Greetings etudiant ...... Did the repairs on your original unit fail and thus the purchase of replacement or was it some other reason?
That is strange to get a two year old unit from B & H considering they are a high volume seller. I think others have reported units just a few months old when purchased new. Maybe yours got stocked on the wrong shelf and they just found it.
Anyway, do you see any differences in the new compared to the old?
Hi BruceH,
Sadly, the repair did not stick, just as you suspected.
The IS unit is again not responding reliably, sometimes it engages, most times it does not. The glass only got lithium batteries, no NiMH rechargeables, but the same glitch as before.
Last time, I had to send the unit in several times to try to get it effectively repaired, even escalating the issue to the Chairman of Canon USA.
Certainly the service center did their best to respond and to make a lasting repair, but it lasted only 7 months, a month past the guarantee time.
At $512 per repair, it is not worth trying getting it fixed again, any savings are offset by the aggravation involved. I just bought a replacement instead.
Re the age of the unit, probably not that surprising. B&H recently downsized their binocular and scope sales space. They shifted it from a dedicated windowed room on the ground floor at the corner of 34th St and 9th Ave to a
portion of the camera lens and accessories counter in the windowless second floor camera sales space. That suggests insufficient traffic/turnover to justify the premium space and so perhaps they are now selling New Old Stock, especially if the rumors the 10x42 is out of production are correct
Regardless of the production date, the glass is fine, still color neutral and still sharp, but clearly a smidge brighter than my 2007 original. If there is a difference in FoV, it is tiny.
Looking back at the lessons learned, I wonder whether repair is the problem keeping Swaro and Zeiss from offering a competitive IS unit. These firms highlight their long term service commitment, but fixing 10 or 20 year old mechano-electronics components would be a whole new world for them.
So perhaps Canons IS will remain a nearly unique feature, at least until the Chinese offerings arrive.