Sunday, July 24, 2011

My Canon 50D is finally fixed! (I think)


This past March I sent in my beloved 40D for repair.  It was well out of warranty and the repair would cost about $250.  Canon has a great loyalty program and if you trade in your broken camera, you can upgrade to a refurb at a greatly reduced price.  So, I thought, why not upgrade to a 50D?  I would get 5 more megapixels, higher ISO capability and a high rez LCD screen.  I was psyched.


My camera arrived and I took it on my first shoot.  The images on the LCD looked amazing, I was in love, until I uploaded them to Lightroom.  I noticed noise at iso 100.  I had never noticed noise on my 40D.  I thought maybe I needed to adjust my settings.  I went back through the manual and made some adjustments and went on another shoot.  The result was the same.  The noise was very slight, but it was there.  If I had not experienced the great images I had gotten from my 40D, I might not have noticed.


I sent the camera in for evaluation.  I was a little surprised to even have an issue.  I mean, this was a Canon Certified Refurb.  It should have met "new camera" specs when I purchased it.  7 days went by and I received my newly repaired camera.  Canon said the focusing mechanism was out of register and they had made some adjustments.  Great, I thought, now I can love this camera too!


Wrong!  The images were greatly improved, but there was still noise at ISO 100.  I thought is it just me?  Am I expecting too much or am I crazy?  I met a friend for lunch and we swapped 50Ds so I could do a comparison test.  My results were pretty much the same as before.  I can still see noise!


So, I sent it back to Canon for another evaluation.  If they said it met their factory specs, I was going to sell it or trade up to a 7D.  I was not too happy to have to send it in for another check.  7 days later my repaired camera arrived and after doing some tests and shoots, I DON'T SEE ANY NOISE at ISO 100!  Yeah!  Canon said it replaced "defective components."  I wish they would say exactly what they did.  Anyway, I think my camera is finally fixed.  (I hope)



No comments:

Post a Comment