- Jan 4, 2007
- 2,572
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Having a 30D and 4 lenses and heading to Morocco for 10 days, I went and stretched my budget to get a 'backup' body. Went with a manufacturer refurbed 40D and was going to use it as my primary for the better Dynamic Range and 14 bit color and other various improvements over my 30D, and also use both bodies at once with different lenses on them to cover wide and zoom without having to change lenses - which would have really been useful in quite a few shooting situations on this trip.
It makes sense that a new body will not necessarily be as thoroughly quality controlled as a refurb, as they cant in-depth test every new body off the line, but probably randomly pick some off the manufacturing line. But a refurb should go through some serious QC before being sold for not much less than a new body. not in my case.
Got the 40D the day before I left from Adorama ($200 less than body only new)
I shot off 10-20 test shots at home. worked ok. Got to our riad in Marrakesh in the evening, went on the terrace to shoot a few shots, bam, error 99. Both bodies were transported there in my Think Tank photo Shapeshifter backpack.
I tried different memory cards, lenses, batteries - all which worked great on the 30D. Still error 99's. After sleeping all night and fiddling with some Custom Functions, the 40D worked for the whole next morning, but then the Error 99 came again. Reset camera, etc. did everything I was supposed to. The 40D worked once more for a few hours straight with no error 99 but then they just kept coming so often and I was losing good shots that I just gave up on the camera. I did not use it the rest of the trip.
I got home last night, popped off 100 shots in a row with no error but then they came again. Adorama was cool and swapped me out for a 'new' refurbed 40D which I will see now how it does.
I am very disappointed in Canon's QC.
It makes sense that a new body will not necessarily be as thoroughly quality controlled as a refurb, as they cant in-depth test every new body off the line, but probably randomly pick some off the manufacturing line. But a refurb should go through some serious QC before being sold for not much less than a new body. not in my case.
Got the 40D the day before I left from Adorama ($200 less than body only new)
I shot off 10-20 test shots at home. worked ok. Got to our riad in Marrakesh in the evening, went on the terrace to shoot a few shots, bam, error 99. Both bodies were transported there in my Think Tank photo Shapeshifter backpack.
I tried different memory cards, lenses, batteries - all which worked great on the 30D. Still error 99's. After sleeping all night and fiddling with some Custom Functions, the 40D worked for the whole next morning, but then the Error 99 came again. Reset camera, etc. did everything I was supposed to. The 40D worked once more for a few hours straight with no error 99 but then they just kept coming so often and I was losing good shots that I just gave up on the camera. I did not use it the rest of the trip.
I got home last night, popped off 100 shots in a row with no error but then they came again. Adorama was cool and swapped me out for a 'new' refurbed 40D which I will see now how it does.
I am very disappointed in Canon's QC.
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