How many have had camera failures?

Jock Elliott

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Troy, NY
I noticed Adanac said his X100 became an F2-only camera while on a trip.

I've shot my D-550 for 7-8 years with no misbehavior and my G12 for 16 months with no issues. (Back in my film days, I had a Rolleiflex malfunction and needed repairs, that's it.)

Come to think of it, which camera manufacturers have had to issue firmware updates?

It strikes me that if your camera is mission-critical, you might want to rely on a manufacturer with a highly proven track record.
 
Come to think of it, which camera manufacturers have had to issue firmware updates?

It strikes me that if your camera is mission-critical, you might want to rely on a manufacturer with a highly proven track record.

Whatever we may think, early adopters are beta-testers who are not only willing but actually pay for the privilege. After a while, the niggles get back to HQ and a firmware update is made available (except if you're Fuji).

I had a retractable lens jam a few times on a Ricoh Caplio R6 but a bit of percussive maintenance sorted it out. Touch wood, I've not had a camera or lens fail catastrophically.
 
Russ,

"Percussive maintenance?" I love it!

A pal who works in a high tech company once said to me: "You know about the pioneers, dontcha? They're the ones that take the arrows."

Cheers, Jock
 
I've owned just about every major make of camera over the last few years and the ONLY one I had to send away for repair has been the Leica X1. It's screen exhibited very erratic jumpy behaviour whenever I tried to scroll and they replaced some unit or other. They also replaced the top plate and gave it more robust dials as a lot of people were complaining that they moved off settings too easily. No problems with Leica, they couriered it to Solms and returned within a couple of weeks. Perhaps this would qualify for the "irony" subject of this week's Weekly Challenge :)
 
I had a Panasonic ZS3 that died on me within a year. First the screen started to fail, with portions of it going black and weird lines showing up. Then the whole screen died so I had no way to frame other than instinct (which I do pretty well at shorter focal lengths but this thing had a 250mm equivalent zoom, so that wasn't gonna work. But I still shot with it's wider angles for a while and then it just gave up the whole ghost. Other than that, I've had cameras with issues, questionable design decisions, etc, but none that just flat out stopped working.

-Ray
 
Ray,


It strikes me that one of the problems with digital cameras -- besides that you belong to the "camera of the month" club -- is that the time-to-market cycles are so short. Unless a camera derives from a well-established lineage, a new camera is probably more likely to have some unanticipated problems.

On the other hand, the first time that I saw the X100 -- new camera or not -- I'm pretty sure I violated a couple of Commandments.

Cheers, Jock
 
I think I've been pretty lucky so far, and hope to stay that way (crosses fingers). The only failures I've had were the autofocus motor in a Nikon 18-200mm lens and a misfiring Nikon SB-800 flash that would discharge randomly. I've had a few pieces of used equipment that arrived in faulty condition, but they were all returned to their owners either willingly or with a bit of help from Paypal.
 
I have had 2 failures; my GRD first gen has the dreaded adj wheel lock up syndrome. And my new Fuji F600EXR started scratching the front lens element with blades of the lens cover, going in for repair now.
 
Not for a while, actually. The last two camera failures I had were with a Canon T90 in 1993 and an A-1 in 1996. The T90 failure was catastrophic, as it required the replacement of the main circuit board, which cost a little over half of what the camera cost new. The camera was 3 years old at the time. The A-1 was repaired with used parts (it was 17 years old at that time) which kept the cost reasonable. I still own the A-1 and it works perfectly. The T90 I sold in 1998, but its current owner (a friend of mine) reports it still works beautifully.

I had one lens fail on me recently, a Canon 70-200L 4.0 IS USM, which ironically is the most expensive lens I own. Mechanical failure in the focus mechanism. Canon repaired it for about $200 which was not unreasonable in light of the cost of the lens.

I have had absolutely no problems with any of my digital gear, including Canon, Olympus and Panasonic.

Cheers,

Antonio
 
I have had 2 Olympus E-PL2's fail on me. The 1st used to pack up when it felt like it and the replacement had a rear screen fault which made everything green! My XZ-1 faild on me but only once. Removed the battery and popped it back in and all was well.
 
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