Camera Labs

Today I almost had a heart-attack when I felt that my camera was slipping from my shoulder. I had it on my fantastic strap (personally signed by Gordon but I wasn't careful enough: So my Nikon D800 + 24-70/2.8 dropped to the ground from about 3 feet. Lens pointing down protected by only the HB-40 lens-hood and all 1.7 kg of gear crashed noisily on the forest track.
When I picked it up nothing was separated or obviously broken or even scratched but the lens-hood looked slightly askew. After inspecting everything and doing some test-shots it seems that indeed the broken mount of the lens-shade seems to be the only loss that I had from this accident. Was happily shooting away this afternoon already (see my images from the Fotoszene Nuremberg here).
Certainly I will do some more rigorous testing, but at least my blood-pressure has normalized quite a bit.

Now that was for the "Drop" part of the headline, what about the "wrong reflex" part?
Well, what can I say: When the strap slipped from my shoulder I tried to reach down and catch the falling camera. Good move? Certainly not!
Because the camera was dropping faster than I was diving after her. And the most important thing: That move cleared the way for the strap to come completely off my arm.
A much better move would have been to forget about the camera and go for the strap: simply lifting my arm would have caught the strap and prevented the drop in the first place! So I should mentally prepare for this move, should I ever have a case of slipping strap again!

Some side-notes:
1. I'm really impressed that my Nikon gear was not damaged in this case.
2. I've heard knowledgeable people claim that broken filters that were used to protect a lens had damaged the front lens more in a drop than anything else.
3. The broken NB-40 is around 25 EUR to replace. A new one will be here on Tuesday.
4. I always use the lens-hood on all my lenses. Seems like a good idea!

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

Well sorry to hear that, but I'm glad you gear is ok. I've only had one instance where I thought my camera was dead. Basically, I had my camera mounted on a tripod but the release plate wasn't secured correctly and the strap was tied around my wrist so when I pulled my arm back, I sent the camera flying for about 4 meters. When it hit the ground, the battery cover had opened up and it was partly broken while the lens hood got a little bent (but it's ok now, I've fixed it). At first, I would've sworn that the battery cover wouldn't close again and that obviously would leave the camera unusable, and indeed, it wouldn't close. It took me a while to repair it and I still have some trouble when closing the battery cover and it won't close completely but hey, it works!
At least the camera didn't fall in the pool that was about 5 meters from where it landed

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Gear: Canon SX20 IS, Canon Rebel T3i, Canon EF-S 18-55mm
Wishlist: Canon 50mm f/1.8 II, Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II
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