Confess: Your "repairs history" ie. what have you broken

[John Geerts]

What a great stories.

The one that I did manage to break was the 24-70/2.8 AF-S. It was absolutely my wrong doing. It was mounted on a D4 and standing on a tripod. The tripod legs slid on a slippery surface and the lens landed nose down. The sunshade was on and did break off absorbing some of the impact but not enough unfortunately...

That happened with my 17-35/2.8 AF-S but the cats were to blame At first the only damage seemed a broken (small) sunhood and a twist in an effects-filter. But later  I noticed  the aperture was stuck when overexposure happened when stopping down. Estimated damage more than 700 euro...

[BW]

Talking about cats. Never leave your camera strap hanging outside the table with a kitten in the house... The same goes with leaving candy in an open camerabag inside a horse pen. There is absolutely nothing funny about chasing an icelandic horse with a 70-200 mm in his mouth. I lost a perfectly good chain saw the same way and a backpack full of food and thermoses. So I seem quite immune to learning...

[Chip Chipowski]

On my Panasonic GX-1, the battery catch tab broke (no idea what caused it).  To fix that battery tab, I had to take the whole camera apart and I messed something up when I put it back together.  Maybe unfair, but that incident really sealed the micro four thirds coffin for me.

Recently, I was using my 70-300VR.  Changed lenses and put the lens in my vest pocket.  I went from a crouch to stand up, and the lens rolled out of my pocket onto the concrete.  Maybe a 1-2' drop.  The lens still functioned, but I heard a rattle so I sent it off to the Nikon repair center.

Other than that, I have been lucky!

[Jakov Minić]

The stories are so funny!
Børge, I would have loved to see the scene where you were running after the Icelandic horse

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Well, the sample I saw was in a mint condition (and that in the picky Japanese sense of evaluation) and came with the original aluminum case.  Also, it came with a 122mm L37c filter which originally cost 16,000 JPY, if I remember correctly.

My sample had fresh untouched pristine fungus - does that count? Otherwise immaculate condition, never used and with its original box with all the paperwork. The L37C and the four focusing pegs were included.

Perhaps I had some luck then...

[Akira]

My sample had fresh untouched pristine fungus - does that count? Otherwise immaculate condition, never used and with its original box with all the paperwork. The L37C and the four focusing pegs were included.

Perhaps I had some luck then...

Apparently the L37c was part of the kit.

By the way, the second element that was covered with the fungus seems to be the ED glass.  According to an interview to the Nikon engineer, the ED glass is more soluble in water than the normal glasses.  So the glass got fungus because it held the moisture more than the other elements...

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Another not so funny story about an F4 and its encounter with death: Early in the '90s I jumped out of a taxi down town Oslo with the F4 and a brand new 35-70 mm f/2.8 AF Nikkor attached. I was in a real hurry being late for an appointment and as I departed the taxi, one of the eyelets on the camera strap gave way  and the camera and lens were hurled off my shoulder just like a discus thrower in Olympic action. The package gained a lot of momentum and its trajectory reached perhaps a height of over 3 m before gravity finally won. This occurred so quickly I had no time to react at all before hearing that sickening sound of the camera and lens hitting the tarmac at maximum velocity. The camera was smashed to pieces and the lens neatly split itself into two parts. No more photography that day.

The repair estimate for the camera actually exceeded its value, so I discarded the idea of having it fixed. A complete write-off. This was in the early days before I actively modified stuff so didn't keep the parts, just threw them away.

The lens, however, could be put more easily together and they restored it for me to its former glory.

To this day I never quite understand how the mishap could happen. Only that it did.

[Akira]

Bjørn, I also remember the tragedy of your just-bought Ais 35/1.4.  You dropped it, the protection filter smashed and left scratches on the front element of the 35/1.4: the day you decided you would never use filters for protection...

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Glad you reminded me of that incident. Happened the day after I got the lens. It fell to frozen ground, the filter shattered and shards of deadly sharp glass punctured the front element like it was longing to become a hedgehog.

As this is back in time, not 100% sure what happened to the lens. I think they replaced the front element and I sold the lens as it was covered by insurance anyway. Bought another a year later and this sample of the AIS 35/1.4 is still with me. Now CPU-modified of course.

The lesson to be learned was never use a filter unless you absolutely must for some reason. "Protective filter" is a bad joke.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

I spent a lovely vacation with my girl friend Ruth in Ireland in July, 2015. This was a double celebration occasion as we had been together for 21 years and it was 21 years since I last visited Ireland.

However, the return flight caused a bad incident. This is what happens when a fellow passenger on a crowded airliner pushes his way through just as you are about to put your gear into the overhead locker - he jolted me so I lost my grip .... Exit Df, exit 300 PF. To use the Nordic phrase, "they went out of the Saga".

To complete the misery, another traveller tripped and spilled his cup of coffee into the lens later during the flight. Back home, we lost our connecting train so had to ride a bus for hours, then to find Ruth's car had its rear-wheel drums seized up during its 2-week outdoor parking due to the moisture caused  by torrential rains. Oh well, a car-mechanic nerd came to assistance and we managed to get the wheels rolling again.

1. This is how the lens and camera looked like after the incident.

2. Erik got the camera in a bag as a 3D puzzle because my Nikon repair shop declared it was a complete write-off and they could not restore it in any cost-efficient way. 

3. Trust Erik to be able to assemble all the bits and pieces together. But not even Erik's magical powers could convince the camera to work again. So we decided to make it into a nice exhibition model instead.

[simsurace]

I once lost a brand new D90 to the Baltic Sea when taking a few long exposures after dusk. The camera was mounted to a tripod and in a short inattentive moment a wave gushed over the rock the tripod was standing on, knocking it over. The camera was submerged in seawater for 1 second before I pulled it out. Enough to cause an epileptic seizure, it was firing away at an insane rate before I could remove the battery. Of course the camera was too severely damaged to be repaired.

I had the lens cleaned and it still worked decently.

[armando_m]

... an epileptic seizure, it was firing away at an insane rate before I could remove the battery...

what a description! I bet it was a bad moment for you, but sure made me laugh when I read it

[Gary]

While I have broken a few cameras and lenses, I have never broken any photographic gear to the extent where it could be repaired. As a former news photog from the film only days ... it has been my personal experience that the old Nikon F series cameras were so well built ... that the energy/force required to inflict serious damage ... ended up destroying the camera.  Consequently, when my cameras were damaged they were damaged beyond repair ... and, as they were company cameras, I didn't give a rats about the equipment, my only concern was getting some new stuff and getting back into the game.

[David H. Hartman]

Is this like a testimony meeting where you confess your sins, e.g. sister Sarah Brown's gathering of gamblers in Guys and Dolls?

OK, I torqued of the head of a rear bayonet screw on my 105/2.5 Nikkor P-C. I took a pin vise and a tiny numbered drill and drilled a hole through it. Then I went out looking for a tiny screw extracter. I got some really strange looks. "You want a screw extracter for what size drill?

So I gave up on the screw extracter and took a larger drill bit to drill out the screw. The drill bit heated the high temp Loctite. The bit jamed. The broken screw went through the back side. The threads in the lens barrel were about 90% intact. The home AI job was a success!

That was my first lens "repair." I've been in a half dozen manual focus lenses since. I've yet to butcher a Len but that first one was close. I have butchered a focus screen for an F5 installing the fruit from an F3 focus screen. I slipped and scratched the screen proper. I think I've been more luck than being skilled.

Dave