Posted by Nathan Buck on April 24, 2007 at 12:47 AM
Hi all.
Yup...it happened this weekend. I am the proud owner of a new Nikon D80, but I am down one used Nikon D70. It was a glorious exit. Here is how it happened...
We have a local garden that is home to the largest man-made waterfall in the west. At the highest point it is over 50 feet tall. There is a nice path way that leads 'through' the falls and an arch shaped bridge takes you over the tallest part of the falls. This last Friday I took my three kids to the gardens with me. As we got to the arch shaped bridge, my seven year old was able to peer over the high wall of the bridge and my three year old was trying to do that same. I worried about my three year old, so I turned to help him - the waterfall is really high at this point - and I always worry about my kids. My infant son (11 months) was in his car seat, attached to his stroller (a travel system). As I turned to help my three year old, I forgot to set the brake on the stroller. My camera was perched up on the cup holder on the top of the stroller. As I mentioned, I forgot to set the brake on the stroller and it started to roll down the downward slope of the bridge. To my dismay the stroller picked up some steam and I realized that it was now out of my reach, and I was not going to catch it. I surveyed the path ahead and realized that there were walls or rails all the way down the path so there was nowhere for the stroller to go over the edge - so I was not terribly worried about my son. I did not have to wait long for the outcome of the situation.
As I said, the stroller picked up some steam and rolled another 15 or 20 feet. It then turned sharply to the right and the front wheels hit a rock wall. My trusy D70 and 70-210 f4 were flung...no...catapaulted into the air. I watched in suspended animation as they crashed to the sidewalk - the lens going one way and the camera going another. All I could do is stand and watch. My infant son did not seem to notice that he had been on a bit of a ride. My two other sons ran to pick up the parts of my camera for me. The lens mount was broken off, the AF/MF nob was broken, the camera would not turn on...BUT my kids were fine - and that was all that mattered. Oh...and the flash card and my images from the day survived, and my Nikkor 70-210 f4 seems to be fine too. It is fitting that the last image that I took with that camera was one of my 3 year old and 6 year old sons.
So...what about you? Any glorious exits of any equipment?
What's the posting limit here at NPN. Not enough for me to describe all my gear mishaps. I had a camera strap blow up and over my head without my notice, and when I dropped the camera to grab the other one.... Yeah, you can relate to the sound of a camera hitting asphalt!
Thankfully, it was only the camera and not the kid!
The passing of my 20D was far more pedestrian. I was shooting an eagle landing on a nest three weeks ago and it simply died. Processor smoked. Oh well, out with the backup and on to the next camera.
Posted by Kent Staubus on April 24, 2007 at 8:44 AM
You are very fortunate. I'm not just thinking of the kid here, but also fortunate your wife wasn't there to see the kid go rollling down the hill. You would never hear the end of it.
Kent in SD
Posted by Bill Chambers on April 24, 2007 at 8:45 AM
Glad to hear the kids weren't hurt! Cameras are cheaper to replace!
I fear I have too many "glorious" exits for equipment. Back in the 70's I lost 2 Nikon F's (and lenses) when a large wave crashed aboard the boat I was on (in hurricane weather - real smart!). Cameras were safe inside but the wave broke a window and soaked everything. Then there was the time I dropped one 20+ feet out of the deer stand I was in - camera survived ok but lens didn't. Then I had a Nikon F4s and 18-35 lens slip off the cooler I had carelessly put it on (in my canoe) and went for a swim in Blackwater River. Nikon salvaged the lens but body was fried. Then, there was the time when my son was emptying the canoe after a trip and picked up some object and got the strap to my new video camera tangled up in the process and dropped it into the Wacissa River. Fried it! I no longer use any straps on cameras! Gee, I always thought photography was supposed to be a "no contact" sport!
Nathan, really glad to hear your kids weren't hurt. The equipment can always be replaced. I've had a couple of mishaps. The first one happended riding down the highway on a motor cycle with my camera bag strapped on behind me. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw what looked like a black plastic bag rolling along the road. I hadn't remembered seeing one in front of me so I reached around and sure enough my bag was gone. I went back to retrieve it and only one of the "rabbit ear" meter prongs on my 55 micro lens was damage.
The other situation was in Big Bend National Park around seven or eight years ago. I got to my very first stop, got out of my car, put my Nikon F4 body with an 80-200 F2.8 zoom attached onto my Arca Swiss ball head. Forgot to tighten the clamp screw and threw it over my shoulder. Heard this loud thud on the cement and looked around to see that the lens had ripped out the front of the camera body. Took me a few days and a lot of $$ to get over it. I think most of us have done similar things. Great to hear your story!
Posted by Nathan Buck on April 24, 2007 at 10:49 AM
Thanks all. I am sorry that you can all relate!
My wife is a work-from-home attorney, and she was at the court finalizing a couple of adoptions on Friday morning, which is why the kids were with me at the gardens (instead of me being at work). When she called to tell me that she was on her way home I told her the story. All that she could do was laugh. We then talked about stopping at the camera shop on our way to the Children's Museum that afternoon where we were taking our kids.
Kent: Last night we went to the gardens again and she made sure that SHE pushed the stroller.
Hank: Are you back home or just around civilization briefly?
Thanks Prashan, Steve, Bill, and Bill for the other thoughts.
Nathan: Did the little guy want to do the ride again? I've only had close calls. Once at the beach below Heceta Head in Oregon I set my camera bag down and proceeded to go out in the surf a short diatance with my camera and tripod. The tide was supposed to be receeding but one wave was a bit higher than the others. For some reason I looked back toward the shore just in time to see the wave lift my bag and then suck it back into the surf. I had it snapped closed but not zipped. There was a bit of sand and water inside but no damage to lenses or flash. I was the only soul in sight so no one got to see the show of crazed photog runnning through the surf, tripod held high, $$$$$$ signs searing my brain. I still find some fine sand in the bottom of that bag.
Posted by Bernie Kasper on April 24, 2007 at 3:44 PM
What a choatic scene that must have been Nathan, would have made a great video for sure, man you are one tough dude to be going anywhere alone with three boys that age I have got one seven year-old boy and he is quite a handful all by himself.
Which leads us my story...Last summer my son and one of his friends were watching tv at our house, it was such a nice day I told them to go outside and play baseball or something in the backyard, I went about my chores and noticed they were outside hitting balls off a tee. Thinking everything was all right, I went into our guest bedroom to put something away and I noticed something was missing, you see in that bedroom I kept an old Tamaron 500mm MF lens that I used to shoot hummingbirds and other birds out the window with.
As you probably have guessed by now the tee the boys were hitting the balls off of was the lens that I had setup in there. Well I don't think I could have screamed any louder even if I had passed a five-pound kidney stone, and I don't believe my son's friend has been back since. But the lens wasn't damaged much and I still use it occasionally, my son now has a deep respect for camera equipment and I try to pay closer attention to my stuff when kids are around
Oh man, Bernie, what a heart stopper. You all have WAY better equipment stories than I do.
I've only been at this seriously for four years. I don't know whether to hope I get some cool stories to remember about this stuff — or cherish the thought of avoiding the heart attacks. I rather think I'd prefer the latter, but Mother Nature has a way of having her way with our stuff.
I will say that I nearly died trying to save a junky body and lens.
It was the fist year I'd gone in for this, and I was walking a steep system of trails along a rock escarpment overlooking a clear lake near Ely in the National Forest. I slipped on loose gravel and, rather than just go down right in the trail and fall on my camera/lens, I cocked out my elbows to break the fall. Well, one elbow did hit the trail, but the physics of the fall corkscrewed me around so most of my body and legs were hanging over the edge of a drop to rocks about 80 feet below on the shore of the lake. I had one hand around the camera/lens, with that elbow propped on the rock, and my other hand loose and reaching for a sapling to pull myself up.
I never even looked down. Didn't have the guts, and I'm afraid of heights. To make it easier to climb back to safety, I could have let go of the camera/lens and relied on the strap around my neck, but I kept a tight hold on them and used my right hand/arm to grab the sapling and pull myself up.
As I look back on this moment, which I do now and then, I have no idea why it was so important to me to save a silly Canon digital Rebel 300D and crappy $150 Tamron 70-300 macro. It just was.
Hell, if I'd have saved myself and let the equipment crash to the ground, it just would have meant I'd be upgrading faster, right?
I wrote about this in my local weekly newspaper column and Jim Brandenburg, who lives here and who reads the paper, and whom I know a bit, called me to recount some of the amazing near misses he's had over the years.
The things we do to get pictures. Sometimes I wonder how any of us are still alive.
Nathan, I'm really glad your kids are ok. I have to say that I'm feeling better, though, reading the posts on this topic because now I know I'm not the only one. I've only been shooting for about 1.5 years, and last fall (which would have been about 7 months into my illustrious career), I saw a woodpecker outside my home office window, so I grabbed my tripod, put on my camera and 80-400 zoom lens, then the phone rang, so I ran back for it.
When I went back to the tripod, I picked it up with a big flourish so I could get out the door and shoot that woodpecker. Instead, as if in slow motion, the whole camera and zoom lens leaped high into the air as if it had wings...then when it couldn't fly, it bounced on the concrete floor. The noise was sickening as parts started breaking off. The zoom lens got terribly squished, well, I mean the pieces that were still attached (!) to the lens jammed together. The noise was horrible, and I was just sick, absolutely sick. I was so new at this that I felt sure that was the end of my brief photography career!
Luckily, my D200 was OK, but the zoom lens wasn't. I decided to buy another lens and keep going. Now I ALWAYS, and I do mean ALWAYS, check to make sure my camera is securely attached to the tripod before I ever think about moving the tripod. I can still hear that cracking, breaking sound in my mind!
I just wish I had a better story to go with my loss...maybe, like I was hanging on a cliff photographing a bird's nest, or I was being chased by a bear and the camera fell to the ground. But, nope, count on me to have destroyed my lens...in my own home. Geez.
I keep thinking that maybe it was lucky I learned my lesson now rather than later, I'd hate to be trying to photograph something in the middle of nowhere which is where I often end up, knock the camera off and break it beyond repair, and have no recourse but to drive all the way back home and pout at the shots I didn't get!
Nancy
Posted by beth summer on April 24, 2007 at 9:49 PM
OMG, Nathan...What a "harried" experience but a great way to get a new Nikon body!!! So...how do you like the D80? Seriously, how fortunate that the kids were not hurt. camera!Looking forward to seeing awesome images from the new camera!
Being a low key guy, the most glorious equipment destructionn story I can tell is, well, boring. I lost a lens cap once on a highway hillside overlooking vivid Fall colored hardwood trees bordering newly-green autumn fields in central Wisconsin. That was a genuine Nikon lens cap, darn it. Oh well, the Tamon replacement is better.
Pete D. better living through loss
Posted by Nathan Buck on April 25, 2007 at 10:58 AM
Thank you all for the support! I do like the D80 quite a bit, but I have been in a major slump lately (trying to push through it) and now the files that I am getting seem equally as boring as with the D70...they are just much larger.
Wow Bernie...I gasped at your story. That is a CLASSIC! I would bet that anyone who has had kids can relate.
Bill...glad you saved the camera. I understand your anxiety!
Steve...glad you were OK. That was quite a scary story.
Nancy...what I did not tell in this story is that I dropped the camera and my Sigma 180 macro about a year ago on a sidewalk in my neighborhood. The camera was being partially held together with 'photographic equipment repair devices' (rubber bands ) so I needed to upgrade anyway. You are right, these little accidents can happen anywhere.
Beth...One little usability thing that I like is being able to just push buttons to go through their different options (rather than holding them down and rotating the command dial). One such button is the 'Shooting Mode' button for single, multi, timer, remote, etc. One thing that I do not like is that while the review is on the LCD if you spin the front dial to change the aperture then the image view changes (to the different display options). Overall though, I do like the body.
Pete...whew! Glad to hear you are so strong; and surviving so well through that experience! I can always expect to enjoy your posts.
Nathan
Posted by Bill Pelzmann on April 25, 2007 at 11:48 AM
Nathan, I'm glad your wife got a good laugh and she let you upgrade your equipment.
Back at the turn of the century, I upgraded my Nikon CoolPix 990 to the new 5700.
The 990 was passed on to my son in college. One evening I got a call from him (unusual for a college student not needing money) and he reluctantly told me about his bike accident - caused by the camera. Apparently he was riding home from campus with the camera in hand. While adjusting his grip the camera dropped into the spokes and immediately stopped the bike. He continued over the handle bars in a graceful somersault. Apparently this greatly amused all the coeds watching.
If you remember, the 990 was one of those articulated models where half the body rotated.
Well, after stopping the bike, it was disarticulated and could rotate way more than 360 degrees. I was just happy to hear this didn't happen in traffic and there was no trip to the hospital. I didn't yell at him, but he also didn't get my Canon 10D after that was upgraded.
Posted by Nathan Buck on April 25, 2007 at 5:37 PM
LOL...good story Bill. Well articulated by you...
Nathan
Posted by Marc Adamus on April 27, 2007 at 10:38 AM
Ahh, the joys of shooting with children...
Posted by Ian Beatty on April 27, 2007 at 10:43 AM
I was set up on the edge of a cliff once. Turned around to get something out of the bag and when I turned around again saw the tripod, camera, lens and flash heading over the side. It's a miracle it landed on the only ledge in sight and I was able to retrieve it, but the flash snapped off over the edge and will never be seen again. The body and lens were both still usable but damaged and had to be sent off for repair. Could have easily lost my whole kit though, lesson learned there! My friend witnessed the whole event and was afraid I would jump off the cliff after the gear.
Also broken a couple glass filters in less dramatic fashion, and lost lens caps and other accessories along the way.
Discussion
18 repliesYup...it happened this weekend. I am the proud owner of a new Nikon D80, but I am down one used Nikon D70. It was a glorious exit. Here is how it happened...
We have a local garden that is home to the largest man-made waterfall in the west. At the highest point it is over 50 feet tall. There is a nice path way that leads 'through' the falls and an arch shaped bridge takes you over the tallest part of the falls. This last Friday I took my three kids to the gardens with me. As we got to the arch shaped bridge, my seven year old was able to peer over the high wall of the bridge and my three year old was trying to do that same. I worried about my three year old, so I turned to help him - the waterfall is really high at this point - and I always worry about my kids. My infant son (11 months) was in his car seat, attached to his stroller (a travel system). As I turned to help my three year old, I forgot to set the brake on the stroller. My camera was perched up on the cup holder on the top of the stroller. As I mentioned, I forgot to set the brake on the stroller and it started to roll down the downward slope of the bridge. To my dismay the stroller picked up some steam and I realized that it was now out of my reach, and I was not going to catch it. I surveyed the path ahead and realized that there were walls or rails all the way down the path so there was nowhere for the stroller to go over the edge - so I was not terribly worried about my son. I did not have to wait long for the outcome of the situation.
As I said, the stroller picked up some steam and rolled another 15 or 20 feet. It then turned sharply to the right and the front wheels hit a rock wall. My trusy D70 and 70-210 f4 were flung...no...catapaulted into the air. I watched in suspended animation as they crashed to the sidewalk - the lens going one way and the camera going another. All I could do is stand and watch. My infant son did not seem to notice that he had been on a bit of a ride. My two other sons ran to pick up the parts of my camera for me. The lens mount was broken off, the AF/MF nob was broken, the camera would not turn on...BUT my kids were fine - and that was all that mattered. Oh...and the flash card and my images from the day survived, and my Nikkor 70-210 f4 seems to be fine too. It is fitting that the last image that I took with that camera was one of my 3 year old and 6 year old sons.
So...what about you? Any glorious exits of any equipment?
Thanks for listening.
Nathan
What's the posting limit here at NPN. Not enough for me to describe all my gear mishaps. I had a camera strap blow up and over my head without my notice, and when I dropped the camera to grab the other one.... Yeah, you can relate to the sound of a camera hitting asphalt!
The passing of my 20D was far more pedestrian. I was shooting an eagle landing on a nest three weeks ago and it simply died. Processor smoked. Oh well, out with the backup and on to the next camera.
Kent in SD
I fear I have too many "glorious" exits for equipment. Back in the 70's I lost 2 Nikon F's (and lenses) when a large wave crashed aboard the boat I was on (in hurricane weather - real smart!). Cameras were safe inside but the wave broke a window and soaked everything. Then there was the time I dropped one 20+ feet out of the deer stand I was in - camera survived ok but lens didn't. Then I had a Nikon F4s and 18-35 lens slip off the cooler I had carelessly put it on (in my canoe) and went for a swim in Blackwater River. Nikon salvaged the lens but body was fried. Then, there was the time when my son was emptying the canoe after a trip and picked up some object and got the strap to my new video camera tangled up in the process and dropped it into the Wacissa River. Fried it! I no longer use any straps on cameras! Gee, I always thought photography was supposed to be a "no contact" sport!
The other situation was in Big Bend National Park around seven or eight years ago. I got to my very first stop, got out of my car, put my Nikon F4 body with an 80-200 F2.8 zoom attached onto my Arca Swiss ball head. Forgot to tighten the clamp screw and threw it over my shoulder. Heard this loud thud on the cement and looked around to see that the lens had ripped out the front of the camera body. Took me a few days and a lot of $$ to get over it. I think most of us have done similar things. Great to hear your story!
My wife is a work-from-home attorney, and she was at the court finalizing a couple of adoptions on Friday morning, which is why the kids were with me at the gardens (instead of me being at work). When she called to tell me that she was on her way home I told her the story. All that she could do was laugh.
Kent: Last night we went to the gardens again and she made sure that SHE pushed the stroller.
Hank: Are you back home or just around civilization briefly?
Thanks Prashan, Steve, Bill, and Bill for the other thoughts.
Nathan
Which leads us my story...Last summer my son and one of his friends were watching tv at our house, it was such a nice day I told them to go outside and play baseball or something in the backyard, I went about my chores and noticed they were outside hitting balls off a tee. Thinking everything was all right, I went into our guest bedroom to put something away and I noticed something was missing, you see in that bedroom I kept an old Tamaron 500mm MF lens that I used to shoot hummingbirds and other birds out the window with.
As you probably have guessed by now the tee the boys were hitting the balls off of was the lens that I had setup in there. Well I don't think I could have screamed any louder even if I had passed a five-pound kidney stone, and I don't believe my son's friend has been back since. But the lens wasn't damaged much and I still use it occasionally, my son now has a deep respect for camera equipment and I try to pay closer attention to my stuff when kids are around
I've only been at this seriously for four years. I don't know whether to hope I get some cool stories to remember about this stuff — or cherish the thought of avoiding the heart attacks. I rather think I'd prefer the latter, but Mother Nature has a way of having her way with our stuff.
I will say that I nearly died trying to save a junky body and lens.
It was the fist year I'd gone in for this, and I was walking a steep system of trails along a rock escarpment overlooking a clear lake near Ely in the National Forest. I slipped on loose gravel and, rather than just go down right in the trail and fall on my camera/lens, I cocked out my elbows to break the fall. Well, one elbow did hit the trail, but the physics of the fall corkscrewed me around so most of my body and legs were hanging over the edge of a drop to rocks about 80 feet below on the shore of the lake. I had one hand around the camera/lens, with that elbow propped on the rock, and my other hand loose and reaching for a sapling to pull myself up.
I never even looked down. Didn't have the guts, and I'm afraid of heights. To make it easier to climb back to safety, I could have let go of the camera/lens and relied on the strap around my neck, but I kept a tight hold on them and used my right hand/arm to grab the sapling and pull myself up.
As I look back on this moment, which I do now and then, I have no idea why it was so important to me to save a silly Canon digital Rebel 300D and crappy $150 Tamron 70-300 macro. It just was.
Hell, if I'd have saved myself and let the equipment crash to the ground, it just would have meant I'd be upgrading faster, right?
I wrote about this in my local weekly newspaper column and Jim Brandenburg, who lives here and who reads the paper, and whom I know a bit, called me to recount some of the amazing near misses he's had over the years.
The things we do to get pictures. Sometimes I wonder how any of us are still alive.
When I went back to the tripod, I picked it up with a big flourish so I could get out the door and shoot that woodpecker. Instead, as if in slow motion, the whole camera and zoom lens leaped high into the air as if it had wings...then when it couldn't fly, it bounced on the concrete floor. The noise was sickening as parts started breaking off. The zoom lens got terribly squished, well, I mean the pieces that were still attached (!) to the lens jammed together. The noise was horrible, and I was just sick, absolutely sick. I was so new at this that I felt sure that was the end of my brief photography career!
Luckily, my D200 was OK, but the zoom lens wasn't. I decided to buy another lens and keep going. Now I ALWAYS, and I do mean ALWAYS, check to make sure my camera is securely attached to the tripod before I ever think about moving the tripod. I can still hear that cracking, breaking sound in my mind!
I just wish I had a better story to go with my loss...maybe, like I was hanging on a cliff photographing a bird's nest, or I was being chased by a bear and the camera fell to the ground. But, nope, count on me to have destroyed my lens...in my own home. Geez.
I keep thinking that maybe it was lucky I learned my lesson now rather than later, I'd hate to be trying to photograph something in the middle of nowhere which is where I often end up, knock the camera off and break it beyond repair, and have no recourse but to drive all the way back home and pout at the shots I didn't get!
Nancy
Pete D. better living through loss
Wow Bernie...I gasped at your story. That is a CLASSIC! I would bet that anyone who has had kids can relate.
Bill...glad you saved the camera. I understand your anxiety!
Steve...glad you were OK. That was quite a scary story.
Nancy...what I did not tell in this story is that I dropped the camera and my Sigma 180 macro about a year ago on a sidewalk in my neighborhood. The camera was being partially held together with 'photographic equipment repair devices' (rubber bands
Beth...One little usability thing that I like is being able to just push buttons to go through their different options (rather than holding them down and rotating the command dial). One such button is the 'Shooting Mode' button for single, multi, timer, remote, etc. One thing that I do not like is that while the review is on the LCD if you spin the front dial to change the aperture then the image view changes (to the different display options). Overall though, I do like the body.
Pete...whew! Glad to hear you are so strong; and surviving so well through that experience!
Nathan
Back at the turn of the century, I upgraded my Nikon CoolPix 990 to the new 5700.
The 990 was passed on to my son in college. One evening I got a call from him (unusual for a college student not needing money) and he reluctantly told me about his bike accident - caused by the camera. Apparently he was riding home from campus with the camera in hand. While adjusting his grip the camera dropped into the spokes and immediately stopped the bike. He continued over the handle bars in a graceful somersault. Apparently this greatly amused all the coeds watching.
If you remember, the 990 was one of those articulated models where half the body rotated.
Well, after stopping the bike, it was disarticulated and could rotate way more than 360 degrees.
Nathan
Also broken a couple glass filters in less dramatic fashion, and lost lens caps and other accessories along the way.