Seems like highway robbery... Nikon 16-35mm Lens Repair

[Nick D.]

<p>It is plain extortion from camera companies, lenses became so expensive, they know you will pay for repair, because it is still cheaper than new glass. <br>

On my old trusty 24-70/2.8 Canon famous plastic red name ring got loose, 3 small pins holding it in place slided down, otherwise it is work perfect. I went to Canon service, quoted price is $292.<br>

They call it "Out of warranty Standard Labor Charge" , for me it looks more like robbery.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>I don't know about Canon, but Nikon USA's repair cost tends to be on the high side. However, that one time they repaired the slightly bent lens mount on my 17-55mm/f2.8 AF-S, I thought the $130 repair cost was very reasonable, on a lens that costs some $1400 back then. (See the story about on my post at 5:50pm yesterday.</p>

<p>However, Nikon USA does not have a monopoly on repairs. They are still selling spare parts to those larger, authorized repair shops, such as Authorized Photo Service in the Chicago area: <a href="http://nikoncamerarepair.com/">http://nikoncamerarepair.com</a> A lot of members here have used them for repair, and they do an excellent job. It sure doesn't hurt to get a second opinion.</p>

<p>However, the OP is in Canada. I know Mississauga is in the Toronto area. Not sure there is an APS-equivalent in Canada or sending a repair job to the US makes sense.</p>

[dave_wilson1]

Years ago we had aluminum or brass helicoids with glass in them. Today we have computers and glass inside carbon

fiber and plastic tubes. They break fast and cost plenty to rebuild.

[mendel_leisk]

<blockquote>

<p><a name="00c0lF"></a><a href="/photodb/user?user_id=39504">Kent Staubus</a> <a href="/member-status-icons"><img title="Frequent poster" src="/v3graphics/member-status-icons/1roll.gif" alt="" /></a>, Sep 20, 2013; 11:03 p.m.</p>

</blockquote>

<blockquote>

<p>... Does Toyota build cars with glass fenders?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Almost. Their "fenders" are actually fairings, with all that implies: insubstantial air foils, capable of maintaining their own structure, but little more.</p>

<p>To the OP:</p>

<p>With repairs over the years, for camera equipment or any sort of electronics, I've come to the jaded view that more often than not the price of repair was determined not by parts and labour, but simply set to be just on the cusp of outrageous, slightly less than the amount that would tip you to replace the item with new.</p>

[michael_bradtke]

<p>Back in the day when lens barrels where all metal a drop that damaged a lens bent it. Repairing the lens was much harder as the metal had to be reshaped or replaced. It took time and money.<br>

As a working photographer you should not have a $1000 deductible on your gear. That is ludicrous. You dropped the lens hard enough to damage it plain and simple. If you don't like how much it costs don't have it fixed.</p>

<p>I have to deal with Canon equipment and I can say that the repair costs for Canon gear is just as high as Nikon gear.</p>

<p>Sending you lens to Nikon is very much like taking your car back to the dealer. The cost may be higher then an independent but the repair should be done in such a way as to bring it back to factory specs.</p>

[Nick D.]

<p>With all technological progress, isn't manufacturing cost supposed go down?<br /> And we do not have inflation at least according central banks, so why lens prices doubled?</p>

[Palouse]

<p>APS is a great company--fast, affordable and courteous. </p>

[Mary Doo]

<p>I looked back on the repair cost on my 28-300 several months ago and it was "only" $322.86, repaired by Nikon in Melville, NY, for a bad drop on rough cement in China. <br>

<br />So for the heck of it, I keyed in Nikon 16-35mm... and the estimate is...<strong>$322.86</strong> for "Dropped or Impact Damage." Voila!</p>

<p>Melissa, please see this <a href="https://repair.nikonusa.com/ProductEntry">link</a>. Hope it helps to ease the pain a bit. :)</p>

[robert_bouknight1]

<p>Been mostly happy using Nikon gear for 36 years, but I am not happy with:</p>

<p>1. I can't buy most parts any more from Nikon, even those that don't require a repairers skill and equipment to install. Can you imagine if the auto industry <em>required</em> you to take your car to a factory authorized dealer for any repair that needed parts?</p>

<p>2. High price for repairs. Now it seems like it is simply a high % of the cost for a lens vs the actual parts and labor. I have junked a few in recent years, cheaper to just get another on Ebay.</p>

<p>Fortunately, there are some good, independent repairers out there that charge for the actual service needed.</p>

<p>3. I am in the process of having to "prove" to Nikon that my D600 has the oil on sensor issue. It is not that bad, but it is there.</p>

[wogears]

<p>About six months ago, I broke the aperture follower tab on my F100. This is (of course) a much less complex camera than a D600 or whatever. I got the part, downloaded the repair manual, and set about fixing the problem. I had to remove the top cover, the bottom cover, and the front cover in order to get access to remove the old follower and install the new one. This involved removing and keeping track of dozens of screws, plastic bits etc. Fortunately, no desoldering was required (it might be on your lens). Then I had to put the new follower in place, attach some confoundedly tiny springs, and then re-assemble the camera, making sure to get the right screws in the right places. I came away with a serious respect for the folks who fix these things.</p>

[kgavin]

<p>I once dropped a battery grip for a D300s (I think it's the MB-D10). It's drop wasn't very far (only 2 feet onto an asphalt street). It had a tiny bruise on the plastic and I thought nothing of it. And since I was only using the grip for handling purposes and not for the extra frame per second (the D300s is 7fps on it's own and 8fps with the grip), I never noticed the thing didn't work.</p>

<p>Fast forward 8 months when I bought a used D700 and wanted to see its 8fps with the grip in action. It didn't work. I thought it was the D700; the guy in the camera store said that the latch that holds the battery compartment in place was not aligned, hence the grip wasn't getting any power (the other functions like the shutter, focus point toggle, and AF-ON worked fine through the internal leads). I took it to a Nikon repair shop in DC, and they told me it would cost $165 to repair (the grip was "only" $245 retail). I ended up selling the old-grip for parts and buying a brand new one...after I tried to disassemble the old grip and jerry-rig the latch with no real success, and a battery grip's mechanics are quite simple.</p>

<p>Since then I am very careful with all of my gear and treat it as if it's a newborn baby. No rain on a newborn baby; no rain on the gear. Wouldn't toss a newborn baby on a cushioned bed; won't toss my gear onto anything even if it's well cushioned. Always secure and double-check a newborn's carseat; always close and secure my camera bag with everything placed inside properly. Accidents happen, and we read all the time that these professional metal lenses from Nikon are built like tanks. But these are highly sophisticated pieces of equipment. I know paying nearly $700 is tough, but send it in and get the repairs done and just try to be more careful the next time.</p>

[bryce_l.]

<p>The quote Nikon Canada gave you is over half the cost of purchasing said lens new, not counting the 13% sales tax!<br>

May I suggest you contact Nortown Photo, 4087 Harvester Road Unit#10g Burlington, ON L7L 5M3 Telephone (905) 634-2221.<br /> If he gives you the same cost factor for repair, you'll know if Nikon Canada is gouging you.<br />Sending the lens into the USA may well not be a good idea; on the return Revenue Canada could well charge you for importing a new lens, even you have sent all the paperwork with the lens at the time.<br>

You probably have a credit card. Look around for the lowest new price on said lens, Toronto is not the cheapest place to purchase same. Henry's used lenses which are more available at their downtown Toronto store on Church below Queen, east side, may well have said lens in stock, or if so ,can bring one in from their warehouse on short order. It is worth a look. <br>

And whenever you place any piece of gear in a bag, put it in some form of well-padded container. Never be in so much of a rush to allow anything to flail about and not be secured. The hardware is your livelihood, treat as if it is your first born and only child.</p>

<p> </p>

[alex_zepeda]

<p>Two things come to mind. One, Nikon's restricted access to its parts coincided quite nicely with a bump in its repair prices. Like it or not, Nikon is trying to turn a profit off of its repair service.</p>

<p>Two, Nikon equipment is more complex and thus more difficult to repair, likely more sensitive to abuse, and likely more difficult to assemble properly in the first place. This is one of those things you can see play out in a number of different venues. iFixit, for instance, rates the D600 as the ninth most difficult gadget to repair. The D5100 ranks #6. I didn't see any Canon equipment on the top 10 list. In fact, if you look at the LensRentals.com blog, the comparison of the Canon and Nikon lenses shows a very different (and much simpler) approach taken by Canon. Or, take the words of a grizzled repair tech.</p>

<p><a href="http://dealnews.com/features/These-10-Electronic-Devices-Are-Almost-Impossible-to-Repair/795102.html">http://dealnews.com/features/These-10-Electronic-Devices-Are-Almost-Impossible-to-Repair/795102.html</a><br>

<a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=27475.0;wap2">http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=27475.0;wap2</a><br>

<a href="http://ifixit.org/1349/how-nikon-is-killing-camera-repair/">http://ifixit.org/1349/how-nikon-is-killing-camera-repair/</a><br>

<a href="http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2013/01/24-70mm-f2-8-lens-teardown-comparison">http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2013/01/24-70mm-f2-8-lens-teardown-comparison</a></p>

[Two23]

<p>". iFixit, for instance, rates the D600 as the ninth most difficult gadget to repair. The D5100 ranks #6. I didn't see any Canon equipment on the top 10 list. In fact, if you look at the LensRentals.com blog, the comparison of the Canon and Nikon lenses shows a very different (and much simpler) approach taken by Canon." (Alex)</p>

<p>There is a historical precedence for this. The original TLR, the Rolleiflex (1928), is a fairly straightforward machine. True, a lot of small moving parts are jammed into a small space, but it's all pretty logically laid out. To compete, Zeiss Ikon came out with Ikoflex in 1936. To get around F&H patents they had to make things a bit more complicated. By the time Voigtlander came out with their TLR, the Brilliant, in 1938 they had to do a lot of complicated things to get around the earlier F&H and Zeiss patents. As a result, classic camera repairmen often won't touch a Brilliant. To put this into perspective, Canon had IS in their lenses years before Nikon did. No doubt Nikon had to find a way different enough to not run afoul of Canon's patents.</p>

<p>Kent in SD</p><div></div>

[ryan_ware]

<p>Not sure that Nikon is looking at repair as a profit center, but it does seem to cost more. According to a posting by the owner of Lens Rentals.<br>

<br />"I mentioned in the first post that I’m a fanatic about customer service and repairs. That’s a big edge to Canon USA compare to Nikon USA right now (it’s different in different countries), and right now is when I’m making my decision. Fanboys can go off as much as they want, but I handled several thousand repairs last year. Nikon takes, on average, three times as long at double the cost."<br>

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2013/02/roger-buys-a-camera-system-finally</p>

 

[ken_i_h]

<p>Gosh I am glad I am in Japan. I have never been quoted such a high price before opening the lens up, or charged so much for drop repair at Nikon Service Center here. I am sure Nikon doesn't try to make money from repair, but not lose money either. Nikon customer service (repair center) in Tokyo are all staffed with semi-retired technicians (pretty old guys only at reception and the back), which means cheap labor while the knowledge and experience are top notch. Remember that the your lens was made in Japan (right?) and parts must be transported to your country and the repair work manual or knowledge must be transferred to your country. That alone would certainly costs. Better than sending it back to Japan, I guess. It may still turn out that the actual price would be less than that - you mention that the quote was given without opening it up, ain't it? But I agree it is a bit sloppy to quote without opening it up..... just IMHO and 2 yen.<br>

Sorry for your misfortune, and good luck!</p>

[alex_zepeda]

<p>Kent - perhaps patents explain some of the complexity, but certainly not all of the complexity. If you read through the disassembly, the Tamron is still easier to work on than the Nikon. Likewise, in the auto industry there's some precedent for major players to license technology from each other (Ford's licensed 21 of Toyota's hybrid patents). If patents are a major reason behind Nikon's expensive, slow repairs... perhaps the cost of licensing patents could be made up in faster turn around time, etc.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<blockquote>

<p> iFixit, for instance, rates the D600 as the ninth most difficult gadget to repair. The D5100 ranks #6. I didn't see any Canon equipment on the top 10 list.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Well, I took a quick look at that list. There are indeed two Nikon items and no Canon, but 6 out of the top 10 are various Apple products incluing the MacBook Pro, iPhone and iPad. It seems to be pretty good company to be among those top 10.</p>

<p>I have been a Nikon user for 36 years and have owned numerous cameras and lenses. So far, very few of them need repair, ever. As far as I am concerned, Nikon's reliability is excellent. Since 2002 when I bought my first DSLR in the D100, I have owned 8 different Nikon DSLRs and none has ever been repaired; none of the new lenses I bought in that same period has ever been repaired, other than the one I dropped. I have less luck with Nikon refurbished, but that is a different story.</p>

[Michael R Freeman]

<blockquote>

<p><em>I really doubt that Canon, Leica, Nikon, Sony, etc. look at their repair centers as potential profit centers.</em><br>

<em>-</em><br>

<em>Not sure that Nikon is looking at repair as a profit center, but it does seem to cost more.</em><br>

<em>-</em><br>

<em>I am sure Nikon doesn't try to make money from repair...</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>I think it is a wee bit naive to think that Nikon (and the other manufacturers) do not intend for their corporately owned repair centers to be fully profit driven enterprises, with the expectation of a healthy return (profit) worthy of the significant investments involved. Nikon USA's recent actions re: limiting parts sales should be clear evidence of that. Breaking even does not make business sense given the infrastructure required. They have millions of dollars of assets tied up in these repair centers. If they did not intend to make a reasonable return on those assets, they would simply invest those assets elsewhere, and contract out repair services to authorized independent companies (as they do in some regions).</p>

[Mary Doo]

<blockquote>

<p>I have been a Nikon user for 36 years and have owned numerous cameras and lenses. So far, very few of them need repair, ever.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's a good testimonial for Nikon Shun. Not counting those that needed to be repaired due to my own fault, the only one that I am having issue with is a D300.</p>

<p>I shot a lot of images with it and it started giving me random errors last year - something like the card cannot be written on (card error of some sort). But there was no problem with the card. If I changed the card, it would shoot a few and then give me that error again. I haven't used this camera since then. The other day I tried shooting with it (well, just several shots), it was fine.</p>

<p>So I am not sure what's the matter with it. I am not about to take it out for a real shoot, however.</p>

<p>Maybe the actuation count is way up? Hwvr, this is not a case of shutter failure. Any idea? </p>

[dave_wilson1]

1986 for me. I was a quite heavy user/abuser for about 11 years and had a few problems. Overall though mostly trouble

free. I've had four lenses with oily blades, one right now a 28mm AF-D, and one FM-2/MD12 combination that was a solid

nightmare, finally I dumped the pair of FM2s they didn't hold up to heavy use. N90 was extremely reliable, my son still

uses it in photo class, we just got a new eye piece. I still have a near pristine 400mm ED-IF f3.5 AiS that works flawless. I

have an original 85mm AF f1.8 that has been perfect since day one 1990?

[ken_i_h]

<p>Well, based on my business experiences, majority of manufacturers take into account the servicing cost in the future to the price of their product price. So, the matter should be only the staffing and the time. And it takes into account the assumption that people would come to Nikon repair center instead of other cheap street repair shop - thus no more parts supply to the outsiders. They just don't want to lose money. Why do you assume people are all evil and greedy?<br>

Personally, I have not experienced serious damage repair other than that I dropped my PC-E lens on the marble floor, but it was repaired very reasonably, and used lens to make sure everything is all right, which it turned out a bit of overhaul, which was very reasonable as well. </p>

<p>That is what I meant by "Nikon doesn't try to make or lose money here". That makes perfect business sense under the cost and pricing structure. If they make money repairing, they would be much better financial position today. </p>

[alex_zepeda]

<blockquote>

<p> And it takes into account the assumption that people would come to Nikon repair center instead of other cheap street repair shop - thus no more parts supply to the outsiders.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Except that's a false assumption, hence the problem. Take, for instance, a DSLR owner who wants to replace the melted grips on their camera. Before the anti-competitive move, one could call Nikon, spend about $10 and get new rubber pieces for DIY installation. That's not a precision part. It's not just grips, but other odds and ends. Screws, cosmetic pieces, tripod feet, etc. Now? Well, I'm assuming Nikon's cheapest repair category is well more than $10 (presuming they want to break even on repairs). What do you think costs Nikon more money? Shipping out a couple of rubber pieces or having to process a body, remove, clean, install new rubber pieces, check everything else, package it up, and ship it out? My money's on the former. Unless, of course, Nikon raises their repair rates (which they did right after they restricted the supply of parts). That *is* greedy and it wouldn't fly in any other industry.</p>

<p>In fact, in the automotive world, manufacturers are required to provide parts AND service software to end users. It ain't cheap (and some of the software is notoriously bad), but it IS available. Somehow, automakers are keeping up with the ever changing emissions requirements (a big reason behind the complexity and computerization of modern engines) and still turning a profit. To talk specifics, Daimler AG has a reputation for allowing customers to buy just about any part ever made (for a price). In contrast, take a look at Peugeot and their general indifference towards the American market. There's something to be said for keeping customers happy as a business model.</p>

<p>Now, as a consumer, I too don't want to lose money. So when I see that Nikon parts are more difficult (impossible) to obtain than Canon parts, I start looking elsewhere. When I see that Nikon repair costs are significantly more expensive, I factor that into how much I'd pay for a Nikon lens or body. When I see that you can no longer service the LCD separately from huge chunks of the chassis (see iFixit's teardown of the D600), I definitely think about how much I'll pay for something that's essentially disposable. </p>

<p>IMO, Nikon's being greedy but not particularly evil. My theory is that the high price of repair is due to the increased complexity of Nikon's gear versus the competition. Complexity makes it difficult for Nikon to achieve the same level of QC as Sigma or Canon on new equipment. This same complexity also means repairs take longer (and cost Nikon more than similar repairs cost the competition). But cutting off third parties? That's simply greedy.</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>The reason Nikon no longer supply the rubber outer surface to individual customers is because of safety concerns with the flash capacitor. Even if you take out the battery, the capacitor can be charged and someone could get hurt poking into the camera if they don't know what they're doing. In any case it is good to get the camera body periodically adjusted by an authorized repair center - certainly more often than you'd wear out the rubber skin.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<blockquote>

<p>The reason Nikon no longer supply the rubber outer surface to individual customers is because of safety concerns with the flash capacitor. Even if you take out the battery, the capacitor can be charged and someone could get hurt poking into the camera if they don't know what they're doing.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>If that were true, Nikon should continue to supply the rubber parts for the D3 and D4, since those DSLRs have no built-in pop-up flash. :-)</p>

<p>Part of the reason repair cost at Nikon Canada and USA is high is that they insist on returning the item back to 100% like new condition other than normal wear; that has always been the case even before they stopped selling parts to unauthorized shps. A few years ago strong wind blew over my tripod and the 70-200mm/f2.8 hit hard rock. Everything was still working fine except that the manual-focus ring was stiff, which I didn't even notice for two months since I was using AF almost all the time. Nikon USA wanted $450 to fix the focus ring and I immediately told them "no thank you."</p>

<p>The thing is that when you try to charge too much for repair, people will skip repairs that are not absolutely necessary and also find alternative repair facilities. Nikon USA cannot even stop gray-market items from entering the US. If there isn't already one, there is going to be a gray-market Nikon parts industry, importing parts directly from various areas in Asia. When there is need, there is going to be a way.</p>