? Being unlucky and buying a dud ?

I suspect cameras come out pretty well if you compare the return rates for most other mass produced products. Grab yourself your country's equivalent of New Zealand's "Consumer" magazine - the publication of an independent organisation that tests products and looks after consumer's rights. Return rates of 10 or 20% aren't uncommon for even "top of the range" products. I know it's a real pain when you do buy a dud, but life's a gamble

i just think Canon are the best - that said they treat us like C..p with having to rely on luck when one buys anything from them it should not have to be a gamble it should be high class workmanship with maybe just the odd complaint.
what a joke
Rob.

There are 33500 members of this forum, so surely you have to expect that out of these, several are going to have problems with their equipment. If Canon has a quality "Sigma" level of 4 (Industry avererage) there would be 208 defects reported by all members here if they only owned one item produced by Canon (4 Sigma = 6210 defects per million). Multipy this by the number of items purchased yearly by each member (on average) and you can see that if Canon were at the current Industry average it would be very unlikely to not see daily posts on this forum discussing a camera or lens problem.

These would be the "real" problems. When you add in posts where it is just user error (I'm guessing, but I bet this is about 10 to 1) you can easily get the impression that a manufacturer has a quality problem when they don't.

I haven't had a significant problem with any piece of Canon equipment that I have ever owned. However, unless Canon is the Industry leader with regards to quality it would be silly of me to expect that I will never buy equipment with a defect in the future.

Rob,

Oh come on, it's not that bad. Take a look over at the Nikon side, lots of problems with their Pro line of cameras. As far as Canon, see my list of stuff below. Everything was purchased on the net or locally with no problems. I had more trouble with Tamron lenses, bought 2, returned 2. Canon, bought 12 lenses and 2 bodies, and returned 1 lens. That's pretty good in my book, and I have suspiscions regarding the Canon lens that I returned. I no longer shop at that particular local camera store, though they happily exchanged it for a Bigma.

And look at my lens collection. I have several that are said to be less then stellar in the zoom department. I have had no problems with these so-called questionable lenses. They work fine, even the kit lens that is not listed, are sharp corner to corner. They are not prime sharp though, but they are zoom lenses. I do not expect them to match my 85mm 1.2L, that would be silly.

Maybe your expieriences are different. I really cannot say anything negative about Canon, as everything regarding their products have been positive. All in all, I would say they do a pretty good job, seeing as they manufacture millions of cameras and lenses. And they are always pushing the envelope technology wise compared to the other guys.

Mike

My 20D was broken right out of the box from B&H - the viewfinder LCD produced garbled nonsense for the aperture and shutter speed values. Unfortunately, I didn't notice it right away, so I proceeded to install the Canon software, and THEN I noticed. B&H wouldn't take it back because the software was open. I called Canon and the first person I talked to was inept at best, telling me that the newest available firmware was 1.1.5, even though I had 1.2 on my camera! I called right back and got a much more capable individual - they sent me a pre-paid shipping label, and once I mailed the body out, I recieved it back repaired in 7 days - much less than I expected. The moral here is: don't open the software until you have tested absolutely everything. If you do, forget returning it to your dealer, even if they are reputable. And if you do have to contact Canon, multiple calls may be in order. Eventualy, it was well taken care of.

Regarding failure rates - I work at a camera store, and I have dealt with more faulty 20D's than all other Canon SLR's, film or digital, combined. I believe they are (or were) being rushed out to meet initial demand. The entire first "wave" that we received before Christmas all had a crooked rear LCD - not a major problem, but an annoyance when you just spent $1500.00, and a major clue as to how strict their quality control is. After all that, I love my 20D, but I will definitely be more careful in the future before deeming a camera "OK" and loading the software! (which I've never even used anyway!)

I bought a 300d which broke inside 1 month. This was replaced with a 300d that worked perfectly. I paid the return shipping costs, but was satisfied with this.

I subsequently upgraded to a 20d which had a filthy sensor, inability to focus under certain circumstances with certain lenses and regularly locked up. This was sent to Canon for repair under warranty, and has worked perfectly ever since.

Overall I feel their quality standards are poor but they DO stand by their product.

Presumably that store isn't B&H? Interesting that (presumably for price reasons?) the better value/price/service combination for you was NOT buying where you work.

Or do I presume too much?

J

I've owned a lot of Canon gear over the years and never come across any defects. There WERE a few times I thought the camera was messed up until I learned to operate the thing properly. There is a learning curve to deal with.

I've also learned never to buy version 1.0 of anything - cars, cameras or computers. Let the factory get the bugs out of a new product before buying and avoid being an unpaid beta tester.

I love my 20D and all my other Canon stuff.

I totally agree with you there. I avoid version 1.9 as well, when I know version 2.0 will be out soon.

Canon user for over 20 years here. Bought them for me, for the wife, for both kids and never had a problem. Well, except that I have yet to be able to perform up to the capability of my equipment, which I really believe is the source of 90% of the complaints I've read on the forum. Buy it, use it, enjoy it. And if it breaks fix it. Such is life.

B&H sells you a busted camera and won't take it back because the software was opened???? That's the vaunted customer service I've been hearing about???

LOL But then sometimes they try to change some things in a big way for version 2 and then..just sometimes it doesnt solve many of hte issues that were there before hand

felix21685 wrote:
LOL But then sometimes they try to change some things in a big way for version 2 and then..just sometimes it doesnt solve many of hte issues that were there before hand

and you pine for the lean and mean version 1.

Don't forget the trick of changing the name to make it look even newer ie cs/cs2 or mx/mx2004.

It still makes me smile that I only use 5% of Photoshop's capability and still do everything I ever need.

Graham

felix21685 wrote:
LOL But then sometimes they try to change some things in a big way for version 2 and then..just sometimes it doesnt solve many of hte issues that were there before hand

Watch out for buzz words and letter designations, too: Optimized, Studio, High Speed, SE, XP....

I bought mine whilst travelling overseas, and didn't think too much of the warranty issues as my 300D was faultless.
I get back to Australia and with the 20D in my posession for 1 month, it goes dicky on me

Canon have now had it near 2 weeks and I am going to have to fork out a mint to get it fixed....these things are never cheap.

Disappointed but at the same time I can't wait to get it back. I just hope the issues are worked out.