Interesting! I had the same experience with anodization, the quality between manufacturers varied a lot.
So it sounds like you use different companies for machining and anodizing? It certainly seems like you'd get better results from someone that specializes in each...
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cwandt/55-66-88-by-cwan...
My buddies have some good horror stories trying to get metal parts tumbled and anodized. You do have to nail down quality standards beforehand, and even then they may just give up and ship back to you, or disappear.
absolutely. I don't know if your camera body would allow it, but if you can get a die and extrusion, buying two or three tons of near net shape extrusion that you do a machine pass on, pass to anodizing, and assemble might reduce your cogs. Friend's COGS was cut by 2/3 switching from raw stock to custom extrusion.
So it sounds like you use different companies for machining and anodizing? It certainly seems like you'd get better results from someone that specializes in each...