My husband dropped my 30D and 17-40L, They seem ok--is that possible?

[ijespah]

Hi,

 

My husband accidentally dropped my 30D and 17-40L lens straight down on

cement as he was unpacking our car after a trip. The camera hit lens down

from about 3-4 feet up, and bounced. He figured it was totaled--he felt so

guilty!. But when we took the lens cap off, amazingly, the lens appeared fine,

not even scratched (both camera and lens were in perfect condition before--

only 14 months old, and I am very careful of them.) The camera appears to

work fine, but I haven't had a chance to take too many shots. The only damage

I can see are a few scratches on the LCD.

 

Should I take it to a photo repair shop and have it checked out? How much

might that cost?Are there tests I can do on it? Will it develop trouble over time? I

had been thinking of selling the 30D and lens and getting a 5D--is a dropped

camera worth a lot less, even if it works fine and looks fine? (I would obviously

feel that I had to disclose the drop to a buyer.)

 

Thank you for any advice. I feel so distraught about the idea that my camera

and lens could be damaged!

 

Isabel

[btmuir]

check the auto focus at varying distances.

 

you may have been lucky and the hood took the impact.

 

give him a kiss and tell him you forgive him ;) (he may reward you)

[saskphotog]

You are right to want to check it all out. I would take the camera out and shoot lots of pictures with all sorts of settings on both the camera and the lens, and then examine the images carefully for anything strange like one corner being out of focus etc. It may well be that the outfit survived the fall.

 

I'm surprised your husband survived it. ;>)

[apetty]

I had something like that happen on my XTI, my wife stepped on the strap and it smashed the LCD. She felt really bad, and I had to walk away before I said something really bad. But it did prompt me to buy insurance on all my equipment. I bought another body because I didn't trust it, but a few months later I fixed it myself and it worked fine. Now the once broken one is a backup to my 40d.

 

Just wanted to share my pain with you.

[g dan mitchell]

Wow! It sounds like you (he!) may have been lucky this time. It is possible that the

camera was not significantly damaged if it hit just right and perhaps the cap popped

off or the hood took part of the blow.

 

I second the recommendation to carefully and methodically go through some camera

testing just to make sure. I've heard of people with cameras that appeared to be

undamaged who later discovered that the elements in a lens had been thrown out of

alignment - and they ended up with some focusing problems.

 

You might want to hang onto the body when you get that 5D. A decent crop body

can be a good complement to a FF body.

 

Dan

[markonestudios]

Lucky hubby :)

<p>Falls are pretty subjective and depending on a lot of things (I'll spare you the physics ;)) it could be that it works juuuust fine. Of course it will be worthwhile to get some testing done yourself. You could also call Canon and ask them for a quotation for testing the rig for you. Chances are, they'll find nothing wrong, so it might/might not be worth the money. However, it may help to reboost the resale value if you have a damage report from Canon proving that the optics are fine. Just a thought :)

[ijespah]

Hi everyone,

 

Thanks for your (very quick) responses. I really appreciate it--I am hyperventilating with anxiety about my poor camera and lens!

 

I did call Penn Camera, in the Washington D.C. area, and they want $250 to send the camera and lens out just to look at them. Forget that, obviously. So I will take your suggestions and test the camera at different focal lengths, different apertures, shutter speeds etc. But I am afraid I'll miss something. I am still a novice here. I hate to sound stupid, but if the lens is out of alignment, will I know it?

 

Thanks,

Isabel

 

P.S. (As for my husband, this was really my fault because I packed the camera snug in the trunk of our car amid some sweatshirts--no camera bag. Stupid of me. He unpacked the trunk and it flew out. So, I can't be mad at him. But he feels guilty and he's being very sweet about it.)

[ralph_jensen]

"If the lens is out of alignment, will I know it?"

 

I would guess so. The lens would probably have obvious mechanical issues (i.e., grinding or sticky spots while focusing or zooming) if it was whacked hard enough to affect photos.

 

Photographers complain all the time about "plastics" in cameras and even lens bodies, but polycarbonate can take a pretty big hit and bounce back, even when the hit is strong enough to dent to the point of impairment a metal camera.

 

If it seems fine, I think it will be fine. Most of my cameras and lenses have taken a lot harder hits and drops than I'll readily admit...

[anson_ko]

I dropped my 5d+28-300IS with 580 3 feet from a bench. just a few scratches and it works fine. Canon camera is pretty good handling accidental drops.

[arie_vandervelden1]

Some things to try out:

 

Move the zoom ring, it should move smoothly. Move the manual focus ring at various focal lengths. Try to autofocus, as pointed out.

 

Try to remove the UV filter if you have one mounted. Impacts can bind the filter to the lens. Remove the lens from the camera and look for damage on the lens mount. Try mounting another lens if you have one - it should click into place smoothly. Look through the rear element of the lens and look for damage.

 

Shake the camera - are there any rattles that weren't there before (note the portrait/landscape orientation sensor can cause a small rattle - this is normal). Play with the knobs and buttons on the camera body and lens.

 

Take some test photos. Try a few photos at max shutter speed (outdoor, TV, crank up the iso to 1600) and maybe a few bulb exposures if you can. Test the pop-up flash. If all works fine then I doubt you'll develop problems in the future.

[tien_pham]

Change a different lens to see if the lens-camera body interface is ok, not bent even slightly.

[sarah_fox]

Ouch! Happy Mother's Day!

 

What Arie said! I wouldn't pay $250 to have a camera/lens checked over to see if it's OK. That's something you should be able to do yourself. If it takes pictures as it should, with correct exposure and focus, and without doing things it shouldn't, then there's not really a problem.

 

For all it's worth, fatal drops were more of a problem for the old fully mechanical cameras than the newer cameras with electromechanical shutters, because the most delicate parts were the timing gears/wheels. Now timing is done electronically, and it is a lot harder to damage a circuit board than a tiny bearing. Not long ago, someone else reported having dropped a 40D (?) on the pavement and having it bounce and roll. It still worked fine. If you have a problem with the body, it should be readily apparent and satisfactorily repairable (unlike the older cameras that were never really quite right after a bad impact).

 

The lens took the impact in the best possible way -- face-on. The lens cap likely absorbed most of the shock by deforming and slipping in the filter threads. The lens elements would have been well supported by their mounts and would not have been banged out of alignment to the side.

 

As I see it, the most likely thing to have been damaged would be the lens mounting flange, which could have been bent inwards. Check to see if your focus is flat from edge to edge by photographing a spread-out newspaper. Be very careful that your camera body is parallel to the newspaper. Also check to see if your focusing distances are accurate. For instance, do you reach infinity in your focus before you indicate infinity on the scale? The 17-40 allows you to focus past infinity, and the correct mark for infinity under normal conditions is the little "L" lip at the left end of the infinity bar. Don't panic if it's not EXACTLY there. On my own 17-40 on my 5D, I get an infinite focus at some fraction of a mm to the left of that lip.

 

When you're finally satisfied that your lens and camera are OK, then start complaining about the softness of your images here or there, and start talking about how the lens really isn't functioning reliably anymore. Pick out the next L lens you would like to add to your bag, and drop heavy hints about how you wish you had it, as it's really the FL range or max aperture you should have gotten in the first place. Wait until Christmas. ;-)

 

Seriously, good luck with your camera and lens!

 

Peace,

Sarah

[g dan mitchell]

If it were my lens, to test the alignment issue I would do the old "newspaper" test and

check to see that the focus was relatively uniform across the frame, recognizing that it

is normal for the sharpness to decrease a bit toward the corners.

 

A sign of trouble might be, for example, if one side of the frame is sharp and the other

isn't.

 

Dan

[bnyc]

My better half dropped my 24-105 while changing lenses, and it was immediately apparent that the USM was busted. But lenses can be repaired pretty easily, people are more fragile. :) So don't worry too much - it sounds like your husband is worrying enough for two people, as was my significant other. If there are problems with the lens or camera they will become apparent, and the repair probably won't be very expensive.

[tim_klimowicz]

Story to increase your optimism:

I dropped my 30D + 17-55mm 2.8 IS last october (2007), and I've seen no problems with

either to this day. It was only from about lap-height, though, and landed on a wood plank floor.

 

The camera & lens seemed undamaged, but I wish I could say the same for my ego. It was at

the Eddie Adams Workshop (attended as support/faculty, not student -- I'm not THAT good!),

as I stood to applaud one of the speakers, thinking the strap was still around my neck. It

wasn't, and the couple rows of people ahead and behind me realized the horror along with me

with the loud bang as it hit, shooting me glances mixed with both sympathy and disgust

(mostly disgust).

[andy_witkowski]

Bob posted an article on how to test a lens a while back.

 

http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/technical/testing_lenses.html Might want to run through a few of these with dropped lens and a known good lens just to see if there are camera vs lens issues.