Dropping an expensive camera

It was bound to happen though I wish it hadn't. One of the things I paid close attention to when I was deciding what camera to buy was how sturdy the various models were. One of these, the Nikon D4s, was the toughest I found. According to one user, he had accidentally dropped this camera on the wet sand of a beach, then driven over it with his truck. After discovering what he'd done, he found that the camera still worked--though imperfectly. After some simple repairs, it was as good as new.

A related concern was water proofing. It makes sense that cameras will occasionally get wet, and sometimes even very wet, so I wanted a camera that could handle water. All of the best camera bodies seemed pretty good in this category, but the lenses weren't the same story. Some were water-proofed and some weren't. The lenses I wanted to use--Zeiss--were not water-proofed. However, the image quality was good so I bought them anyway.

In the end, the cameras I bought are a mix of sturdy bodies with a variety of water-proofing levels in the lenses, all of which were reputed to be sturdy. Despite this, when I shoot outdoors my cameras are protected with a plastic bag and (if possible) an umbrella. As for impacts, I am very careful with the way I handle them. Despite this, accidents happen.

Last weekend I was shooting the NBB basketball conference in Amsterdam. I had a Phase One camera and my Nikon D800 with me. The D800 had a 100 mm Zeiss lens attached to it, making the pair quite heavy. After a break from shooting, I picked up my camera backpack, then heard a couple of ugly clunking sounds. I turned just in time to watch the D800 fall against a metal trashcan and then onto the linoleum floor. The backpack hadn't been zipped, allowing the camera to fall out.

This scared the daylights out of me, at least partly because I wasn't sure I could afford to replace the camera if anything had happened to it. Luckily, a quick test showed that everything seemed to be in working order. I tested it several more times throughout the day and in every case it was like nothing had happened. Kudos to Nikon and Zeiss for making such sturdy equipment!


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