[toni-a]

Re: 55-200: Maybe you were very unlucky? I wish lensrentals would publish some statistics by manufacturers in terms of lens reliability since they have the data to do it. It's very difficult to gauge the quality of a maker objectively with only few anecdotal stories from users here and there.

Plus, it might vary quite a bit depending on the class of lens, lenses themselves and usage patterns.


As far as centering quality goes, lensrentals (again) provided graphs showing the performance of many samples of the same lens. Of course, they only do this for Canon (and maybe Nikon) and only for very specific lens models. Again, it's difficult to gauge how good/bad a manufacturer is without any solid evidence.


As far as customer service goes, it's an entirely different matter. A lens can be good and customer service might sucks big time. Conversely a lens can be crap, but customer service is great.

Customer service unfortunately doesn't depend of the brand but of the dealer, sigma service is excellent everywhere but here, canon service used to be great, now as the expert repairs guy at Canon has started his own business nobody wants to repair at Canon unless it is free under warranty and even then if problem persists lenses are taken to the expert guy who seems to be doing pretty well