no canon products for me
 

Greetings:

I have spent the last week doing research in preparation of purchasing a cam. Yesterday I ordered a Panasonic ag-dvc30. So why am I posting here?

At the beginning, I was intent on getting a gl2. However, I wanted to get a feel for how gl2 users feel about their camera. I read a lot of positive remarks. But I also found a great number of extremely frustrated users who were having problems with their gl2's that could not be fixed, and were never going to buy another canon product. I've read many horror stories re: dealing with Canon customer non-service. I read a post given by a technician wherein he said that he loves gl2's because of the work/income they give him.

I felt that purchasing a gl2 would be a gamble in a very real sense. And that even if the camera worked fine there would always be a nagging worry in the back of my mind.

Gee, Jonathan--your first post on DV Info...interesting way to introduce yourself!

You must have read that somewhere else.(?) I looked around here and this is all I found:


At any rate, congratulations on your purchase, and welcome to DV Info.
(That's a beautiful print for sale on your site, btw.)

Lorinda:

I didn't mean to offend anyone. If I have, then I do apologize.

I tried to be fair and balanced in reporting what I have found. Why did I post? 1) An aid to others, like me, who are doing research on which video cam to buy. 2) A message to Canon that they lost at least one sale because of the way posts claim they deal with customers who have defective products.

I realize that we are not hearing Canon's side of the story. However, having read account after account where customers have experienced the same thing - it tells me there's something to it.

Yes, your right. The technician that I reffered to did not post on this forum. I found his post elsewhere last week, and I don't believe that he was a Canon employee.

Again, I apologize if my post offends anyone. If someone posted a similar message on a forum dealing with a product that I was fond of, I would not appreciate it. I should have realized that there are probably many die-hard Canon fans here. If I could remove this and post it somewhere a little more neutral, I would.

Disgruntled users, or buyers, or players, or hobbits, or whatever, are always the most vocal. There are statistical methods of compensating for this trend.

If you look at the thread titles of the places where you found these negative comments, you would see that they are threads devoted to negative experiences (ie Remove Cassette fix, lost at service center, my GL2 ate my child in the night). If there were a thread called, "How much I love my GL2, you would have a buttload of positive experiences. What can I say. If Canon were getting half of the cams back because of the tape transport, there would be a recall and a lawsuit. I have never been able to figure out how many they do get back (though some on this board have endeavored to calculate) but I think it's probably on the order of less than 1%.

As for how many GL2s have eaten children, that is probably in the hundreds of thousands by now. It's a real problem that they need to addressed.

DJ

Jonathon,

No apology necessary—at least not on my account. I’m not a die-hard fan of any brand of camera. But I do have a tendency to be (maybe overly) protective of this board and the young man who started it all, so your post simply concerned me a bit.

Additionally, if you look around this site--away from the forum--you’ll notice a history with Canon that goes back quite a few years. Yeah, this place has grown up a lot since then, and there’s never been favoritism here, but history is history, and I’m grateful.

That’s not a very clear explanation, but you seem good at reading between the lines. Thanks for your subsequent thoughts, and I hope I didn’t scare you away! :)

I bought my XM2s for the glass, the zoom and the split audio adjustments PLUS the cost - period. I decided to buy them because I was not aware of the tape issue. I suspect I would still have gone ahead, as in the UK I have some really strong consumer rights backing up purchasing decisions.

My experience is that behind me here, in wooden IKEA drawers, I've some 300+ 60 min premium SONY tapes; ALL my equipment - and I mean ALL, including my NLE deck and other decks - have been paid for from using the XM2 and I now have something of a growing customer base. How come? Well .. back in Nov '02 I bought a lowly priced XM2 which aided my understanding of this "craft", at a time when I needed to make some crucial work/life changes. Couldn't have done it without it! My guess is I may not be alone.

Grazie

Agree, the people with questions and problems post, the people without questions or problems re oput shooting or editing.

What is missing is the actual numbers. How many of any camcorder have been sold, how much use are they getting. How hard is the use? How skilled is the user?

Factors difficult to assess by web posts.

Thank you Lorinda. No, you didn't scare me away, you were very kind. In fact, after thinking (finally) about where I posted, I'm pleasantly surprised that I haven't received a backlash. Seems like a nice group.

However, I probably won't be posting here much...after all my questions will be re: a panasonic. : )

Best regards,

I trust you are enjoying the Panasosnic forums here at dvinfo.net.

Always good to read a success story like yours Graham. In reference to Jonathan's post, we should always remember that any manufacturing line can have a 'batch' of defective product get out the door before they discover the issue. Those units get spread out in shipments to different distributors and retailers and ultimately the end user. At this point, those who are unlucky enough to get one of those units will be scattered all over the place making the problem seem to be more of an issue than it actually is because the reports seem to come from everywhere.

Jonathan, you can rest assured that your Panasonic purchase will be just as welcome here as if you had bought a Canon. We have forums for your camera here and like Lorinda, I am a staunch defender of the sanctity of this forum and we keep it positive, and clean. That doesn't mean you can't post your negative experiences with a product. Just do so in a factual, non-ranting manner. We are all about 'accurate' information here.

regards,

-gb-

Thanks, Don. I'm sure that I will, but haven't received it yet. It should come sometime this week.

In my neck of the woods, it's the other way around:

Canon customer service is best while Pana's rock bottom...unless things have changed overnight.

The GL2 is a good cam, but the pieces are designed kinda bad. The lenses let dirt and dust in very easily, misfocuses a lot, and has many missing features that should be on a 2200$ camcorder. Overall my new purchase with a Sony HDR-FX1 is much much better over the Canon.

First complaint I recall reading about poor lenses with a dirt/dust issue? Is this a common complaint? Or the result of use in a harsh environment?

Which features do you feel are missing?

A point readers should consider is that "features" are how products differentiate from each other, and are usually engineered in or out based on the intended market and price point for the product. It boils down to a missing feature that a shooter will not use is not a missing feature for that shooter, just an unnecessarty frill that would drives up the price if included.

Just saw a thread the other day on our forum with the title, "Ants in my GL2 lens". I guess there must be a security breach on that lens somewhere but I confess I'm not a GL2 owner.

-gb-