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5D Ashtray


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Some years ago, when I was working in a camera store in Boston, the Nikon rep,, Johnny LaSpina (sp?), would stop by from time to time. If a customer were looking at a Nikon camera he would pitch in and help make the sale.

Johnny was a smoker and had a regular bit of business with his cigarette. He would demonstrate the range of Nikon lenses and spread out several lenses, front element up, on the counter, scattered in a random pattern near the circular ashtray. While making his demonstrations, he would casually flick the ashes in the ashtray. As he got more engaged in his pitch, he would begin tapping the ashes into the "wrong" vessel, as if he had perceived one of the lenses to be the ashtray. He kept his patter moving so that the horrified customer hardly had a change to intervene. After landing his ashes in the lens a couple of times, he would crush out the cigarette on the front element! Then, noticing his "error" for the first time, he would say, "no matter," and dump the ashes from the lens into the ashtray. Then he took the end of his tie and wiped the front element clean. Invariably the front element would suffer no damage at all and he would comment on how hard the coatings used by Nikon were.

Cigarette ash is pretty soft and the burn temperature relatively low (about 400 degrees F). Virtually all quality lenses are sufficiently hard and and their anti-reflective coatings sufficiently heat resistant that no harm would be caused by extinguishing a cigarette on the front element. I'm not sure if this is still true as the use of plastics for lens elements is now more common than it was then. But it was always an effective demonstration and invariably resulted in a sale.

David

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Some years ago, when I was working in a camera store in Boston, the Nikon rep,, Johnny LaSpina (sp?), would stop by from time to time. If a customer were looking at a Nikon camera he would pitch in and help make the sale.

Johnny was a smoker and had a regular bit of business with his cigarette. He would demonstrate the range of Nikon lenses and spread out several lenses, front element up, on the counter, scattered in a random pattern near the circular ashtray. While making his demonstrations, he would casually flick the ashes in the ashtray. As he got more engaged in his pitch, he would begin tapping the ashes into the "wrong" vessel, as if he had perceived one of the lenses to be the ashtray. He kept his patter moving so that the horrified customer hardly had a change to intervene. After landing his ashes in the lens a couple of times, he would crush out the cigarette on the front element! Then, noticing his "error" for the first time, he would say, "no matter," and dump the ashes from the lens into the ashtray. Then he took the end of his tie and wiped the front element clean. Invariably the front element would suffer no damage at all and he would comment on how hard the coatings used by Nikon were.

Cigarette ash is pretty soft and the burn temperature relatively low (about 400 degrees F). Virtually all quality lenses are sufficiently hard and and their anti-reflective coatings sufficiently heat resistant that no harm would be caused by extinguishing a cigarette on the front element. I'm not sure if this is still true as the use of plastics for lens elements is now more common than it was then. But it was always an effective demonstration and invariably resulted in a sale.

David

Hey,

That's a great story, as much for the cultural change it illustrates as for the punch line. There was indeed a day when camera stores had ashtrays on the counter as there was one when salesmen walked around with cups of coffee. (unfortunately I'm old enough myself for the latter)

I have had the (dis)pleasure of having to clean the residue of cigarette smoke off both optics and lab equipment. It is not only yucky but takes quite a bit of work and I imagine it would be equally troublesome on mic diaphragms etc..

Celac

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C'mon, you gotta tell us the story behind it.

Growing up in the 70's-80's being a guitarist, my hero was Eddie Van Halen.

I commissioned a guitar luthier to build me his main two guitars from scratch. (body cut to the exact size/shape, neck built from scratch)

The guy puts every single nick, scratch and dent that is in the original on the guitars he builds. (kinda insane

when you think about the time involved)

I believe adhesive was poured into the cavities, the ashes dumped in, and then of course the excess dumped back out.

Final Result:

Eddies Frankenstrat (ignore the black duct tape he had on it in this picture)

018bwr2.jpg

My Frankenstrat:

dsc03593gw.jpg

I also had him build me Eddies 5150 guitar (w/ all the nicks in the right places)

and Eric Clapton's "blackie" strat (w/ all the nicks in the right places)

My kinda "art" :D

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  • 1 month later...

You have a very strange warped sense of humor. If that's a real 5d body the people who did that should be ashamed of themselves. Regardless of any prejudices you have about a DSLR it's still a fine piece of craftmanship and should be treated with the respect it deserves.

Eric

Calm down, Eric. i'm pretty sure it's a cheap cigar.

gt

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Hey Ben, missed that image on POTN, but unfortunately I got to see it here. Hmmmm... I just have to tell myself that it was a trashed unit before the ashes.

God forbid my 7D even ends up like that.

It wouldnt, because normal people with FIX a broken camera like that or at least have the insurance to replace it... Which might be what happened here...

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