About the Sinar Norma CLA Video Guide
Background
In October 2010, I created an instructional video showing how to CLA a 4x5 Sinar Norma camera. I had a break in my dayjob running a small technical content company, and having always wanted to improve on the Sinar Norma CLA Text Guide I created earlier, I made the video. It took somewhere around 16 hours to record the video and 40 or more to edit and produce it.
It turned out pretty well! About the same time, my photography mentor John Wimberley started having a lot of life challenges pile up at once. By the way, John uses a Sinar Norma camera for most of his photography, and through a very generous email correspondence he walked me through my first Norma CLA. John has been CLAing his own Norma for many years and really knows how to do the job right. Based on what I learned from John, and my own experience, I put together both the text and video Sinar Norma CLA guides.
Back to John. As you may know, John's late wife Teri became gravely ill in 2010 and in 2011 was diagnosed with bone cancer. John needed to care for Teri full time and as a result was less able to bring in income. I decided that one small way I could help John was by selling the Sinar Norma CLA Video Guide DVD on eBay and giving the proceeds to him.
Every domestic sale of that DVD brought in $35. Out of that $35, $4.95 covered USPS flat-rate Priority Mail shipping, $1.32 went to PayPal fees, and the rest ($28.73) was given directly to John. I paid for the DVD media, other packaging materials, and eBay fees out of my own pocket.
Over the lifetime of this project, I sold less than 50 DVDs. That's not a high volume product, and although it put some money in John's pocket, it wasn't a great deal of money.
I never wrote publicly what I was doing with the money from the DVD. I didn't want to be the focus of any attention beyond what was necessary to sell the DVD, and I didn't want my stealth fundraiser to compete with some of the other general purpose fundraisers that had been organized to help John out around the same time.
Why I Stopped Selling It
Around the summer of 2011, my life started getting challenging! My lovely girlfriend Cheryl and I sold our house in Portland, OR to move to the countryside not far from Pacific City, OR. While literally camping on our undeveloped 5-acre piece of land, sleeping in an 8x8' pump house, shitting in a portapoddy, bathing at the YMCA in Tillamook, working underneath a tent, and powering our computers with a single lead acid battery and inverter, I decided to put a hold on selling the DVD.
Aside from putting friction on something that could be done with less friction (100% electronic distribution of the video), I just couldn't handle the overhead of packaging and shipping the DVDs. Granted, they weren't exactly selling like hotcakes, but given my life situation, I had to cut overhead where I could, and sales of the DVD were one of the things I had to let go of.
What Next?
Well, I hope to keep the Sinar Norma CLA Video Guide available for free for the foreseeable future. It does cost me a little bit of money in terms of Amazon S3 fees to host this much content, but as long as that doesn't get unreasonable, I'm happy to continue this way. I'm also looking in to alternatives like Bittorrent to distribute this content widely.
But please, please, please consider donating some money to John Wimberley! He's the reason this video exists, and he still needs help dealing with the financial fallout of his late wife's illness and death. Click here to send money to John's PayPal address at tjwimberley@charter.net.
Other FAQs
Is this video all I need to successfully CLA my Sinar Norma? You will also need some basic hand tools--like precision screwdrivers, metric hex wrenches, etc--and some other supplies like solvents, q-tips, etc. The video lists everything you'll need. I believe that the video gives you all the information you need to successfully CLA your Sinar Norma.
Can you guarantee I won't damage my camera while following this guide? I am confident that the information I provide in this video is accurate. However, there are areas where it is possible to damage your camera, even if you follow this video guide. For example, when you are tightening screws, it is possible to apply too much pressure and damage the screw head or strip the thread. There's nothing I or this video can do to prevent this, except to warn you to be careful.
Does this video show me how to repair a broken Sinar Norma? No. While you may learn things from this video that would help you repair a broken Sinar Norma, it does not specifically cover repair topics.