Extended Warranty

I've had a Nikon FTN for 30+ years and never had a problem. Now I buying
my first digital camera a D70 and they sell extended warranties. How
reliable are digital cameras? Is a 2year extension worth $184?

thanks in advance
$

 

I've had a Nikon FTN for 30+ years and never had a problem. Now I buying

Extended warranties are almost always a rip off.
Nikons never break down anyway, but on the off chance you bought a lemon,
this will show up in the first year.

 

www.jessops.co.uk has an excellent extended warranty. I checked on the
extension for a cheapie camera - the warranty was 15% more expensive than
the damned camera!

Agreed. Nikons never break down. Besides, by the time it's more than 2 or 3
years old, there'll be a newer, better Nikon along that you'll almost
certainly want to buy.

I'm not going for a digital SLR until the prices drop to something sensible!
Not when I can get the Panasonic Fz-10 for less than the price of a Nikon
35mm lens!

--
Yours

Zebedee

(Claiming asylum in an attempt
to escape paying his debts to
Dougal and Florence)

 

Agreed. Nikons never break down. Besides, by the time it's more than 2 or
3

I tend to be about 5-6 years behind and that keeps my costs down, My latest
body is a 5 year old F90x, which I just bought for GBP200, who knows, I may
well get a D70 by 2009.

 

Got you beaten there!

I had my first Nikon - an old FM that had been made in the 1960s. It was
running beautifully, when I bought it from a press photographer in 1990 and
is still running perfectly. To that I added a second FM and two motordrives.

These days though, I prefer digital as it's all so much lighter. My days of
sadomassochism with heavy camera bags are over, I hope.

--
Yours

Zebedee

(Claiming asylum in an attempt
to escape paying his debts to
Dougal and Florence)

 

I tend to be about 5-6 years behind and that keeps my costs down, My

You have. my best is my old F301, my second SLR bought when I was 14 around
15 years ago (I think it was about 2 years old then) It is still one of my
fave cameras and still going strongly. The only time it has seen the inside
of a repair shop is when I dropped it 15 feet off the top of a ladder onto
concrete, even then all it needed was a new focusing screen. (obviously the
lens was trashed).
I have to say that Nikons really do seem indestructable, I have owned 8 in
the past 15 years and I am a very clumsy person, and they have never let me
down.
I am considering going digital as the price of a good Digi SLR has now sunk
to a reasonable level. I am already semi digital, I just get my negs
processed then scan them, and do all my own printing, or take a CD to the
lab., so I suppose I am almost there.

 

I recall the F301. It was a camera I nearly bought secondhand when I made a
blunder and bought a Pentax Super A (horrible camera). In the end, I sold
the Super A after 9 months of abysmal service and several trips back to
Pentax. As I recall, I bought my FM in 1990. That means that I was offered
the secondhand F301 a year earlier in 1989 so it must have been out in 1988
according to my calculations. I could look at my Nikon history book but I'm
too lazy to go and find it.

I considered doing that too. In the end, the immediacy of digital is what
won. My scanner was abysmally slow so I'd have needed a new scanner. My 35mm
compact (compactness is why I went digital) was not quite as sharp as I
would have liked plus I needed photos for a work project. In the end, I
bought a cheap digital and took adequate photos then got interested and
bought a better one before finally selling that and getting my current Nikon
digital compacts. Both are 3 megapixel, which is adequate for my needs. Last
year on holiday I took 1,500 photos. Of the 1,500, some 1250 were excellent
and the remainder so-so. Now imagine doing that with film! I could carry all
those photos in a pack of memory cards in one shirt pocket and had the
camera in the other!

--
Yours

Zebedee

(Claiming asylum in an attempt
to escape paying his debts to
Dougal and Florence)

 

For the sake of being devil's advocate, I will contrast everyone here...
I used to work at Best Buy so I know the inner workings of these things...
(Feel free to yell at me or Best Buy.. I don't even work there anymore)

Seriously I believe the "extended warranty" is a rip-off. However please
note that extended warranties and other offerings (such as Best Buy's
"Performance Service Plan" (PSP) are extremely different. Extended
warranties cover manufacturer's defects. I have only found one in any of my
camera -- which occured on the fourth year. It's negligable so I still use
it to this day (shutter was a bit too fast -- chipped an extremely small bit
of the mirror -- in no way affects the prints). However a PSP, as well as
many other companies' versions of them, while covering the manufacturers'
defects, also covers many other types of problems. The most common in
digital cameras is the battery. A D70 (I haven't researched) probably has a
lithium-ion battery (or similar rechargable battery). After recharging over
and over, the battery wears out and eventually is useless. A PSP covers the
battery, so you don't have to pay for a new one. Often, the battery dies
after a year of normal usage. Then again, the battery's price is generally
around $20, so it's somewhat negligable. Best Buy's PSP is a 4 year plan, so
you're looking at about $80 in batteries. I believe (remember I don't work
there anymore) that the PSP is about $40. So that's where I put my stand.

Extended warranty = crap
Plan = good, sometimes

Just remember, the plans conver normal usage. This would include your
stupidity to slam (well not slam, but rotate too much) the zoom on an SLR
and turn it too far. On the Sonys especially, they cover the LCD screen
which is a touch-screen (very easily broken). So plans cover much more.
Generally, I agree, though. If it's an extended warranty, don't buy it. And
seriously, dont' by anything for nearly $200.

-- Matt

 

Warranties are a gamble -- manufacturers aren't offering extended warranties
themselves in most cases. Underwriters provide insurance; the bet is that
the majority of buyers will forget or be lazy about pursuing the warranty.
Consumer Reports statistics show that 80% of extended warranties are never
used. That's easy money for the manufacturer and the underwriter.

$184 is about 20% of the purchase price of the D70. Better than buying the
extension is to pay yourself (this only works if you are thrifty): during
the 3-year manufacturer's warranty, deposit $10 each month in a special
account. You'll have $360 to put towards repairs. Or a partial payment on a
new camera. Read the fine print.

 

The very topic discussed at
http://www.popphoto.com/article.asp?section_id=4&article_id=837