? Being unlucky and buying a dud ?

Hi have read here that when you buy a Canon DSLR you might get a lower quality one or you might get a good one. Seems its a matter of pot luck! When I buy a mountain bike or lap top computer the quality will be expected to me the same. I feel very worried now, about forking out 1000 dollars on a camera that might be a poor performer. Same seems to apply for lenses. I have read a similar story were a lens was bought that was not as sharp as another purchasers lens.

Wow, how do you all merrily continue with this hobby when the very act of buying a camera seems to be a gamble?

Or are the recent posts all not true and I can run out now and buy to my harts content?

Help me...hold my hand!!!!

Buy from a local store and pay 5% more with the knowledge that if there is anything odd that they will take care of you.

Never had a problem with anything but the battery grip for the 20D. B&H took it back, without a problem. As far as Canon cameras go, I have had two DSLR's and both have been fantastic. And I don't think I'm getting "lucky" with the purchase.

Never had a problem with any of my Canon equipment.(Knock on wood.)
See my list on what I have.
If you buy from a reputable dealer;you will never have a problem;even if you do!

When we buy into a major manufacturer's products, we place certain trust in that manufacturer to perform proper QA before it leaves the factory and to provide product support after it leaves the factory. In return, we pay a higher premium for that brand of products. Canon & Nikon, for example, are tier 1 DSLR manufacturers who can charge a premium on their products and still expect customers to fork out our money.

Once that trust is broken, then they don't deserve the premium price.

The question is, is Canon still tier 1? The buyer has to be the judge.

If you don't trust Canon's product QA process or its dealer support network, then Canon did not do enough to earn your business. In that case, I'd suggest you try Nikon, Pentax, Minolta etc. or someone else who has earned your trust.

Well Canon had earned my trust, untill I started reading some of the posts here. People have had issues with cameras and lenses this last week on the posts. Seems that you have to do a QA on all lenses yourself. One poster said I should ask to take a picture with a lens in the shop and then check the sharpenss at home.

This is what makes me worried.

And last week on person said he had heard about issues with the new 10-22 canon lens.

Do you know what I mean?

Many of these issues are non-existent, or the item is the scapegoat for user error.

Syburn .... yes, I know what you mean.

First of all ... wherever things are produced, there are errors made and the possiblity exists that some products are not as good as others. The variation may be that 60% of the output are junk (e.g. if you buy an old car made in Russia) or that 0.001 % of the output does not perform as specified.

For every 1,000 very happy users that do not make any comment, there will be one who is not happy for various reasons.

The internet gives that one guy the possibility to tell everybody about his (presumed or actual) misfortune.

It is pretty hard for you as somebody with little experience in the matter to decide which opinion is worthwhile and which opinion is just whining.
OK, it's possible if you take a bit of time and read more than one opinion.

But it's the first time I have heard about the cameras having issues. 95% of the time it's the user who is to be blamed ... but it's just so much easier to write an inflamatory post on the internet than to sit down and read the manual

With lenses, there sometimes is the case of 99% of users having very good ones and 1% of users receiving a bad one. But those threads - if there really IS a problem - normally end with 'brought it back to the store, and they exchanged it'.

And then there are the guys who say 'I had to test 5 24-70/2.8 L lenses (presumably one of Canon's best and most expensive lenses) until finding a decent one' ... which normally make me chuckle.

I had a colleague once who got a new Mercedes Benz (basically the smallest available C-class, somewhere around 35,000$) as company car. He complained that he saw a fingerprint in the front windshield (there was one, it was nearly invisible on the side of the window) and he insisted that the windshield be exchanged (a $ 500 repair job). When he got the car back, he complained that the new windshield also had a fingerprint inside and that he wanted to have it exchanged a second time...
According to his definition 'this should not be acceptable for a new car'. Notice ... he would not even buy himself, but just ride it for 2 years and then give it back ... a bit out of proportion for me, but people have varying degrees of jerkness.

Take it easy....

Best regards,
Andy

oh that makes me feel a bit more happy. When I finally buy in the next few days I certainly hope I will have nothing negative to post!


Simon

I read a well-known pro photographer stating that in his career he has observed literally thousands of lenses including classes, seminars, etc. and has seen maybe a half-dozen "duds". It's obvious to me that what you have is cherry picking by enthusiasts to obtain a level of performance beyond what the average pro requires. And yes, there's production variations in everything you buy--mountain bikes (especially!) and computers included. Your laptop could very well have a hard drive with 1 mS greater access time than another. Your car may get 1mpg less than your neighbor's of the same model. Or have a few less hp. Do you lose sleep over those things?

I had a problem with my 10d when I bought it. So I shipped it back to National Camera Exchange for a replacement - no problem. When I got the replacement, I set it up with the same CF settings as I had the first one. Guess what? Same problem. Using the old lens (Tamron 28-80) from my Elan (yes, the first Elan). Went to a camera store and tried with their lens. Same problem - press shutter release, and you can hear shutter open (presumably), and never close (except to turn off camera and turn it back on).

Guess what? The mirror lock-up CF doesn't act the same as the mirror lock-up CF on my Elan. Bottom line? Not the camera's fault - mine. Nothing wrong with the camera - it was doing what it was supposed to do - waiting for me to press shutter again, after mirror was locked up. Lesson learned? Read the book, Dummy!:o Next time I'll know.

Another lesson I learned... National Camera Exchange will stand behind their sales. Also, when I was at another camera store in Rockford, IL (Camera Craft), they told me National was a good place to deal with. How's that for a reference?

As Andy said, keep in mind that on these forums, the primary use people find for them is to seek help for problems they have, not to just post a thread and be like "hey, I'm just checking in letting everyone know everything is great! No problems!"
Look at how many people post on this forum. Now look at the number of threads total. Now look at how many of those are posts of people having problems. Now think about how many photographers there are in the world not posting here, and that at least the same percentage of them have no problems.

I've only really had 1 problem myself, and that was with a Tokina lens (24-200mm). I sent it to Tokina to be fixed and they did so for free under warranty. I got it back and it works great.

A friend has just had to swap out his Nikon D2X (pro) body. It's the way of the world, unfortunately.

I would not worry. I think most problems stated on forums like these are user error. This new digital gear is not your old Kodak. And I would say that most of the lens problems are again due to user error, mainly not understanding how the AF works. Then there is the group that will never be satisfied, heck the packaging might not be pristene, so they return it! That is not to say there are not real equipment problems, I just don't think they are as prevelant as some would like to make others think.

And yes, I have had 3 bad lenses, 2 Tamrons with sever banding (you could see it in the lcd screen on the 20D camera back) and 1 Canon that had a 50+ foot backfocus using one point AF on a tripod with a shutter release. They all went back and were replaced with their equivalant in "L" glass. No problems at all now. Get your Canon, and stop reading the negative posts. All of my gear listed below was fine right out of the box, cameras and lenses. That's a bit of gear with no issues.

Mike

I haven't had a problem on my 20d or film SLR...go for it