wooo!

[soosh]

I’m not sure I told this story here, so I’ll just cut & paste the email that I sent to the General Manager of Tokina here in the US:

Mr. Carlson,

I am a customer of Art Sutch in Juneau, and a photographer here. I have a Tokina 12-24mm lens that I purchased from him several years ago. A week ago today, last Friday, I was out in the middle of the night on a trail in the muskeg taking photos of some stunted shore pines in the light of the full moon, and when changing lenses, managed to drop my 12-24 lens in the snow. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t in my camera bag until four days later, Tuesday night, when I was out taking photos again and reached into my bag to get the lens and it wasn’t there. I looked through the pictures on my memory card and could tell where I had last swapped out lenses, and it was evident that I had dropped the lens out in the wilderness. So at 2:30am, I headed back to that trail, retracing my steps for a half-mile or so, until I found the lens, half-buried in the snow. The temperature the entire time had not risen above freezing, and had gotten down into the single digits. The lens was on the ground, under six inches of snow that had fallen since then and kind of blown off, and was without lens caps on the front or rear elements. I was thrilled to have found it, as it is my favoritie lens, and figured I was in for an expensive repair bill. I chipped the snow and ice off the front element, the rear element, the electronics, and all along one side of the barrel. It was pretty well encased 2/3 of the way in snow and ice. Once I had all the snow and ice off that I could remove, I put it in a gallon ziploc bag so no condensation could reach it and brought it inside. I left it inside the bag for a day, then brought it out and let it sit above the stove for another day. It didn’t appear to have any moisture inside the lens, so I mounted it on the camera and to my surprise, it works like new. I cannot tell that it suffered any damage from 4 days and nights out in the elements of an Alaskan winter. I don’t know how I could have punished it much more without dropping it into the ocean, but I can tell you that I will be a happy customer of your company as long as you continue to make lenses this robust. I take this lens out in all kinds of low temperatures regularly, and I don’t pamper my equipment, and it has always been a great lens. Out of all the lenses I own, I do think it is my favorite.

Attached are a few of my favorite shots I’ve taken with the lens and a shot of the muskeg where it had its adventure.

Regards,

Lance McVay

Then today, I got this email in response:

Hello Lance,

As directed by our general manager we have added a gallery of your photos to the THK Photo website at http://www.thkphoto.com. The direct link is:

http://thkphoto.com/gallery/g-07.html

Excellent work and thank you very much!

Best Regards,

Michael Burnham
Marketing Manager
THK Photo Products, Inc

I can’t quite believe I got a gallery on a manufacturer’s website.

[olavf]

I’m more surprised you didn’t already have one soosh.

/Congrats!

[staplermofo]

HOLY CRAP!

[nobigdeal]

I can’t quite believe I got a gallery on a manufacturer’s website.

Anybody who I have ever showed your photos to is completely blown away.

seriously…Pulitzer quality.

As for the lens…if I drop a lens into a pile of cotton it would probably break.

[orionid]

HOLY CRAP!

What he said.

[FutherMucker]

Way to go, Soosh….That’s really BigTime, dude. Great gallery. Congrats !!

In the reply, it would have been nice to see….

P.S. Provide us with your mailing address, and we’ll be sending you free gear (filters, lenses, etc) to review for all of our 2009 releases.

8)

[staplermofo]

Can we say we knew you when?

[Author]

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