That's more like it!

 

 

It seems I have had a change of luck! Today in the mail I got the following items:

1x replacement Canon EF-S 17-55mm IS

1x replacement Hoya Pro1D CPL

1x Samyang 8mm Fisheye

1x Transcend 16gb SDHC

I also received an email from ebay informing me I have been refunded in full for the Canon 70-300mm L that I was having trouble with!

Even more amazingly the Canon lens is the best copy out of the 5 I have had so far, focus still isn't perfect but it's the best I've tried, it gets it right a lot of the time and when it doesn't, recomposing the shot normally does the trick. At the very least it's better than no lens at all! Hopefully at least one day at Bristol balloon fiesta will result in some sunshine so I can really put the lens through it's paces!

The Samyang 8mm is quite remarkable, it's very sharp at f/5.6 and has excellent edge to edge consistency despite the incredible 180 degree angle of view! It's such a cheap lens in the scheme of things especially considering the ambitious optical design so I am very impressed that the quality control appears to be so good! It's not going to be a lens I can use every day and the novelty would quickly wear off but I get the feeling it will be well suited to taking photos of hot air balloons.

The Transcend is a great memory card and I already have one which has worked flawlessly for the past 8 months, they may be affordable but in my experience they are rock solid unlike Patriot and several other cheaper brands!

I'm still waiting for a spare battery but I will have access to mains electricity so I could probably cope in a worst case scenario, on the whole I am much better equipped for the trip to Bristol.

 

Now it just remains for either the weather or riots to ruin everything!

Losing the will to live!

 

 

It really starting to look like I won't have a decent lens to put on my 60D for the Bristol balloon fiesta at this rate! In my previous post I explained that I was having trouble with trying to buy a few high quality lenses.

My fourth copy of the Canon EF-S 17-55mm got sent back last week as it had a front focusing issue, I have just been informed the lens is out of stock and I will have to wait for a replacement to arrive which means only a 50/50 chance of it arriving on time and even then there's no guarantee it will be a good copy but anything at all would be better than nothing, I could use contrast detect AF in liveview if necessary I just need the lens to turn up in the first place!

The second lens is an even worse story, I purchased the new 70-300mm L lens from a supposedly UK based ebay seller who appeared to have a good track record but it turned out the lens was in HONG KONG! But that turned out to be the least of my worries, the lens arrived and was faulty, the zoom ring was almost seized solid and the image noticeably soft. I informed the seller who provided me with a UK return address. I paid a high price for express delivery with insurance however the next day the tracking informed me the delivery had failed as the recipient was not at the address! I messaged the seller again and they replied saying their UK agent was "in the process of relocating" !!!! What a complete joke! They seller than asked me to WAIT until the lens was returned back to me and then pay to send the lens back to HONG KONG!!!! I just cannot believe the absolute incompetence! It's also worth noting that the seller paid for the original import duty themselves but deliberately under-declared the value of the lens by some £700 to reduce the costs! I also discovered that the sellers ebay name is just a facade and that the supplier is actually one of ebays largest Hong Kong based sellers! They have no actual presence in the UK apart from someone to accept returned items but they are in the process of moving house! The worst part is that they charged what would have been a competitive price for a UK product but I ended up with a Hong Kong sourced item at a price that was much greater than any of the legitimate sellers in Hong Kong who are up front about where the item is!

Needless to say I had run out of patience so I escalated the ebay case I had already opened, it was obvious trying to settle the matter directly with the seller was completely futile. I now have to wait 48 hours for ebay to make a decision, fortunately if the seller provides the UK return address I can already prove I have tried to send it back, if the seller provides a Hong Kong address I am under no obligation to return the item because the seller misrepresented it's location in the first place! I get the feeling the seller was fully aware of this and that they were trying to stall for time until they had a genuine UK address for me to send the lens to so they could avoid a situation where I was not obligated to return the item.

It has been nearly three weeks since I first purchased the lens and there is no way on earth I will have a replacement in time for Bristol next week and even if I get refunded I would probably not have sufficient time to buy a lens from a different seller and receive it in time! I will have to use the trusty 55-250mm which has great image quality but the focus isn't quite perfect especially with fast moving targets, this was less of an issue with the 350D where a slight misfocus was not as noticeable but with the 60D and all it's pixels hungry for high MTF levels it's a lot more noticeable, I took the lens to an airshow last month and the shots that were in focus were fantastic, the lens delivers simply amazing sharpness for it's price but more often than not the images were just slightly misfocused, this was the main reason for purchasing the 70-300mm L!

Those two were just the main hair pulling frustrations of the month! In addition I bought the excellent Samyang 8mm fisheye, I thought it would be a great lens to use with hot air balloons and the price is very reasonable so I went for it only to be told "we apologise but this lens is currently out of stock and will be dispatched direct from the supplier in Poland" and guess what? That's right it's now due to arrive AFTER I leave for Bristol!

I was also optimistic enough to buy a CPL filter for the as of yet non existent 17-55mm, a relatively expensive Hoya Pro1D to be exact, that arrived the day after I paid and you can't go wrong with filters can you? Well you can if they arrive sealed but once opened have dust, smudges and a scratch on them! I can't even image how that happened unless the filter was a retuned item they tried to palm off as a new one! Needless to say it was another return case with the replacement due to arrive the day BEFORE I leave for Bristol, I wonder if it will arrive? I wonder if I will even have a lens to put it on?

I'm starting to get the feeling I might just take my NEX-5 and kit lens at this rate, it's not a prefect lens but it always focuses accurately so I would at least be able to concentrate on taking photos and not worrying about technical problems!

I will update you on my situation as soon as I have anything new to add!

 

Ebay nightmares: Canon EOS 350D and robsonic-fm

 

My 350d gave up the ghost recently so I decided to buy another body.

This seller had a tidy one listed, "perfect working order with no issues" and so on so I bought it.

The camera turned up without a dust cap on the body, the lens mount stuffed full of bubble wrap, the viewfinder was caked in dust and dead bugs etc.

Worst of all the focus confirm lights were all misaligned so far that they didn't even hit the boxes in the viewfinder, they were all too far to the right. As a consequence the lights do not hit the little reflectors/etched areas and the lights are so dim you could hardly see them unless you turned the lights off!

I emailed the seller and he claimed this was normal for ANY used camera.

He said it was a regular issue with this particular model, even though he said "no issues" in the description.

When I demanded a refund he told me he had found another body that "works correctly" at which point I said if this is the case then you were lying by claiming the first body isn't faulty.

I sent the camera back but he did not refund my original postage, on top of the postage to send it back I was £18 down.

I left him negative feedback and he sent me a ridiculous threat about taking me to court (he must have heard that silly story in the news a few years back) he then sent me a request to change my feedback which I denied!

Then he sent a request to cancel the transaction, that option is supposed to be for when an item gets lost or damaged and cannot be sent, he stated to ebay that I had "changed my mind" he was obviously trying to get his selling fees back but seeing as he ripped me off I immediately cancelled his request. He then accused me of being a scam artist, I pointed out that to scam someone you need to make money from them, not buy faulty goods and not get all your money back.

He has now sold the camera to someone else even though he still possesses money I paid towards it. The new owner left positive feedback but I emailed them and told them the situation, they said they had not fully checked the camera over but now it seems they have realised it is faulty too!

In the meantime, someone else has bought a camera from this guy that was faulty and he has accused the buyer of damaging it himself and is refusing to refund him!

Basically this guy is dishonest, arrogant, hostile, unprofessional and very poorly informed in terms of legal matters and distance selling rules etc.

He tries to pass off physical damage and malfunction as "normal wear and tear"

AVOID THIS SELLER!

robsonic-fm

Named and shamed!

Ebay nightmares: Soligor 200mm F/4 T2 mount

You know the scene, browsing soon to end items on ebay, you catch something that's really cheap so you put a bid in and cross your fingers. I won this lens for next to nothing BUT I only bid on it because the seller described it as in good working condition, I know a few pound isn't much but it's the principal that counts surely? I wouldn't have paid a few pennies for it if I had know how it would turn up!

Was there fungus? No

Was there a stuck aperture? No

Scratches? No

Stiff focusing ring? No

So what am I complaining about?

I would have to say that the front element is rather loose to put it mildly!

So, I says:

"Hi there, Just received the lens but there seems to be a problem, the front glass element is completely loose and rattling around, it looks like it could fall out at any moment. I'm not trying to say you sent it knowing it was broken but obviously the lens is unusable in this state and I would appreciate your thoughts about that to do. Here is a photo of the lens:"

And he says:

 "Hi ,I thought it was packed all right with it being in the case aswell.the postal staff must had a game of football with it.When I offered it for sale & indeed packed it there was no rattle or problem, if yo look at my feedback record ,you might assume that I am very fessy about what I sell ,this is clearly a transit problem.Either you or I must make a claim from the post office,Ive a feeling it might have to be me even tho it cost a pitance ,in any case keep the lens etc as evidence.There is no point in sending it back because of the cost involved but I can assure yo I wouldnt send out a faulty piece of equipment esspecially for a measly £2.00 Let me know your thoughts"

Pittance? Measly?

 

How rude! It was enough money for him to bother selling it in the first place! I cannot express enough how I know it really is a tiny sum but the principle remains that if I had known the lens was faulty I would not have paid anything at all. There is no way on earth that the element popped out by itself and on closer inspection of the sellers photos all seemed to show the lens side on, how convenient. I asked the seller to go ahead and ask royal mail for a refund but I never heard from him again so in due course I gave him a negative feedback for his efforts. If everyone in the world decided customer service was not an issue if an item only costs a small amount the world would be in a right mess. He called my money measly and a pittance yet he was unwilling to refund me! Hopefully in future he will realise that the key to being a professional ebayer is to treat all customers with respect and gratitude, even if they do only spend a measly amount.