Todd,
Thats very good advice thank you, I will ask them for the lens element. We did have insurance and they were named as additional insured. I have spoken to the insurance and they say we can go ahead an open a claim to begin an investigation, however the deductible is $2000.00 so what we will get is not money but documentation, so that should ACT claim the same lens or something similar in the future it can start being noticed.
As for a heart-to-heart with them, they don’t want to return calls and have sent this to collection. They claim they did notify us by forwarding me some emails i never saw. My producer and DP said upon check out / check in, there were no issues, then by phone were told there may be a problem with the lens, but didn’t hear back again for a month, and the next contact was simply a bill for replacing the element. We feel we are being harassed into paying for equipment that may have already been damaged. We don’t even know if it is the same lens that was on our shoot.