Under the new laws introduced after january 2011 for goods purchased after january 2011 it might be possible to ask how long would it be reasonable to expect the good to be serviceable. For an L lens it is probably more than a couple of years.
Recently I also became a victim of the dreaded 24-105L failure.
I was totally underwhelmed by the response I received from Canon. As well as having to pay a $50 deposit for them to assess the problem, we would be without the lens for 3-4 weeks; pay for packaging and freight both ways then fork out $600 or more (their ballpark estimate). No, I couldn't talk to a technician.
Next I rang the Camera Service Centre as recommended by William. They were very friendly and helpful. Yes I could talk to a tech who estimated $380 and a time frame of about a week depending on freight times.
Finally I asked the guy at Camera Tech in Brisbane when I was dropping in with two camera bodies for cleaning. He quoted $330 and a turn around of one day.
I picked up the two bodies and the repaired lens the next day. The feel of the zoom operation is better than it had ever been in the eight and a half years I'd had this lens prior to the repair. The barrel no longer extends by itself if the lens is pointing down. The tech said that the fault was not just the ribbon cable and that the new part is a substantial improvement on the old one.
Because I live near Brisbane, it worked out a lot better to have the work done at Camera Tech but, if I lived near Sydney, I would certainly have given the job to the Camera Service Centre.
could somebody please define what the difference is between a "kit" lens and a standard lens
A “Kit Lens” is a term used in marketing and promotions to describe a lens or lenses which a sold in a “bundle” with a camera.
Sometimes this lens is only available in ”the kit” (i.e. NOT sold as separate item).
In recent times the “kit lens” is a ZOOM lens as opposed to times gone by where the “kit lens” (as one example) was an inexpensive 50mm PRIME Lens.
Two recent examples of a “Kit Lens” are the EF-S 18 to 55 F/3.5~5.6 IS for an APS-C Canon DSLR and the EF 24 to 105 F/4L IS for the 5D Series of cameras – you will see these lenses sold as “kits” with the respective cameras.
A ”Standard Lens”, is more a technical term and refers to the lens being a “standard focal length, for the particular camera format. That is to say the lens represents approximately the Field of View of the naked eye. For example on a 5D that is around a 50mm Lens and on an APS-C Camera around a 30mm lens.
A “Standard Lens” can be a Standard PRIME Lens or a Standard ZOOM lens. The examples above are standard PRIME Lenses.
A “Standard Zoom Lens” has a range of focal lengths around the standard prime for that camera format: for example on a 5D a Standard Zoom Lens would be the EF 24 to 70F/2.8L and on a 70D a Standard Zoom Lens would be the EF-S 17 to 55F/2.8 IS.
Note also that the two “Kit Lenses” mentioned above can also be described as “Standard Zoom Lenses”.
A "Standard Lens" is also referred to as a "Normal Lens".
A lens wider lens than a “Standard Lens" is termed a “Wide Lens” or a “Wide Angle Lens” and a lens longer than a "Standard Lens" is termed a “Telephoto Lens”.
There are nuances of description such as “Ultra Wide Angle”, “Short Telephoto”, “Medium Telephoto” and “Super Telephoto”.
There is an old type of lens termed a "Long Lens" - which is a very special type of "telephoto lens" and the term "Long Lens" is sometimes misused to mean a "Telephoto Lens".
Note that the lens’s description should (but often doesn’t) relate to the Camera’s Format: for example the EF 50mm F/1.4 lens is a “Standard Lens” when it is mounted on a 5D, but the same lens acts as a “Short Telephoto” when it is mounted on a 70D.
WW
A good, thorough explanation William.
It is also my understanding that, for marketing/ supply reasons, kit bundles are often split with the lenses being sold as "white box" lenses at a lower price than the regular Canon/Nikon... labelled box lenses. This seems to impact on cashback offers and warranty in some countries.
A local grey importer offers the "standard" boxed version of the Canon 24-105mm f/4 L IS lens for $943.70 & the "kit" version for $885.85. Under the latter they note: "This a kit lens & may not come in a box or may come in a plain, white box. It may not include a manual. Includes Front & Rear Caps as per the standard version. Full warranty applies." No mention of the soft pouch, software disk etc you get with the "standard " version of the lens.
They could well be identical lenses marketed differently.