DAG and R cameras

[pgs@thillana.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)]

I called up DAG today to see if they could do some work on an R lens
for me, and took the opportunity to ask about the rumor I'd heard that
they were not doing R work any more.  Based on all the rave reviews
I've heard, I would have contacted John Van Stelten, but he told me a
couple of weeks ago that he's so busy that he wasn't accepting more
work until after April 1 (and I'm partly to blame -- John has my M2
and a couple of lenses right now).

The person I spoke to at DAG said that they considered R cameras a
problem specifically because of the early R4 cameras (with serial
numbers under 16...).  They feel that, if they offer service for R
cameras, it's hard for them to exclude early R4's.  But early R4's are
so unreliable that a large percentage of them fail soon after repair,
which leads to problems for the repair shop, which must repeat the
repair gratis or suffer a reduced reputation.

I asked why early R4's could not have all their electronics replaced
with those of the later R4.  He said, "You mean, replace the entire
circuit board?"  I said yes.  He said that that would be a very
expensive repair, not just because of the parts, but because the
circuit board is wrapped around the body, and there'd be a lot of
soldering to do and also some adjustments to make when the new board
was installed.  He felt that it wouldn't be worth the expense.

This bit of information leads me to believe that few early R4's will
have been updated to late R4 specs.  I had once thought it likely that
this would have happened to most of the surviving early R4's, because
it would have been the best way to solve the problems they'd suffered,
but it sounds like it would have been prohibitively expensive.

- -Patrick

P.S. DAG did accept the R lens I wanted to send them.