Refurbished Lenses: Your thoughts.

[FatDaddyJones]

I've always bought nothing but new equipment, whether it be camera bodies, lenses, lighting or studio equipment... steering clear of unknown eBay "specials" or used equipment. However, I'm thinking more and more about the saving on lenses which seem to be less prone to failure than other things such as all the parts in a camera body.

With some camera shops offering a full one year store warranty on top of the 90 day factory warranty, and sometimes giving substantial savings, refurbished lenses look very tempting. I've talked myself out of a $50 savings before to buy new ($50 didn't seem worth the risk), but sometimes you can save a lot more than that.

My question is: how many of you have experience with a refurbished lens? Would you recommend them or would you say to keep away and only buy new?

It is my understanding that many of the refurbs are showroom or store models that are sent back to the factory and inspected before sale, but there is no way to know if you're getting a floor model or a faulty lens that has been repaired.

Has anyone had any issues with a refurb? (i.e. dust, mechanics, AF, IS, etc.) Anyone seen a refurb sold with scratches or other cosmetic impairments?

Your thoughts and advice are appreciated.

 

[FatDaddyJones]

In addition to refurbished lenses, I'd also appreciate your thoughts on "grey market" lenses, which can also be obtained at a discounted price, minus a warranty (Sometimes larger stores such as Adorama offer their own warranty on grey market items.)

 

[Helen Oster]

All refurbished units sold by Adorama Camera are factory refurbished by the manufacturer, for example, Canon cameras are refurbished at their manufacturing plant in Newport News, VA.; the room that houses Canon’s entire refurb process is said to be completely dust-free, and with every employee working in there being required to wear special booties!

They can have simply been pulled from the production line if something appears faulty, or if it hasn't passed the final inspection. Most of the time it is a very minor issue that needs correcting, nevertheless, once it is pulled from the normal flow of production, it gets flagged as a refurbished model, so you may get a unit straight from the factory that has never been used.

A refurb may also be an ex-store demo, possibly used in field tests or sales displays, or it may have been ordered in error and returned to the retailer (who can't then sell it as 'new' so it has to be sent back to the manufacturer for refurbishment).

All refurbished items will have been checked over by the manufacturer by hand, inspected very thoroughly, diagnosed, and calibrated by experienced technicians, and could therefore turn out to be more dependable than a new item - which will only have been checked by a process of systematic quality control protocol (ie by random sampling as it comes off the conveyor belt).

All Canon refurbished products from Adorama come with a 1 year return-to-Adorama warranty; the warranty we give covers anything the manufacturers warranty covers for a new unit, including shutter defects.
All other refurbs sold by Adorama come with a 90-day return-to-manufacturer warranty.
In addition, Refurbs come into us with the firmware updates and latest fixes which were carried out at whatever stage it was at when we took delivery.

If you need additional firmware updates you can download them, but for any hardware fixes the unit would have to be sent to Canon.
[By the way, if you send a camera (any camera) to Canon for any hardware work, they will always update the firmware].


As to the individual history of a single item, the honest answer is we have no way of knowing. Refurbished equipment is not like new inventory; the manufacturers contact us when they have a batch to sell, and the availability is unpredictable. However, if you were to ask my personal opinion on whether the equipment that Adorama offers as refurbished is typically less than a year old, based on the regularity with which we receive batches, I'd be inclined to think it is all relatively new.

I hope this helps, but please don't hesitate to email me directly if you need any other info.

Helen Oster ☺
Adorama Camera Customer Service Ambassador
[email protected]

http://twitter.com/HelenOster

 

[jalbfb]

All refurbished units sold by Adorama Camera are factory refurbished by the manufacturer, for example, Canon cameras are refurbished at their manufacturing plant in Newport News, VA.; the room that houses Canon’s entire refurb process is said to be completely dust-free, and with every employee working in there being required to wear special booties!

They can have simply been pulled from the production line if something appears faulty, or if it hasn't passed the final inspection. Most of the time it is a very minor issue that needs correcting, nevertheless, once it is pulled from the normal flow of production, it gets flagged as a refurbished model, so you may get a unit straight from the factory that has never been used.

A refurb may also be an ex-store demo, possibly used in field tests or sales displays, or it may have been ordered in error and returned to the retailer (who can't then sell it as 'new' so it has to be sent back to the manufacturer for refurbishment).

All refurbished items will have been checked over by the manufacturer by hand, inspected very thoroughly, diagnosed, and calibrated by experienced technicians, and could therefore turn out to be more dependable than a new item - which will only have been checked by a process of systematic quality control protocol (ie by random sampling as it comes off the conveyor belt).

All Canon refurbished products from Adorama come with a 1 year return-to-Adorama warranty; the warranty we give covers anything the manufacturers warranty covers for a new unit, including shutter defects.
All other refurbs sold by Adorama come with a 90-day return-to-manufacturer warranty.
In addition, Refurbs come into us with the firmware updates and latest fixes which were carried out at whatever stage it was at when we took delivery.

If you need additional firmware updates you can download them, but for any hardware fixes the unit would have to be sent to Canon.
[By the way, if you send a camera (any camera) to Canon for any hardware work, they will always update the firmware].


As to the individual history of a single item, the honest answer is we have no way of knowing. Refurbished equipment is not like new inventory; the manufacturers contact us when they have a batch to sell, and the availability is unpredictable. However, if you were to ask my personal opinion on whether the equipment that Adorama offers as refurbished is typically less than a year old, based on the regularity with which we receive batches, I'd be inclined to think it is all relatively new.

I hope this helps, but please don't hesitate to email me directly if you need any other info.

Helen Oster ☺
Adorama Camera Customer Service Ambassador
[email protected]

http://twitter.com/HelenOster

I can echo Helen's comments Just bought a 17-40 f/4L refurb from Adorama and it looks brand new and works beautifully. The price was very right and I would not hesitate buying another from them.

 

[kubelik]

I'd have no qualms about purchasing refurbished gear; provided that there is actually a significant price savings. I'm eyeing some big white lenses right now and the price reduction on the refurb models is very appealing. most legitimate refurb retailers (like adorama) usually included their own warranties/return policies, so that you can always buy and return if you suddenly have any problems.