Have you ever dropped your camera?

What's your excuse for dropping your expensive camera?
Did it totally break? Minor scratch?
Have you ever dropped it into water?

I've never even come close to dropping my camera. I do, however, bumped it into concrete walls and such when I first got my T2i. I was carrying it on my side by the straps. Luckily the hood was there to protect it.

And about a year ago, I let my friend hold my camera for a photo, and she drops it to the floor. And she's like ohhhh sorry oh my god, i'm so sorry.

thrown yes... dropped no.

any damage was intentional....

Once... Once...

About a month ago, I had one hand full so I was picking up my 7D with my 70-200 on it out of the floor of the backseat of my pickup truck. I was picking up it up by the strap that had a carabiner type connector hooked to the bottom of the camera. Just as I cleared the bottom of the door when picking it up, the carabiner connector broke dropping my camera with the big zoom on it between 1 to 2 feet to the asphalt parking lot. But luckily nothing broke and everything works fine. Scared the crap out of me, though.

I did buy some Black Rapid Connectors to replace the one on that strap and one on another strap. They look to be a more heftier build.

Two falls where the camera and lens hit concrete, one drop where the lens hit concrete, and so many saves.

Thinking back to one of my first pro cameras, an elderly Hasselblad 1000F, It fell from a stage to concrete and simply fell apart, back, body and lens in three, but I fitted them altogether and it continued to work--lost a frame of film to light.

Of the more recent falls, I tripped and the camera swung out smashing against the ground, but I had been buying L-plates for my bodies and the Base of the plate took most of the abuse in both cases--and the cameras kept on working. The dropped camera rolled out of the seat as I opened the car door and I managed to grab the strap and keep the body from hitting, but the lens did hit the concrete and began having focus motor problems, which mean a trip to Sigma repair. The Canon lenses seem to take abuse much better.

Unzipped backback getting out of the car, camera dropped on to concrete. Never dropped in water, but used in the rain and around waterfalls. It's got weather sealing, so I don't care.

Have a friend who dropped his 5D3 last year
this the worse damage I have seen to a camera
slipped out of his hand and bounced down the rocks and into the river
here's 3 of the 6 pics he posted elsewhere

cheers
Dave

the 3rd pic
luckily his insurance covered the bill

D

No I haven't. Knock on wood.

Several times actually. All of them late at night when I probably should have just gone home and went to bed.

Twice I had it fall from the top of my tripod while shooting. The shaft for the clamp knob on my old ballhead was bent, so it would tighten up, but be crooked, so when you lifted the tripod and set it back down the clamp would "settle"; causing it to also come loose and drop the camera. (always on concrete, yay) After the second time I figured out what was going on and bought a new ballhead.

Once my neckstrap came apart and the camera dropped to the floor. A concrete floor. Fun.

Most recently I had set it on the floorboard of my car while I was unloading our stroller at about 1am at Disney. My 5yr old woke up and tried to climb into the car herself, knocking the camera out of the car and sending it bouncing across the parking lot.

Despite all that the camera still works perfectly. I credit the battery grip and L bracket. Granted I had to replace the battery grip after the second fall as the impact caused the tabs that hold the batteries in place to break off. After this most recent "event" I need to get the mount on my 24-70L replaced as one of the screws stripped out. Despite that I was able to tighten the other three back up and keep shooting for the whole week.

no. i've used a handstrap or black rapid. about two years now i just carry the camera by itself or by the lens foot.

I dropped my 5D2 off a table onto a wood floor while moving a box at a wedding. I picked it back up and it worked great.

I have come close since switching to an OP/TECH strap from the standard Canon strap. It's a sling type strap so the camera hangs by my side. There have been a few occasions where I have had to unclip the camera to get the angle I wanted though and have then put the camera by my side and gone to let go, forgetting I had unclipped it (stupid I know but as I can still feel that I am wearing the strap I forgot the camera was not attached to it).

Fortunately I have noticed the lack of resistance from the not at all connected strap and not actually let go of the camera. As the Canon strap was not easily clipped off and on I am not used to having this as a problem. I have now got a safety line connecting the camera to the strap, long enough that the camera can be unclipped and used at angles the strap is awkward for but short enough if it drops it's only gets within a foot of the ground.

tripod - camera - gravity: nasty combination!

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Two separate occasions, two different cameras.

First time I was rock hopping in a bog in western Ireland and I dropped my beautiful Contax G2 with a Biogon 21 attached onto a granite boulder. Just a minor scratch (stainless steel) and the counter stopped working. Not a huge deal. Great camera BTW.

The second event was a mere tip over with my 7D with an EF400 f5.6 attached and all mounted on a tripod. I was concentrating on a bird I saw and set the rig down without looking and one of the legs was partially folded. In that little tip over, in dirt, the top plate cracked on the 7D and the (built in) hood on the lens got tweaked. About $800 and two 200 mile round trips to Irvine, CA and all was right.

Expensive little mistake that won't happen again.

Any moral to be derived? Who knows? I know I'm not convinced cast metal or formed sheet metal is a better material than high impact plastic for such things as camera bodies and lens hoods. Probably just the opposite.