

During the NAPET lunch, Chuck Bertone, that’s me, was given a surprise award ‘acknowledgement for his efforts to further the interests of this field’. Wow! What a surprise and honor! I gave an acceptance speech. My friend Paul came over and told me “that was the best acceptance speech I have heard”. Wish I knew what I said? I was surprised and totally blown away.

On the floor. I visited two CR booths, Mack Camera and Precision Camera. Both seemed pleased with the business they were doing. Walking the floor was crowded, couldn’t hear my cell phone, could hardly make a call, food lines were too long. All good signs that I hadn’t seen in Florida last year. Camera buzz on the floor was good. People were having fun with the new Smile, a camera that waits until you smile before taking the picture. I overheard many people talking about buying various models on the floor. Overall I liked it! Overall it felt positive!

The Next Generation. At NAPET meetings I noticed a few of the next generation of CR owners, 2nd and even 3rd generation. I found it interesting. One of the things I noticed, the web, computers, emails iphones, psds, and acronyms were the norm. They applied technology causally; they don’t remember a time without it. Several times I noticed people texting or emailing each other during meetings. So cool, I wanted to play. Recently my son noticed a Rolodex card sample, “So what’s a rolodex?” .. Too funny!
 
To be fair, lots of us ‘mature’ users are ‘plugged in’. Without doubt, we are interesting people and use such cool toys for work and play.

Each year I wonder will PMA be worth it? To me, that means worth it to the bottom line. Even in bad years it’s always been worth it, and this was a good year.


For the first time, SPTs workshop was directly connected to PMA by NAPET. This allowed us to coordinate schedules. It enabled the workshop to be hosted with PMA inside the convention center. SPT thanks the NAPET Board and Bill Covey of PMA for making this possible.

Despite PMAs early start, SPTs late promotion and a last minute camera addition, participation totaled a respectable twenty-five. Nineteen attended and six purchased spots to support SPT even though they weren’t able to attend this year. We thank all of you for your support, I mean that sincerely.

For the first time SPT covered three cameras in two days, a push. The Nikon D40 / D40X was aimed at those not able to attend Nikon ASF training. The Canon EOS 40D was to demonstrate the need for early training, beating even EU training dates. The Pentax K100D/100D Super was a last minute entry, requested because it was setting sales figures as an entry point D SLR.

All of us arrived at the convention center armed with only the room number of the workshop. Most of us found ourselves at the wrong end of the building and had to make our way past ‘show us your badges’ and a stiff mile walk down the hall. I was luckier. Bill Covey appeared by magic to usher me to the room on his electric cart. Despite these hurdles, somehow we all managed to find our way on time.

Every workshop has its own flavor. Three cameras / two days shifted emphasis toward teardowns / reassembly. Thankfully NAPET donated a number of ‘bodies’ to supplement cameras brought by the techs. We covered troubleshooting but I wasn’t satisfied with that part of the workshop. We didn’t reach the normal intensity, the hallmark of SPT workshops. Time was one factor but we also lacked ‘repair’ cameras. Having techs bring in cameras ‘off the bench’ sharpens the focus of the workshop. It brings in the element of unpredictability that’s the juice of a good workshop. Dry runs are nice but as a tech, working with techs, I know that what we really want is to see broken cameras repaired or know the reason why.

Lunch proved to be a big problem. Isolated with no food court open, we foraged for food. We plan on catering lunch next workshop.

An important part of every workshop is person to person. This was one of those rare times where most of us were open for dinner. We had a real chance to get to know each other while exchanging business and tech tips. You can’t calculate its value but it’s a big reason for a residency workshop.

“Every one of these workshops I have been to I has always come away with much more than I started with.”

“It's always great to get together with everyone, renew acquaintances, and trade ideas. The information gathered will pay for the cost of the workshop many, many times over. Thanks again, Chuck and to everyone who attended.”
 


We are planning early for 2009.
PMA Location: Las Vegas Convention Center
PMA Dates: March 3, 4 and 5th (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday)

Workshop Location: Las Vegas Convention Center
Workshop Dates: March 2nd and 3rd (Monday and Tuesday)
The camera models are open so get in your suggestions.

Changes we would like to make; a map, catering lunch, an AV system and covering a related topic(s). One suggestion is using adjustment software. Start making those plans and get us your suggestions.



Olympus is allowing all ASF contracts to expire at the end of their term. US Olympus ASF shops have never been authorized for digital models, with a few inside player exceptions. Another rumor, or wishful thinking, is that Olympus will make selections among the former ASF shops and the new authorizations will include digital. And yet another rumor says that Olympus has just completed digital training for a few.


Samsung is said to be horrible for parts over the last few months. News 3/27/08, Samsung no longer dose parts or repair. According to UK the decision came from Japan / Korea. At the beginning of 08, Samsung ASFs were no more. In the US, Eunicore Camera Service is said to be taking over repairs for Samsung. At the exact same time we heard this over the phone, it hit sptnet. SPTNET is wired!


Vivitar sold to Syntax Brillion two years ago? That’s want we hear from them over the phone. We also hear that repairs would have to be sent to Syntax Brillion. Yet shops say that they have placed part order with Vivitar and received faxed part views as recently a six months ago.


Nikon parts on backorder? Numerous sources on this one, lots and lots of backorders.


Canon is not to be renewing their Sub Contractor contracts. Canon has moved its copier manufacturing facilities off shore and is planning to use those facilities in Virginia to house its repair centers.


Kodak is said to be offering individual parts to a favored few while only offering subassemblies to the many including Kodak ASFs. Wow! But remember this is a rumor. If true it seem like an incredible dangerous policy for Kodak and spells possible more legal trouble for this industry giant.

“I'm looking for the ass'y which drives the lens cover for this model. Spoke with kodak parts dept and all they could say is ‘This model has a lens cover?’”.

Frankly Kodak has a lot of problems including questionable management in a time of crisis. Like Fuji they need to replace its consumable film with another consumable.


Fuji parts supply has gone from poor to worse. The inside story is that Fuji USA can’t get enough parts from Fuji Japan even for in-house repairs. No parts at all on some models. Every part ordered by Fuji USA from Japan is short. This lends credence to the rumor that they no longer manufacture their own cameras, with maybe a couple of exceptions.

ASFs are running a 50% backorder on their parts orders. Non-ASFs most often can’t get parts at all, “Fuji has refused to sell me the battery cover for a S3000 camera”. Backorders commonly run 3 to 4 months. This problem extends into pro models like the S2 and S3. There are even a few cases where Fuji refused to sell parts to consumers calling them.

The word is that Fuji subcontractors are now in Mexico using a Texas border town as a shill. In many states off shoring is a sensitive issue but Fuji joins one or two others using this strategy. There are a few rumors floating around saying that Fuji may move its’ in-house repair facilities from New Jersey to Carolina? Here is the other shoe! Fred Beck has retired from Fuji USA!

This results in big customer dissatisfaction. We don’t know now much it affects sales but it must. We know on the pro end there are many who never will buy another Fuji or recommend one; this probably applies to a lesser degree to the D P/S. “Is any one repairing Fuji GA645Zi professional cameras, tuning them up besides outrageously expensive Fuji?”
 
Even though Fuji is still big in X ray film and is selling large platform printers, Fuji is in trouble. The hard facts are that for companies like Fuji and Kodak replacing their consumable film volume with digital is a big up-hill battle.


Fuji Image CCDs failure. Do your customer a favor. Fuji’s general policy is to repair ‘free of charge’ cameras with CCD failure, even many not on the recall list. These cameras must be sent into Fuji USA because Fuji Japan requires the old CCD to be sent in exchange. True to form it’s said that Fuji Japan shorts Fuji USA on every CCD exchange.

Personally I can see Fuji replacing the CCD in warrantee but I fail to see CCD failure out of warrantee being any different then any other part failure.


Tamaron is no longer selling diaphragm units for its Canon lens mounts. They site focus problems after diaphragm unit replacement. A common repair for field techs who say that they never have had any problems after replacing the diaphragm unit. We hear that the Canon Ti model is especially venerable to focus shifts. Tamaron may also apply this policy to Nikon lens mounts.


Sigma Parts. “Just thought I would share my first experience of purchasing Sigma parts from C.R.I.S. Camera. After hearing that C.R.I.S. was handling the parts orders for Sigma I contacted them via telephone and spoke to a very nice customer service person. I was informed of the price and availability of the part, placed the order, and it arrived in a timely manner. I was concerned about the change of CRIS handling the parts orders but now I am not concerned at all. Also, the price was comparable to the original Sigma price. Thanks to their customer service staff and Lynda this was a smooth and timely transaction.”
 


C.R.I.S. in Inc. 5000. Congratulations to Mark Treadwell, Mike Litecky and Steve Wright. Lead by CEO Mark Treadwell, this team has hit the bigs.

‘ C.R.I.S is ranked #3848 out 5000 of the USAs fastest-growing private companies. And no wonder, with median revenue of $9.4 million and three-year median growth of 140 percent.’ ‘Paraphrased from an article in Inc. 5000’

Mark was a keynote speaker at the NAPET meeting. Recently he brought in consultants to restructure C.R.I.S. Running C.R.I.S as a small business just didn’t work anymore. C.R.I.S. is a big business and needed to be structured on a big business model. The details were vague but Mark assured us that they were working. Mark, as always, was smiling .. Allot!

Mark founded C.R.I.S. after leaving Copal Inc. in southern California. Mike later joined him in Chandler, Arizona from Comet Camera. Steve joined after leaving as VP of Nat Cam at around the same time. C.R.I.S is a Sustaining Member of SPT and served many years on the NAPET board. Mark Treadwel and Mike Litecky served both on the NAPET board and as NAPET Presidents.

I’ve known these guys for many years. I still remember the stories Mark told me about testing fish finder gauges in a warehouse for Copal … acting as the fish! I remember the night Mark bought Charlie Claar, Phil Zimmerman and myself a consolation dinner in some fancy restaurant after beating us out of a tester sale with a Brazilian who was carrying $50,000 in cash. And I’ve watched them over the years earning their success the hard way .. By working for it and stressing. I had a chance to talk to them at a NAPET meeting during PMA and at the Hilton. It’s been many years since we had any free time to sit down for dinner, maybe next PMA .. And Mark, you are buying! Chuck


The sliding scale. A number of years ago we were reporting about the sliding scale applied to digital; basically as the value of the camera drops the repair scales slides down with it. Recently we have seen Canon and others apply the sliding scale to older digital models. Quite a bit different then the fixed repair charges we all applied to film cameras.


Customer contact using email. Email offers a way to increase customer satisfaction while decreasing workload. Increasing email contact will decrease phone contact and give an efficiency increase for every size shop. Email isn’t the be all, end all but should become the foremost component in your customer service system.

Customers love it because it’s in writing and they can handle it in their time, in their own space. You’ll love it because it decreases your ‘time’ overhead and makes a great customer contract, PR and sales tool.

Some Quick Tips
1. Answer emails reasonably quickly, not IM but quick. Our computer displays a window showing the messages on our server every half hour, it’s slick. We take a quick look and decide whether to download or not. We don’t have any hard and fast rules on how quick we answer; generally we just work our emails to fit our schedule. Quick is the number one rule today.

2. But careful what you say and as importantly how you say it. Email misunderstandings are common because they lack inflection, always remember that. If you get caught up in a miscommunication, make that phone call.

3. Keep up with your emails. If you let them build, it will snowball into a monster. Learn how to use your folders and sorts. Sort the spam but always check your junk folder. Sorts aren’t prefect.

4. Emails allow you to increase customer contact, pump it. Let your customer know their parts and repair status before they ask.

5. Use canned responses to reduce time. We have hot keys set up for typical responses. Often we start with the canned response and then modify to suit.

6. Emails are not suitable for every situation or every customer. Phone and mail is always your backup. Some customers don’t have email or don’t check their email. If we have a bounce back or other email problem, we fall back to our phone or mail immediately.

Email won’t add to your workload, just how you deal with it. Used wisely email contact will go up, customer satisfaction will go way up and your time will go down.


Web Forms and Payments. One customer used the Kodak web site to ‘try’ to send his camera in for repair. After filling out the forms and agreeing to the cost, he discovered that he was referred to a Kodak ASF where the process was restarted by phone. Fact .. He loved getting the quote and web form but hated redoing by phone.

People today do not have the time and patience to “go to a lot of trouble”. We just did a quick check on several CR sites; some sites offered forms and payments site while others did not. We all need to understand that our web site is an important part of our storefront. People love to complete everything in one stop. Forms, Invoices and payments should be part of everybody’s web site.


Credit Online. The merchant fee % you pay depends on your provider, the card type, if you swipe the card or punch in the numbers, if you take the security code / CVC, your average charge and your yearly credit gross. Percentage and transaction fees vary by provider. Also expect to pay more for increased risk, ‘non-qualified’ transactions (phone in) cost more and CVC numbers less. Visa / Master card is one card system. American Express is a different and more expensive card system. Discovery is the fourth card system.

Your first stop is your merchant provider. For us that meant our bank, for others it means Cosco. Some recommended 3rd party providers. We have no direct knowledge good or bad on 3rd part providers, we avoided them under a general ‘fine print’ principle.

To process cards on line you will need to use either Paypal or a payment gateway. There were mixed reviews using Paypal but everybody agreed on two things; Paypal is the easiest but most expensive. Payment gateways are On-Line transaction terminals.

Our first experience with On-Line payments was using Paypal. It was easy. We set up a business account with Paypal. Typed in our payment in the Paypal site, which produced a code. We copied and pasted the code into our web program, which produced a HTML button. It worked and was easy. What we didn’t like was that it took the customer from our site to the paypal site and was expensive.

For SPT’s new pages we contacted our bank for their Payment Gateway. Our bank uses VeriSign Pro. We later found out VeriSign was purchased by Paypal *. Anyway now we process all our payments On-Line. The percentages and fees we pay are identical to our terminal.

If you want get payments through your web pages, which we recommend, you’ll probably need a cart system. Your Payment Gateway will provide the necessary code package to connect your cart to Payment Gateway. You can install the code yourself but for $30 we had our server install it. What is really happening is that during the payment process your customer is inside the payment site but the site change is transparent. I’m sure there are other ways but our own experience is limited. We used http://www.squirrelcart.com because Kevin Cooper had experience with it and it cost $200 (in our price range). When you get a copy of the invoice, the transaction is complete!

While not really necessary there is one more part, SSL Certification. Basically SSL is site encryption designed to protect credit cards from hackers. When we looked into security we found that our server had adequate security and our guess is that most commercial servers have adequate security. You definitely do not need SSL to run your cart and payments. But we found that a few customers asked about security and figured maybe we are loosing others. SSL Certification is provided by a number of vendors, we used Network Solutions. One year SSL Pro certification cost was more then we wanted to spend but the four-year package was reasonable. While we don’t feel it necessary it dose allow ‘encrypted page’ alerts and does indemnify the customer against loss due to hacking.

This all sounds overly complicated, while not simple it’s not as hard as it seems. Start at the provider, find out their payment gateways, and use that for your cards and then work on linking your web site. Why? “Years ago, I took just checks & cash. Income just about doubled when I accepted MC/Visa.” This true for your store font and it is true for your web site.

* Caveat: Paypal / Ebay is an Online money transfer system. Paypal / VeriSign is an Online Credit transaction terminal. Although it’s the same company, the functions are separate. Our Online transactions cost roughly the same as our terminal transactions.


Customers with Parts. Many are seeing customers come in …. with parts. There are plenty of sources on the web; also manufactures are legally obligated to provide parts on request. A few CR shops won’t touch it while most have no problem. “Bring me the part and I am glad to make the repair as long as I get my repair price”.

There are also shops that willing sell the part, at a mark up, as part of a business strategy.

“These customers also gain a great appreciation for the work that we do. They don't work on their own gear after that and they have no problem with the labor rates. They are also my best advertising agents …”

“They though they could just snap it on as easily as they broke it off. They backed down when I explained how the camera had to come apart to install it.”

Most Innovative Award: “We sell a handy kit which includes small screwdrivers appropriate for camera disassembly. It also includes our contact information :-)”


D SLR penetration. D SLRs repairs are a good repair market. Now smaller outlining CR shops are also reporting good increases in D SLR repairs. D SLR repairs are making deeper market penetration.

D SLR sales also continue to increase with no signs of saturation. Continuous technological improvements may mean markets with a much higher saturation point. If D SLRs haven’t already exceeded total film SLR sales already, there is no doubt that it will.

D SLR repairs show a noticeable increase but not for everybody. There are still some CR shops that see few if any D SLRs. It might be due to local economics, demographics or for other reasons, we just don’t know.


D SLRs untapped. D SLRs have opened up new markets but its true potential remains largely untapped. D SLR repairs goes without saying. And the new, now old, Image Sensor cleaning market along with sensor cleaning products is common. Some CR shops, dealers and manufactures do ‘How to’ D SLR training workshops. And of course there are the numerous impromptu questions from customers, which usually become time-consuming head scratchers.

But huge segments of the D SLR market remain untapped; color calibration, printing calibration, and focus drift to name a few. Even porting over clinics to D SLRs, an industry standard, is largely unknown. It’s hard to say who among us will be first but many of us are highly skilled in the science of sensitometer and photography.

“One of the ideas I wanted to pursue with my imaging business was to do workflow profiling. Quality is determined by every step of the workflow, just now it is digital, and there are probably more possible sources of error. It is also possible to check each step against a known 'reference'. For the camera, this should include MTF charts, understanding camera settings that may affect results, just whatever seems relevant. I like the idea of profiling lenses, too, to get resolution charts, color error, distortion, and all that down in writing.

This would go along way toward being able to tell a customer whether, for example, his Nikon D200 is really producing "soft" results or if it is behaving just like all the other D200s out there. This can be done without getting the factory service people involved, since they never seem to know much about what is going on out in the real world. And comparisons between, say, the D200, D300, Canon D40, or whatever, could easily be made.

I am working on setting up such a test capability, but it costs real money and I am going slowly. There are a lot of working pros and advanced amateurs in Southern Calif. so I am out talking to people about what they would pay and what kind of testing they would want. Once I get a database up, I could make the info available to other techs, too.

With cameras costing $1000 to $8000, spending $100 to $200 to have this profiling done might be well worthwhile to advanced amateurs, semi-pros, and of course, working pros. This could be a possible side line for camera techs, I think.” James Goss / Optics & Images / Pasadena, CA "Image Consulting and Service"

Perhaps camera techs of the 21st century are going to look different from their predecessors - becoming photo-imaging engineers and not only service techs?


Information Age. Memory card compatibility, Image Recovery, Formatting Errors, jpegs showing as RAW, Firmware upgrades, Mark III focus problems, CCD failure recalls, how do I use this camera and more are now part of our business lives. Like it or not we are a point of contact for these and many other consumer questions. The task is daunting but it helps if you see knowledge as a business investment.

The idea of ‘dealing’ information as a billable service is foreign to most of us. Q&A is seen as part of customer service, banking that advertising value will offset time loss. There is no doubt that Q&A has advertising value. Yet it is important to the health of your business to be able to turn as much ‘dead time’ and ‘learning time’ into billable time. We need to model the trend that we see in other fields, knowledge as a commodity.


One Stop Shipping. With one stop shipping the CR business sorts everything, ships warrantees, recalls and does the repairs. Most dealers, including chains, want the simplest solution to CRs. Offering your CR shop as the single point of shipping is the obvious yet simple solution. Find it hard to believe? Ask CRIS or Precision, boil them down and you’ll find that one of their cores is a one stop shipping business.


D P/S Biz. Regardless of the increasing D SLR numbers, D P/S are bread and butter. The basic math is there. Currently the total number of D P/Ss sold exceeds the total sales of all film P/S ever sold. And film P/S was a great CR market for us. Film P/S CR even had similar problems, falling prices and changing technology. The real problem that we face with D P/S CRs opposed to film P/S CRs is parts cost and availability.

While many struggle with this market, others find it the sweet spot. SPT did a number of soft interviews trying to compile what we hope will be useful information for you. One size does not fit all but small things can make an important bottom line difference.

It’s critical to make sure you get paid for your time. Methods vary. Many take a deposit and quote the successful repair price, a minimum / maximum. Some alternate by using the camera as the deposit. Others work lost time into the cost of successful repairs.



Your attitude is everything. If you or your reprehensive starts negative, that ends it. Make sure they understand your terms, take in their camera. Evaluate it later.

Your customers’ attitude is also everything. If they expect the repair for free or they don’t like your terms or price point, they aren’t customers.

In smaller shops people often mix Check In with Evaluation. If you want to save time on the rejects have a shipping return policy in place.

Large shops have a bigger problem, wholesale networks are shattered. In addition, dealers are geared toward sales and counter personal aren’t motivated to CRs. Training counter people helps but high turn over makes that a continuous chore. Different forms of spiffing have worked for some shops. But on the whole you would have to say the large shops struggle for solutions.

The basic math is there. Even for box stores the profit is in service and service contracts.

 Abandoned Cameras. During Check In make your policy clear and have it in writing. If a customer abandons their camera, they are going to feel like they cheated you. You will loose them and their friends. It's better to have the abandoned camera policy clear and up-front.

Digital P/S have spoilage so don’t let the time drag toward a ‘mechanics’ lean. At the point where you are going to treat their camera as abandoned, let them know in writing or email that you plan to turn the camera or salvage parts … at a profit.

“As digital camera repairs became more common, we realized that even this remedy was no longer useful. We had the camera, but the customer had all the cords, software, battery and charger, etc. needed for us to resell the item. Plus, the actual resale value of the item was decreasing daily as we waited for them to claim the equipment. This was not going to work.

What does work is a 50% deposit (typically by credit card) at the time the repair is approved, whether on the day the equipment is brought in or when we call with a price on a repair sent out for factory service. This has a secondary benefit when the customers pick up finished repairs: the money they pay then is much less than it would have been without the deposit. If an item is un-repairable, we refund the deposit.”

“We started taking deposits on all repair orders (by credit card), got tired of waiting months for things to get picked up.”

After the camera is in house, you determine repair, replacement offers, recalls, parts cost, quick fixes, reparability and more. Repayment for your time has to constructed into your business model. It’s a numbers game, triage. The goal is not to repair everything, but to make money on most everything and repair those that are ER, economical repairable.


www.dprewiew.com Many shops mine data at the start of the business day. If you use a sliding scales, need to know economic viability, find recalls, get early warning on common complaints, find service advisories or any other information; you’ll be spending some time on the web data mining. The adages to data mining are the quicker the better.

Dprewiew offers one stop shopping for release dates. current street prices, discussion forums, and service advisories, recalls and allot more. It has a pretty extensive links system which takes a bit of getting used to so you may not be able to find all the information the first few times through. But once you get used to it you’ll love it. The link is available from our SPT page / Links.


Film Repairs. Film repair and even projector repair continues. Judging by the chatter maybe even increasing a tick or two.

“Whenever film camera's come in for repair they are almost certainly approved.” … “Not only do I see film P&S for repair I even sell a few used ones.” …. “I sell through fully overhauled OM bodies pretty quickly on my site.” ….. “All approved their estimates.” There are no doubt many of us still mine this side market both repair and sales.

From the flip side; “ … a customer wanted to know where the memory card went into her camera. It was a Minolta X-700.”


BER. Canon continues to BER (beyond economical repair) cameras and lenses. With cameras it’s the shutter count, with lenses it can be a variety of reasons. Most of these cameras and lens are eminently repairable … by us. More then the BERs, offering your customer ‘service’ increases word of mouth. Just remember to have a good business model for the occasional lost time.


Newspaper CRs. We are seeing movement with newspaper CRs. When D SLRs came into newspapers, the CRs shifted to the manufactures. We took two hits; first even ASFs weren’t authorized and then manufactures often gave once a year free service. Now newspapers are replacing staff with freelance photographers, which include their out-of-house gear. In addition the free yearly service doesn’t seem to be there anymore. Newspaper CRs are now shifting back toward the locals.

But freelancers CRs have drawbacks. You have to go after the freelancers piecemeal and their equipment is generally of lower quality, they don’t do routine service and they only bring it in when the camera ‘doesn’t work’. Many also don’t have backups, so you might consider rentals as a side market and to take the pressure off.


Slow pay increasing. Dealer’s slowing payments has been a fact of life in the US manufacturing belt for the last two or three years, 30 days net drifted to 45 and now sometimes 60 days. Slow pay is also seen in ASF payments.

Slow pay is occurring in other fields and over the last several months we have seen this spread. I guess you would have to be dead for this to be news; it’s the US economy in general.


Coded Invoice Numbers. At a NAPET function the topic of coded invoicing came up. It surprised me because we have been using coded invoice numbers for years and assumed everybody did.

Maybe your prefix means a dealer or the dealer and year they came on board. Maybe the suffix means the number of units, or whatever. We use it to track promotions, repair charge start dates among other things. Information at a glance helps you get a quick snapshot your business. We can see a promotion start to diminish or a repair or dealer that’s still going strong years latter. If you consider your business a machine, a coded invoice is gauge on how the engine is running.


Advertising. ‘TV is no good. Radio is effective but it costs too much to produce snappy sound bites. Magazine advertisement takes months to be effective. Newspapers ads on the other hand produce good results and are cost effective. A key is to keep it visible. You have to be able to keep it fresh while at the same time branded, recognizably yours. Try switching sections or changing pictures while keeping the base layout the same. Paraphrased from James Song / Camera Repair Japan at the NAPET meeting


Nikon D300 Training. Nikon training for the D300 is scheduled for April 14-18. This is great news! In a digital world, early training is a must.

Even through Nikon is the best supporter in the industry there is a big problem. Before any ASF can attend they must purchase tools totaling $5,000. That’s a huge overhead on one model. And it follows similar requirements for the D40 and D80 training.

So we ask; are these tools really necessary? Well … it seems that $4,500 involves mirror angle adjust. But when we do mirror box replacements, the mirror boxes come pre-adjusted. Mirror angle adjustment repairs involve tampering. And those number a small handful .. in the whole industry. So what’s going on? Doesn’t Nikon know this? Does the tool policy come from Japan? Is it loading the dice?

We don’t know? We ask because somebody has to! It’s talked about in the industry; we hope that this policy is reconsidered.




So who are we? We are high school grads and PhDs: hackers and software engineers, ex-solders and ex-hippies. All with some common thread that has always made me feel in the company of friends!
 

 We all have known Steve Wright for many years. We know he graduated from the National Camera Residency Program. We all know that later, he went back to Nat Cam as a trainer and continued on for many years eventually becoming Executive Vice President. Many in the field owe their start to him. And we all know that he is the trainer and key tech for CRIS. We also know him for his help and friendship over the years. But do we really know him? I though I did.

Yet while I was having a drink with Steve and friends I found out something new. Steve was a disco king! How many knew that Steve helped pay his way through school by winning disco dance contests? Wow! I never knew that. And there is even more, how about Disco DJ and Radio Personality.

Steve is modest; he doesn’t think that he is that interesting. But anybody that can dance is a master technician and teacher is both right and left brained. That is rare!

Many years ago while Steve was a teenager he damaged the car. With great worry he told his father. His father said to him “ .. Well if that’s the worst thing ..” Many years later his worried daughter came to him and said “.. Dad I wrecked the car …”. He said to her “ .. Well if that’s the worst thing ..”.

Now here is a man who is an artist.. practiced in the ‘Art of being human’, a Renaissance man!


Rodson Ellerbush passed in January 2008 at the age of 69. Rodson Ellerbush purchased National Camera Inc. in 1978 from founder Sam Love.


Jack Goldberg passed March 8, 2008 at the age of 81. His achievements include SPT Tri-State SPT President, SPT Board Member, NAPET Board Member, Territorial VP for PMA, owner / operator of the Camera Clinic since 1969 and much, much more. Most of us knew Jack, all who knew him will never forget him. During his life Jack was many things but most of all he was our friend, he is my friend. “This is really weird to me. It’s like the end of an era or something.” We wish his wife Lois and his family the best. Bon Voyage Jack .. catch you down the road. Chuck