Is your digital camera worth repairing?
We’ve all probably ended up with a broken camera at one point or another. Whether you’ve dropped it and broken the LCD screen, or the camera has simply taken on a life of it’s own and stopped taking pictures- camera problems occur for everybody. So, when your camera breaks does it make more sense to fix it, or just get rid of it and buy yourself a new one?
Freelance photographer Ryan Dlugosz detailed his personal encounter with Canon’s repair center on his blog. Dlugosz has a Canon 20D and was getting a “Err 99” message on his display. He was able to take a few pictures with his camera, but not many before the error message would come back.
In order to get the camera fixed, Dlugosz had to ship his camera off to Canon to get fixed. As he explains the process you sign up for service on Canon’s website, send your camera off for repairs, receive a estimate of what repairs could potentially cost, approve Canon to make the repairs, and then get your camera back. The entire process took two weeks for Dlugosz’s camera from start to finish. He submitted a repair request on December 31st of last year, shipped his camera on the 2nd, and had it back in his hands working (and with an internal cleaning) on the 15th of January. Total cost for the repairs: $180.
Read a detailed account of his experience here.
In the case of Dlugosz the price of the repairs was considerably less than what his camera was currently worth used. If you have camera problems and are considering repairs one of the first things you will probably want to do it look up your camera on Ebay or a comparable site and see what it might be worth to a buyer today. Sure it may have cost you $2k back in the day, but if you can buy one used for $400 now then you shouldn’t spend more than that on repairs.
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