A sick feeling comes into the pit of your stomach when drop your gear, and the more expensive the gear is, the sicker that feeling is. Over the last few years I have been extremely careful with my gear, until this spring the only piece of gear I dropped was the 50mm F1.8D, which I no longer have. This year I've been a little bit more clumsy, I've dropped my D700 several times while changing lenses. Thankfully both times it was onto soft surfaces (grass). It always seems to happen when I am trying to do too much at once, such as taking caps on and off, while holding the camera and the lens I want to put on and the one I'm taking off. Clearly that is not a good practice, and I no longer do that. Not trying to juggle a camera and several lenses at once has work well, for my camera, and I have not dropped it in the last three months.
I wish I could say the same for my beloved Nikon AF-S 300mm F4D IF-ED, which is now at the Nikon depot in Richmond for a repair estimate. Last month I was taking some evening image of Vancouver from Cyprus mountain, and all was going well. That is until I swapped my 28-105mm, which was too wide even at 105mm, and the 300mm F4. While I was attempting to mount the 300mm F4, it took a nose dive, without the hood extended, YIKES! Thankfully the cap was attacked, so the front element remains unscathed. The same cannot be said for the top left corner of the front lens cap (the extreme edge broke off), the hood (which is built in) is chipped, or the now partly squished filter thread.
I would have shown the damaged lens, but I didn't think to take a photo of it before taking the lens in for service on Monday. Although the damage appears to be rather superficial, I could still attach a filter (not tightly), I took it into Nikon to make sure it was still focusing properly. If repairing the damaged parts isn't too expensive I'll get them fixed as well. I should find out how bad ($$$) it is within the next week.
I wish I could say the same for my beloved Nikon AF-S 300mm F4D IF-ED, which is now at the Nikon depot in Richmond for a repair estimate. Last month I was taking some evening image of Vancouver from Cyprus mountain, and all was going well. That is until I swapped my 28-105mm, which was too wide even at 105mm, and the 300mm F4. While I was attempting to mount the 300mm F4, it took a nose dive, without the hood extended, YIKES! Thankfully the cap was attacked, so the front element remains unscathed. The same cannot be said for the top left corner of the front lens cap (the extreme edge broke off), the hood (which is built in) is chipped, or the now partly squished filter thread.
I would have shown the damaged lens, but I didn't think to take a photo of it before taking the lens in for service on Monday. Although the damage appears to be rather superficial, I could still attach a filter (not tightly), I took it into Nikon to make sure it was still focusing properly. If repairing the damaged parts isn't too expensive I'll get them fixed as well. I should find out how bad ($$$) it is within the next week.
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