May 6, 2013
Guest Blog by Chris Robinson
I guess I’ve learned my lesson about buying a second-hand camera and just wanted to share my story.
Just under 12 months ago I bought a second-hand Canon 5DII. Having never purchased second-hand gear before I wasn’t keen to buy via the internet. Instead, I chose to purchase the camera, for $1800.00, from someone I was comfortable with.
I haven’t actually used it much – took it out a few times, and took a lot of shots I wasn’t happy with.
My daughter tried it out on her real-estate shoots as she was considering buying one for herself. Other than that, having lost my mojo, it wasn’t used much.
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to give it another go and went off on a shoot near Boonah.I started noticing lines through my images. They appeared on every second image in the camera viewer. When I downloaded the images into Bridge, the lines remained in the jpeg files but not in the RAW files.
Not being sure if it was something I had inadvertently changed causing a setting problem or if it was a major in-camera problem, I contacted Danielle who suggested I get in touch with Mark at Anderson’s Camera Repairs.
After consultation with Mark, and sending him the images which he subsequently forwarded to a Canon specialist in Sydney, my worst fears were confirmed.
The problem is with the main processor which is why the raw files appeared to be okay.
Cost of repairs $1,100.00.
I decided to buy a new camera instead and after speaking with Camilla at CameraPro I’ve bought a new Canon 6D for $1,970.00
I now have my new toy. While we can never tell what may go wrong, for me, this is the first and last time I will buy second-hand its’ a gentle reminder of the risks out there.
PS I’ve since done the shutter count on the 5DII and it came to 32,555, it was 28,892 when
I bought it.
