Canada Post is literally giving me an Ulcer - Ed Mika

[ontarian]

Flat head screw is news to me. We bought 3 of the lenses, on in the 30k serial numbers, one in the 50k and one in the 70k and all where phillips. I do have same pitch but longer and with a hair larger diameter prototype screws that we are considering going with in the future that I could send you with maybe a slightly better chance for bite. Looks like someone had taken your lens apart in the past perhaps. email me at [email protected] to remind me of your address and I will send the screws (by some other way than bloody Canada Post Small Packet Air Mail).

 

[Harley]

Ed, I sent you a detailed email.
For the benefit of others, I'll summarize here though. They look more like a small pan head screw rather than the 45-degree countersunk like I first said. They are countersunk and flush and the body is milled in a way that looks like it's factory, not some after-market adaptation that an owner or repair shop made. My serial number is 27k.

 

[Harley]

Here's a photo of the old FL lens mount, the old (black) screw, and the new stainless screw. Notice the hole at the lower left of the lens mount is machined to allow the old cap head screw to sit flush.

 

[rumorzmonger]

Ed, this is just a thought, but if you're shipping a lot of these items outside of Canada, you may want to look into using a courier service that will take your parcels across the border and mail them using the US Postal service.

I don't know how common these companies are, but my sister in Vancouver who sells a lot of books finds the cost to ship with Canada Post to be prohibitive (and slow), so she uses a local service that takes all of her packages down to Washington state once a week. She seems to get much faster delivery in addition to the significant cost savings.

 

[ontarian]

It appears that there was a version 1 and 2 of the lens. Other than not providing a flat head screwdriver with the conversion kit I think it should still work fine. We evaluated using two very similar screws types imported from Japan and went with the narrower one since the thicker one was difficult to fully tighten and we were afraid users would strip the phillips screw head. We may have to migrate to the slightly thicker thread if the version 1 of the FL55 1.2 has stripping issues or we will send out both types with each kit going forward so the version2s are not too tight.

I'm sending you a set of the thicker screws to the address you provided me now, thanks for offering to do the beta testing.

 

[ontarian]

Thanks for suggestion rumourmonger, I'll definitely look into it.

 

[ontarian]

THE CHIPS FINALLY ARRIVED!!!!!!!!

I'm so excited I could vomit.

The 14 adapters I've pre-sold are going out the door tomorrow morning using some other better service than Small Packet Airmail. I'm also going to be offering those 14 very patient buyers some ridiculously good discounts on future EdMika product releases.

Also once that is taken care of the Ebay listings should go up again soon too.

 

[LanceF]

I called it, Thursday Let me know when you are able to sell me one

 

[ontarian]

Will do Lance.

For those interested in instructions on how to make your FD 200mm 1.8L, FD 300mm 2.8L, FD 400 2.8L, FD 500 4.5L, FD 600mm 4.5, FD 800mm 5.6L white super telephoto lenses fully work with infinity focus on EOS bodies without distortion adding and light robbing additional optics, check out the two below videos I made of the lens calibration with use of the EdMika EF-FD 0.75mm brass adapter. My apologies for the amateur presentation. - Ed Mika

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytgt1d1Ts8I
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ3_jG7LqM8

 

[Harley]

Happy to participate in the beta-testing... Thanks for the alternate screws. I'll keep you updated.

BTW, the photos I'm getting with the lens are really wonderful. The color rendering with this FL lens is unlike anything else I've tried. Great product, Ed! Worth the wait!

 

[Bigdaddio]

Hi ED Mine came on .. 9/21 thanks !!!!

I dug out the 400 .. and I found an added bonus .....Found my Canon 50F1.2 in 39MM Leica thread mount w/ a Leica M adapter on it. Woo hoo

take care
and thanks again!

 

[ontarian]

You are welcome Bigdaddio, congrats on finding more treasure.

 

[ontarian]

These 14 beauties are going out to my 13 patient buyers in the morning.

BB8D3436 by Ontarian, on Flickr

 

[Harley]

In case anyone is interested, here are a few handheld snapshots with the EdMika adapted FL 55mm f/1.2 lens. These are straight out of the camera with no post-production.

 

[ontarian]

Nice results Harley, glad you are having as much fun with the lens as I am. -Ed

 

[shtfmeister]

The wait is over!
Mine got here today (Sept 23).
This is a great combo I love playing with this lens depth of field.
also the build feels night and day compared with a plastic lens.
(Also do not let that bearing get away lol)

thanks to EdMika for putting the effort into this adapter

 

[fldrice]

Looks like the 55mm adapter is back up for sale and the price has jumped up.

 

[ontarian]

The machine shop we were using told us they were not interested in our business because of the small volumes and low prices. We found a new one at a higher piece price for now and have just bought a small but accurate CNC machine (delivery 4-6 weeks). I also found a new supplier for Dandelion AF-reporting chips with hopefully more reliable shipping. We raised our price 12% to compensate. Also we found if we packaged the adapters in a thinner envelope we could get a more reasonably priced shipping option that was actually tracked so shipping went from 11 to 19.

I understand we may lose a few sales from the higher price but for most people I think the really nice shooting solution will still be worth it. Perhaps when the new CNC vertical mill is paid off we will be able to bring our prices down a bit, to be honest I expect some lower quality knockoff competition at some point in the future though the volumes are still probably too low to justify corporate interests. My father in law is more serious about this venture but I'm really only doing it for the love of the gear.

 

[LanceF]

Shipped Sept 26th
Arrived Sept 27th

mmm fast shipping I likes it.

 

[Harley]

A tip for anyone using the converted FL 55mm f/1.2 lens...

You probably already know the switch for automatic / manual focusing has to be set to "M" for the aperture ring setting to engage. With narrow apertures the viewfinder can darken significantly. I have had some success using the A / M switch to open up the lens for composing and focusing, then quickly switching back to the aperture I want for metering and taking the shot.