A heartbeat skipping experience

[Dr. Gary]

I had a 500mm f/4 come off a Wimberly Head and land on concrete last week in Ukraine. Talk about a heart skipping experience. The lens mounted with some effort to the 1DS Mk II and I continued the shoot.

DrGary

[framah]

What is worse is when there is someone there to see it happen!!  You just KNOW they are thinking what jerk you are that you can't even put your equipment together correctly!!  

  I had my old F3 fall off my tripod and land on the edge of the filter on the lens. I picked it, brushed it off reset it up and continued shooting.  The filter was scrap after that but everything else worked fine. That was a real workhorse!!

[JJP]

To get mobile and to get around in the woods, what I normally do is go by bicycle and a bicycle trailer.  My trailer is fitted with drip proof box which contains Lowpro backpack, photographic gear, lunch, water etc...
A few milles into the woods, to be fully prepared, I decided to attached big lens (500mm F4.5) to camera (1Ds) and lay the aforementioned on the backpack, close the lid and go riding some more.  I assure you, that when I attached the lens, I heard the "click" which assured me that the lens was latched on the camera mount.
Gee whiz, a half hour later, I open the lid, pick up the camera and to my amazement, the lens (although still attached to camera) was not latched.  Believe me, I have'nt got a fiddlers clue as to what happened.
Anybody out there have a similar experience?
jules

[BryanHansel]

Just a couple of months ago, I was at Mt. Rushmore shooting the night lighting ceremony, and I stuffed my camera and a 70-200, which is the lens I was using the most that night, into my pack and walked to the side profile pull out when I mounted the lens to my tripod, my camera fell right off.  My heart skipped a beat.

[BernardLanguillier]

The only time I dropped a lens in 17 years of photography was last August during a trek in the Western part of Japan.

I had just put a 35 mm on the H1 instead of the 80 that was on it until then, put the 80 in the Loewe Pro topload zoom chest poach, forgot to zip up the topload, let the cap fall on the floor, bent down to grap the cap... and could see the 80 fall off from the poach and lend 5 meters below in the small stream I was overlooking from the top of a concrete dam...

Needless to say, Hassy Japan couldn't do anything to bring it back to life. It seems that those toys don't like sand and water too much.

An expensive mistake...

Cheers,
Bernard