There are times I hate gravity.

R

RocketTom

Member
This is the second time this has happened. Nikon D700, external battery pack, with a 70-200 lens on the front. It's a heavy combination (has left slight brusing on the shoulders) so I take the lens foot for the lens and rotate it around by 180' so it acts like a handle. (Can you see it coming?) I'm doing an indoor corporate event, and during a lull I held on to the camera by the lens foot (handle) - and the foot came off. There was a very sickening CLUNK as it hit a thinly carpeted concrete floor. I *instantly* knew I broke it. The lens no longer reported any info to the camera, but the camera still snapped. I tried another lens on the camera and the mount bound up, so it was also buggered up. The lens mounts aren't designed for 12 lbs of camera & lens to try and bust them apart.

I took both in to the Nikon repair facility (I work only 1 miles away from the El Segundo, CA offices), they are both being worked on. Repair bill: D700 = $300, 70-200 = $425.

(The first time this happened, it dropped to a gravel-covered dirt and resulted in a mis-alignment of the mounts. Then, it was only $400 for both.) They said that they do have parts, so I *may* have it back by the end of this week. We'll see...

Lesson learned: TIGHTEN THAT SCREW, STUPID HEAD!!! This puts a big damper on that 28-300 lens I was drooling over...
 
That's really too bad, Tom. ; And it's a warning, since I screw my BlackRapid R-strap into the foot. ; Maybe I'll just remove the foot and screw it directly into the lens.
 
Tom, your post reminds me of a line from Commando:


But that is not the most important thing in your life right now. But was IS important, is GRAVITY!"
 
Fillmore- shall we recall the fantasyland tripod incident of 2009? That one hurt.

-Posted from my htc Thunderbolt. ;
 
"Tim" said:
Fillmore- shall we recall the fantasyland tripod incident of 2009? That one hurt.

-Posted from my htc Thunderbolt.
Click to expand...

Yeah I was glad I was far far away from your tripod at that moment. ; :o ;
 
Ouch! ; That really sucks. ; While we're on the topic of tightening things, I have read that the small screws that hold the tripod foot attachment plate to the lens body are also known to come loose, so it is a good idea to check those regularly. ; Most of the reports I read on that dealt with the new 70-200 VRII, and I haven't found the screws on my VRI to be loose, but I still check them every couple of months.
 
Hmm, I think some Loctite may be in order. Now I just have to remember which one NOT to use, the blue or red.

Erich
 
Isn't the blue one more permanent, red can be released by heat or certain chemical? ; I have a tube of blue that I used for building my own Arca-Swiss monopod head.
 
"Roger" said:
Isn't the blue one more permanent, red can be released by heat or certain chemical? ; I have a tube of blue that I used for building my own Arca-Swiss monopod head.
Click to expand...

The Blue 242 is listed as being removable with hand tools. ; The Red 271 says that it is removable with hand tools and heat.
 
So here's the tail of the tape: Costs were as estimated, total time in shop was 5 business days.

Nikon ranks repairs by:
Cleaning
B1 (minor parts replaced)
B2 (major parts replaced)
C ; (major parts, major work)

The lens was a B2 - replaced lens mount and components, and alignment. The camera? It was a C - my first one. They replaced the lens mount, aligned the mirror, replaced the rubber hand/thumb grips, the rubber bad on the bottom, replaced the upper camera body assembly, replaced the pop-up flash, replaced hot shoe, and replaced the upper LCD panel (had a small nick). It even *smelled* new. It was about as close to new as I've ever had!

I did a root-cause incident investigation on this accident to try and find out why it happened, yet again.

Here's how I was holding the lens. (Remember that there's a camera on the right side - I can't move my ring finger over because the body is in the way)
repair-1.jpg


Closer look, and you can see how my hand surrounds the mount. That screw is the primary method for securing the foot/post to the lens. The assembly slides off towards the front of the lens:
repair-2.jpg


Here's the lens sans paw:
repair-3.jpg


Can you see that small tab there on the left?
repair-4.jpg


That's the safety mechanism that would keep the lens from falling off the mount in case the mount was not secured properly. But to explain what happened, let's do a closeup:
repair-5.jpg


If my hand was there, and if the screw was not *completely* tightened, the safety tab would be depressed. And with the camera weighting down the back side of the lens, the front of the lens would point upwards - allowing the foot to simply slide off. You'd never know it until it hit the ground.

I did remove the mount a few days before that, but I thought I had secured it - and hey, if it was loose, that tab would keep it from coming off. Right?

So - this tab would work if you were using an R-Strap, but I would still not trust it.

The only way to tell if I learned my lesson is if I *never* do this again. So we'll find out at the end of my shooting career if this old dawg unlearned this bad habit.
 
I wonder what the idea was behind making that foot removable with a simple push-button? I guess I understand that some photogs would not want the foot on it if they were carrying the camera/lens around on a strap all day, or when packing it into a camera bag or lens case, but I would think that a more secure system would be better for attaching the foot, since the foot is there specifically as a tripod mount.

I guess Locktite is in your future for that thumbscrew, eh, Tom?
 
Boy, I wish it was. But there are legitimate times that I have to remove that foot. It's not often, but I do. But maybe not - not if it means exposing myself to another couple-a-hundred bucks that used to go to my 28-300 fund.... ; ;)
 
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