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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

birgerEngineer said:
Of the various posts, I think this comes closest to respectfully assessing the situation.

We are through the quality control issues. We got a new oven in yesterday, are pleased with the quality of soldering that we are getting, and just yeilded 100% on a panel containing 6 boards.

When thing are going well, we will pipeline, assembly, oven, testing etc, and build 18 mounts an hour. Right now we are waiting on each process to complete for a panel of 6 boards, before moving to the next. This produces about 4 to 6 boards per hour. We have six more panels to run this week. We have 40 more panels due in the first few days of next week. This is more than enough to clear the backlog.

As for the knobs... I had not been satisfied with the results of the various ways that we were controlling the tension. The previous designs required a tool to do the adjustment, and just did not produce a smooth enough feel. We have a new design for the knob housing that I am pleased with, and we will get it into Beta sometime next week. The electronics are quite stable at this point, but the mechanicals are going through some last design changes. Machine shop has been a little slow lately, so it should be easy to get good turnaround time.

Lastly, I made a decision that quality was more important than shipping. There is a great deal of anger floating around this thread, and our delivery schedule on the whole. I felt that it would have done more damage to the overall product release to ship something that might break in the field, and have people talk about how much a product sucked.

The product rocks, our quality control was having some serious issues. I chose to ship in a very controlled way, primarily to our industrial customers, as I could get some real larger scale field testing going, and control my customer support cost (primarily time, but shipping charges as well) for this problem to a dozen customers. This was best for the product, as it ensured that I got five times as many units in the field for the same support cost.

People are free to say as they wish regarding the handling of these matters. Any who do not wish to be customers can exercise their right to cancel their orders. I think those that stick out the ride, are going to be pleased with the result, and will soon forgive the bumps in the road that have gotten us here.

We will take the good boards from today, and those that we will inevitably make tomorrow, and will assemble them into housings, and another group of people happy with tracking numbers on friday.

I am going home, I need the sleep...
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I actually was just about to write to Peter ( my Partner in crime on this one, hehe) and cancel the order as it has in deed been a way too long of a wait and a frustrating one do to announcements which have made promises never kept. Out of not getting too involved with the madness ( but well understood at times ) going on in here, I stayed clear of it, but as once again a new important project is coming along, and your Birger mount could definitely prove to be the perfect solution, I read along and find this post above from you, and so you do continue to have my full support, and yes it would make no sense to rush shipping at this stage while possibly sacrificing the quality and integrety of the product, work on it work on hard, and send it out when you know is as good as it can be!

ciao
 
We all know the promise of this mount. After beta testing and working with Erik for almost a year now I can only say that his silence now can only mean he is furiously dealing with problems unanticipated. I know Erik is committed to this project. I am waiting for my FedEd number just like everybody else. It is hard to hear be patient over and over. I think Erik is very aware of everyone's pain. I think he is also aware patience is running out.
 
Martin Weiss said:
Have to disagree here; you can get several (e.g. Nikon, Contax) adapters for the Canon, but not to Nikon.
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Stephen Pruitt said:
Martin is correct in that the Nikon MOUNT is not as flexible as a Canon MOUNT, but the fact remains that Nikon GLASS is more flexible than Canon GLASS, as you can always go from Nikon glass to a Canon mount, but not the reverse.
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Yeah, what Stephen said - sorry for confusion.
They both make excellent glass so it shouldnt matter which way to go.
I had some EF lenses but not good ones so I would have had to invest in Canon L lenses anyway, instead now I choses Nikon.
Cheers
 
So for most flexibility, one should chose Nikon glass on a Canon mount.

Then of course you lose all ability to electronically control the lens, when the Birger does come out.

Bottom line: there are no easy choices.

As long as the Birger is only a perpetually soon-to-come product, the choice is between Nikon and IMS. Nikon does not void your warranty, but means you cannot use the electronic goodies that Birger one day will offer. IMS means you keep your options open, but void your warranty.
 
Andy's website is back up again, but it seems he is following in Eric's tracks. Last entry about his smart Canon mount is a week old, where he promised an update that day or the next...

page0_blog_entry23_1.jpg

That said, I am looking forward to some competition in this segment. Just a pity that it seems a bit as though RED is treating different third party solution providers differently.
 
KETCH ROSSI said:
I actually was just about to write to Peter ( my Partner in crime on this one, hehe) and cancel the order as it has in deed been a way too long of a wait and a frustrating one do to announcements which have made promises never kept. Out of not getting too involved with the madness ( but well understood at times ) going on in here, I stayed clear of it, but as once again a new important project is coming along, and your Birger mount could definitely prove to be the perfect solution, I read along and find this post above from you, and so you do continue to have my full support, and yes it would make no sense to rush shipping at this stage while possibly sacrificing the quality and integrety of the product, work on it work on hard, and send it out when you know is as good as it can be!

ciao
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Please no Ketch - I have all the patience in the world to wait for Erik's mount, even if the knobs & BT remote ships later on...
Going right now through R&D for several RED accessories myself I know exactly what he is going through...
Erik, I know it doesn't mean much - but You have all my support & patience. I too believe in quality over quantity...

(I know I am gonna get it for this one...)

:) Peter
 
Hey Erik, where are we at? How many mounts have gotten out in the last couple days?
 
I'm out ...

I'm out ...

Not heard a bean from Mr Birger after an email informing me that my mount was tested and packaged on Saturday. It's now Thu, not a single reply from my emails since (I've long given up trying to call him) for either a Tracking No or just refunding my full £ payment.

While I await to hear from Birger, I have no option but to send a letter to my credit card provider disputes dept.

As for people making out there is a Birger mount, all I can say is 'dream on' ... I've just woken up.

Totally pants :umm:
 
Peter Majtan said:
David - it looks like You have received a lot more communication then most others. I understand where You are coming from, but throwing in the towel now does not make much sense IMHO...

Your call...
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It's a matter of PRINCIPLE; I am totally stunned by this latest fiasco ... what a way to do business (NAAAAT). To call me ... say what he said ... and then disappear !!! :ranting2:

As you say, it's my call and I've made my decision.

I wish the Birger crew all the best ...
 
h2opixels said:
To call me ... say what he said ... and then disappear !!! :ranting2:
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It's not unprecedented. Didn't he strongly imply about a month ago that the first batch had already shipped, and that he was just too tired to send out tracking numbers, after which we didn't hear a word for weeks, with nary a RED mount received?
 
h2opixels said:
It's a matter of PRINCIPLE; I am totally stunned by this latest fiasco ... what a way to do business (NAAAAT). To call me ... say what he said ... and then disappear !!! :ranting2:

As you say, it's my call and I've made my decision.

I wish the Birger crew all the best ...
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I'm so sorry to hear that David, but I completely understand your choice. I'd love to say "just hang I'm there, it's almost there" but the truth is I don't believe it. Sadly It is not the first time that this thing happens. I know that developing things get delayed, but I'm very curious to know what kind of unkown problem might avoid a checked and packed mount from shipping? As people have mentioned this silence might mean more unexpected problems or Honey moons in Bahamas.....

As for me I've got my Nikon mount, and I am happy I can at least shoot. I am not so happy that I have to buy a bunch of Nikon lenses for a docu starting October 9th... So this 800$ over budget doesn't make me happy but there's nothing I can do about it. So I'll keep waiting until someone ships something. I just wish at least some would ship a Dumb Canon mount. That'd be so helpful....
 
muffinny said:
As for me I've got my Nikon mount, and I am happy I can at least shoot. I am not so happy that I have to buy a bunch of Nikon lenses for a docu starting October 9th... So this 800$ over budget doesn't make me happy but there's nothing I can do about it. So I'll keep waiting until someone ships something. I just wish at least some would ship a Dumb Canon mount. That'd be so helpful....
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You can always sell your nikons when the birgir comes. IMS has a dumb eos mount which is available - but do you want to void your warranty? - is the questions of the month
 
h2opixels said:
It's a matter of PRINCIPLE; I am totally stunned by this latest fiasco ... what a way to do business (NAAAAT). To call me ... say what he said ... and then disappear !!! :ranting2:

As you say, it's my call and I've made my decision.

I wish the Birger crew all the best ...
Click to expand...

Can I interest you in my Arri/Zeiss 12mm T2.1 (I just picked up my 10mm.)? Purchased from Cinevideotech in July, fully tested and field tested used on 3 shoots by myself, Ian blooms movie, and ldill's Belize trip. First $5800 takes.

Sorry, to hijack the thread - just kind of joking with David, we've been talking about this for a week.:biggrin: (But I am serious David-I wrote a big check for that 10mm!)

BTW I haven't abandoned Erik. I just have to have a pl lens for my housing rentals also.
 
Mizael said:
You can always sell your nikons when the birgir comes. IMS has a dumb eos mount which is available - but do you want to void your warranty? - is the questions of the month
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Also, the i/data cable is now enabled on the latest RED ONEs (+ the retrofit program), so any solution which wishes to make use of lens data capture is going to have be compliant, whatever that means ... discussion to be had by mount vendors and RED.

Not a critical issue for me personally, but still a 'new' hurdle ahead for the more technical mounts :nerd:
 
AquaVideoRed206 said:
Can I interest you in my Arri/Zeiss 12mm T2.1 (I just picked up my 10mm.)? Purchased from Cinevideotech in July, fully tested and field tested used on 3 shoots by myself, Ian blooms movie, and ldill's Belize trip. First $5800 takes.

Sorry, to hijack the thread - just kind of joking with David, we've been talking about this for a week.:biggrin: (But I am serious David-I wrote a big check for that 10mm!)

BTW I haven't abandoned Erik. I just have to have a pl lens for my housing rentals also.
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I'll PM you ;-) have not forgotten ... !
 
AKABAKA said:
It's not unprecedented. Didn't he strongly imply about a month ago that the first batch had already shipped, and that he was just too tired to send out tracking numbers, after which we didn't hear a word for weeks, with nary a RED mount received?
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I remember that too, but I think some of Erik's past posts have been deliberately vague. His last post gave me some hope as it did explain honestly what had really been happening for the last few weeks.

I don't know what has gone wrong now, but my best guess is that it was all ready to ship when another beta tester reported an error. It's the only thing I can think of if the mounts were really built and tested.

I've got a shoot coming up in 2 weeks and I'll admit I'm desperate for my mount. Desperate. Without it I'm looking at £500 rental on PL lenses instead, which I really can't afford to be doing.

In the meantime I've had to dispute my payment with Visa aswell. I didnt want to, it's not because Im dropping out but because I have recieved no response to my e-mails to credit my card until it ships. If I don't dispute the payment now then I will have no leg to stand on come Decemeber if I still haven't got it.

Of course if the mount ships I will withdraw the dispute. If the other Red mount (Andys) becomes available in that time, I'm left with little choice but to jump ship. I'd like to stay with Birger but I just cant afford to keep waiting if there's an alternative shipping out there.
 
darkline said:
In the meantime I've had to dispute my payment with Visa aswell. I didnt want to, it's not because Im dropping out but because I have recieved no response to my e-mails to credit my card until it ships. If I don't dispute the payment now then I will have no leg to stand on come Decemeber if I still haven't got it.

Of course if the mount ships I will withdraw the dispute.
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After a call to my card provider, I was left in the same position ;-(
 
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