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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Birger Lens Mount Reservations

Make no mistake about it: The mounts shipping soon(in 3-5 days?) are the Canon mounts, not the Nikon. 2 Weeks ago Erik told me it was about 10 weeks for the Nikon mounts. That would make it about 8 or 9 weeks from now. Chances are, the Viewfactor mount is gonna start shipping way before Birger.
 
I haven't heard of View Factor mounts. I think you mean the follow focus. As for projected shipping dates - anything short of the units actually being shipped has to be treated as worthless speculation.
 
You're right, I did mean ViewFactor FF. But I never think of the Birger mount as just a mount, 'cause the whole idea for getting a Birger mount is the FF capability, otherwise I'd just get dumb mount.
 
jaadgy yes we are talking about the Canon mount right now. The people who are interested in using Nikon lenses have the RED Nikon mount option right now, and have been told by Erik that these will follow the Canon mount by a couple months....

us Canon people (with no PL mount lenses) have been in a weird waiting period. where we have invested about $25,000 and have yet to shoot... I have had my RED since NAB, and have only shot days when we have had a Zeiss prime set rental....

I leave for Israel on May 17th. I fly from there to New York, then to Montana to shoot Primal Quest. Then out to Burning Man to shoot the documentary....

so. any info.... ( Aqua? Erik?) would be great. I need to decide if I will be able to take my RED (with Birger Canon mount) or leave it in LA with some friends for rental.
 
Alright. Well let's look at alternatives. I'm considering a nikon dumb mount or a RED zoom to at least get rolling on the camera till the Birger comes out. I've got a nikon 50mm 1.4 lying around and $500 ain't that much to at least get the camera rolling and the learning curve working. I can also rent or borrow nikon lenses. The RED lens i'd consider as well as just looking for some zeiss or cookes on ebay. A lot more expensive though. I ordered in november got charged in decemeber and still don't have a number. So if the people who have numbers are 3 weeks away, I'm not sure where that puts me. Anyone else got any ideas of what we can do while we're waiting? As i understand it, you can mount a nikon lens on a canon adapter but not vice versa.
 
MikeHedge said:
I leave for Israel on May 17th. I fly from there to New York, then to Montana to shoot Primal Quest. Then out to Burning Man to shoot the documentary....

so. any info.... ( Aqua? Erik?) would be great. I need to decide if I will be able to take my RED (with Birger Canon mount) or leave it in LA with some friends for rental.
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Mike, try calling Erik and see what he can do. I know there were some small parts he was waiting on and finalizing the internal software.

As far as options, RED may have Nikon mounts in stock. I think if they have them at all, they have a lot of them so you should be able to get one. You can get some manual nikon lenses and they always have good resale value. Also Doug Underdahl at Longvalley equipment has a Leica mount he would probably sell you.

Any of those lenses would also work well as manual backups on your birger mount in the future.
 
Aqua, can you explain what happened at Birger? How did we go from "volume shipping will start right after NAB!" and "we're about ready to close out this thread!" to "I called and they said the first month's reservations will ship in three weeks"?
 
Some useful tidbits...

Some useful tidbits...

birgerEngineer said:
Do not plan any important shoots using our mount until I announce that the first one has shipped.
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...yet to happen. (this wasn't directed at you, Mike)

birgerEngineer said:
Our production capability is about 50 units/day. All will ship within ten days of the first.
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A few days ago, Erik said I'd get my #140 "in three weeks." Assuming the betas go out this week as planned, that's not exactly "within ten days." However, I'm guessing this has more to do with waiting for beta feedback than it does production capability. I'd imagine that once the bulk starts going out in the next couple of weeks, production WILL ramp up nicely.

birgerEngineer said:
Anybody with an existing Nikon reservation will be allowed to take delivery of a Canon mount when his number comes up (or any time thereafter) and when Nikon units are ready, trade it in at no cost for a Nikon.
Click to expand...

birgerEngineer said:
145 lens mounts were ordered during the month of November.
Click to expand...

Being that I'm #140 (end of November), the three week timeframe most likely applies to you if you ordered in November.

birgerEngineer said:
I will offer a proper appology when we start shipping... for now patience is important.
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That one is directed at myself, as much as anyone else! :)
 
I think there's some confusion about Erik's reference to the "beta" group. My understanding is that these are the people who already helped during the beta testing process, and so they were getting their mounts first as a form of thanks. Everything Erik said before and after NAB made it sound like the mount itself, if not the focus knob, was finalized and ready to go.
 
Just a quick note... We are busy working to get everything built.

We have a part time person starting on Wednesday, who will be handling the customer interactions, emails, confirmations, final payments, etc.

Look for my next update in a couple of days. Those reservations in the 107s (placed in November) can look for emails shortly with payment/delivery confirmations for their mounts but not yet the knobs.

You have all seen the demo (or Haskell's video of it), and know this isn't vaporware. So, quite frankly, I do not feel the need to spend any time on the PR issues... product does, and will continue to, speak louder than me.

Last thing... and I stress this emphatically... Have a back up plan for your shoot, until we email you with your ship date and request final order/payment confirmation.
 
one post is all it takes

one post is all it takes

A quick update posted as you just have is all it takes to maintain half decent PR.

So keep the updates coming!

thanks and
cheers
 
Better is the enemy of the good - and delivery schedules.

Better is the enemy of the good - and delivery schedules.

AKABAKA said:
Aqua, can you explain what happened at Birger? How did we go from "volume shipping will start right after NAB!" and "we're about ready to close out this thread!" to "I called and they said the first month's reservations will ship in three weeks"?
Click to expand...

I think one of the things that happened was that Finner pushed for a receptacle on the knob for a whip arm. I think Erik thought that would be quick and easy and while not difficult it added some extra little parts that got delayed. There have been some significant upgrades including that since we all ordered these things and I think he thought it would be quicker and now probably wishes he went with his original design (as we saw it with NAB except with the drag that was already part of the design) and just offered some knob improvements later on. The other thing is he was finishing up the collimation software, which is another bonus feature that will make all of our lives easier. So as one of my F-15 fighter pilot friends used to say "Better is the enemy of the good..."

This is all based on speculating about some brief conversations with Erik, so I am not sure of any of it.

AKABAKA said:
I think there's some confusion about Erik's reference to the "beta" group. My understanding is that these are the people who already helped during the beta testing process, and so they were getting their mounts first as a form of thanks. Everything Erik said before and after NAB made it sound like the mount itself, if not the focus knob, was finalized and ready to go.
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Akabaka has it about right. for some of you that haven't been on the thread as long - I loaned Erik my #206 for about 3 weeks back in January since it was one of the first cameras shipped after RED made major changes to the PL mount - so I am a a "beta tester" and one of the first in line. I think once I and the few others that are on the Beta/helped out list get their mounts the volume shipments will start in that 2 or 3 week time frame mentioned.

I think what will happen is the first 5 or 10 will be sort of "handmade" in that they will just grab the parts and build a few mounts from from start to finish - test them and ship to us. Then he will pause to set up a more efficient assembly process where they will probably have 5 or 6 assemblies, and build a couple hundred of each assembly because it is more efficient and then fully assemble a good quantity of complete units - hence the idea of volume shipment.
 
AquaVideoRed206 said:
I think one of the things that happened was that Finner pushed for a receptacle on the knob for a whip arm. I think Erik thought that would be quick and easy and while not difficult it added some extra little parts that got delayed. There have been some significant upgrades including that since we all ordered these things and I think he thought it would be quicker and now probably wishes he went with his original design (as we saw it with NAB except with the drag that was already part of the design) and just offered some knob improvements later on. The other thing is he was finishing up the collimation software, which is another bonus feature that will make all of our lives easier. So as one of my F-15 fighter pilot friends used to say "Better is the enemy of the good..."

This is all based on speculating about some brief conversations with Erik, so I am not sure of any of it.
Click to expand...


damn that Finner...always a trouble maker!
 
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