Having a smashing time
Penhelig Harbour - Nikon Z7, 24-200mm lens @ 24mm, f11, 1/8 sec, ISO 64, tripod
It was my fault. I had no-one to blame but myself. I was in too much of a hurry to move from one location to the next and ……….crunch, my brand new camera fell off my tripod, landed on a hard rock pathway and clattered to a rest just inches from the Dyfi Estuary.
I didn’t know whether to scream, cry or close my eyes and hope it was just a bad dream.
As I picked-up my camera I could see that one corner had been damaged and the cover to the battery compartment had snapped off. Amazingly, however, the lens didn’t have a mark on it and when I switched the camera on, it worked perfectly. In fact, I took another few shots (including the shot above), but my heart was no longer in the job of taking photos. I packed-up my kit and headed home, to find out how I could best repair the damage I had inflicted on my camera.
When I took a closer look at my dented Nikon Z7, I was surprised at just how well the camera had survived such harsh treatment. It’s a testament to Nikon that the damage was pretty minimal; their reputation for building bullet proof cameras is well deserved. No wonder thousands of professionals choose Nikon, because they need kit that can put up with the rigours of being bashed, bumped, dropped and drenched (I’m not being sponsored by Nikon by the way - if only!).
When we buy cameras we tend to be taken in by all the marketing hype which inevitably focuses on megapixels. But having a camera that is tough and can be used in all weathers is as important to me as megapixels. I would go as far as to say that a camera is of no use, regardless of how many megapixels it may have, if it can’t put up with being rained on, exposed to sub-zero temperatures and occasionally dropped ( but perhaps not from shoulder height onto solid rock - that’s probably too much to ask!).
Over the years I have given my cameras a pretty rough time. On various occasions they have been thoroughly soaked, frozen, sand blasted, drenched in sea water, kicked and even sat on (that was a tough test, but the camera survived better than I did!). This is the first time I’ve had a camera break and require repair.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t set out to give my camera equipment a good thrashing. However, it’s inevitable that if I spend my time taking photos on mountains and the coast, my kit is going to get some harsh treatment every now and again.
I guess one accident in more than ten years (if not a lot longer) is actually a pretty good track record. The real irony of this episode is that just a few weeks previously, I had sold my second camera because I had never had occasion to need a spare!
Perhaps I should reconsider that decision.
Footnote: I have now purchased a backup camera - a Nikon Z50!