Can't really get away from the hype on the digital Oly Pen retro Micro-Four-Thirds camera. I am excited about it and have mine on pre-order, with the 17mm pancake lens. Time will tell, but Oly seems to have done so many things right with this camera. You can read about the camera all over the web. I will point you to Imaging-Resource  and The Online Photographer  for a hands on and some commentary.  

Also of great interest to me personally (not that it will affect the pictures coming from the camera) is the great marketing campaign that Olympus has engineered. Please sample this if such things strike your fancy and you have 2+ minutes or so:

LensAlign PRO Plus (PRO, Long Ruler, Large Focus Target, Enumerator)

We are please to announce that we have shipped the first production run of the Long Ruler Kit for LensAlign Pro. Shipments began this past Friday, continued Saturday, and will finish up Monday. As promised all who purchased the Long Ruler Kit were upgraded for free to the Enumerator which was included in the shipments. That is the good news. The bad news is that we are now sold out. Wow we got a lot of orders!

Shipments should resume with the second production run of the Long Ruler Kit around July 5. Pre-orders at the special introductory price will be accepted until June 30. Those of you who already own PRO and wish to upgrade your PRO with the Enumerator will receive an email with a special link, that will allow you to upgrade for just a $5 processing fee. All LensAlign PROs will begin shipping with the Enumerator effective immediately. Sadly, that also marks the end of the introductory pricing. The normal $179 pricing is now in effect.

Click here to Pre-order the Long Ruler Kit. Shipments resume first week of July.BTW...Long Ruler Kit Quick Start Guide now available. [click here] 

That's it for now. Thanks for your patience and support.

Space Shuttle Atlantis flying by Patrick Air Force Base before landing at the Kennedy Space Center 10 minutes away. (Photo: Michael Tapes - Nikon D300 - 500mm f4 +1.7TC)

Atlantis after it's fly-by at Patrick Air Force base beach. (Photo: Michael Tapes - Nikon D700 - 70-200f2.8

LensAlign Long Ruler production samples under review (Camera: Lumix ZS3)

All approvals were given last week so that the production of the Long Ruler Kit can finally be finalized (finally! <g>). My apologies for the delays. When we announced the Long Ruler Kit, all *had* been approved, but the pre-production approved samples and the production samples did not match which is what caused the delay. Hopefully all is under control now, with re-engineered production techniques developed by our vendor to assure production to production run stability.

I estimate the shipping of the Long Ruler Kits to be around June 8 15th or before. I will update *this* post if the date changes. Thanks for your patience.

Review:

• Long Ruler Upgrades to ship June 8 15
• All LRK upgrades will ship with the Enumerator upgrade (at no charge)
• Enumerator upgrades will be available ($4.95 processing fee) around the same time frame. An Email with purchase link will be sent to all PRO owners at that time. No added charge for shipping.
• Current pricing on PRO will be extended until LRKs ship.

Thanks to all.

I rejected the manufacturing run of the Long Ruler portion of the Long Ruler Kit. We expected Long Ruler sub assemblies to be shipped to us today for shipment to you this week. However, in getting a sample "printed" piece from the run (before other operations were performed on the ruler substrate itself), I rejected it as not quite up to our quality standards. I am not sure that anyone would have noticed, but I did, and cannot ship what I know to be substandard parts.

The cause problem seems to have been isolated by our vendor, and they have done some preliminary test runs. More work to be done today before I can confirm a new ship date. I am shooting for June 1, but cannot commit to that until I have more dialog.

I sincerely regret this circumstance.

The good news...

We are committed to making sure that LensAlign (as with all of our products) meet and exceed our stringent internal standards.  That is my commitment to you.

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

BTW...For you production geeks. We had already done a pre-production run of the Long Ruler and it passed with flying colors except for a few minor graphic changes both to the working portion of the top surface of the ruler, as well as the bottom non-working half. These changes required new "screens" to be manufactured for the printing process. We believe it is in these new screens where the fault occurred. Each time a new press run is set up there is potential for error and/or changes that will effect the product. So we must be diligent at every turn. Just part of the manufacturing process that many people do not understand, in terms of difficulty, time, effort, and effect on final price.

Again. Thanks for your kind support...

I like sharp. I really like images to be crisp.
Any softness in the image should be a deliberate choice on my part.

Photo Copyright:Neil van Niekerk

... and this simply isn’t good enough.

 Photo Copyright:Neil van Niekerk

And some people do not think this issue is real! I just stumbled across Neil's pragmatic remarks about LensAlign Pro. His presentation is down to earth and on-point. You can see his entire post here.

Thanks Neil. Could not have said it better myself. Happy shooting!

BTW...Say hello to Northern NJ! I used to live in Kinnelon before heading to FL. Great country up there. 

~MT~

Long Ruler Kit includes Long Ruler and Large Focus Target

To place a pre-order for the Long Ruler Kit ($70 intro price + shipping) please click this button:

Click here to Pre-order the Long Ruler Kit

Please note the following:

• LensAlign PRO is required. The LRK does nothing without PRO.
• The Enumerator will be shipped with each LRK upgrade.
• We estimate shipping to begin May 18 or there abouts.
• We cannot accept Pay Pal orders for a Pre-Order. (workaround..place a credit card order and mention in the special instructions that you wish to pay via Pay Pal. Also include your Pay Pal account email).
• Your Credit Card (or PayPal account)will not be charged until we are ready to ship
• If you order a LensAlign Pro in the same order, it will not ship until the LRK ships. If you would like the PRO to ship now, please mention that in the special instructions box.
• We anticipate heavy customer demand, so we can not assure you that we will not enter a back-order situation. We are trying our best to avoid that.

I think that covers it..

Thanks...

LensAlign Pro Plus (LensAlign Pro with Long Ruler Kit)

Hi Gang,

First some housekeeping...

• Thanks so much to all of our customers. Those of you who have already purchased LensAlign, as well as those of you who have been waiting patiently for the Long Ruler Kit (and of course our WhiBal customers). Your overwhelming endorsement of LensAlign has caused us numerous logistical problems, which has caused the Long Ruler Kit, as well as our documentation to be behind schedule. But good problems for a small company to have in this tough economy. So again, a sincere thanks for hanging in there.
• Because of your support I have been able to hire my long time friend and associate, Steve Krampf, in the position of Marketing Manager. Steve has a long history of his own design and marketing accomplishments, and it is great that we we can be working together again. Steve contributions to the team will be first felt in the expanding documentation and education area.
• We have been granted an official US trade mark for LensAlign, so LensAlign™ now becomes LensAlign­®
• We have posted a new PRO Setup & Alignment Guide. This will continue to be updated over the next weeks.

And now without further ado.....the announcements of the day.

As of May 18th (or so) the following changes will become effective.

• The Long Ruler Kit (LRK) will begin to ship.
• LensAlign Pro will have a new feature called The Enumerator. All LensAlign Pro units shipped after this date will include this new important functionality. See below for upgrades.
• Introductory Pricing on all LensAlign products will come to an end (it had to happen sometime...)
• LensAlign Pro will be able to be purchased as LensAlign PRO Plus which includes LensAlign Pro *plus* the Long Ruler Kit at reduced pricing as compared to buying them separately. This special pricing will be offered to all LensAlign Pro customers. who have or will purchase before May 18, by way of a special discounted price on the LRK if purchased before May 18.

Click here for the official Press Release and Pricing

Click here for a first look at Imaging-Resource

So what does this mean for current and future LensAlign Owners?

It means some great stuff. First of all LensAlign Pro just got improved with the addition of the Enumerator. This is like a display panel that let's you set the test distance and the AF Adjustment that the camera is set to when you took the picture. So the test shot becomes self-documenting. Cool! It comes with LensAlign Pro starting May 18th. And you can get one for your existing Pro by placing an order for one and just paying a processing fee of $4.95. Good deal.

And then of course is the Long Ruler Kit itself. Also available on May 18th for $100 (ouch!). Sounds expensive but it was actually quite an engineering task. What we did was to ensure that the ruler was stiff enough (it is almost 4 feet long!), yet able to be light, and easy to carry and store. It actually is built in 2-pieces (if you can believe that) and goes together in a flash. And yet is really rigid. Quite amazing actually. Very slick. For those of you who have a Pro already the LRK is only $70 upgrade + shipping, and for those of you purchasing a Pro in the future (or today) it is also only $70. So if you need it or think you will need it, get it with your Pro (we call it Pro Plus) and it is only $70 on top of Pro.

Also in the Long Ruler Kit (otherwise it would not be a kit) is the Large Focus Target. Twice the size of the original, which is required for shooting at long distances (like 50-100 feet) so that the camera AF does not lock onto something other than the focus target.

You probably have a bunch of questions, so please post them over in the LensAlign Discussion Forum. I have started a specific thread for all of your questions and comments.

More info tomorrow, and also the Buy links to Pre-Order your Long Ruler Kits and Enumerators. (BTW, if you order the Long Ruler Kit, we can include your enumerator for free without the processing fee).

Thanks for your patience, support and understanding...

MT

Coming up Monday May 4 is the long awaited announcement of the Long Ruler Kit (LRK) for LensAlign PRO. Cannot wait to share it with you. Some other exciting announcements will also be made at that time. See you then.

 Sharp Shooting!

And speaking of Scott and NAPP, we are here this week at Photoshop World in Boston. If you are also here, come by and see us in booth 512.

I'll be back next week.

MT