I killed my EF-S 17-85. It was mounted to my 30D on a tripod. I stepped away from the tripod for a brief second and the entire thing came crashing down. The camera landed lens first, UV filter chipped front element and let dust into the rest, AF worked but with a horrible gritty sound and the zoom stuck halfway. I took it for a quote to repair it and it was almost AU$400. Considering the price of that lens brand new I decided I'd cut my losses and buy a 17-55 IS. Best thing that I ever did.
I also somehow (stupidly) screwed a Polarizer filter onto my 17-40 incorrectly and I couldn't unscrew it. I was freaking out and crying, so my partner took to it with a butter knife. Filter is still perfect except for a small dent.
Will Patterson wrote:
If it's the one I'm thinking about it was a 600mm. It was mounted to the 1d on a monopod, the monopod head snapped, the two hit the cement, seperated, 600mm went into the alligator swamp exhibit, divers recovered it but it was toast
I let a friend look at my shiny new 85L and didn't check after he put it back into the camera bag. He managed to leave just enough gap in the zipper such that the lens fell from the bag onto my hardwood floor as I entered my home. It landed at about a 45 degree angle on the front element (sounded like a gunshot) and the B+W filter on the front bent and cracked, with the shards of glass angling inwards towards the front element. The point of one of the filter spikes gouged the front element of the 85L. I later sold it (with full disclosure and decent pics of the damage) on FM. I haven't used a filter since.
I was doing a shoot on location and I had a 5D with 85 mm lens in my hand and I set a 1D MKII on a chair with a 70-200 2.8 IS mounted to it. Floor was polished concrete. I needed to move a couple of the chairs around and this lady just walked up and said "here, I'll help you" and she upended the chair. Camera and lens hit very hard on the floor. The camera was fine but the lens was not. The IS mechanism was damaged - no damage to the glass or focusing - and I sent it in to Canon. I think it cost about $180 to fix.
Bottomline - never put your camera in a place where anybody can knock it off of something!
Slipped on a muudy jungle path in trinidad a few years back. Sat down fairly hard. My EOS 3 in a lowe pro bum bag (I think these are called fanny packs in the US) stopped working.
Interesting that there was no direct impact on the camera or even much on the bum bag: most of the impact was taken by my backside. This was purely a deacceleration injury dislodging a circuit board in a camera well protected by a padded bag. It made me realise that although the mid range bodies look pretty tough, they are the delicate instruments that the instruction books say they are. Over 100GBP to repair.
[edit] btw this thread has reminded me of one of the best tips on a your top tips thread here a while back: always do your bag up immediately you've finished taking stuff out/putting stuff away.
I dropped a 24-105L over the side of a boat in approx 4 feet of lake water. I dived in but there was zero visiability and it took me over a min. to find it. Once retrieved, I drained the water out the best I could, put it in a gallon ziplock with a 8 oz, dissicant, and put it in the hot sun on my dash board for four days. When all the moisture seemed to be gone, I mounted it on a 40D and it worked. I did remove the front element to clean water stains from the inside but the lens works perfectly.
David Estes wrote:
I dropped a 24-105L over the side of a boat in approx 4 feet of lake water. I dived in but there was zero visiability and it took me over a min. to find it. Once retrieved, I drained the water out the best I could, put it in a gallon ziplock with a 8 oz, dissicant, and put it in the hot sun on my dash board for four days. When all the moisture seemed to be gone, I mounted it on a 40D and it worked. I did remove the front element to clean water stains from the inside but the lens works perfectly. ...Show more →
A long time ago I was hiking in the Grand Canyon and fell into the Colorado River with my Pentax K1000 strapped around my neck. The camera continued to function, but the lens needed cleaning and the iris had to be replaced.
An unfortunate incident 4 days ago involving a ute (pickup truck for you Yanks), a Chilean air force jet, the ground in the Atacama Desert, and my 5D with 24-105L attached has reduced the 9 auto focus points on the 5D to 1.25. Fortunately it still manually focuses and will auto focus using center point focus. It's given my Spanish a workout (I'm in Santiago atm). Thankfully spanglish extends to 'autofocus', 'stuffed' and 'no workee'.
Seriously though, Harry Muller in Santiago is an excellent technician - runs his own repair business. Unfortunately I'm heading south sooner than the 10 days it will take Canon SA to ship the replacement parts.
My 20D went swimming with me and survived when I capsized in a kayak -- comanions laughed when the first thing back above the water was the camera and I only surfaced a couple seconds later.....
Dried out that body and it has worked flawlessly for 2 years.....
But a few weeks ago I was out with my 24mm t/s and the lens acted as shock absorber for the camera w/ attached graphite tripod when I set the tripod down on really uneven terrain and wasn't watching.
you know all those extra parts that make the lense tilt and shift -- can get expensive to repair.....
I had a Pentax 67 on a tripod fall over on the floor and land on its 55/4 wide angle. Messed up the filter threads; no other damage.
(I had the legs at unequal lengths doing some shooting in our yard, and forgot that the rig wasn't level when I carried it in the door and set it down. Yeah, I beat myself up a bit.)
I had a shoe-mount flash on a Pentax 645, at the ready in the passenger seat of my car so I could grab it quickly when getting to a wedding reception from the ceremony. Grabbed it, got out of the car, and hit the flash on the top of the door frame, breaking the shoe mount. Because I've always carried plenty of backup equipment for events, there was no problem, just a minor expense incurred.
That's about it. 100,000 digital frames without any physical damage (to the equipment; maybe some to me!) aside from scuffed hoods.
1 Zenith E
1 Fuji ST50? plus 50mm ƒ1.4
2 x OM-1
Nikon F3
Nikon F4
80~200 ƒ2.8Nikkor
70~200AFS/VR ƒ2.8 Nikkor
Nikon D100
Nikon D1x
SB Flash Guns by the dozen
Every Sigma thing I ever owned.
My count on laptops is now 5
This girl dropped my 28mm f/2.8, and focusing was not possible, something was stuck. Out of my anger, I threw it against a wall, and now it works perfectly, but it is somewhat sharper and focuses faster than before
1D Mark III with the 85 f/1.2L & a 580 II attached. I'm 6'4 and was trying to put on a Fong, dang you Gary! I dropped it all on concrete (not sure how high up, more than I'd like anyway). The lens hood took the brunt of it and the 1D3 was marked on the battery cover... picked it up and all was well.
Years ago I dropped my camera (20D) and 300 f4 IS lens probably only 8 inches onto a brick surface. My camera was fine, but my lens did not work. It was a used lens and out of warranty. Surprisingly Canon repaired it free of charge.
