I will try and make this as short as I can but it is going to be difficult. I have been a large format shooter for around 25 years. I own a Gallery/Photography studio just outside Houston. As the digital age came in I worried that our wonderful large format medium would disappear. I decided to try and start a small large format camera co. When I heard that Deardorff was starting back up I was delirious. I contacted them and spoke to Barry Cochran about the idea of building a private label camera for me. He was very excited about the idea and was more than willing to build something unique with both of our names on it. I was to buy a prototype and work with it and come up with a redesign that I felt would make the perfect camera. After shooting large format for so long I felt I could make some minor changes and make a camera that I would be proud to sell and advertise as the perfect large format camera. One of my issues was wide-angle lenses. I wanted to be able to use a 65mm with as much ease as possible. Barry explained to me that everything I wanted was easy for him to do and there would be no problem to do it. We would have a camera like no other in the world when we were done. I cannot tell you how excited I was about this and having the Deardorff name on it made everything so much better. It just seemed everything was coming together with perfect timing. After many e-mails and telephone conversations I ordered a prototype. Barry charged my credit card for the camera in full and at full price. He told me I would have the camera, 2 lens boards and a Linhof adapter in 30 days. That was the last time I ever heard from him for 6 months. After the order was made I started my advertising. I have a gallery that I do wine/art shows in to bring in people. A lot of the guests are Photographers. I also had other reputable companies involved. Ries and F:64 to name a few. BTW: I am very happy with these two companies. (Every time I do one of these shows it costs me around $2,000 to put on) 30 days went by…then 2 months…then 3 months. I started to get nervous for I was getting the word out about this prototype and I could not get any phone calls returned or e-mails. Then one day 6 months after a package arrived on my back deck. This was after numerous un-returned phone calls and e-mails. I opened up the box and was surprised that it was my camera. There was no Linhof adapter that I needed. I wanted to play with Linhof recessed lensboards with it and wide-angle lenses. I took the camera and messed with it and came up with the changes that I wanted to make. Most of them were very simple. I e-mailed this to Barry and his response was …We are not in any position to make changes. Now the camera says on it…PROTOTYPE. This usually means a product I development. In the beginning he told me he could make any changes and the ones I was pointing out were those changes. I did not change anything that we did not talk about before I ordered his camera. I have all the e-mails that spelled out all changes and costs. What the hell was going on here? All of a sudden I was dealing with the Twilight Zone and Rod Serling had turned into Barry Cochran.
I had already planned art shows to highlight this camera so I went ahead with them. I was very nervous doing it for I knew I could not take any orders or answer any questions correctly until I heard back from Mr. Cochran. I basically told people the camera was a prototype (which says on the camera…PROTOTYPE). At this point I was into my 3rd art show and people were starting to get interested but leery. I called and called Barry with no success. I must have called and e-mailed him 4 dozen times with no answer. I finally had my wife use her cell phone from work and call Deardorffs office. She called me and told me Barry answered the phone on her first call and to call him immediately while he was still there answering the phone. I immediately called did and went immediately to voicemail. I tried again and voicemail again So Barry knew my phone number and was avoiding me. What a crappy way to treat someone who is trying to do business with you. I was getting furious about all this for I have never dealt with a company like this. I sent him a strong e-mail, which I got an immediate reply. “All correspondence will be conducted through my attorney. WOW”…what a way to treat people. He is so chicken shit that he cannot even talk to us? I mean I am in kind of a bind here. I have spent all this money, got other companies involved, advertised to future customers about this camera and you cannot just talk to me. To this day I have not heard from his attorney nor had any e-mails or phone calls returned. BUT: I did notice his e-bay store is up and running and he is still taking orders for cameras in the UK. What a piece of SHIT! To make matters worse I finally took the camera out for a spin last week. I felt so mad about this but thought…well at least I got a camera out of it. I spent 2 days using it to photograph down in Galveston, which is a 2 hr. drive. When I got back and processed the film…ALL WERE FOGGED. I could not believe it. I had to find out what was the problem here. I never though of doing a bellows light test on a new camera like I do on a used one but guess what? I found 8 light leaks in the bellows. 3 were severe where the bellows is joined to the front standard. I am talking 1/8-1/4 inch gaps. Now taking closer examination you can see where this camera was rushed and just slapped together. I started noticing imperfections all over the thing. The focusing is absolutely horrible and so stiff that the focusing knobs almost slip out of the rail. This is not caused by humidity or anything…this is caused by bad workmanship. I own a lot of wood 4x5’s and have no problem with any. So far I have not heard a word from this spineless bastard. After all this I found this and other forums and it seems there are people all over the world looking for this willow of the wisp. I wish I would have looked into forums before all this but I thought I was dealing with a reputable co. AND BTW: Deardorff has a full page back cover ad on large format magazine and a great write up on them also in it. What a crock of SHIT!
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