Canada Post is literally giving me an Ulcer - Ed Mika

[ontarian]

I would like to solicit feedback from people who bought an adapter from me if and when they arrived.  We've been shipping internationally with Canada Post small packet air mail for about a year now with results being about a week to the US, 2 weeks to Europe, 3-4 weeks to Asia, Russia and Australia/NewZealand.  We have mailed out nearly 50 adapters since the canonrumors.com article was published on August 30th but I have heard of only one arriving anywhere yet.

Making matters worse, my chip supplier in Belarus sent 2x50 AF- confirmation chip shipments to me the same way as several times before that previously took about 6 days but now has taken over 20 days and waiting.  I ended the eBay listing after selling 14 adapters I could not yet ship when the chips continued to be delayed.  They still did not arrive today though according to tracking they passed out of customs in Montreal last Wednesday and are still sitting in Mississauga as of the weekend.

A friend of a friend works for Canada Post in Kitchener Ontario and he confirmed that since the postal strike was ended by the Government of Canada back to work legislation things have really slowed down and backlogs have built up with non priority mail.  He blames this on the lack of management approval for overtime but I feel most employees are unhappy with being forced back to work and probably are not giving it 100%.

I've talked with Craig who runs this website and his experience with Canada Post has been fine but he is shipping using the more expensive and tracked priority mail.  If I continue to use Canada Post going forward I will have to raise mailing prices to pay for this higher level shipping method.  Personally I'm so mad at Canada Post right now I'd happily go to Purolator or FedEX.

For those understandably frustrated buyers of my adapters still waiting for them to arrive please continue to be patient.  I will consider the adapters to be lost if they don't arrive to you after 4 weeks to North America and 5 weeks to everywhere else and at that time I will offer a full refund or will resend a new one probably using a different shipping service.

My sincerest apologies for this delay, we have photos taken at the post office of the front and back of each package we've sent out in all cases the same or next business day after your items were purchased.  you can email me at ebaydj@gmail.com if you would like me to send you the picture of your package to confirm your address and see the date it was sent to you.

Again, please comment on this thread if you are still waiting for your EdMika adapter to arrive, it would be helpful if you noted the date of purchase and the country you live in.  I'd especially like to hear from anyone who actually already got their adapters and when too.  Thanks-Ed Mika

[Harley]

I ordered on Sept 1st.  You shipped to me the next day.  As of today, September 20th, it hasn't yet arrived here in Portland, Oregon.  I'll post as soon as it does arrive so that you know.

As a sidenote, Ed, you have been really great with communication and I want you to know that even though the situation is frustrating, you have made a great effort to keep me in the loop and get things resolved.  Looking forward to getting past the shipping SNAFU and moving on to some fun with old lenses! 

Let me know when the TS adapter is ready -- I still want one as soon as it's available!

[ontarian]

Thanks for continuing to be so understanding Harley.  I'll keep you in the loop on the TS 35 adapter, right now the machine shop we are dealing with for the other two adapters considers us really small potatoes and we barely get any machine time so making prototypes has been really hard to get started with them.  My father-in-law and I have recently decided to invest $10,000 (on credit cards) in a nice bench top Tormach vertical CNC mill that should be up and running around December 10th, at this time we will be able to develop our ideas within days instead of months.  The TS mock-up we machined from an FL 55 1.2 kit works great and will be a really nice Tilt shift solution for EF.  I've already sold my TS 24mm 3.5L II since I like the little metal 35mm so much more. 

dickb on fredmiranda also came up with a really amazing idea to help us with the problems we are having with the close proximity of some lens aperture levers to full frame body plastic near the electrical contacts.  We will be rotating the mounts on the EF-FD 0.75mm adapters 90 degrees counter clockwise and are exploring dropping the flange thickness to around .5mm to get even more focus distance out of all FD lenses.  An even more radical idea we are exploring is taking our gen2 no flange thickness concept http://flic.kr/p/7UyQph and making it work since the lever would not longer be an interference issue on full frame bodies.  We just have to come up with a locking mechanism within the EF body forcing the adapter to be mounted on the camera first.

Pretty interesting stuff being worked on.  I just hope people are still willing to buy EdMika after this shipping SNAFU.

[LanceF]

Hey there Ed.  I'm definitely still interested in the adapter.

I emailed you last week about it and you said you would hope to have the chips in this week.  As I live in Ontario I still think a local Canada Post delivery would be best at least in my case.

I ordered a few a Hoods for a couple of lens I have from China and it took 47 days for them to arrive.  The tracking site they they were in Canada after something like 12 business days so yeah, Canada post is being pretty slow.

If they were is Mississauga last week they should be here by Thursday   Here's to hoping.

[shtfmeister]

As a sidenote, Ed, you have been really great with communication and I want you to know that even though the situation is frustrating, you have made a great effort to keep me in the loop and get things resolved.  Looking forward to getting past the shipping SNAFU and moving on to some fun with old lenses! 

I agree with Harley.
Shipped Sept. 8th
still waiting
Texas (its like a county in a country  )

[Harley]

Oh, I don't think Canada Post is enough to discourage any of us from supporting you and your great ideas.  Keep your chin up -- you're creating a renaissance for Canon legacy glass.  You'll laugh about this a year from now.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

There may have been a backup created by extra careful inspections around Sept 11.  When that happens, things slow down in both directions.  (Canada USA or USA to Canada)

[ontarian]

Some good news finally, I just got word this morning that an adapter my wife mailed on the 7th of September arrived yesterday in Minnesota. Looking at the calendar it took 7 business days to arrive there.

[Maui5150]

I am not waiting for one... YET... but do appreciate the heads up.  Just wanted to pay it forward and thank you for all of the due diligence and communication.  I have known a great many excellent vendors and artisans over the recent years who have run into material sourcing problems either from supplier delays, or not being able to stock as much materials as they normally would have on hand... raw stock costs money to sit on shelves, and things are tight for everyone...

So as someone who is waiting on a bargain FD lens to give my T2i a little more range, just because I really cannot afford the big lenses, especially while still weighing a 7D or 5Dmkii upgrade... I appreciate that from all of your hard works and efforts I will be able to recycle a lens that otherwise not be suitable. 

Thanks again for the excellent adapters I hope to use in the future, but more importantly, thanks for the great customer service, keeping others in the loop of what is going on both with your shipments out as well as receiving materials in.  People are quick to jump to conclusions, but this information helps us consumers understand that the delays are not for lack of trying, but from bottlenecks and bureaucracies. 

[ontarian]

Thanks for the supportive comments Maui5150,

I've yet to really make it official but if the FD lens is white, you can most likely make it focus to infinity using my glassless adapter with fairly easy and reversible lens calibration that you can do yourself with my instructions.  I've got an FD 300 2.8L and FD 400 2.8L both I was able to make work with my 0.75mm EF-FD adapter within 2 hours of getting them in the mail without having instructions on how to.  I'm working on a youtube video of the conversions soon.  The 500 and 200 are the only white lenses left that I have not yet proven the approach works on.

So in short, if you want a super telephoto but don't have 8,000-14,000 dollars to spend on it, take a good look at the FD line.  Other than lack of autofocus or IS (both of which are helpful but can be worked around especially with just taking more pictures for free with digital) The IQ is just as breathtaking.

[ontarian]

Just this email from Andy in the UK so they are finally starting to trickle in:

Hi Ontarian,
 
Saw your woes on the Canonrumours forum, hang in there man! Just wanted to report that my adapter arrived in the UK today purchased 5th September from Ebay, you posted it the next day, Thank you!
 
Can't wait to try it out .

Kind Regards,
 
Andy.

[rumorzmonger]

The last item I sent to the UK by small packet airmail took nearly two months to arrive... long after the buyer had filed a claim with eBay/PayPal.

I would not recommend using this service to ship anything of value.

[ontarian]

I really have to evaluate if I want to use small packet air mail ever again.  With the next up pricing Canada Post or UPS or Fedex offers worldwide I expect see a real slowdown in demand for my adapters when the new much higher cost of shipping is factored in. 

I got word that another September eBay sale has arrived in Japan so more and more are trickling in today. 

No reporting chips for me though still and tracking has them still sitting in Mississauga.  Canada Post Customer Service was not helpful at all though they tried sounding like they felt my pain.  If anyone reading this knows any high ups at Canada Post please ask them for help with tracking number RR657160363BY, it arrived in Canada a week ago, passed customs immediately, took 4 days to get from Montreal to Mississauga(really part of Toronto) and has been sitting there since Sunday morning.

[Maui5150]

If you are ever looking for a "US" distributor, let me know.  Not sure what the price difference winds up being, but Priority Mail, especially some of the smaller "envelope" or box items have been fast and efficient for me and offer that all important tracking and signature.

The mail and postal service in general has been getting very iffy.  I deal more in the fashion world and have been turning over select designer clothing items for the last 15 years or so... I found a niche segment I know well and it also has dove-tailed nicely where now I want to do more of the shooting and less of the selling.

My point though, a fair amount of my traffic is international... both when I am sourcing as when I am selling, especially with the US dollar in the tank.  It used to be regular air mail was o.k. expect around Christmas, now... Not so much... Some items I have got from the UK in the last month have arrived in two weeks... another I am waiting on and had to file, but to be honest, I think since I got it for about half to a 3rd what I expected it to go for, I don't think it was really ever sent.  These days, out of the US, it has to be either Priority Mail or UPS in general, delivery confirmation and tracking is necessity, and what I hate, and is real scummy, PayPal and Ebay DO NOT FORCE the signature option once the item gets over two hundred... Especially when you do shipping through them, they know the rules... no signature, no protection. 

Hope all of this gets smoother for you... from the small research I have done, your adapters appear to be a godsend, so I just want them around and available for when I finally have a lens to use them with

[Harley]

Mine arrived today.