Hi all,
Just wanted to share a great repair/service experience that I had recently, especially after years of Canon's slow and inefficient repair centers!
In fact, many of you might know Dave Marsh from Underwater Photo-Tech - he's been at many of the UW trade shows and also posted some on the forums. He's no longer with UW Photo-Tech but I found out where he is now. Dave is the new Director of Professional Services at Precision Camera, which he tells me is the largest camera repair firm in the world.
Anyhow, my Canon 10D had been suffering from a broken shutter button for a while now. I sent it in to Canon for out of repair service, and they gave an exorbitant estimate plus took 3 (THREE!) weeks just to ship the camera back after I refused their estimate. By chance I had emailed Dave just to see what he was up to, and he offered to help me out on the 10D repair. I also has a 24-70L lens that was suffering from a broken front plastic ring, and I sent that along as well.
Suffice it to say that the service at Precision Camera was night and day from what I get at Canon. At Canon my 1D2/1Ds2 has been known to sit on the floor of the office forgotten for 3 weeks before someone even opened the box.
At Precision Camera, my repair was given personal attention with frequent email updates as soon as it arrived, and the repairs were completed with a turnaround time that was obscenely fast. (I don't want to quote it as they are not fully up and running yet, but Dave says that they are committed to fast turnaround times). Very importantly, they maintained a great line of communication and respected all my requests regarding the repair to the letter.
Bottom line is, after years of dealing with various repair and service centers, this was probably the best experience I've had getting something fixed! Highly recommended.
For those of you who are interested in an alternative to Canon/Nikon/whatever else, Dave's division at Precision Camera will handle pro level DSLR products, lenses and flash units. Apparently in 2007 they'll service medium format backs, studio lighting stuff, and also pro video and underwater equipment as well. Here's their website: precisioncamera.com
and if you know Dave you can reach him directly at 800-665-6515 x117.
Yeang
