It’s come up in several discussions with friends that they don’t always bring their cameras into questionable areas, or places they could get damaged. It’s reasonable. But for myself, my choice was always to bring the camera just about anywhere. I’d rather run the risk — especially since these are often the more interesting situations — and get some great shots. Cameras can be repaired, but moments can’t be relived.
Though honestly I wasn’t too worried about having my camera out in a nice hotel room in downtown Atlanta. But even so, while at Dragon*Con, a rather large, solid, intoxicated man landed on me, and knocked my camera to the ground.
A 3 month old lens. Ultra-wide angle, so not exactly cheap. By the next morning, when I went to pick up the camera, I noticed the lens body separating into two pieces. And it’s been getting slowly worse ever since. As of this afternoon, the auto-anything was dead. I couldn’t zoom, and it was still sagging.
Took it into Penn. $150 estimated repair, though that’s just their average for this kind of lens. 4 to 6 weeks wait. And even then, I won’t be surprised if it’s not salvageable.
Eh. I’m not really too upset. I did get plenty of wonderful shots that night with the lens. And none of the damage was intentional. Even in his drunken state, the first thing the guy worried about was wether he’d damaged the camera. It sucks, but life goes on.