Dropped your camera lately?

Sort of a heart-clenching experience.

Yesterday, while carrying various and sundry items from the car, I relaxed my grip momentarily on the wrist strap on my A6300 thinking I had a finger through the loop. Wrong! It fell three feet and bounced off the concrete with a sound that I will likely remember until my last moments on earth.

My nearly-instantaneous plans to order an A6500 body to replace my now destroyed workhorse were dashed when a close inspection and some quick test shots showed that the little magnesium alloy beast is a lot tougher than I gave it credit for. It has new tiny (and I mean tiny!) dings on the upper left flat and corner and the SD card was jarred loose, but both the camera and the attached 18-105 f/4 (which had the hood in place) seem unfazed by the experience.

I'm glad the object lesson in camera handling protocols didn't cost me anything because as sure as the day is long, if I had to drain the camera fund to buy an A6500 to replace a defunct A6300, Sony would introduce the Next Big (APS-C) Thing a week later.

Dave

I highly encourage you to do a more careful "test" by focusing on something that'll give you an opportunity to assess whether the lens is still focused correctly on a flat plane (or as flat as it was before the drop). Years ago, my wife dropped out 16-35/2.8 and we assumed it was OK. Several months later, after capturing what I thought was a fantastic shot of my dad sailing and having it printed on large canvas, I realized the shot was just soft; never truly focused at any point on him. Same goes for a 70-200/2.8 IS I dropped; it had a shorter fall but had a bunch of hardware that landed with it. Admittedly, that one had obvious looseness to the barrel, but again it wouldn't give a sharp picture no matter what.

I highly encourage you to do a more careful "test" by focusing on something that'll give you an opportunity to assess whether the lens is still focused correctly on a flat plane (or as flat as it was before the drop). Years ago, my wife dropped out 16-35/2.8 and we assumed it was OK. Several months later, after capturing what I thought was a fantastic shot of my dad sailing and having it printed on large canvas, I realized the shot was just soft; never truly focused at any point on him. Same goes for a 70-200/2.8 IS I dropped; it had a shorter fall but had a bunch of hardware that landed with it. Admittedly, that one had obvious looseness to the barrel, but again it wouldn't give a sharp picture no matter what.

Already did. (Right after the panic wore off!) The A6300 focuses using phase-detect pairs on the sensor and the point indicated by one of the hundreds of focus points will always be in focus but issues may arise if an element was knocked out of alignment. I checked for side to side and top to bottom issues and it doesn't seem to have taken any damage. It landed pretty flat, so it looks like luck was with me this time.

Dave

Good to hear it worked out OK. I had a similar heart-in-throat moment a few years back - though mine also involved all the air out of my lungs and a few scratches and scuffs on both me and the camera and lens. I was walking out on some untended levees in a wetlands area when my foot found a well-covered animal hole...I had my A580 and Tamron 150-600mm, a lens I had just purchased about a month and a half before. I dropped face first - which also happened to be camera and lens first - towards the ground - putting out one hand to brace for impact while the other was attempting to cradle the camera and lens. I hit the ground hard, my one arm not enough to hold me up, and the other arm with camera and lens in it slammed to the ground, knocking the battery from the camera, flipping the LCD out, and knocking the lens hood off. Initially, I thought I got away with it clean - some turd was wedged into the lens end, but hey, just the hood popping loose is no biggie! But then I realized the hood still had the entire end glass assembly attached to it - and the end of the lens was an empty hole. The camera was OK - re-inserted the battery, LCD was fine once flipped back down - a few scuffs here and there. The lens I figured was a goner...but for the heck of it I pressed the end glass back against the barrel, and it sort of 'fit' into place - it didn't stay there too firmly as the screws had torn through their mount holes, but it did actually stay in place and with a careful hand holding it I took a few test shots - everything worked fine! This was the first shot I took, while holding the end of the lens glass to the barrel:

When I got home, I made sure it was all clean inside from dirt and grass and dust, then superglued the end piece and glass back to the barrel. I've used that lens now for over 3 years and it's been flawless - despite looking a bit MacGyvered.

So far, the only other drop *knocked on wood just now* was my Voigtlander Nokton 35mm F1.4 lens, which didn't come out of the bag as smoothly as I expected in a dark auditorium, falling to the ground about 3 feet then rolling down 4 rows of seats, bumping into the seat posts of 2 of them. Tiny paint chip, otherwise zero damage. That little manual lens is built like military hardware, so it's not surprising!

I had my 5D MK III and a 24-105 F4 slide off my shoulder and land on the bus floor in China last spring. Yes, a scary moment, especially seeing the battery door loose on the floor. I was able to get it back in place for the rest of the trip and the nice people at Canon were kind enough to give me a new door during my annual clean and check. Sometimes keeping my CPS membership pays off.

Glad to hear that your camera survived the crash.

Keith