Paul C Buff Service

Yup they are great. Had the batteries go out on my vagabond, and they replaced it a couple months out of warranty. They told me to ship the inverter back to they can take a look at it to make sure it was working too. I asked if I could ship just the inverter back without the battery (since its fubar and heavy as hell), I was surprised they said yes. Love them!

I decided a while back to go with PCB because of stories like these. Since I'm slowly (through company revenue only...no loans or out of pocket), I order little by little. This past week, since the busy wedding season is coming, I decided, since the business has done well this past year, to bump up to a full, I guess basic set.

I initially only had 1 AB800, but ordered a second, along with a giant and medium soft box. While I was at it I threw in the CyberSync along with the CSR+ (2) and another AB800, including light stands.

The day after I realized I better get on the Vagabond II list, so I ordered that as well. So $1500 later, I'm all set to shoot a wedding, with the confidence that any lighting situation (even if I have to pull out the 430EX's) will be easily overcome and dealt with. It's a very good feeling.

More to the point of this thread though, dealing with PCB has been a complete pleasure and every question and concern I had along the way ordering all of this gear (which I have to learn up on in 3 days) were answered quickly and thoroughly. I think PCB knows they're on to something with their customer service and it's one of the backbones of their business, especially in a world of foreign consumer electronics dominating the photography industry. A lot of vendors in this industry (not the manufacturers) are scammers, thieves and liars as we all know. It's comforting to know that my studio gear isn't susceptible to that; gray markets, lame warranties, shipping and repair charges, it goes on and on....PCB seems to be one of the exceptions to that and it's awesome because this stuff is really expensive!!!

The one thing (which is my fault entirely) is that I will NOT have a portable power supply for this upcoming wedding. I asked PCB if they could perhaps rent one or loan a demo unit, but they were not able to. This was just a shot in the dark on my part and thought maybe they could hook me up for a weekend. My order is pending and I'll get the Vagabond when my name comes up just like everyone else, and when it does, I'm sure PCB will send it out and let me know via email like they said they would. They even offered to upgrade the shipping to overnight, no charge, if the situation called for it...now WHO does that in this industry?

So hats off to them, and as a side and very important note: If anyone knows of a place in the NYC area that rents Vagabonds, please let me know because I really don't want to have to rely on my 300' or so of extension cords

So nice to see a small company completely stand behind their gear. Kudos to Paul and team. Keep up the good work.

dave

This is not really service related ( luckily ! ) but the other day in the studio while the model was in the changing room, I was rearranging lights and BG. Knocked one of the B800's ( the hairlight ) over.....crash ! It hit the floor from rather high up.....and never missed a beat. As hard as it hit the tiled floor, I was expecting the worst. Got lucky....and it says something about how tough they are.