Total damage: one UV filter
File under Things I Am A Fan Of: seatbelts, helmets, and lens filters.
I’ve owned three Pentax SLR cameras in my life, and now, as of Easter Sunday, each of them has endured catastrophic accidental droppage. The cameras have always come through fine, which is a testament to the solid build-quality of Pentax’s products, or my luck, or both.
In a bizarre coincidence, my friend Erik had the same damn thing happen just a day or two later, but was also saved by the filter’s sacrifice. I guess it’s going around.
Be safe!
In my preparation for a smartass “except if the camera attains escape velocity” comment, I came across this awesome video. Now that’s camera droppage!
uops! it doesn’t look nice…
Erik: I like that you prepare for your smart-ass responses. It indicates an
alarmingimpressive level of commitment.What can I say? The “ass” part comes naturally, but I have to work at the “smart” part.
But more on the helmet incidents?
gaoo:
1) On a motorcycle once I hit some gravel on a tight curve, and while I was going at most 25-30 mph, my left temple area hit the pavement pretty hard (1988).
2) When I was belaying another soldier from below during some rappelling training, someone above knocked a sharp-edged, fist-sized rock off a ledge 25 meters up. It struck me squarely on the head with enough force to knock me to my knees and left a dent nearly an inch deep in my steel helmet. (I never did find out why we were using old-skool helmets at that place.) Fortunately, whoever kicked it over didn’t yell “ROCK!” or “look out below!” or similar, as if they had I probably would’ve reflexively looked up and caught it in the face (1991).
3) Traveling quite fast (70 mph?) on a country road on a motorcycle I caught a bird in the visor with enough force that it almost knocked me off. I am sure that if I’d been helmetless (this was in a helmet-optional state, Georgia) or even had the visor up, I would have come off the bike (1992).
4) There’s a climbing-related one, too. I can’t remember the details, or even the year, but it was a case of rockfall that was trivial enough not to kill you but significant enough to probably distract you from hanging onto the wall if you weren’t wearing a silly-looking plastic helmet. Which I was.
I still haven’t bought a helmet for skiing, and given that I’m not a very good skier, I probably should. I like that here kids are required to wear them. Helmets rule.
Thanks, man. Freaky! I guess I had heard of one or two of these incidents.
More reasons to be grateful, just on general principle, every day.
Like the thing in 1991, that’s the year your first of a long line of nieces and nephews was born. Just think, you might not have had the chance to be a Nuncle.
That would suck.
The things we did when we were young, that were so incredibly stupid/lucky!
And now all we hope is that somehow we’ve paid enough dues so our kids don’t have to learn the same lesson the hard way.
Erik: You know better than that. The “ass” part comes from me. The “smart” part comes from your Ma.
I dropped my Pentax right on its lens filter once. I was deathly sick and stuck in South Dakota. Now there’s a helmet-optional state.