Lensrentals.com - great blog entry - statistcs on repairs, failures and support

[marekjoz]

So again I'm admired to Roger Ciala's blog entry. You can take a look on which lenses in their business require more repairs and why, as well camera bodies. There is Canon as well.

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/09/lensrentals-repair-data-january-july-2012

The quality of his posts is really really high.
BTW: Words "Nikon fanboys" were often used

Quote: "Would I change brands or something over it? Of course not. That’s silly. Nikon makes excellent, reliable equipment and most people need a repair maybe once every couple of years. But I certainly am advising newcomers in a different direction, and I’d be a bit hesitant about picking up used Nikon equipment."

Another quote: "Among the Canon zooms, the 24-105 L is one we just think of as bulletproof. Never fails. The Canon 17-55 IS used to have lots of IS failures but obviously got fixed a couple of years ago. Another lens that rarely fails."

 

[Albi86]

Very interesting.

Seems that 3rd party like Sigma and Tamron - often bashed on this forum - actually offer the best service.

A second interesting observation is that more expensive lenses not always are better built. I'm talking in particular about Sony, Canon and Nikon professional f/2.8 zooms.

 

[marekjoz]

Very interesting.

Seems that 3rd party like Sigma and Tamron - often bashed on this forum - actually offer the best service.

A second interesting observation is that more expensive lenses not always are better built. I'm talking in particular about Sony, Canon and Nikon professional f/2.8 zooms.

More expensive Canon lenses he is pointing to are 70-200 2.8 II and 24-70 mkI. He says, that similar solution used in 70-200 2.8 II didn't make problems somwehere else, but in this partiular model does, what's even more interesting.
In some previous post http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/09/a-peak-inside-the-canon-24-70-f2-8-mk-ii he shows what was the problem with the mk I version of 24-70 and shows that Canon has improved it, so he expects less problems.
Refering to other posts here there is also another statment interesting, that some new lenses coming directly from the shop are sending for repair because of troubles they have, but they are sent back with a note "shock damage". That's funny!

 

[M.ST]

Thank you for your reports Roger.

 

[risc32]

Roger is in a unique position of having many copies of so many lens. They all see a good bit of use, and he bench tests them all. I'm with you guys, his blog is very interesting and provides info that no other reviewer can obtain. The sort of info only Canon themselves would have in the past.

 

[FunPhotons]

Repair wise, he barely indicates that Canon has the edge over Nikon. They both have 5 lenses/bodies on the list, but Nikon does show up higher on it on average. The repair cost & time of Nikon service is somewhat higher.

He does use "Nikon fanboy" a lot - probably some personal experience there he is talking to. Reading between the lines I think he has a bit of a grudge against Nikon because they stopped selling repair parts to him and raised prices.

As far as I can tell Canon has somewhat better reliability and repair service, but it doesn't seem to be enough to get excited about. As usual Canon and Nikon are more or less neck and neck.

By the way I'm all Canon and will never buy a Nikon.

 

[DJL329]

From the article:

With 5D Mk IIIs, CF pins are bending at an amazing rate. With the latter, I suspect the combination of a CF slot and and SD slot (rather than 2 CF slots) allows CF cards to wiggle a bit more during insertion, so the card slots might not line up with the pins properly. I don’t know that there will be an easy fix for this, but be gentle putting those CF cards in your 5D III.

I felt that sliding a card into the 5DIII CF slot wasn't as "smooth" as with the 5DII. The card does seem to wiggle a bit when pushing it in, so I'll be more careful from now on.

 

[Random Orbits]

Repair wise, he barely indicates that Canon has the edge over Nikon. They both have 5 lenses/bodies on the list, but Nikon does show up higher on it on average. The repair cost & time of Nikon service is somewhat higher.

He does use "Nikon fanboy" a lot - probably some personal experience there he is talking to. Reading between the lines I think he has a bit of a grudge against Nikon because they stopped selling repair parts to him and raised prices.

As far as I can tell Canon has somewhat better reliability and repair service, but it doesn't seem to be enough to get excited about. As usual Canon and Nikon are more or less neck and neck.

By the way I'm all Canon and will never buy a Nikon.

For running a rental business, repair service cost and turnaround time (6 days for Canon and 26 for Nikon) are significant factors because a lens out of service is lost income. Another point that he makes is that now everything needs to go back to Nikon. Their company does many of the smaller repairs on their own, which helps lower costs and time out of service. For a individual user, it matters less but can still be a factor. I'd hate to have a in issue with a lens, and then having it take a month's time to get it repaired.

 

[dstppy]

Repair wise, he barely indicates that Canon has the edge over Nikon. They both have 5 lenses/bodies on the list, but Nikon does show up higher on it on average. The repair cost & time of Nikon service is somewhat higher.

He does use "Nikon fanboy" a lot - probably some personal experience there he is talking to. Reading between the lines I think he has a bit of a grudge against Nikon because they stopped selling repair parts to him and raised prices.

As far as I can tell Canon has somewhat better reliability and repair service, but it doesn't seem to be enough to get excited about. As usual Canon and Nikon are more or less neck and neck.

By the way I'm all Canon and will never buy a Nikon.

When talking to friends about DSLRs, I always favor Canon, but if they're not going to Canon, go with Nikon; community size and availability of used lenses (not to mention available options) is on par.

That said, I have to 100% agree with Roger on the fanboy thing; it's starting to die down here, but man it got nasty and irrational.

Good find marekjoz, I love reading Roger's stuff. Before making any purchase decisions, I always read up on what he and neuro have to say; I'm rarely disappointed after making an informed decision.

 

[Albi86]

Don't know in US, but here in EU Tamron offers an amazing 7-years warranty.

 

[DJL329]

Don't know in US, but here in EU Tamron offers an amazing 7-years warranty.

Here in the States, it's 6 years.

 

[DB]

Roger's reports are invaluable as always. They also raise the question about how 'renters' treat high quality optical equipment. I find that insightful.

 

[[email protected]]

From the article:

With 5D Mk IIIs, CF pins are bending at an amazing rate. With the latter, I suspect the combination of a CF slot and and SD slot (rather than 2 CF slots) allows CF cards to wiggle a bit more during insertion, so the card slots might not line up with the pins properly. I don’t know that there will be an easy fix for this, but be gentle putting those CF cards in your 5D III.

I felt that sliding a card into the 5DIII CF slot wasn't as "smooth" as with the 5DII. The card does seem to wiggle a bit when pushing it in, so I'll be more careful from now on.

I have already had to send mine in for repair - Damaged two SanDisk cards in trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Nicely Sandisk has replaced those for me. I have no idea how it happened but feel less of an idiot knowing it is happening to others. I am on the GOLD plan with Canon and it still cost over $200 to repair


And Roger is such a great source of information.

 

[marekjoz]

From the article:

With 5D Mk IIIs, CF pins are bending at an amazing rate. With the latter, I suspect the combination of a CF slot and and SD slot (rather than 2 CF slots) allows CF cards to wiggle a bit more during insertion, so the card slots might not line up with the pins properly. I don’t know that there will be an easy fix for this, but be gentle putting those CF cards in your 5D III.

I felt that sliding a card into the 5DIII CF slot wasn't as "smooth" as with the 5DII. The card does seem to wiggle a bit when pushing it in, so I'll be more careful from now on.

I have already had to send mine in for repair - Damaged two SanDisk cards in trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Nicely Sandisk has replaced those for me. I have no idea how it happened but feel less of an idiot knowing it is happening to others. I am on the GOLD plan with Canon and it still cost over $200 to repair


And Roger is such a great source of information.

5d3 it's still far better built because here they change only small board with pins. In 5d2 they had to put a new mainboard.

 

[neuroanatomist]

The repair ... time of Nikon service is somewhat higher.

Somewhat higher?? 26 days compared to 6 days, on average. You must have a different definition of 'somewhat' than me.

some·what /ˈsəmˌ(h)wät/ Adverb: To a moderate extent or by a moderate amount.

True or False: "The 1D X is somewhat more expensive than the 7D."

 

[preppyak]

Somewhat higher?? 26 days compared to 6 days, on average. You must have a different definition of 'somewhat' than me.

Well, and take that a step further, since Nikon shut down 3rd party repairs, where he stated that Nikon prices nearly double Canons now.

All Canon 24-70 repairs were either $268 or $370 (non-discounted price) during the entire 6-month period. All Nikon repairs were $539 or $602 from April 1 onwards

Now, part of that might be attributed to the fact that the Nikon 24-70 was more expensive originally than the Canon v.1, or it could just be that Nikon is jacking up prices. We won't know until Part 2 of the list when he mentions the v.2 repair costs. Either way, a turnaround time that is 4x as long and potentially 2x as costly is definitely not "more or less neck and neck".

That said, every company should be matching what Tamron does, that sounds incredible. Makes me re-think future lens purchases knowing they can turn around a repair that quickly.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Refering to other posts here there is also another statment interesting, that some new lenses coming directly from the shop are sending for repair because of troubles they have, but they are sent back with a note "shock damage". That's funny!

Its also true. Its easy for a tech to spot shock damage. A internal part shattered or danaged by shock is pretty obvious.
Unfortunately, the shipping services handle parcels pretty roughly. Some shippers do not put the minimum 2 inches of shock absorbing material around the lens. Even if they do, things still get damaged. My wife worked at a unnamed shipper. The men had a daily drop kick contest to see who could drop kick a parcel accross the warehouse and into the bin. If they missed, then they just kept kicking it until they made it in the bin (or the boss came by).

Rogers posts are indeed valuable and entertaining. I love them!

 

[PeterJ]

Interesting on the CF pins and that it's a large cause of failure on a few other cameras as well. I've always been a bit sus on the robustness of CF when plugged and unplugged all the time and you only need a bit of grit to find its way into the female connector on the card to end up bending a pin.

I've often wondered if people who use 10 small cards and frequently swap might be better off just having a backup body and large card in both. Only a guess but I doubt if cameras do a full end-to-end verify so I wonder if say an address line was bent and you were only ever looking at the last preview, which I assume is in a buffer, if you could be merily swapping cards and have corrupt data on all of them. I suppose it comes down to the electrical versus physical reliability of the cards.