Lawrence Photographic

It Pays to Wait!


In the rush to own the latest, many photographers end up purchasing a new camera on pre-order and very often they become the victims of the first batch to be released from the factory floor. Camera technology is progressing at an alarming rate and in the consumer marketplace, a new model of any brand name is expected to hit the shelves every year.

It is a sad indictment that even with all their advanced technology, the camera manufacturers still manage to mess it up and release products that require firmware or recall fixes. Even worse, many photographers are prepared to accept these problems and pay out sizeable sums of money to live with them. I could list a number of well known brand cameras that have quality control issues and some problems are actually in the 'core design' which makes any form of repair nigh on impossible to fix. Where the problem can be re-designed and manufactured for new batches, the faulty ones in the field are not recalled unless a user forces the issue and demands a new camera.

Problems are not limited to consumer cameras, some very expensive cameras which have a 3 year turn around in models have design problems that are never rectified due to cost. Sometimes a variant of the original camera but with a different name emerges after 18 months, without the problem of course! The manufacturer continues to rake in the profits from this latest and greatest new camera.

When you visit the 'gear' forums there are a number of 'genuine' photographers who will share their problems about new equipment they have purchased and when cross checking on the Internet, you can soon build up a picture of how a new camera is performing. Fortunately the number of 'genuine' users outnumber the trolls who deliberately attempt to mislead by posting false information.