Canon quality story

A few days ago I was standing on a boulder about 25ft. above the Merced river in Yosemite Nat'l Park. While attempting to change lenses I accidentally dropped my 70-200 2.8L IS USM. I watched helplessly as it free fell 6-8ft. It then bounced off a granite rock and fell another 10ft. where it landed on another granite rock near the water. I scrambled down the bank not knowing what I'd find. After removing the lens caps and peering through the lens I discovered that no glass was broken. The only damage was a gouge in the barrel at the camera end with the o-ring a little crushed. The lens shade was also cracked.
Test shots showed no signs of any problems with focus or even in the stabilization feature.
From now on I will only use Canon for my equipment.

Lucky =)

Yep, lucky. Could have just as easily broken into pieces, depending on how it hit the rocks. Drop that lens 10 times and I bet you more than 50% of the time it will get damaged to the point of needing to be repaired by Canon.

I experienced a similar fall of my 70-200mm, just not quite as far, nor as remote.

But it sure horrified me at the time. The lens is built like a tank, agree At the same time, the lens later starting malfunctioning, within weeks, for the IS, then the AF capability. So, I think the fall did actually contribute to this situation, just not instantly.

Lucky man!
If I were you, I'll have it check though.

Lucky you! So where's the shot you got?

Here's the shot taken after the fall.

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Go buy a lottery ticket, it could be your time.

Awesome story.....I one time forgot to latch my Pelican case (which is funny because it's always my policy to always latch cases and zip bags every single time but I needed to grab my GPS from the case while I was driving which left me leaving it unlatched) and as I took it out of my truck my 1DSMkII with 70-200 attached came crashing to the concrete. Both the camera and lens have a couple of scars to show from the mishap but they took the blow and work just fine

Kirby wrote in post #13433725
From now on I will only use Canon for my equipment.

it seems like you would have to drop a few third party lenses to make sure they couldn't survive as well before making this statement...


glad everything's working...

raksphoto wrote in post #13450985
I experienced a similar fall of my 70-200mm, just not quite as far, nor as remote.

But it sure horrified me at the time. The lens is built like a tank, agree At the same time, the lens later starting malfunctioning, within weeks, for the IS, then the AF capability. So, I think the fall did actually contribute to this situation, just not instantly.

I think this is what the OP should expect.

image still looks fine. No worries.

Luck of the bounce.

i'd probably would have had a heart attack.

You obviously had a UV filter on it