…and that’s a good thing.
Many years ago, I turned around while I was sitting and pushed a Nikon FM off a bench. It fell about a foot to a stone patio, and the light meter never worked after that. A few years later, my wife set a 35 mm Minox down a little too hard on a hard surface, also resulting in failure of the light meter.
Last week, I was walking down a street in a quiet residential area with my family. There were too many of us to walk abreast on the sidewalk so I was walking in the gutter. I was carrying a Nikon D3s with the new 70-200 mm f/2.8 zoom in my right hand. Because the lens was so heavy, I was holding it by the quick-release plate attached to the tripod collar. I saw a parked car up ahead, and tried to step up onto the sidewalk, not noticing that the gutter was falling away to make way for a storm drain.
I put my left foot on the sidewalk, and caught my right foot on the curb as I swung it over. I almost got it under me, but I actually made matters worse as I put my weight on it and it forced me forward. I went down hard in a three point landing: my left hip, my left palm, and the upside down camera-and-lens combination in my right hand.
The damage? Technicolor bruises to my hip and palm, and abrasions to the lens hood and pentaprism cover. The camera worked fine. So did the lens, even the motion compensation.
I’m amazed.
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