We never paid or gave him his cameras from Rollei. He bought them with his money, even when he had a booth at a hotel in Las Vegas that had a flood during the night that ruined all of his cameras he bought two complete Rollei 6000 systems from me the next day for cash. The only incentive that I gave him was the pen that I used to write up the order!
Yes, we supported him with physical support at his seminars, but we did not give or loan him the cameras or flash that he used there. They were his. All I did was bring demo samples for attendees to handle.
Whatever Hasselblad or others did for him was their business. Not ours!
We also supported other speakers like Tiber Horvath the same way.
And no, we did not supply any of them with their Imagon lenses!
Nor did we give or directly sell Linhof to John Sexton or Bruce Barnham or Mary Ellen Mark or any of the others.
Our view was that we would freely offer support or technical support to our users but just like a carpenter buys his own tools we expected photographers to buy theirs.
John Sexton, shortly after Kenny Rogers sold his GA ranch, called me and asked if I could give Rogers, who was John’s student, a deal on a new Folding Focusing Hood for Kenny’s very out of date a Technika. I wouldn’t, but did arrange for him to buy a new hood or, better yet, a newer camera.
You would have gotten the same support from us that Monte got!
BTW, some seminars that Monte, and others did, were sponsored by companies like Hasselblad or Photogenic and he did use their equipment at those seminars, they also paid for his time and travel expenses.
We never did that.
Well, color me happy! Just got word that my 8X10 has shipped. Thank you Max and company, I am stoked!!
Just thought I'd add my experience ordering from Intrepid. I ordered a 4x5 on Sunday, September 23 with a noted lead time of 6 weeks. Exactly 6 weeks later, yesterday, November 5th, I got word that my camera had shipped. I know they were struggling to keep up for a while, but it seems like they are meeting their promised lead time at this point.
Yes, it arrived yesterday. The only snag--and it's somewhat my fault--is that I didn't get the large lensboard with adapter to accept smaller Technika boards. My original order was for a small board with Copal 3 hole and that's what I received. A day after ordering, I emailed and asked to have the board swapped for the larger on and was told it'd be handled at shipping. I called Naomi and she said they would send me the larger board. I'm going to add a fresnel (old eyes) lens before using it. I've been spoiled by using a reflex viewer on my Chamonix 4X5.
I have had recently a MK3 4 x 5 delivered and love it. I agree that their info to customers , "could be improved" but , I am amazed that a small company making NEW large format cameras with good quality results doesn't get the full support of a community like this. Surely we want LF to be in the future and supporting a company like intrepid can only help to achieve this? More cameras out there , more film requirement , more film!!!
I did get frustrated at the slow comms and lack of accurate shipping date but when they tell you " sorry we had a load more orders, the highest ever the month before you ordered, you know what? ... I'll wait.
Do I want to pay more so they can give me better info ? No .
Am I going to get the 8 x 10 ....yes probably. ( although this is a big step up in film cost and development )
The only thing I would suggest to them is to weekly/ bi weekly update the expected wait time based on orders received....so that expectations are set...I ordered when it was 6 weeks .....but orders in July were the highest ever and it was more like 10 weeks... people are going to but these cameras as they are good. one other suggestion is " fasttrack your order for £50 and get it in 4 weeks " or some such deal but ultimately the camera is very good and is worth the wait.
When the camera arrived ...... I love it !!
Good luck Intrepid !!!!
Satisfied customer UK
" ummm, it's 320 Megapixels, and the sensor is replaced by a new one after every "capture"....."
Horseman, I feel the same way and sounds like I had a similar experience. When I ordered in late June, I saw that there was a 6 week lead time (It still says the same but I discovered much later in the FAQ section that the lead time there says 6-12 weeks). I messaged after ~8 weeks and had a response that they had a large number of orders at the same time camera would be shipping within a few days. It wasn't until 12 weeks that I sent another message and got a similar response. This time however it shipped after about a week as they said it would.
My main issue was not the wait, I was fully ready to wait given the product and pricepoint, but when you are told a date and that date isn't even close then it becomes frustrating. If I had been given 12 or even 14 weeks from the beginning then I would have no issues as I knew the conditions when purchasing. Like you said, if they updated lead times then I think it would be much less frustrating for all. It's good to hear that they are now meeting their estimated lead times.
So far though the camera is great and it has everything I need at this point. I do have one issue, albeit quite minor at this stage. The dual knobs for rise and tilt are an excellent idea, unfortunately one of my tilt knobs does not clamp down properly and slips whenever it begins to tighten up and can turn forever. Maybe it has threaded the bolt, but it is how it was when it arrived so I'm not sure? Has anyone else had this happen?
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