This guy is a INSANE?

[Dirtygoat]

Ok, I am a bit shocked and maybe I should be, heres the deal,

Following a previous post I made about the obstructions appearing in my Pentax MZ-50's viewfinder, today I take it back to the shop where I purchased it for them to look at it along with my warrenty. So I explain the situation to the guy who was serving me and he takes a look at it, opens up the lens and attempts to clean the mirror which we arn't even certain is causing the obstructions thru my viewfinder. He then proceeds to pull up his shirt and and sticks it down my camera and starts wiping my cameras mirror with it. I explain to him that using your shirt let alone touching at all is a big mistake, so he tells "don't worry, my shirt is cotton".... mean while he puts the lens back on to the body and low and behold, the dirt has not moved an inch its still there, and my mirror is exposed to, well sand paper you could say. So since the guy can't fix he explains to me that the best they can do is sent it all the way back to Pentax house which will take a insane 4-8 WEEKS. That would be a killer blow, the camera is everything for my studies. After all that, I ask if his has any compressed air, which is a very extreme option for the insides of the camera at best, he tells me thats an "extrmely good idea" he obviously had not even considered that option, and I am just the customer. So he goes off for about 10 mins and tells me the shop is out of the stuff. And then goes back yackering on about how it will take 4-8 weeks at best to get it back if they send it away. We're talking about Jessops, the biggest camera retailer in England, thats probably the most scary part...

What do you guys think? Is my mirror so screwed up now and is this guy a maniac or what?

p.s oh and he also started brushing the cameras mirrior with a blower brush, that is also a bad idea, right?

Thanks

[Elysian]

I would explode, I can tell you that. What a dumbass you had to deal with. I would ask for his superior and explain everything in great detail. Wiping the mirror with his shirt...

[paulnj]

THE DUDE IS AN ASS!!!!!

sounds to me like you have something OBSTRUCTING your view in your MIRROR PRISM. YOUR WARRANTY should cover GIVE ME MY $$ BACK or REPLACE IT.

A air compressor set to 15 PSI or so SHOULD remove the "speck" if done correctly.

touching a mirror isn't wise to do with a COTTON TEE, If you see visible marks.... they owe you a NEW MIRROR!!!!!!

4-8 weeks isn't a high estimate.... all manufactures say those very words!

[another view]

Insane? Yes - along with lazy, careless and anything else you want to throw in there.

I wouldn't touch the mirror in any of my cameras with a micro fiber cloth (that I use all the time on my lenses), which is much better than a cotton shirt! I highly doubt that he would do anything like this to his own personal gear. May as well throw it in the river to see if you can get the dust speck out !

Bring it back into the shop and talk to the manager. Four to eight weeks is probably not out of line for a repair, but given the circumstances maybe the manager would give you a loaner for the way your gear was treated. Oh, and have them replace the mirror while it's at the shop (at the store's expense). Point out any damage on the mirror (check it carefully with a loupe) as the reason you want the mirror replaced. If there's no visible damage I'd still ask them to do it but probably wouldn't push it as much especially if they gave me a loaner.

[Dirtygoat]

Ok here's what I did about it,

First of all I gave the guy down the line a bollocking off and asked to speak to the manager, who was apparently in "a interview"...ok.... I ask him to get the manager to call me back but instead I get the moron who thinks he knows best phoning and just blabbers on about how he owns 3 Pentax's and MZ this and that...blah blah. And all of a sudden he din't put his shirt on my mirror either, so he "says". I took his advice to come back to the shop, but instead of going back to him I went straight to the store manager. He suggested I shoot a film and give it to him to develop, for free. Quite a good film actually, fuji superia 12 exp. The photographs seemd to come out fine, no problems with it at all, it looked fine..

p.s According to the manager, he has known of a lot of "reknowned photographers" that do that sort of thing...rightttttttt.

[paulnj]

"p.s According to the manager, he has known of a lot of "reknowned photographers" that do that sort of thing...rightttttttt"

GET NAMES, we can all ask them will a chuckle

I could already tell that the film was not going to show the effect. the ? debri is in the mirror prism

BTW..I worked at a camera store for a few years..... NOT all employees of camera stores are like those discribed.

WORD TO THE WISE.... If all is not worked out satisfactory... NEVER GO THERE AGAIN.

BIG store DOES NOT MEAN good store

[another view]

Dirtygoat, you said in the other thread that you were having trouble focusing. Is this because there is a big piece of something laying across one of the autofocus spots on the viewfinder (AF tries to decide if it should focus on the dust or the subject)? If this is the case, I've never seen a piece of dust this bad and obviously it will have to be fixed.

If it doesn't affect focus but it's just distracting for you, then there's no reason the film won't come out perfectly fine. They're suggesting a fix for something that isn't a problem - your pictures will be fine so they think you'll go away happy??!! Something doesn't sound right with this picture...

[Dirtygoat]

Yeah, the photograph seems fine, but the focusing screen is still dirty, so when I look into my viewfinder I still see a loada crap still stuck in there. I asked if they would spray it with some compressed air, but they said they were out of stock. They told me that they would have some in stock in a few days, and I'll pop back in, hopefully that'll clear the focusing screen.

The debris is distracting, luckily it doesn't effect the auto focus, I managed to clear the muck away from it, hopefully the compressed air will be the silver bullet for all the crud on the focusing screen.

Anyway, after I speak to the faculty head of my college department, let alone my course tutor, they could lose ALOT of business....!

QUOTE/ They're suggesting a fix for something that isn't a problem - your pictures will be fine so they think you'll go away happy??!! Something doesn't sound right with this picture... QUOTE\

Hmmm, not too certain what your trying to say? Apart from being still dusty down there, I certainly hope there isn't still a problem...

[Dirtygoat]

sorry, double post, firewall playing up

[another view]

QUOTE/ They're suggesting a fix for something that isn't a problem - your pictures will be fine so they think you'll go away happy??!! Something doesn't sound right with this picture... QUOTE\

Hmmm, not too certain what your trying to say? Apart from being still dusty down there, I certainly hope there isn't still a problem...

What I mean is that all of this is outside of the light path that goes to the film. As soon as you press the shutter release, the mirror flips up and the light path that goes from the mirror to the prism and out the eyepiece is taken out of the equation. Dust in your finder will never show up on your negatives or affect your pictures in any way (unless possibly there's some big piece right on an AF sensor affecting focus - that was a guess, I've never seen that before).

Dirty viewfienders are a pain but sometimes a fact of life. You should look through the viewfinders of cameras used by some busy pro's - not very pretty! Most people will run into this at one point or another. I figured - based on the service you've gotten from them so far - that they would prove to you that it wasn't affecting your pictures, and maybe that would make you happy. No way to handle customer service IMO, but it sounds like they're not the sharpest tools in the shed...

[Steph_B]

What I mean is that all of this is outside of the light path that goes to the film. As soon as you press the shutter release, the mirror flips up and the light path that goes from the mirror to the prism and out the eyepiece is taken out of the equation. Dust in your finder will never show up on your negatives or affect your pictures in any way (unless possibly there's some big piece right on an AF sensor affecting focus - that was a guess, I've never seen that before).

Dirty viewfienders are a pain but sometimes a fact of life. You should look through the viewfinders of cameras used by some busy pro's - not very pretty! Most people will run into this at one point or another. I figured - based on the service you've gotten from them so far - that they would prove to you that it wasn't affecting your pictures, and maybe that would make you happy. No way to handle customer service IMO, but it sounds like they're not the sharpest tools in the shed...

Totally agree with Another View here! That's the beauty of shooting film: you will never get dust spots on your film! conversely, the digital CCD or CMOS is another ball game all together.

As for the focusing problem, something similar happened to me three years ago. At that time, I owned the infamous Nikon F70 (fantastic camera by the way!). I thought it was time to clean its 'insides', and I had the wonderful idea of using compressed air. It was a very humid day and somehow the jet of air covered the mirror with some sort of sheen... I thought it would just go away, but some trials on a piece of glass convinced me that this ''haze' was probably some sort of chemical that would not evaporate. So I had to use a microfiber cloth to get rid of it.... After doing this, my F70 would not focus anymore. Even though the mirror seemed to be clean enough.

After the first moments of panic, I tried to clean again the mirror. After awhile, I got the camera into working order again. Pfew! I think that some lightpath reflected by the mirror got affected somehow and could not be interpreted correctly by the camera to adjust the focusing screw.

Compressed air? yeah, but with extreme CAUTION!

Dust on the on focusing screen is not rare. I recently got a E-type focusing screen for my F100. Some dust got between the pentaprism and the screen. Removing it was a pain. I found that the best way was for me to blow some air (from my own lungs!) at some distance (to avoid fogging) while holding the camera above my head. That way, the dust was falling down instead of just moving around inside the camera and landing somewhere else on the screen. I got rid of the biggest specks but ther are still some more. It's a bit distracting, but it's part of the fun too. It makes you realize that you are shooting a SLR and not a fixed lens camera!

It has been my experience that, for about 5-10 years now, the competence of the vendors (i.e. the guy behind the counter) is just going down the drain. A friend of mine just got hired in a computer shop. His 'expertise' in computer is limited to computer games! Ha Ha!

Before buying anything: do your homework!

Good luck!

[Dirtygoat]

Thanks alot guys, this forums really good...especially the support and advice.

If any of you wanna give the wise guy a good flaming in camera care, who believes poking a shirt down into a body and wiping it all over the mirror is good for it, do give em'a'ring, I am sure they are always that dedicated to their customers, especially Mr Wise guy ;)

I'll PM you the stores number , and name of the maniac who thinks he's so smart, you may need to call your operator for Englands phone code!

[FadderUri]

I see all these posts about compressed air, and using it carefully, and it makes me cringe. NEVER use compressed air inside the camera. I have a keybord vaccuum, that runs on 2AA batteries. I put a small, very soft (makeup) brush on the end of it. I turn it on, and as the brush removes the dust, the vaccuum sucks it up.

Be very careful choosing a brush. The one I have came from a high-end department store cosmetics counter, and cost about $10. I think it's sable, but I'm not sure.

Fadder Uri

[paulnj]

CANNED AIR may hurt your camera by releasing the PROPELLANT at wierd angles or if shaken up prior to use) canned air as in what you buy at a computer store

COMPRESSED AIR is what EVER repair lab uses ;) compressed air as in AIR COMPRESSOR set to a low PSI.

I used an AIR COMPRESSOR to clean my FILM bodies bi weekly for years and now my 1D (though the PSI I use is far less for my DSLR)

CRINGE if you'd like, but DO NOT EVER send your camera for repair if LOCKING UP THE MIRROR and blowing air through it scares you.

AH, I see you avatar is an older manual body...... I cleaned a few LEICAS and CONTAX RTS's this very way also ;) they still are MINT.

[FadderUri]

CRINGE if you'd like, but DO NOT EVER send your camera for repair if LOCKING UP THE MIRROR and blowing air through it scares you.

AH, I see you avatar is an older manual body...... I cleaned a few LEICAS and CONTAX RTS's this very way also ;) they still are MINT.

If I'm sending it to a professional repair shop, then I don't have a problem with it. If they screw it up, they have to fix it. However, there are too many things that can go wrong if I'm doing it myself... I've had a couple of regulators roll over and die on me using compressed air for other projects. Nothing scarier than seeing your air pressure go from 12psi to 90psi on a pneumatic drill.

I'm just making the assumption (and I could be wrong) that the original poster is not a professional camera repair person. In that case, going with vaccuum as opposed to blown air is definitely safer, IMHO.

Fadder Uri