Bulbous, Not Tapered

Some time ago, I wrote about my Canon A70 digital camera failing, and the subsequent replacement adventures I went through. It turns out I wasn’t the only one, the problem was quite widespread and affected several manufacturers. The fiasco is documented in excruciating detail at imaging-resource.com, and Canon has published a service notice on the A70 product page.

The short of it is that Canon is offering to repair affected cameras at no charge regardless of warranty status. Call them up, mention the service notice and that you’d like a free CCD evaluation. They’ll ask you to go through some troubleshooting steps and if it looks like you have a bad CCD they’ll fix it for free (even covering shipping costs in both directions, which never happens).

I’m very impressed with how Canon has handled this. I experienced short hold times, and got no hassle from the phone techs. I was assured that the evaluation and shipping would be free even if the factory techs found that my camera’s problem wasn’t covered by the service notice, so I didn’t feel nervous about sending it in at all. It took about two weeks to get my camera back in good repair, and I think they fixed a slight mechanical problem with the lens cover for free as well. It’s great when a company takes a bad situation like this and turns it into an opportunity to provide great customer service. Kudos to Canon.

Anyway, now I have an extra camera. I think that the A70 will be handed down to Fio, so he can continue to develop his film portfolio.