Nikon D700 partially fails drop test

[james_symington1]

No particular point to this post other than to say that my four day old D700, bought as a backup to my D3, fell from

my shoulder onto concrete and is likely beyond economic repair. It landed on the corner of the body where the

battery compartment cover is. The force of the blow pushed the metal body inwards millimetrically such that the

battery compartment cover was forced open, and now you can't close it, and the battery is wedged inside. That said

the camera works perfectly otherwise hence the partial fail I am rating this at :-)

 

There was my 24-70mm attached which will neeed to get checked too although it looks and works fine.

 

If there is any point to the anecdote I guess that it is the necessity of always having insurance as this would have

been a near tragic incident otherwise!

[james_symington1]

The 24-70mm is actually knackered too - when zooming there is increased resistance at one part of the zoom range. :-(

[frank_skomial]

Get the UPStrap and that should prevent, or at least reduce possibility of your camera slipping down your shoulder.

 

Perhaps your drop test was also a partial drop? - that is why you have a partial failure.

 

Sliding down camera off your shoulder perhaps was not exactly the same as dropping camera to the ground?

Whatever strap you had must have slowed down the camera fall a bit?

[stwrtertbsratbs5]

Sorry to hear about you accident. Perhaps it's worth having Nikon take a look at it.

[ShunCheung]

As we discussed in another thread recently, cameras and lenses are not designed to be dropped, be it a D40 or D3.

When you drop it on concrete, it really depends on where it hits; there can be no damage or a lot of damage. Having

a relatively heavy lens such as the 24-70mm/f2.8 on does not help.

 

I have mentioned before that 3 years ago, I dropped my D2X with 17-55mm/f2.8 DX attached all inside a padded

camera bag. The force bent the mount on the lens just a tiny bit, but that is enough to make all images taken by that

lens out of focus on one side. You have to inspect the images at the pixel level to see the problem.

 

Think of it this way; at least it wasn't your D3.

[elliot1]

Nikon service is very helpful in situations like this. Send it in. You may be pleasantly surprised how cooperative they are.

[james_symington1]

This will be the second time my 24-70mm has open heart surgery too - and the funny thing is that I am pretty much as careful as I can reasonably be with my stuff (given they get quite a lot of use). Oh well, what's money for if it isn't for splurging on repairs?

 

When I said 'fails' test I was being ironical - I didn't imagine for a second that I was going to get away with that fall without having to cough up some money :-)

[stwrtertbsratbs5]

I use a Black Rapid R-Strap because it's very comfortable and it can't slide off my shoulder. You may want to take a look. Nice strap, but pricey.

 

http://www.blackrapid.com/

[leicaglow]

In the old days, this is why I used the bottom shell of the everyready case. I bought the camera armor (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/465475-REG/Camera_Armor_CA_1114_BLK_Camera_Armor_for.html) for one of my D200's, not to save the D200, but to keep my companion Leica from being dinged up from banging against it. I really do think it would help if you dropped the camera, and I don't find it that obtrusive.

 

Sorry to hear about your loss, but as Elliot said, I think you might be surprised at how inexpensive Nikon might be, especially if you didn't give them all the gory details of what happened.

[liljuddakalilknyttphotogra]

My 24-70mm flew out of my D300 - - when correctly mounted & I can't stress that enough - & Nikon repaired it at a modest cost. I will be sending in my D300 as I feel the lens release button is just a tad too sensitive - - which is the only explanation I can give.

 

Actually, I had a Tamron lens with water spots on the inside of the front element due to condensation & it only needed a cleaning job - - that cost me more than the repair of the 24-70 which had taken flight.

 

Send in your D700 & by a better strap for it.

 

JMHO

 

Lil :-)

[mjt]

Sorry to hear about that, James!<br /><br />

 

As Elliot said, Nikon service can be very sympathetic in these situations.<br /><br />

 

I've been blessed to only have one camera fall in my 30+ years of shooting<br />

and it happened in the kitchen with a vinyl floor (no damage to equipment).<br /><br />

 

I use a "neck strap" with a quick release - one end of the quick release is sewn<br />

into the top of each camera strap (I have one end for each strap). The other end<br />

of the quick release is sewn to a [circular] neck strap. This way, I can clip the<br />

quick release(s) together, and hang the [real] camera strap off of each of my<br />

shoulders (I always have 2 cameras - one hanging off each shoulder). If a camera<br />

slips, it's held by its quick release "safety" strap. During a shoot, I simply pull<br />

whichever camera I need off my shoulder.

[scott_pogorelc]

James,

 

I feel your pain. I posted something similar about a week ago concerning my D300 + 24x70. It landed on the opposite corner of the body and cracked the case and was also deemed "beyond economical repair" (I love that phrase). In the end, Nikon sold me a reconditioned D300 for the original cost of the repair. I jumped at the opportunity and ended up better off in the end (it equated to a warranty extension). I was duly impressed with the way Nikon handled my situation -- hopefully they will handle your case similarly.

[Jerry_]

One body in a camera bag, one body held with a neck-strap around your neck....almost hard to drop one body to the pavement. If Nikon quotes a large price to repair-replace your D700, the kind folks at the auction site may bid on a 'fixer-upper' body....

[james_symington1]

Thanks everyone for the tips and the sympathy. The camera slipped off my shoulder as I lunged to prevent my 18 month old daughter hurting herself so the D700 died in a noble cause. It's an OpTech Super Classic strap I use which I find pretty good but it is not the weird ultra-wide strap thet make which may have saved my bacon.

 

I live about 4 miles away from Nikon UK so will go tomorrow morning and see what they say. Fortunately the excess on my insurance policy is GBP 250 so that is the most this debacle will set me back.

[aperture images]

If you are a member of NPS...and you should be...Send it to them and have it back is a few days...not weeks and it will be like NEW!! My D300 landed in a creek and 6 days later...Done!! Like new and works great...they even cleaned the sensor. Shipping and all was @ 200.00 . Some thoughts..

 

Alan Hadley

[james_symington1]

Hi Alan,

 

I am a member of the NPS which at least should mean they give me the bad news pretty quickly! Dropped it all off this morning...we'll see what happens.

 

James