Mack Camera, A Good Place for a Camera Warranty

Normally I’m not really big on extended warranties. Most of the time I find them to be too expensive and something that I never use. Oftentimes when you buy a technology based product, by the time it breaks, technology has advanced quite a bit and you’re in the market for a new product anyways. But there is one place that I make an exception for me personally and that is for a camera warranty.

On both my new Canon 5D Mark 2 as well as my previously purchased Canon 5D I bought a three year extended warranty from Mack Camera. There are a number of reasons why I bought these warranties. First and foremost I use my camera very heavily. I’m sure much more than the average consumer. To the extent that warranty prices are made of averages, in general, I’d say if you plan on using something much more than average you might want to consider a warranty beyond what the manufacturer provides.

I use/used both my old 5D as well as my new 5D Mark 2 every single day. I put far more wear and tear on them than average.

Another reason why I bought warranties on both of my cameras is that both cameras were pretty expensive when I bought them — between $2,000 and $3,000 at purchase. If I’m buying a $100 tech toy, a warranty is probably not necessary. But if I’m buying a camera this expensive, I like having the insurance, so to speak, in case something does go wrong. Digital cameras have *a lot* of moving parts. There is a lot of room for things to go wrong.

I will say that when I bought my original Mack Camera warranty on my old 5D, in the back of my mind I wondered how well it would be handled if I ever had to use it. Certainly I took far more frames on my old 5D than the 100,000 rated frame life. By the time I sent it back to Mack Camera for repair it really was on its last legs. It wouldn’t power up. I couldn’t shoot any photos faster than 1/250th of a second. The internal battery was dead. I was missing most of the screws in the bottom of the camera. It was pretty much toast.

I’m happy to say that despite my heavy, heavy use (some might even argue abuse), Mack Camera did a fantastic job handling my camera and honoring their original warranty. Other than a $10 charge to pay for shipping, I did not have to pay any money associated with my repair order. Mack Camera consistently kept me in the loop regarding my camera. They could not repair the camera there at their shop due to corrosion that had taken place inside the camera, so they sent it back to Canon for repair.

And then last week I received my repair back from them. It wasn’t my old 5D, it was in fact what looked like a brand 5D or a maybe a refurbished one — but whatever the case it was in *great* and near perfect condition. I’m assuming that as broken as my old camera was that it was simply cheaper to send me a new or refurbished unit than to actually repair it.

I was very pleased with the service and communication received from Mack as well as the end result from my experience with a warranty with them. I’m glad that I got another Mack Warranty on my new 5D M2, and I’d highly recommend Mack to anyone else considering an extended warranty on their digital camera.

It’s not every day that we get to say “good job” and thanks for the great service to a company. Most of the time we’re (or at least I am) happy to bitch about things when they go wrong, but sometimes things don’t always get the same attention when they go right.

I wanted to write this blog post up on Mack Camera today because I think it is an example of a company doing things right and I was pleased with how they handled my repair order.

I’m also going to take a few minutes later today to repost this positive experience over at reseller ratings, where people can rate their experience with Mack.

If you want to find a dealer to purchase a Mack Warranty on your own camera, you can do so here. I know that Mack Warranties are available on most, if not all, cameras from both Adorama and B&H Photo at the time of purchase. Also, as a reminder, if you order a warranty from Mack, make sure that you register your warranty on their web site within the first 30 days of purchase.

On another note, I’ve gotten lots of inquiries regarding my old Canon 5D and whether or not I’d want to sell it. I think that I’m going to keep it though. As much as I *love* my new 5D M2, I think having a good back up body is important and my old 5D is an excellent backup body. Also my wife likes to go out shooting with me a lot and it will be nice for her to use the 5D instead of my old 10D that she was using before.