p.2 #1Which lens company has the best support or service?
RCicala wrote:
My personal feelings, based on the last couple of years (because service changes a lot over time, what was awesome in 2012 may be terrible today, and vice versa). Also this is in the US -- things vary greatly from country to country.
Thanks for the info! Since you have a larger pool of experience with this than, like, the rest of us combined, this is a very useful post.
The thing I'm most curious about here is Voigtlander. Your comment on boutique lens makers in general is exactly what I would expect (good luck if you backed the new Trioplan on Kickstarter). But I would've expected Cosina to not be in that category since they make (and I would've guessed "repair") almost all of Zeiss's lenses. I guess this means Zeiss runs their own repair facilities?
p.2 #2Which lens company has the best support or service?
Lee Saxon wrote: RCicala wroteMy personal feelings, based on the last couple of years (because service changes a lot over time, what was awesome in 2012 may be terrible today, and vice versa). Also this is in the US -- things vary greatly from country to country.Thanks for the info! Since you have a larger pool of experience with this than, like, the rest of us combined, this is a very useful post.
The thing I'm most curious about here is Voigtlander. Your comment on boutique lens makers in general is exactly what I would expect (good luck if you backed the new Trioplan on Kickstarter). But I would've expected Cosina to not be in that category since they make (and I would've guessed "repair") almost all of Zeiss's lenses. I guess this means Zeiss runs their own repair facilities?
I don't know exactly what Zeiss repairs where, and I'm pretty sure it varies depending upon which line we're talking about.
p.2 #3Which lens company has the best support or service?
Something to keep in mind with respect to the speed of repair is whether the lenses are designed to be serviced separately, by a group of trained people (e.g. Canon, Nikon, most other AF glass manufacturers), or whether the lenses need to be fully inserted back into the production line for any repair/adjustment (e.g. Leica, possibly Zeiss depending on complexity).
I'm actually curious on RCicala's feedback on the following assumption: current AF lenses are designed to be more easily serviced and simply have whole functional chunks or assemblies replaced in one go, whereas MF lenses are harder to service and repair if it's anything beyond a simple focus adjustment or the like. True or false, from your experiences?
p.2 #4Which lens company has the best support or service?
Sam_W wrote:
I'm actually curious on RCicala's feedback on the following assumption: current AF lenses are designed to be more easily serviced and simply have whole functional chunks or assemblies replaced in one go, whereas MF lenses are harder to service and repair if it's anything beyond a simple focus adjustment or the like. True or false, from your experiences?
His teardown reports do speak to some trend toward modular design, one of the side effects of which I believe is the line about Sony being more expensive to repair than replace because you can't just take out on piece. Chances are this makes them simpler and cheaper to manufacture in the first place though.
p.2 #5Which lens company has the best support or service?
Sam_W wrote:
Something to keep in mind with respect to the speed of repair is whether the lenses are designed to be serviced separately, by a group of trained people (e.g. Canon, Nikon, most other AF glass manufacturers), or whether the lenses need to be fully inserted back into the production line for any repair/adjustment (e.g. Leica, possibly Zeiss depending on complexity).
I'm actually curious on RCicala's feedback on the following assumption: current AF lenses are designed to be more easily serviced and simply have whole functional chunks or assemblies replaced in one go, whereas MF lenses are harder to service and repair if it's anything beyond a simple focus adjustment or the like. True or false, from your experiences?...Show more →
Well, for me false. MF lenses are pretty straightforward mechanical beasts. AF lenses are more complex inside. But that's my experience, I expect the factory repair center feels differently.
One other thing to remember - most factory repair centers aren't staffed by engineers. They're filled with low wage people doing fairly repetitive tasks over and over. The modular replacements are fairly simple and straightforward to do, whereas a disassembly to replace one part deep in a lens can be complex and time consuming.