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Camera Takes a Fall

udontno

udontno

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 19, 2011
321
122
VA, USA
No major harm was done.

But I'm still pissed. I'm a (broke) college freshman who is very meticulous about her things. While they were gifts from my parents, they were worked hard for (I got good grades, did right, they were proud of me so they rewarded me with my DSLR and a MBP). I'm even careful with my crappy dumb phone.

My mother is always complaining that she never gets any pictures of ME. We are having a function tonight at my college, I gave the camera to a friend to get a couple shots of my outfit. She says here, take it, I need to go get ready and hands it to me. The strap is still around her wrist, I didn't have a good grip, she snatches the camera out of my hands and it hits the ground.

I've attached the crappy shot (taken by my dumb phone) of the little dent on the lens. Every time I see this, I'm going to be pissed. It wouldn't be so bad if I had done it.

I just needed to rant about this to someone who would understand. :-/
 

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Check the sharpness of the lense (pop it on a tripod, and take photos of a newspaper that fills the frame corner to corner). Do this at a wide open aperture, a closed closed aperture, and one in the middle. Expect to see some unsharpness in the corners, this is normal and changes at different apertures. Just check to make sure that it's not terrible.

If the lense checks out, and it probably will, then be thankful it wasn't worse. I had a camera tip over up near Cambridge Bay, that broke the filter and dented the front of a wide-angle lense in 2000. Basically it badly dented the filter rings. I was royally p*ssed off, but couldn't get it fixed at the time. Then I just accepted it, and finally got it fixed last year..... when I got tired of not being able to use filters on that lense. It's the mark of well used camera. But the first ding is always the hardest.
 
snberk103 said:
Check the sharpness of the lense (pop it on a tripod, and take photos of a newspaper that fills the frame corner to corner). Do this at a wide open aperture, a closed closed aperture, and one in the middle. Expect to see some unsharpness in the corners, this is normal and changes at different apertures. Just check to make sure that it's not terrible.

If the lense checks out, and it probably will, then be thankful it wasn't worse. I had a camera tip over up near Cambridge Bay, that broke the filter and dented the front of a wide-angle lense in 2000. Basically it badly dented the filter rings. I was royally p*ssed off, but couldn't get it fixed at the time. Then I just accepted it, and finally got it fixed last year..... when I got tired of not being able to use filters on that lense. It's the mark of well used camera. But the first ding is always the hardest.
Click to expand...

No tripod, but I took some shots tonight at the function on a bunch of different settings and everything is okay.

She's offering to give me about $50 towards my next lens. I told her I'd have a hard time accepting it, since it is only a little ding. She said well I'll just slide it under your door one night (she lives down the hall from me) so we'll see if she holds up to that or not.
 
That isn't too bad, I have seen worse! Unfortunately it was the worst part to his the ground. If it still works well, don't worry about it :)

New lenses can be extremely expensive so save up for a new one and do your research :)
 
marsmissions said:
That isn't too bad, I have seen worse! Unfortunately it was the worst part to his the ground. If it still works well, don't worry about it :)

New lenses can be extremely expensive so save up for a new one and do your research :)
Click to expand...
I've already got an idea of what I need/want, I mentioned it in my other thread.

I don't want to see worse. I was about ready to die over this. I've only had the thing since late July, early August so this was especially painful no lie.
jabbott said:
Sorry to hear about that!

On the (somewhat) brighter side, at least it wasn't a $1400 lens like this one that was damaged beyond repair: :eek:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDHQ5lXZGTo&NR=1
Click to expand...
Dear god, this pains me to watch.
 
Feel for you.

Had a small disaster last year when a lens rolled out of a bag out of the back of my van. Managed to catch it on the way down, but just about broke the tip of my finger as that took the impact of the drop against the ground. The rest of the impact destroyed the optical lens cap (best £7 i ever spent).

A few weeks ago, I followed that up with accidentally kicking the camera out of my hand. Lesson, don't swing the camera from the strap. What I discovered was that Canon's can bounce on concrete! Who knew? Don't try it. I think my UWA Tokina has something loose inside which is repair time early next year, but lens seems fine for photographs.
 
udontno said:
I've already got an idea of what I need/want, I mentioned it in my other thread.
...
Click to expand...

You don't need to buy new. I've not bought a new lense in years.... except for those were heavily discounted as part of a bundle. Until you really know what you are doing, only buy from reputable camera shops. But those will often give you a 30 day warranty. It's even time to make sure it works. If the lense looks cosmetically good, and if it works for a week, it is 99% of time going to work for years. Lenses don't tend to "wear out"... and if it's been used that heavily, it will not look good....it'll be worn. You can save 20% to 30% and more buying used.

tinman0 said:
Feel for you.

Had a small disaster last year when a lens rolled out of a bag out of the back of my van. Managed to catch it on the way down, ...
Click to expand...

Must be a moon phase thing.... I had shelf pop off it's track a couple of weeks ago, full of lenses and bodies. Caught the shelf with one hand, keeping it from fully collapsing and caught my wide-angle in mid-air with the other hand. Unfortunately I needed a 3rd hand for the compendium bellows....it's bent now and I'm deciding how to fix it.

At the time I had my hands full, and no way to start righting things. Luckily my wife was in the house and came running we emptied the shelf, and it's now pretty well secured. Yikes! Disaster averted!
 
tjsdaname said:
that sucks... I too learned the hard way not to let other people use my stuff.
Click to expand...

Definitely not going to happen anymore... guess mama just won't get any pictures of me anymore.

Definitely seeing that these cameras can take a hit, which is good... because for the price tag, they ought to be able to withstand a little wear and tear.
 
This is why to never hand a camera to another person, especially a point-and-shooter with butterfingers.
 
"Cameras are like <insert Men or Women>, for you to handle and not to borrow out!"

In all seriousness, I had a Tamron 27-75 that took a fall while changing lenses, off of a bridge.. about 5m down. Hit the soft grass ground, filter shattered,hood shattered, lens nice ding on the barrel but worked perfectly still...

These things happen, unfortunately, but if the picture quality is not affected I would follow everyone else's advice and keep shooting and save toward nice glass that you will cherish even more :)
 
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