Excellent UK repair service FZ1000

[Roger Gunkel]

I have been using a pair of FZ1000s for a couple of years for wedding filming and after filming a recent ceremony, turned the camera off. About 20 minutes later I turned it on again only to find it was completely dead. My first thought was battery, so tried both the battery and card on the second camera and both were fine. Luckily I had a spare HD cam that I always carry so it didn't stop any filming of the wedding.

The next day was spent trying to work out what was wrong and googling for other similar problems. The general consensus was motherboard failure as it was as dead as a dodo! The company I had bought it from didn't carry out Panasonic repairs but said they would send it off to Panasonic. I wasn't keen on that as my experience of manufacturers is that it takes forever to get things done. I found a company that had good reviews that and thought I would try them instead. As we had three weddings on the following weekend, I also decided to buy a new FZ1000 from Wex Photographic in Norwich who gave me a very good deal and next day delivery.

On the Monday, the faulty camera was packaged up and sent to the repair company and I received an acknowledgement email the Tuesday morning to say it had been received and I would receive an estimate as soon as they could examine it. My experience in the past has been a very long wait from repair companies, so I was somewhat taken aback to receive an email the next morning with an estimate of £58.80 including £9.80 for return postage. I had to pay the estimated cost up front and stipulate the maximum I was prepared to pay for them to go ahead without consulting me first in the event that they found other problems. I was a bit nervous about that but put in £150 which I thought was a reasonable amount in case their estimate was incorrect.

I then forgot about it completely until there was a knock on the door on the Saturday morning and there was the postman with a box on special delivery a.m. As the repair company had said that in the event they found the camera to be unrepairable they would return it, I expected the worst. On opening up the very securely packaged box and removing the bubble wrap and foam pellets filling, inside a sealed plastic bag was my camera in perfect working order. Not only that, but they had fixed a very wobbly fold out screen and completely cleaned the camera. Total cost?...... £40 labour, £9 p&p, £9.80 vat. Total £58.80.

Turns out the problem was a faulty power switch which didn't even need new parts. The repair is guaranteed for 3 month and I am completely delighted :-) HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

The company is DK AVS HORLEY LTD, website Digital Camera Repairs | Video Camera Repairs | TV Repairs | Camcorder Repairs

Roger

[Andy Wilkinson]

Great to know. Thanks!