My Canon 5D died the other day when I put what turned out to be a dodgy CF card into it. I have a quote for $937 Australian (about $820 US) from a local repair shop who have diagnosed a need to replace the 'circuit board' - parts $587, labour $350. I paid A$1100 for it, used of course, just 2 months ago. The repair shop are offering a 12mth warranty on their work. Is it worth getting a second opinion - could they be wrong about what needs to be done? Is there a possibility of a cheaper way to get the 5D back on the road? Would I be better off scrapping it and putting the money to a used Mark II (which would be a stretch financially)?
And what is a good strategy for preventing an event like this happening again - the card came with the camera, so it may be a fake San Disk Extreme III, but it had been working fine with the camera just half an hour before. I took it out to upload images via a card reader, when that didn't work I blamed the reader, and put the card back in the camera to upload directly from it, only to get no response - a completely dead camera. The card won't be read by anything, Mac or PC - luckily I have copies of everything on it bar the test and experimental shots I took that day. Should I blame the card, or is it likely that it is innocent, and something else fried both camera and card?