RServranckx wrote:
Huh? Say what? If you re-read the thread from top to bottom, you'll see that very person who has purchased the Sensor Brush say that they're happy with their purchase, and that the brushes works amazingly well.
Ditto for those trying Eclipse Fluid and PecPads. At least until they finally scratch the sensor.
Well, OK, so several months after the initial hoop-la, you do see a few people complaining about problems with this method.
Geesh this is a long but interesting thread. As usual, appreciate the polite, appropriate discussion from all viewpoints.
Six weeks ago I was poised to order the sensor brush kit based on the Galbraith review, but got cold feet when the site appeared ready to charge me in canadian dollars. So I sent off a quick email to ask them to verify that I would indeed be charged the US price. The response which follows (cut and pasted unedited) made me feel a bit uncomfortable about the company (those first impressions) and has kept me from ordering.... I REALLY need to clean my sensor, so think I'm ready to give them a try, thanks to this lucid discussion...
their reply:
{ "Hi although we put the US dollar but the actual currency we are dealing
with is canadian dollar. so the cresit card is in canadian dollar only.
the prices that you see are no way reflects the cost . The cost of
production is more than double. since we subsidized by government as a
research company so we are entitle to rebate that we pass onto
consumers.
candian dollar has risen but also our cost. there is a back order of 7
days and prices will rise since all these brushes are laborious and all
hand made and inspected. many are rejected.
at these prices they are all bargain. so a few dollar difference does
not reflect any advantages that you might earn by using them.
nevertheless, we give you the right and we apologize as we are
developing our software to have a real conversion to US dollar.
thanks lisa" }
Don't intend this in any way as company bashing, but is offered to reiniforce others' suggestions that they are a less than stable, professional company.... or, as some have said, merely a struggling start-up (who have yet to hire a professional front office communicator)....
I have spent $10,000.00 in camera's, len's and stuff. Some I use, some I don't, but I can't rember the last thing I paid so little as $100.00 for that I was happy with until I got this brush. For me, money well spent. My time is worth more then what I would get out of looking for a brush in a art store and wondering if I will have problems.
I think Larry makes the point. What works is right, and right has it's price.
If you look at the Visible Dust people's other site for their bio chip products, which is professional and succinct for the medical research industry, they appear to be Indian and/or Chinese.Judging from the e-mail above, obviously not english mother tongue. If you have dealt with some Indian or Chinese businesses or shops in India or China, you won't be surprised by any of this.Hats off to these guys and their pragmatic ingenuity.
I can well imagine they are having the brushes made in China, and I can equally imagine that on start up they are easily spending more time rejecting brushes than packing orders, and they are rejecting far more brushes than they are accepting. The point is they are meticulously sorting them and not passing less than best on to us.
I think this will quickly become an established product and the copycats are just around the corner.
John_T. wrote:
I think this will quickly become an established product and the copycats are just around the corner.
And what concerns me is the simplicity in copying this product. Anyone can open shop, sell a couple hundred $5 brushes at $50, and then shut down once problems arise. Sensor Brush is lucky they were first to market. Subsequent companies may have a problem establishing credibility.
I thing that is a characteristic of our global society, and will continue to be so, so long as money rules. It's up to us to sort the wheat from the chaff, and that is where this forum is so valuable.
FWIW, the kit was send to me as a "gift" with a value of 20. Which means I did not have to pay the additional VAT and import tax that is normally required on imported stuff. This is a saving of about 30%. I've send them a nice "thank you" email
I ordered a set over a month ago and have not yet received anything. Weekend before last I decided to email them. When I went to the website to get the address, it was down. It returned during the week. This past Saturday I emailed them complaining and asking when I should expect to see my order. The email has bounced back for three days now. Their website is down again. Have they gone belly-up already? Is anyone else in the same boat?
DavidP wrote:
Ditto for those trying Eclipse Fluid and PecPads. At least until they finally scratch the sensor.
Well, OK, so several months after the initial hoop-la, you do see a few people complaining about problems with this method.
The same will happen for the Sensor Brush.
David, you really need to take the time to READ what this thread is all about. The posts are in reply about whether the sensor is a "scam" as the orginal author claimed, whether the brushes may be different than store-bought art brushes, and whether the Sensor Brushes actually work.
And if you do take the time to read this thread, you'll see that people who purchased the brushes are happy with them, and we all say that work very well. So, if all people who purchased the brushes are happy with them, and feel they are worth the purchase, then the brushes are clearly not a scam, regardless of what the profit margin may be.
...and incidently, according to RG, www.visibledust.ca is an interim address until they have www.visibledust.com up and running again, so when it shifts from .ca to .com and .ca goes down don't think they have gone out of business again.
Jeff wrote:
I've long suspected this from the beginning (not that I now take it as fact). Think about it, how in the world would some small-time company come up with a revolutionary 'new' brush technology, have the money to create, produce, and sell it, and then only market it to this miniscule digital photo market? It borders on ludicrous, and their 1990's-vintage website is further suspect. I have no idea what is the truth, but I'd be willing to bet a dime to a donut that it's some sort of re-packaged (labelled), readily available high-quality art brush. I'd wanted to go peruse an art store to see what was out there, but haven't yet had the chance.
RServranckx wrote:
David, you really need to take the time to READ what this thread is all about. The posts are in reply about whether the sensor is a "scam" as the orginal author claimed, whether the brushes may be different than store-bought art brushes, and whether the Sensor Brushes actually work.
I have, and I submit that the thread is about more than just that.
Clearly they "work". They aren't so clearly any different than art brushes (though they may be), and I seriously doubt that you can't scratch your AA filter with one. And if you ever did, they would probably just claim that you used it wrong. The PecPad people would probably do the same.
I do agree that they're very expensive, and there's a fairly good chance that the brushes are nothing special. Whether that's a "scam" or not is subjects to interpretation, I suppose.
What they're apparently selling is "knowledge", and some sort of brush that they probably don't make, possibly at a very high mark-up. And possibly without any possibility of standing behind any "warranty" against scratching. IF true, I'd call that a scam.
PS: I may one day buy one myself. But I do sense a high degree of liikelihhood that I'd paying $100 for a $10 brush that I could buy somewhere else, if I knew which kind to buy.
DavidP wrote:
PS: I may one day buy one myself. But I do sense a high degree of liikelihhood that I'd paying $100 for a $10 brush that I could buy somewhere else, if I knew which kind to buy.
You hit the nail on the head - that's the whole point, David!!!
IF they're the same as art brushes, which one do you buy? How many $5, $10, $20, $50 art brushes will you buy before finding the right one? And will you have scratched your sensor by testing some brushes with harder bristles?
I'd rather pay more ONCE for a Sensor Brush and have the right brush from the start with great results, rather than run a higher risk of scratching my filter with other brushes with hard bristles.
I'm unable to see why you call this a scam - this is a quality product that works, and it's users are happy with the results. If people are willing to buy it and be happy with it, then just call us happy fools, but don't call the product a "scam".
What's 100$ anyway? A dinner for 2? I don't have the time nor courage to test several cleaning methods so if it works (and it does) why bother about that lousy 100$?
RServranckx wrote:
I'm unable to see why you call this a scam - this is a quality product that works, and it's users are happy with the results. If people are willing to buy it and be happy with it, then just call us happy fools, but don't call the product a "scam".
It can still be a scam. What if any art-brush over $10 wouldn't scratch the sensor?
We have no way of knowing just how much (or little) effort actually goes in to choosing the "right brush".
I'm not calling it a scam. I'm saying it has the potential to be one.
You know, if I had come on this board and proclaimed that a readily-available art brush for $10 could be used, and then people started using it, and loved it, would you call that a scam? What if I charged you $30 for the information? But didn't offer any guarantee? What if I knew that most any art-brush over $10 wouldn't scratch if you used it carefully, but still charged you $30 for the information for the "right brush"?
Again, I'm not saying it IS a scam. But it certainly could be. And the talk of "plasma chargers" makes me a bit skeptical.
OK, don't call it a potential scam. Call it potential "marketing hyperbole" to the nth degree.
Would that stop me from buying one of these if I felt I had a real issue with dust, and needed some way to clean the sensor a lot? Probably not. Fortunately, I shoot wide-open most of the time, so it's not a very common issue for me.
Knowing my luck, though, when I finallly do decide I need to clean the sensor, they will have gone out of business, and we still won't know what brush it is they were using.
DavidP wrote:
You know, if I had come on this board and proclaimed that a readily-available art brush for $10 could be used, and then people started using it, and loved it, would you call that a scam? What if I charged you $30 for the information? But didn't offer any guarantee? What if I knew that most any art-brush over $10 wouldn't scratch if you used it carefully, but still charged you $30 for the information for the "right brush"?
If you risked your sensor by trying a variety of brushes, possibly encurred the cost of replacing your AA filter once or many times because of scratches caused by stiff brushes, and finally found a model that works well, cleans the sensor, and costs only $10, I would gladly have paid you $30 for the information. And that's partly why I did not mind paying $90 for a set of three Sensor Brushes - knowledge that they're safe, work very well, and are recommended by a number of big names for whom I have a lot of respect.
So, call me a "fool" if you wish, but I'm a fool with a clean sensor!
The bush never actually touches the sensor. It touches the glass protector that is placed over the chip. It would be difficult to transmit that kind of charge through glass without a significant power source....
