Everyone is so different. I was reading replies to my reposted, "Lonely hunter...." post this morning and baffled at how many people rushed to defend the practice of always traveling with their spouse. The not doing of which was part of the whole point of the post. But Ted Lasso and B. reminded me not to be so judgmental so I guess it's just a different perspective from mine. Or I'm more selfish than most people. Which makes sense given my enormous sense of personal entitlement. You want to have company while you shoot? Go for it. Life is too short to slavishly hew to someone else's dictates. Or suggestions. Or something. Just know that your work will most likely suffer. But if you're okay with that.....
On a sad topic: You know that icky feeling when you're trying to get out of the house to make it somewhere on time and you're juggling your keys and your sunglasses and your regular glasses and a few other stupid items like your cellphone and you feel that camera strap slip through your hand? And a microsecond later gravity introduces your camera, or your camera and a favorite lens, to the hard reality of a Saltillo tiled floor?
And maybe it even bounces once or twice? And you're just ...... instantly deflated.
A few questions for the Universe...
Why is it that cameras never accidentally drop onto soft, padded carpeting?
Why is the fall of a camera nearly always from waist level or higher?
Why is it never our cheapest "beater" camera that takes the plunge?
Why is it always our newest, shiniest and most cool camera that impacts the hard tiles?
Why do we make the (unconscious) decision to let the camera slide instead of that pair of cheap sunglasses?
So, B. and I were leaving the house to go out for lunch on Saturday. I was juggling too much crap. I was just about to the door when I realized that my grip on my camera was only (tentatively) on the actual strap and not on the camera body itself. And the strap was slipping through my fingers because I just wasn't paying attention correctly, or at all.
The camera slid down with about two feet of uncontrolled trajectory and hit squarely on the hard surface of the Saltillo tiled floor. I looked down at my nearly new Leica Q2 and sighed. Just sighed. It's been, literally, over a decade since I've personally engineered a camera taking a nose dive from altitude to absolute, unrelenting ground level. I'd like to chalk up the blame to having use a faulty Black Rapid strap but I would never buy or use one on my own cameras; I only gift them from time to time to my least favorite competitors. As mean gag gifts. It was really just a matter of me not paying attention.
I expected the worst. A complete totaling of the wonder camera. But --- Thank goodness --- I had placed a cheap, thick leather half case on the camera the week before and that absorbed most of the energy. There are two tiny spots on the lens hood that now have no paint. About the size of a pin prick. The camera fired right up when I tested it. And, after lunch I came back to the office to shoot some test shots and make sure there was no mis-alignment of the lens or the sensor.
I dodged a bullet this time but I gave myself a severe talking to and in the future might take the painful step of hot gluing the camera strap to my hand before venturing out.
Couldn't be the Canon G15 or the old Alpa? Nope. Had to be the newest Leica in the small flock.
Relieved that I don't have to send it away and wait. That's what passport renewals are for.......
Pro tip: Don't drop your camera. Especially don't drop it on hard stuff. It's not fun
Pro tip #2: In that moment of relief that the camera has survived be sure not to share your sense relief with your spouse too quickly. Had I dragged out the drama I would have had a better excuse to upgrade to the Q3. Now that extra rationale has been vacated. My mistake.
22 comments:
Years ago a colleague, after months of internal debate, decided to spring for the latest Nikon. No laughing matter either: on our salaries it was a significant expense. A few weeks after its arrival, he brought it into work. When I came into his studio, he handed it to me with pride. I grabbed it with one hand, hefted it and promptly dropped it from hip height onto the concrete floor. I immediately assumed I'd be buying him another one that very day but no, the camera was fine. We did all the tests and were both amazed. Later his spouse thanked me for breaking the invisible 'be careful; don't touch it' aura around the camera.
Knock on wood but I have never dropped a camera. I did slip on a wet rock when I was birdwatching in Hawaii. My Leica binoculars around my neck slammed into the rock first and then my hand. The binoculars were undamaged but I wound up in the ER with a sprained wrist. Spent the rest o the trip with a wrist brace but had fun watching for the look I got when asked what happened and I replied "birdwatching accident".
Wait, what? My last (only?) camera drop was on a carpet, with a happy landing and ending. It can happen.
Funny thing is that the studio has foam padding on the floor. About 3/8th inches thick. We've dropped stuff there and never worry about it. This just had to happen on the hardest surface we have.... Lesson learned? Doubt it.... Not that smart.
Since it was a Leica, that now has two tiny pinpricks on it, you can assume the resale value dropped by about two-thirds.
KEH camera has two or three CLs for sale, all rated "excellent," which is one of their lower ratings, but still apparently in pretty good shape. May have a couple of pinpricks on them. They're going in the $600 range. I am NOT going to buy one. I was looking out of simple curiosity.
Hi JC, both micro blemishes are on the Q2's lens hood. I can easily replace that, if need be, for about $80. The current value of a used Q2 in excellent shape is about $4800. About an 18% drop in value over a nine month period. The Leica CLs that you mention at KEH (I went to check, anxious to buy a $600 digital CL) are actually 40+ year old Leica CL film bodies. Not digital CL bodies. The CLs I have seen lately have actually gone up in value since last year. Partially due, of course, to inflation but also because of scarcity and because they are very nice cameras. Should you actually find an excellent condition digital CL for the prices you mentioned please buy it for me and I'll instantly reimburse you and then add a 10% finder's fee for your efforts. Facts are so pesky.....
If you'd been wearing one of those sexy bandolier straps none of this would have happened :)
John Abee, dream on. The only camera strap-driven camera fatalities I've heard of in years are cases of cameras detaching from those "sexy" bandoliers and hitting the pavement. I think I would have fumbled any camera with any strap if I didn't use the strap....
Don't defend those inferior strap choices. some poor photographer might take your advice and end up with an economic catastrophe on their hands...
You sure you didn't "accidentally" drop the Q2 so you'd have an excuse to buy the Q3? I'm only asking...
Biro! Shush. Not out loud. B. might be reading....
In my case, a camera is never properly broken in until I have dropped it...
I like wrist straps.
Well lets see, dropped a Nikon F while trying to jump into a moving car. I was photographing a hostage situation when all hell broke loose. Nikon survived to shoot another day. Fell down a slippery rocky cliff with my Nikon D700. It had some scratches but it too survived. Me however got some nasty cuts and a twisted knee.
When the chips are down, I'll always go for a Nikon. I wish I was as tough as they are.
Eric
I should have known the price was too good to be true. That even occurred to me at the time, but I didn't further investigate. To make up for it, I'll relate the best dropped camera story so far, except that it may have been only a lens, and not the full body. I'm unsure because it was so long ago.
Anyway, in October of 1979, Pope John Paul II came to Des Moines, Iowa, and said Mass in a huge freshly cut cornfield. (The corn was not quite mature; I understand it was turned into silage.) Anyway, it was quite a hot day, at least in the eighties, with the sun beating down mercilessly. A huge crowd from hundreds of miles around showed up for the Mass, and I was sent down from the Twin Cities to cover it. (I was a reporter with the St. Paul newspapers.) Because the crowd was so huge, the altar was set on top of a rise. And because it's hard to shoot uphill at something like an altar, several large and quite high platforms were set up for photographers. And because the sun was beating down so hard, a number of priests took shelter in the shade thrown by one of the platforms. Yup, somebody fumbled a lens change (I think -- may have fumbled a camera.) I was sort of looking past the platform when the lens or camera came down, like a black streak, and it hit one of the priests right on the front of his head. As a fellow reporter said, colorfully, but didn't write later, "Dropped him like a used rubber." A bunch of people ran over to the priest, including me, and he was bleeding like crazy from the scalp wound. If he's still alive, he's still got the scar. As far as I know, JPII had nothing to say about the incident. Until recently, I had a cheap cardboard periscope that said, on the side, "I got a peek at the Pope."
First ding is always the worst
Well last weekend doing night photography I had a similar incident but it was me that crashed to the ground, Ricoh GRiiix went flying and I spent 8 hours in A&E. Both camera and I escaped the worst though while the camera is worse for wear it's fully functioning while I'm still healing.
Funny (not really) you should bring this up at this time. Last week my D800 and D810 both suffered a fall to a hardwood floor. I put them on top of my camera bag on a table and left them. From another room I heard a crash. The floppy camera bag must have been too top heavy with both cameras up there so it decided to buck them off.
D810 with 35/2D lens was unscathed. D800 was fine but the filter on the 50/1.4 AI was cracked. I decided to take it off but it was stuck. You know it seems no one builds filters with rings of brass anymore. Not even B+W unless you spend more than the price of a lens. Aluminum is okay until it bends and binds to the aluminum filter threads on the lens. And, of course, in the process of trying to remove the filter I bent it even more, shattered the glass and made a mess. I'll have to crank up the Dremel later and saw the ring off...in pieces. At least I have duplicate 50mm Nikkor lenses since I'm a normal lens geek. The photo demons strike again.
My poor poor Nikon 24-70 V1. On TWO separate occasions, one at about 3:30 a.m. and the other at a more sensible 2:00 a.m., I bounced it from yes waist height off the garage floor after returning from super hot (for here that's 93 degrees) 14-16 hour shoot days (plus driving).
Once with a heavy D3s body attached. Unpack ... oh jeepers ... bounce ...bouncebounce ...bouncebouncebounce. Stand and stare.
Second time, incredulous before it hit the floor that I'd done it again to the same lens, but with a much lighter body.
NPS took my money and fixed me up both times. Still using the lens in heavy rotation, even adapted to a mirrorless body.
Then there was that time in the mountains working for a ski client where my skier hit me while kicked in on a steep headwall shooting uphill. Me, an F3 and a 300 2.8 went sliding and rolling down the steep face. Nothing broken. On me that is. Never let the camera go. Mashed the lens mount INTO the body. NPS wanted to know, personally, on a conference call, what I'd gone and done.
Poor Sony A6000 and a nice zoom went sailing onto the rocks at a friend's lake house. Only consolation was both pieces sold instantly (like in 10 mins) on Ebay for parts.
The sick and pissed off feeling never changes, even after decades. And multiple "talking-to's" I've given myself.
Gonna go buy some baseball rosin or pine tar for my straps today, after talking about all this horror.
I've never dropped a camera body, however I did trip on a rocky trail and cracked the LCD when I used my camera to break my fall. All camera operations continued to work! I've dropped many lenses, from various heights, most of the time onto concrete, with varying degrees of success. Because of that fact, I no longer change lenses in the field. I just bring multiple bodies with the lenses I need.
The worst we ever damaged a camera was in the later 80's when my wife worked at Kip's Camera in Anchorage. They let employees borrow cameras, and she came home with an overly electronic Chinon and zoom (K mount). Pulled the bag from the car and it did that bag flip they sometimes do, open top, and the camera crunched on pavement. Still worked, but now ugly, we had to buy it. Our first SLR, never really bonded with it. Years later it just stopped working (electronics). I did manage to take a few beautiful baby photos with it though, when we had our daughter.
Couple of years ago I dropped a Fuji X100V just before I got in the car to go to Precision Camera to trade it in for something else. Dented one corner. Cost me a $150 off my anticipated trade. I thought it was fair though....
Dropped my X2D and 21mm lens onto coblestones from waist height in Venice last month. Didn't even bounce. Just a sickening metal to stone thud and a half roll of death....
Have an X2D with a dent and some paint off but otherwise it's alive. No longer feel the urge to baby it anymore. Now it's imperfect the pressure is off. I can just use it like a camera is supposed to be used. Often.
Gordon
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