Hi all,
This seems to be a stupid question. However, a friend of mine had the following experience. He was looking for an S2 with the four lenses and since there are shortage of any Leica items in Hong Kong, he bought those so call parallel import (grey market) goods with one S2 body and three lenses. He was told by the store keeper that the system was brand new with boxes and all papers.
He took a few shots that evening and when he examine the image files, he suddenly realize the file number started at L10096xx. He stopped his payment and return the camera and lenses the very next day since he think this is a pre-owned camera. Although he did not lose anything but he has a bad Leica experience.
So may I ask here what is the first image file number your S2 wrote to your first image with the camera? Will this L10096xx normal as a random configuration or this was a real pre-owned item?
Please advise.
Bobby
Hi Bobby,
I had a similar experience with my first S2 and verified this with my dealer and Leica directly as well. They both told me that the camera is brand new. For them it looks like that they forgot to reset the camera after quality control.
Even it is somehow curious you do not know what kind of QC they are doing. I do not think that they have done 9k shutter releases to test if the camera is working properly. Maybe part of this is renaming of files as well.
A lot of guessing. But I could not imagine that Leica would do stuff like selling used or refurbished S2’s as new ones. That would be a little bit to stupid for a camera maker selling cameras with this price tag.
Cheers,
PeteIt is just about impossible to buy a new Leica camera with 0 shutter actuations, as Leica tests every body in their factory before it is shipped. While there is no way to verify the number of shots on an S2 body, I can say from experience that M9 cameras ship with between 50-150 shots already taken. Additionally, we (at Dale Photo & Digital) check every single S2 that we ship out for any defects or irregularities and will fire off a few frames as well to verify that everything is working properly.
When buying a new S2 I would be less concerned with the starting file name, and more so with the condition of the body and packaging. If the battery is still freshly wrapped in plastic, the neck strap still properly put away, and everything appears undisturbed, you are the owner of a brand new S2.
Hi all,
Many thanks for the information. In fact I did not look at the file number when I first received my S2 (my S2 file number start from L100068x). It is because the trading business is base on trust. But in certain area, Asia for example, buying expensive items need to pay extra attention. There are lots of authorized dealers selling grey market goods at the same time. There is no harm if one bought a grey market product and have service support from the shop. But buying buying products with unknown sources is the last thing a consumer would like to face!
In Japan, there are camera shops selling re-packed pre-owned cameras, these cameras are like brand new since the people who bought it may only wants to try it out and after a few days, usually with a week, sell it back to the shop at a discounted rate. These shops always alert their customers that the equipment they sell are pre-owned item but in new or almost new condition. In some cases, camera stores owner from other country will buy these equipment and resell them as new grey market item.
So to conclude this issue, the best place to shop is the authorized dealer with proper paper work and invoice.
Bobby
Pete Walentin;1349 wrote:
Even it is somehow curious you do not know what kind of QC they are doing. I do not think that they have done 9k shutter releases to test if the camera is working properly. Maybe part of this is renaming of files as well.Putting on my “Retired Computer Systems Designer” hat for a moment…
There are a lot of innocuous ways this might happen. One that comes to mind is that manufacturing post-assembly tests that work at a computer “bit” level might leave the counter in a random state and later someone accidentally skipped the “reset count” step. With such small production runs building an elaborate infrastructure to prevent this is not economic compared to a simple manual checklist.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.