They are useless,a waste of time, expensive and incompetent.
I took 2 lenses and my 1dmkII.
Here is the summary.
Drove to Dubai (live in Abu Dhabi), about a 120km drive and dropped off my ts-e 24mm L, my 135mm L and my 1dmkII.
My 1dmkII needed severe sensor cleaning and servicing.
My 135 L had a focusing issue. It takes more than one click at the AF button to get it to focus from closest focusing distance to about 6 meters. After 6 meters, focusing is normal.
My ts-e needed reorientation.
I drop the gear off, and call the manager of the service center in alqouz and explain the issues.
He says "send it back to USA, isnt that where you bought it from?"
Man I spent AED 50,000 dirhams on Canon gear, you should be paying me to service my gear. Anyways, I explain it is not convenient to send it to the US and I am willing to pay whatever he charges for the above required servicing. He keeps insisting I should send it to the US because he gives priority to middle east customers.
Any ways, 7 days later, I call him up and he says the camera cmos has be cleaned. the ts-e cannot be reoriented because the screws are rather stripped ( I stripped them and hoped they could use thier -professional- tools to reorient). And lastly, he siad they cannot fix my 135 L because they do not have the parts and it will take 2 to 3 months to get the part.
I drive to Dubai today. The 135mm now no longer takes pictures. focusing is the same, but upon hitting the shutter release button I get error 01. At least before I gave it for fixing I could still take pictures that were perfectly normal in image quality. Stupid people broke my lens.
Whats worse is that for some reason I had a feeling my sensor was not "clean". So I grab a lens and a tripod (at the store) and take a shot of the ceiling @ f/29 because I shoot Macro.
Guess what!? Not only is there more dirt on the sensor, but the focusing screen looks like a lint bag!!!!!
The guy at the store calls up the manager of the service center on his cell phone and explains to him in Hindi (ya I understand hindi) that the sensor is dirty - the customer took test shots at the store and I saw them with my own eyes sir, lots of dirt.
So the manager asks to speak to me. It was absurd, he said " the dust must have been on your shutter blades and moved to you sensor when you took the test shots". BULL ****. So I went on to tell him how come he did not test it, he said he did, I said ok how come you did not service the camera as requested. The job application sheet had "cmos cleaning" and "service" both ticked. I decided that as long as im getting the cmos cleaned, I may as well have the whole camera serviced. He said " the receipt said cmos cleaning only, you did not request for service". I told him I have the original receipt in my hand clearly showing service ticked.
Long story short, he denied further breaking my 135L and "claiming" he got it with error 01. BULL ****, I used the lens to take pictures on the way from Abu Dhabi to Dubai. He said he would get me my camera tomorrow. That means another 130km to Dubai on a Thursday.
Guys, screw Canon UAE. Ill send my 135 and ts-e to Canon USA or EU.
Any idea how?
I will also, in the mean time, find out who is the owner and give him a call.
