The story starts in Paris about three years ago, with my 5D Mark II. We bought some crêpes from a street vendor and mine was spread with butter, sugar, and lemon juice then rolled like a burrito in a paper wrapper. As we walked and ate, I began to notice that the now syrupy contents was spilling out the bottom of the crêpe and pouring all over my camera.
Luckily, there was a public fountain nearby and all I could do was repeatedly dunk my camera and wipe off the syrup.
There were two significant long-term damages. First off all of the buttons on the top right (ISO selection, mode selection, etc.) would stick in the down position when pressed. They would what they were supposed to do it’s just that they would take a couple minutes to pop back up.
The other damage, was that the camea would randomly lose its focus after the AF beeped. It would snap into focus, then beep, and then before I got the shutter pressed all the way it would try to find the focus again. This resulted in more than half of my shots being out of focus, which meant I have been manually focusing since then.
Recently, I took it to the Canon service center in Irvine, they said $250 to open it up and diagnose the problem, but based on symptoms they estimated about a thousand dollars in total repair cost. Basically, it would cost as much to fix the camera as it would be worth for sale after repair. If I tried to sell it on eBay as is, disclosing these problems, I expected at the most $100 or $200 for it, assuming I got any bids at all.
Flash forward to last week. Get the advertisement in a local camera store and they are having a no tax sale. Furthermore, they say they buy old cameras. I had no illusions as to the value of my Mark II, but I brought it with me, assuming that it couldn’t hurt to take it.
I told the guy I wanted to trade in my old Mark II for credit towards Mark III, he got the manager, who took a look at the camera, fired off a couple of exposures, and most importantly, he did not ask me anything about the condition or operation of the camera. All he said was, “We can give you $800 for it.” Stunned silence on my part.
So I bought the new Mark III. I’ve also wanted a wide-angle zoom, so I got the f/4 17 to 40 L.
Mark III Body...............$3399.00
17 to 40 lens...............$839.00
Tax...............$339.04
Subtotal...............$4577.04 (Yikes!)
Mark II credit...............$800.00
Sales tax credit............... $339.04
Camera rebate...............$200.00
Lens rebate...............$100.00
Final cost...............$3138.00
Discount...............$1439.04
Needless to say, I’m pretty thrilled. Furthermore, I just love having a camera that can focus.
So, I am gone shooting...
Rad
