C200: Kudos to Canon Repair

[puredrifting]

I bag on Canon just a much as the other manufacturers but I wanted to relate my recent brush with Canon repair.
I was on a shoot last week and we were using my 80D with the EF S 17-55 f/2.8 simply as a tripod mounted fly on the
wall. I had my second camera op change a battery and re-mount the 80D to the tripod.

I heard a bad sound, turned around and he thought he had affixed the camera to the head but he didn't get it locked in
and the 80D and EF S 17-55 F/2.8 IS plunged to the ground and hit the concrete floor. Hard. He tried rebooting the camera
to see if it still worked but the camera kept booting up with an error. I tried the reboot a few times with no luck. On a hunch,
I removed the lens and lo and behold, the shock of the camera body hitting the ground had cracked off the back element of
the lens, it was floating and rotating around in the body. I tried zooming the lens in to put it away in it's case and the lens wouldn't even
collapse. I was kind of bummed. The 80D body looked undamaged except for the bottom 1/4" 20 area where it is slightly bulged.

But the lens was toast. I went home and looked up if Canon Burbank, where I would normally bring repairs was open, but it's not.
The Canon website had me self-diagnose what the the problem was with the lens in very basic terms (doesn't zoom), it then gave me an estimate
to repair of $241.00. Not bad considering it had been abused. A used one is about $600.00 and a new one is about $800-900.00
So I sent it off, two day, to the Costa Mesa repair facility. The amazing part was I shipped it UPS two day and on day four, the box
was waiting for me at home. I unboxed it, examined it, they replaced the entire focusing and zoom mechanism, re-affixed the rear element,
did a full internal cleaning and spec test and had it back in my hands in four days! Kudos Canon Repair, that was amazing service and $241 to
repair it definitely beat shelling out 2-4x as much for used or new lens and the turn around was practically same day, which is kind of amazing.

Nice job Canon.

 

[Peter C.]

Glad to hear your good experience. I had a similar thing happen but I didn't get off so lightly. I was swapping between a monopod and gimbal (that required the tripod plate to be reversed). Doing an overhead shot the camera slide off because the plate was reversed. The 70-200 the front element was pitted, costing me $600. Considering the $3,500 camera was undamaged, the lens cost $1,500 and no one was hurt, I got off lucky.

 

[nutmegger]

Back in the 90’s while shooting a portrait session with my Mamiya RZ67, I thought the camera was locked in the tripod head. It wasn’t. Moved the tripod and the camera with the 180mm lens fell off. $700 repair bill. Adjusted for inflation, it was probably $2,500 in today’s dollars. Since then, I always double check the camera is locked in when mounting on a tripod. Expensive lesson.

 

[R_Marvin]

Customer service at Canon's Costa Mesa facility is top notch. When I received my new Canon C200 a few years ago it arrived with dust on the sensor (it happens). I drove up from San Diego and brought it in - in person. They ushered me into the CPS lounge and treated me like royalty offering coffee, a danish, and use of the facility.

I was informed that my C200 was the first one that they had received at their facility and that they did not yet have the repair manual for it; as I had no pressing jobs I left it with them and still received it back within a week, shipped back UPS priority. And there was no charge since it was on warranty.

They also have a wonderful showroom at this facility with a display showing off all of Canon's lenses and have several cameras on display. I tried out a C300 MK II when I was there and all of their cine glass is available to examine mounted on a camera to see how it feels and performs. It's worth a visit just to check out the cine glass if you're interested.

 

[puredrifting]

Customer service at Canon's Costa Mesa facility is top notch. When I received my new Canon C200 a few years ago it arrived with dust on the sensor (it happens). I drove up from San Diego and brought it in - in person. They ushered me into the CPS lounge and treated me like royalty offering coffee, a danish, and use of the facility.

I was informed that my C200 was the first one that they had received at their facility and that they did not yet have the repair manual for it; as I had no pressing jobs I left it with them and still received it back within a week, shipped back UPS priority. And there was no charge since it was on warranty.

They also have a wonderful showroom at this facility with a display showing off all of Canon's lenses and have several cameras on display. I tried out a C300 MK II when I was there and all of their cine glass is available to examine mounted on a camera to see how it feels and performs. It's worth a visit just to check out the cine glass if you're interested.

Although with Quarantine restrictions, I have feeling their showroom may not be open at present. I'm just bummed Burbank is closed too, much closer to me being in Ventura County.

 

[jb.]

I've also had nothing but awesome experiences with Canon repair. They fixed up a camera when it took a fall off of a tripod (into a trash can, so it wasn't very hard... but it did crack a piece of the housing) and the 17-55 that was on it. They also repaired my late friend's 5D Mark IV for a very reasonable rate when I discovered its AF module had failed and were getting ready to sell it off for his widow.

They turn stuff around very quickly. Even more so when you're a CPS member. I make use of their clean and check coupons pretty frequently as well. Only thing that kind of sucks is that now moving from the C200 to the C300 Mark III, my CPS Platinum membership no longer covers the C300. You have to upgrade to the (stupidly-priced) "Cinema" level to get the benefits to extend to C300 or higher.

 

[Guest]

Canon repair has been great to me in the past.

Cine EOS tech support was disappointing early on, but I would assume they've improved on that over the years. However, Canon repair was great, and I really benefited from them being so international, as well. Definition of word class service in a way. not VIP or anything, but just good.

Glad to hear your experience was good, that is always nice!

 

[Guest]

Although with Quarantine restrictions, I have feeling their showroom may not be open at present. I'm just bummed Burbank is closed too, much closer to me being in Ventura County.

Plus, that is a nice show room. Love their little theater too!

 

[Greg Smith]

Way back in the early '80s, I had a Canon 2/3" ENG zoom on my Ikegami - probably their cheapest 13:1 SD servo lens, with the old B3 mount. Two days before a big important shoot, a couple of the iris blades jumped their tracks inside and jammed up the entire iris assembly. In near panic, I drove 3 hours with the lens to the Canon facility in the Chicago suburbs (now closed), and they invited me into the back workshop area to sit and watch the technician while he disassembled the lens, replaced several of the bent iris blades from his amazingly large stock of spare parts, and meticulously cleaned and re-lubricated everything inside the lens. He didn't speak much English (really, none at all), but he was well trained and extremely accurate and meticulous in his work, and it was an education to watch the process up close. I don't remember exactly how much they charged me, but it was somewhere south of $100 at that time, and I was in and out of there in about an hour and a half. The lens continued to serve for several years after that with no additional trouble. (I still have it sitting on a shelf, although it's long past retired.) I've felt confident about Canon service ever since, although I would have to use the mail now since there is no longer a facility within driving range.

 

[Run&Gun]

My CPS story(VA location):

I broke the USB port on my 5DIV Tuesday afternoon playing with my new Ronin RS2 that I had just gotten(whole other story). F! I'm Silver CPS, because it's free and I haven't had to use them in years. So I went to the CPS site and got an estimate from their automated system. It was more than expected. So I upgraded to Gold immediately which gave me a 20% discount on the repair, faster repair turnaround and free return shipping. Even after paying for the upgraded level, I still came out cheaper for the repair and savings on return shipping(plus the faster turnaround).

So when I got down to FL Wednesday afternoon, I went to UPS and shipped my broken camera off. Before we left to go to location Thursday, I had received the bill from Canon(yep, still saved money). And before we left to leave for location Friday I had received the shipping info from Canon that I would have the camera back Monday. Not too shabby. Heck, If I had been able to get it out on Tuesday when I broke it, it would have probably been back here Friday and waiting on me when I got back last night.