Refurbished vs Used

Biologyben · Post by **Biologyben** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 8:26 am

I'm looking to purchase a canon XT (350D) body. As a classic starving student with a similar budget (< $400) i'm looking at used/factory refurbished cameras from B&H, Adorama, KEH etc.

There is some risk in taking this track, which I understand, but i don't have much choice at the present. Is there any reason not to go with a refurbished item?

Benefits over used items being that all accessories would come with. battery/charger/strap/software/etc as this is not always the case with used items. Prices are about the same ($350 used, $400 refurbished).

Mike B in OKlahoma · Post by **Mike B in OKlahoma** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 3:24 pm

My Canon 1Ds, which has been my main camera for over three years, was refurbished. It's always been satisfactory. As I understand it, there are two sources for refurbished gear--The most common one seems to be equipment that was used as a display item in a product show such as Photokina. I've been told that some refurb items are equipment returned because of a defect that is supposedly fixed. I wouldn't be as confident in that, for fear that the fix wouldn't be permanent! Allegedly, all refurb items are individually checked for functionality before being sold, which is arguably a better QA measure than typical new items.

In addition to my 1Ds, I've bought a couple of refurbished lenses, and have been quite happy with all of them.

All the above refers to Canon refurbs from B&H or Adorama, I have no experience with other brands or sources. I'd be suspicious of a refurb item that wasn't purchased at a major camera store.

Epidic · Post by **Epidic** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 4:15 pm

MOST refurbished cameras are customer returns. Very few demo models are resold. Certainly "show" (at Photokina etc.) cameras are not sold as they are included in a department's budget and selling them would add up to a loss.

If your refurbished camera come with a warranty, I would not worry about it. Many returns are fully functioning cameras.

Mike B in OKlahoma · Post by **Mike B in OKlahoma** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 4:39 pm

Epidic wrote:MOST refurbished cameras are customer returns. Very few demo models are resold. Certainly "show" (at Photokina etc.) cameras are not sold as they are included in a department's budget and selling them would add up to a loss.

If your refurbished camera come with a warranty, I would not worry about it. Many returns are fully functioning cameras.

I'm not sure of that....B&H and Adorama usually have huge lumps of a variety of refurb lenses appear soon after the major photo shows. And staff at both stores have told me that certain batches of equipment were used as demos at those shows. It's possible they're scamming me to make the equipment appear more desireable, but I doubt it.

I think we agree that the possibility of getting a returned item is a significant one, though. And I'm actually not as complacent about that as you are! :-)

Epidic · Post by **Epidic** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 6:13 pm

Well, I worked for a major Japanese manufacturer of cameras. We never gave our show cameras to anyone to sell. Not that there are a lot of cameras used at a show. I doubt our competitors had different policies. There are very good reasons to keep that equipment.

As far as the vendors, I have no idea why they are telling you this. But why would Canon Europe import used equipment from Photokina to the US to sell? There would be great losses in that transaction - just think of the tax. They would simply save them for other purposes or sell them in Europe.

Epidic · Post by **Epidic** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 6:26 pm

One more thing. Lenses which stay in the catalog for a long time, what would be the point of selling them rather than wait for the next show to display?

Mike B in OKlahoma · Post by **Mike B in OKlahoma** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 7:02 pm

I'm repeating what I was told by the retailer about the products. Could quite well be wrong through accident or deliberate deception, I don't know. Speaking of which, do you know what happened to the cameras and lenses at your show after they went back to wherever they went back to?

The key point for biologyben is that I think (and if I understand you right, you think) that refurbs have the potential to be a good deal, based on our mutual experiences.

I'm at the limits of my knowledge here, so that's all I'll add to this discussion.

Epidic · Post by **Epidic** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 9:16 pm

Yes. The equipment is used by the marketing and service departments for sales and training. Since none of these "samples" will be sent to any department free of charge, it would be expensive to keep replacing them each time they need something.

As far as the design and manufacturing centers, all test production models are clearly tracked. If a department keeps one, the department is charged for it. The models returned are not sold, but destroyed as the tax system makes it more cost effective to throw away and write the stuff off than to sell it. I have seen buckets of lenses and cameras destroyed. They simply take them out back and smash them with a sledge hammer or poke a screw driver through the LCD screen, mirror box, and optics. I worked at one of these centers and I would agree with you that the waste is awful.

And I imagine you are thinking some employees may put one in their pocket, after all they are going to be trash. Well, the problem was some thought to profit out of this "garbage." Since that caused some problems, the disposal system is quite strict. Have you never wondered why there are no test production prototypes floating around on ebay? Thousands are made each year by all the companies, but none make it passed the gates.

Biologyben · Post by **Biologyben** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 9:26 am

Well...i bit the bullet and just finished paying for a Refurbished Canon XT with lens for $450. I here the lens is terrible, but for $50 more than the body alone, how could I not? As seen here

http://www.adorama.com/ICADRXTBKR.html

Since I already have over 6 gigs of SD memory, I purchased a SD to CF adapter to use instead of CF cards. Does anyone else do this?

I assume it'll be slower than CF alone, but I'm not going to be taking much in the way buffer crushing sequences anyway.

Thanks for the insight.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 10:00 am

Biologyben wrote:I here the lens is terrible, but for $50 more than the body alone, how could I not? As seen here

http://www.adorama.com/ICADRXTBKR.html

About the kit lens, opinions vary. http://photo.net/equipment/canon/efs18-55/ has an article you may find helpful. Its summary says "So for $100 you can't really go wrong with the Canon EF-S 18-55/3.5-5.6. ... It's a great "walking around" lens with the same angular coverage as a 28-90 lens on a film camera. It's small, it's light, it's cheap and as long as you know its limits, it's a good performer. "

I bought my 300D with the 18-55mm kit lens. I also bought the similar design 55-200mm zoom lens. At the time, it was the only way for me to get the total range that I was used to with my old film cameras and Tamron 28-200mm zoom. When Sigma came out with their 18-125mm zoom designed for EF-S mount, I bought one, tested it, liked what I saw, and haven't used anything else for a general purpose lens since. On the down side, it's quite a lot heavier than the kit lens. And of course neither of these lenses is very good for macro.

Since I already have over 6 gigs of SD memory, I purchased a SD to CF adapter to use instead of CF cards. Does anyone else do this?

Clever trick. Nope, I've never tried it.

--Rik

Biologyben · Post by **Biologyben** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 4:31 pm

It's here!

I'll admit, I was a bit worried to get a refurbished camera, especially when they are selling for the same prices as used ones.

I'd seen horror stories online about some problems with them, but so far, I like what i see. Unfortunately I left the transfer cable in the lab, so no images to post quite yet.

The lack of close focus is killing me! I'll put it on a bellows (with FD lenses

) in the lab to take care of that though

BTW, the cf adapter works great...tho it is slow. Transfer rate is marked in the box as 16 mb/s.

Thanks!

twebster · Post by **twebster** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 7:14 am

biologyben wrote:Transfer rate is marked in the box as 16 mb/s.

Just how much slower is this than a standard CF card? My Canon 1D MkII can accomodate 2 memory cards...1 CF card and one SD card. It's a pain to carry 2 types of cards and was hoping I could use the CF/SD adapter and only have to carry SD cards.

Biologyben · Post by **Biologyben** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 4:59 pm

It's hard for me to claim how slow, because i realize that i was expecting too much from the XT Buffer. I assumed it was the cards fault i could only take 3 pics in burst mode, but in fact it was the RAW+JPEG format in which i shoot

I've never used a CF card, so I don't have anything to compare it against.

I plug the cards into the CPU and not through the camera, so no word on that.

I notice that reviewing the images on the screen lags a bit, not sure if this is standard

The package says this (JOBO SD to CF II):

High access speed: transfers images, and data from memory cards to standard CF equipped device [sic], including Digital Camera and PDA. Fully compatible with CF type II specification standard. Host transfer rate up to 16.6 MB/sec. (PIO Mode 4).

It's working flawlessly for me and for $20 bucks, you might as well try it and see how it works for you.

Mike B in OKlahoma · Post by **Mike B in OKlahoma** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 12:18 am

Biologyben wrote:It's hard for me to claim how slow, because i realize that i was expecting too much from the XT Buffer. I assumed it was the cards fault i could only take 3 pics in burst mode, but in fact it was the RAW+JPEG format in which i shoot

I have no experience with the XT, but it seems to me that you ought to get more than three shots in the burst, even with RAW + JPEG. In the DPreview.com test, the tester got six shot bursts of RAW-only. JPEG might slow that down, but it shouldn't cut it in half, surely?

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos350d/page12.asp

Mike B in OKlahoma · Post by **Mike B in OKlahoma** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 12:24 am

By the way, 16megabytes/second (claimed for your adapter cards) is very high compared to the card speeds measured in the dpreview.com test further down on the page I linked above. My suspicion is that it is very optimistic.