It seems that when you think of Arri you think of quality. Expensive yes, but the quality of their products is always excellent, or at least that’s been my experience until now.
The Full Story:
I’ve been planing to replace my beat-up old follow focus for a while now, and about a month ago, I finally bought a new one alongside another big order, a brand new O’Connor 2575D which is absolutely fabulous. The follow focus though? Not quite.
I decided to buy an ARRI FF-5, which is Arri’s latest and greatest follow focus. At first, all was well, but then I noticed something. There was a very faint hitch in the smooth rotation of the gearing. Now this was very faint, probably only perceivable to a professional like me who uses one of these devices to make a living, but it was there.
Now you might think, what’s the big deal? Well, the problem is that this little rough spot, as small as it is, is a rough spot in a precision gear box which derives it’s precision from the exactness of it’s making. Anything even slightly out of whack will cause unexpected ware patterns and cause the gears to age more rapidly then normal.
And then it started making intermittent scraping noises.
At this point I’d already decided to send it back for a replacement, but that was the last straw.
So, the main part of the FF-5 was shipped off today, and hopefully the replacement wont take too long to arrive. When it comes you can bet I will be checking it out very very thoroughly.
Also, a side note. When I asked for the replacement, Able Cine, who have always been amazing otherwise, didn’t give me a prepaid shipping label for the return until I asked for it. Retailers are required by law to replace any defective merchandise at absolutely no charge to you. This even includes gas money, if you can gather the recepts properly. I haven’t tried this but I know someone who did send in his gas recepts to Apple for his trips to and from the Apple Store.
Sadly, this doesn’t apply to items being fixed under warranty… those you have to mail in yourself!