Digital Home Thoughts: Three In A Row: No More Canon Cameras for Me

The following is a post I made on my perosnal blog a couple weeks back, in regards to my frustration and dissatisfaction with my Canon camera's. Jason asked if I would be interested in sharing this with the Digital Home Thoughts community as there is a great interest in camera's and it could prove valuable information to anyone thinking of buying a camera in the near future. Since this post was written, I have purchased a Nikon s700 P&S camera and have been very happy with it. And for the record, I'm still waiting for my Canon to return from repair.

I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but time has run out and Canon has proved to me that they don't know anything about building a quality camera. The overall pictures and performance of their cameras are good, but the build quality and life expectancy is poor to say the least.

My first digital camera was the Canon G1 - a great semi-pro camera. I purchased the extended warranty on it - something I normally wouldn't do. However this time the price of the camera, $1300 or so, made me think twice and it turned out to be a good thing. About 6 months into the extended warranty the camera would no longer charge. I sent it in for repair and it turns out some small part of the internal charger died and had to be replaced. Total cost would have been $350. :-( Thankfully it was covered and I didn't pay a dime - just lost the use of the camera for a month.

My next camera was a pocket sized point and shoot from Canon called the S400. It seemed like a nice camera. It was much smaller than the G1 which was good for me as I now had kids and wanted something I could easily carry around with me. I didn't purchase the extended warranty on this camera because I figured the first time was a fluke. Besides, the online store I purchased from didn't offer any sort of extended warranty. So this one last about 10 months past warranty and then I started to get an error in regards to the memory card. I tested it with a number of different CF cards and all of them produced the same error. A quick Google search on that error shows that everyone and their brother was having the same problem with that camera and it was related to moisture getting inside the body. Putting it under a hot lamp for a couple hours would help. But only for a short time. :-(

So that takes me to camera #3 - an even smaller point and shoot from Canon called the SD700 IS. Overall a very impressive camera with huge zoom and ultra fast focus. After the last 2 problems, I figured I better get this from a local store and make sure I get the extended warranty. Good thing I did - this time it lasted just 5 months into the extended warranty when the camera would no longer focus if I zoomed in at all. There was also a clunking sound when you zoomed in and out. Which wasn't there before and didn't sound good to me. Great zoom on the camera, but what good is it if I can't focus! So off it went for repairs. I just got a call from the store telling me it was back from repairs and I could pick it up anytime. Imagine my surprise when I picked it up from the store only to find that the problem wasn't actually fixed! Sure they corrected the clunking sound but they did nothing about the focus problem. ARGH! So, back it goes to get repaired for another 4 to 6 weeks. :-(

That's 3 Canon cameras with 4 repair problems, and that's just me. I also recommended my in-laws by the Canon SD110. They purchased this from an online retailer and didn't get the extended warranty. One month after the standard warranty ended, the camera stopped working altogether. The camera wouldn't even turn on. Canon was nice enough to repair it even though it was 1 month out of warranty. To be honest, they didn't really want to fix it - it took a little convincing on my part before they would fix it.

That's it for me. I won't buy another Canon product. There has just been too many problems and too many headaches. I was thinking of buying a DSLR and had thought about the Canon models. However, with this latest problem, you can bet I'll be looking at Nikon instead, and same goes for a small point and shoot. I don't see myself waiting another 4 weeks for this camera to come back. I think I'll be buying a new camera in the next couple weeks and then sell the SD700 IS when it's finally repaired. (I have a feeling it will require a 3rd trip back for the same problem).