Arca Swiss - beware!

[Thies Meincke]

After a long investigation I decided on a new Arca Swiss 6x9 FC. This camera seemed to meet my needs, and I had found some quite positive reviews on this camera.

However, the result is a disaster.

Do not expect an Arca Swiss is made in Swiss. All currently Arca "Swiss" cameras are made in France. Apparently there is no quality control anymore. The two cameras I got were defective. One bellows had a light leak as large as a 25c coin. The lens plates could not be attached without play. The binocular mirror finder was stained, dirty, and scratched. The zero setting of the vertical tilt of the rear standard was inaccurate (the s pirit levels (!) and some tests showed that the standards were not parallel). Th e horizontal shift of the rear standard often got stucked.

This disaster took 3 months of my time. Finally I returned all items to the dealer for refund.

[Ellis Vener]

My first response is that your post reeks of nationalistic racisim. The reason for the ARCA-SWISS factory moving just across the border has to do with the fact that Switzerland isn't a paert of the EU.. My second response is to wonder about the honesty of your dealer. My third resonse is to try and get Martin Vogt from the Arca factory in on the discussion.

[Steven S. Miric]

Well, I have a story too. I bought my 6x9 F-line brand new at Authorized Importer here in Canada. I took the camerea from the box and it looked like it was "used". All kinds of small imperfections in black finish. The knobs had small niks.All in all, the final quality was less than I was expecting for a "Swiss Made Item". I wanted to be sure, so I asked for another "new package". Sorry to say, but it was the same. I decided to go with it. I used the camera for a year, did nice work with it but finally decided to trade it in for Toyo VX 125. Never felt sorry about it...

[Ellis Vener]

A light leak the size of a 25c coin (approximately an inch in diameter) is bigger than the side of one of the sides of the bellows. Do you really think a hole that big would escape even an idiot's notice?

If you bought a camera in the condition TM describes would you spend three months trying to remedy that "disaster"? Don't you think the dealer would be pretty upset and try to make his customer as happy as possible as soon as possible? Even to the point of inspecting the next camera that came in personally?

My point is that something is very fishy here.

Anecdotal offerings about automobiles don't prove a thing. They are simply not relevent. it is like saying "A 1979 Ford LTD I once owned really sucked" and therefore concluding that no company based in the United States was capable of building a decent fighter plane.

So I think it is put up or shut time for Herr Meincke. I'd have the same bulldog attitude if some one made the same ludicruous claims about SINAR or Linhof.

[wm mitchell]

Late last year, I bought an AS 5x7 Metric from Robt White (UK). What I received was a brand new camera;looked & "smelled" new! It was (and is) just what I expected-- well made with precise movements.... it sounds to me that Herr Meincke was sold a used camera, or one that was damaged in transit. Anyway, I agree with Ellis: something's fishy! BILL

[shaman]

I also bought an Arca Swiss 6x9 last year and it was in perfect condition. Everything I had expected from it! If I had received a "new" binocular finder that is dirty, stained and scratched, it wouldn't have taken me 3 months to return it. Besides, there are no 25cent coins in Germany. Perhaps Herr Meincke refers to a 50 Pfennig Muenze???

Should Arca Swiss change their name to Arca France? Should Toyota change their name because they have plants in the US? I don't think so.

[Christopher Campbell]

I just took delivery of a new Arca-Swiss 6x9 F-Metric/Orbix system this past week, and find its fit and finish to be nothing less than exquisite. This model rides on the 30 cm telescopic optical bench, which consists of two dovetailed monorail sections that slide in a long underlying extension bracket. As an example of the care with which it has been made, the tolerance in machining the fit between these upper and lower parts is so good that when moving one in relation to the other, it almost feels like something with viscous damping! Furthermore, the obvious precision in manufacture is not just a question of appearances, as the fundamentally superior design makes this camera both more rigid and more exactingly flexible than my prior Sinar f2. Any camera used hard enough by uncaring hands will eventually feel bad and look worse, as the demo cameras at the counter of a high volume dealer will inevitably show, but based on my experience with Arca-Swiss and the users with whom I have spoken, I would be astonished if there was, in fact, a design or production problem at the factory.

[neil poulsen]

I bought a used Arca-Swiss, and you guessed it, it was used! But, it was, and still is, in great shape. I'm very happy with my purchase.

[Thies Meincke]

This story caused quite a stir. Both Arca and my dealer here in Germany contacted me. There is one point that is my fault: the binocular mirror finder was ok (told me the dealer), there was was a protective transparent cover on the surface of the mirror I had not removed. I had not seen anything like this, but that could be true, so I apologize for this.

[steve_782]

"You seem to be saying that you are saying that since the hands that now do the final assembly of the cameras are French they must be inferior to Swiss hands. The engineering and people in charge of the company are still Swiss."

Hate to say it Ellis, but, yes the "hands" making the product often effect the quality of the product - that's a fact. More importantly, is how the "hands" are motivated within the work place (money, benefits, working conditions etc.) but, finally, it comes down to Quality Control. If the QC processes are correct, then there should be a very small percentage of bad or defective items that are shipped. In the case of Arca, and the low volume they produce, the defective product rate should approach zero.

The final product certainly has to do with the engineers and owners but they do not manufacture, assemble or QC the product. They can only setup the manufacturing procedures and audit the process. Yes, ultimately the management and owners are responsible for the product, but that responsibility comes in the form of motivating the employees to produce the best they can and auditing (QC) the product to provide a standard to which inferior products do not get shipped.

There is a factor of employee pride in the quality of the product where the employee refuses to make a bad product because it is a personal reflection on their integrity. Whether that pride resides in the current manufacturing facility versus the old manufacturing facility is something that cannot be proven one way or the other through the Internet without an impartial observer who is intimately familiar with both operations.

But to state that the owners and engineers are the same, inferring that somehow that translates into manufacturing quality, is naive or a gross simplification of the manufacturing process to say the least.