Think twice before purchasing 'grey' import camera equipment

Photography equipment is expensive. So it’s tempting to look for cheap deals on eBay or other discount websites which sell products imported outside the manufacturer’s official channels. But you should consider the warranty implications before grabbing a bargain.
For example, Canon Australia will only service genuine Australian stock under warranty. So if your new camera gets a ‘shutter assembly’ issue, then it will cost a small fortune to get it fixed if you take it directly to Canon.

Many online grey import sellers have their own warranty schemes. I’ve never had any experience with these, but one potential issue would be the time that your gear is unavailable while it gets shipped around to get fixed.

If you’re the kind of person who likes to take a risk on these things, let me share my experiences with you about Canon gear. In the past 3 years I’ve had to return the following to get repaired:

• Canon 40D – Died in the first couple of days with a reoccurring ‘Error 99’ issue. A circuit board needed to be replaced.
• Canon 40D – Stopped working in the first hour of a conference I was shooting with a ‘shutter assembly’ issue. It kept my camera bag company for the rest of the week.
• Canon 17-55 2.8 IS – The Image Stabilisation system died and made the most amazing noise.
• Canon 580Ex – A wire was pinched (or something like that) and the flash would not fire in sync with the camera.

I’d love to hear your stories about camera gear warranty issues. Have you had any success with grey importers honouring their service agreements? Has your camera gear ever failed at a critical moment?

Think twice before purchasing 'grey' import camera equipment