Recommend a lens repairer please ?

John Young

John Young

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I photographed a wedding yesterday and was feeling unwell so I ended up dropping my Nikon 85mm on the floor. I had just been out on the grass but no I had to wait and drop it on a marble floor and it literally bounced :jawdrop: :oops: :$

The lens does not work and the aperture seems stuck shut

Anyone recommend a good lens repair please as its not something I have needed or used before :(
 
I always use Nikon at Kingston for Nikon repairs; I spend about £10,000 per year there so I guess I'm probably one of their bigger customers.

Turnaround times are typically 4 weeks, though I understand they are faster if you're a Nikon Professional Services member. (I'm not; I don't qualify.) The number of times that re-work is required is fairly low, and in line with what I experience from the other manufacturers' repair centres.
 
There's a good guy in Wootton under Edge in Gloucestershire too. His name is Don Clark. He has repaired a couple of mine. Did what he said at the price he said when he said...
 
horrocks said:
Could you elaborate please, as I was on the verge of using one or the other. Have you had bad experiences?

You can pm me if you are concerned about saying anything publicly. Would be grateful.
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No not PM put it on here as I would like to know to. But Stewart above has used them a LOT and recommends them so surly they can't be that bad
 
I recently used Fixation for a Nikon 70-300. Experience was excellent and I'd recommend them. They gave me a quote, which I accepted, but when they came to do the repair it turned out not to be as expensive as they'd anticipated and the final charge was a lovely surprise. Whole thing was very quick, too.
 
John Young said:
But Stewart above has used them a LOT and recommends them so surly they can't be that bad
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They're not THAT bad. But it's not an unequivocal recommendation.

From time to time they get something wrong and send a lens back in not-fully-fixed condition, but they're no better and no worse than the other manufacturers. From time to time their estimates are a bit out, but they can sometimes be too high and sometimes too low, and again their track record is comparable to the other manufacturers. (Except Sigma who seem to have fixed-price tariffs for most lenses.)

My biggest beef with Nikon service is that they're SLOW. My average turnround time is about 4 weeks. (For comparison: with Canon and Sigma it's about 10 days. All these times include two-way transit, so take off 4-5 days for that and you'll see that the difference in actual repair times is huge.) I also suspect they're quite expensive compared with Canon, but I've never crunched the numbers properly to look at that. (There are lots of confounding factors such as lens type, etc.) And any differences I might find could well be down to the designs of the lenses rather than anything else so it's probably not a very interesting comparison.

I would expect the costs at authorised service centres to be comparable; they're using the same spare parts and they have staff trained to the manufacturers' standards.

Independents are probably cheaper, but personally I'm not confident that these one-man-in-his-shed outfits can deliver the level of service that I want. I worry about their access to spare parts. I worry about their ability to test a lens 'properly' after it's been put back together. And I worry about their ability to support me when I most need it (eg Nikon at Kingston lent me a 800mm lens when they had problems getting spare parts for mine). But my needs are probably atypical. YMMV.
 
shapeshifter said:
Sendean near Farringdon tube station. http://www.sendeancameras.co.uk/

Nikon and Fixation are best kept away from.
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My mate just had his Tamron repaired by this shop. Second time its been repaired. The first was Fixation. Sendean were faster and a bit cheaper. It helps that i work a few mins from there though, so that did speed the overal process up, but they were still faster.

Only negative i can see is their prices are very high for secondhand lenses. This might not be a reflection on the repair costs though.
 
i have used aj johnstone in glasgow for my d300 and my 70-200 2.8
can recommend then
 
On experience Fixation are a little more organised then Nikon. The repairs from either are good. But the admin at fixation seems better. Both are about 15 minutes from home so I'd rather drop and then collect. Why, despite being asked not to, Nikon continually return by courier is beyond me
 
horrocks said:
Could you elaborate please, as I was on the verge of using one or the other. Have you had bad experiences?

You can pm me if you are concerned about saying anything publicly. Would be grateful.
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If you look at this thread you will see Fixation were adamant the sensor on my camera needed replacing as part of a repair. I took it to Sendean (I used them for repairs before) and I did not tell them that I had been to Fixation. Sendean examined the camera and said there was nothing wrong with the sensor in any way. I asked them if they were sure and they said "if after it was repaired the sensor was found to be faulty they would replace it free of charge".They (Sendean) repaired the camera in 8 days it was perfect and never needed a sensor at all.

The guy who runs Fixation left Nikon and set up Fixation.

I have friends who have used Nikon and I am confident they charge for everything they can in the guise of "well you want it right don't you" when it's not a necessary.

See link.

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/t...ement-suggestions-please.598316/#post-6978819
 
StewartR said:
I always use Nikon at Kingston for Nikon repairs; I spend about £10,000 per year there so I guess I'm probably one of their bigger customers.

Turnaround times are typically 4 weeks, though I understand they are faster if you're a Nikon Professional Services member. (I'm not; I don't qualify.) The number of times that re-work is required is fairly low, and in line with what I experience from the other manufacturers' repair centres.
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My lens is at Nikon but be warned I got mixed up with the whole fast track thing - I read the above wrong and thought "Great I am a member of the NPU scheme (Nikon Pro User Scheme) so I will get it fast tracked. But NPU and NPS are different and its NPS I needed for a faster repair. Maybe everyone on here already knows this but I did not and thought I would share in case it catches others out.

See below blog for more details

https://blog.dafyddowen.com/2014/03/04/nikon-npu-vs-nps/
 
Just an update to this thread. Lens was away about 2 weeks and it cost me £34 to get it all sorted and sent back and it arrived on the morning of a wedding
 
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