Friday, June 28, 2013

Broken Lens!

My main lens on the Nikon is not working! I had it behind the car seat in Vancouver and moved the seat back and forth to let someone in and must have jammed the lens. The auto focus now just keeps on seeking, unable to lock on focus. My experience with having lenses repairs is not good. It both previous cases it was almost as cheap to just buy new ones. The local camera store has Tamron 18 - 270 mm zooms on sale for $400 but reports are not all that great on them. The sharpness is not good.

London Drugs have Sigma 18 - 250's on sale for $500 and these have much better test results and are probably worth the extra $100. I have had bad luck with Sigma's in the past when one fell apart as I was using it and the company refused to do anything about it as the one year warranty had just expired. Hopefully times have changed.

I delayed my purchase to give the small local camera store that has been here forever a chance to match this price and in the meantime I found the same lens at Beach Camera in the US for $320. It is a new lens with no box and has been marked down. Shipping and customs is $30 and it will take up to two weeks to get here. Pretty good deal. I am willing to pay a little more to buy locally but it is unlikely they can come close to this price. This lens also has optical stabilization which will be handy in a telephoto lens.

5 comments:

  1. Same thing with our Canon, repair cost was more than half the price of a new one. Decisions, decisions.

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  2. After years and many DSLR's I picked up a Canon SX 50 HS. It has a 24-1200mm zoom on it and a stabilzation system that actually makes it usable. Now it won't completely take the place of my DSLR but as a pickup and go camera it is great. The best part, it was just under $400.00. Give them a look before you pull the trigger.

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    1. I'm in the process of trying to decide between the Canon SX50 and the Nikon P520. I've compared them both side by side and I'm quite sure I would be very happy with either. Tough call, might come down to the best price that comes along between the two!

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  3. I just bought a Rokinon 8mm Fisheye for $249 on Ebay. Hasn't arrived yet but I look forward to seeing how well it works. That will pretty much fill out my lens desires with the exception of a really long telephoto. I already have a Tamron 10-24, a Nikon 18-55, and a Nikon 55-300. I would like a 600-800mm but those suckers are REALLY expensive.

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    1. I have the Tamron 10 - 24 myself. It is a great lens! Good deal on the Rokinon.

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