How much shock can the camera take?

I dropped an M6 from above waist height onto an oak floor. No damage at all - none, zero, nada. Well, there's a dent in the floor. The camera was fine. (I am not kidding.)

I had an M3 packed in a shirt rolled in a sweater in a backpack and slipped and fell onto my back on icy snow. It screwed up the shutter to the tune of hundreds of dollars of repairs.

I have no idea what accounts for these completely different experiences. The M body shell itself is extremely sturdy, so you are much more likely to have dented the table than physically harmed the camera body. The only thing that I think is generally potentially sensitive is the RF adjustment. If that looks fine, forget about it and worry about your furniture rather than the Leica. ;)
 
I just came back from 3+ weeks in a very hot/humid and rough environment and my equipment (two M7 bodies & three lenses) took a bit of a beating both there and probably in some very long plane rides. One of the M7s looks a bit worse for wear after being bumped around with a lot of other stuff including a power drill and two big batteries (don't ask). However they both seem just fine and everything is working perfectly, so I'm very encouraged about the durability of my stuff. Check for alignment at infinity if you're worried about your gear being bashed a bit.

I see both you guys are in Boston. The New England RFF is is having a meet/shoot in the North End Sat. 8/25. Join us! :)
 
I dropped my Kiev 4a from a shelf (about 1,5 meters high) and there's a dent in the wooden floor (no kidding too).
 
I guess I barely shook it up compared to you guys. I leaned forward and the camera swung forward and bumped the table A little bit.

I have one other question. Are the f-stop numbers supposed to line up directly with the little white line or are they supposed to be a little off center? My numbers on the aperture ring are a little to the left of the white line.
 
I whacked a Pentax SL off my desk the day after buying it, put a nice dent in the lens :mad: before my stupidity it was perfect. Now it sticks when focusing :rolleyes:

Other than that, I baby my cameras to make sure I don't drop them
 
I've had an M6 drop from the shoulder (on a strap) on an oak floor -
no damage at all, RF stayed aligned etc, which I blame in parts the
Luigi case it was in for.

You might be able to harm your camera if you bump it strongly against
a granit table :) But in practice, if there is no serious dent
in the hood or filter ring, the camera should have got away unharmed.

I had a cat pee on an M3 once .... that is another story.

Roland.
 
I once dropped a camera down a flight of stairs, no problems at all, but it was a slr, a rangefinder would most likely at the minimum loose its alignment
 
To shock a camera just yell at it....

"Your mother was a disposable camera and your father an APS P&S!!!!"

That should get under the leatherette of any camera.

Mark
 
intinsifi said:
...My numbers on the aperture ring are a little to the left of the white line.
Click to expand...

Sounds democratic but I don't want to start a political debate.

As for how much shock I think it depends on too many variables to say. I've impacted some gear quite heavily and some not so and experienced none to extreme damage. I nudged a 50mm Distagon some 40 feet onto a steel deck and didn't damage the optical bridge at all yet destroyed virtually everything else.
 
I've dragged a Nikkormat through caves; dropped it incalculable times, even in the sand (did need a CLA afterwards). I'm always slamming doors and bumping into door jams with cameras. Never use a case. I've taken them out when it rained and snowed. I've gotten rain and snow and even some salt water on them. I was talking to a camera repairman years ago who told to me a story of a newsman who had his Nikon run over by a tank in Vietnam. The lens was crushed but no serious damage to the camera. I had a professor that told us that during D-Day the Seabees didn't have enough hammers and used Bell & Howell 16mm cameras instead. Didn't hurt the cameras. He said that was why they bought that model for student use. Many of the cameras are meant to be used under adverse conditions. If you were to watch the newsmen and women and see how roughly they treat their cameras you would be quite surprised. Good cameras are sturdy tools.
 
I've come inches from biffing my kid in the noggin' with my bessa. Yanking it out of the way just in time. I did manage to hit her in the head with the rebel once.
 
While I love olde time metal cameras there is NO doubt in my mind that they are less robust than modern polycarbonate bodies - at least in terms of cosmetic damage. The slightest bump will often leave an irreparable mark. Fortunately old mechanical cameras innards are tougher and take quite a bit to be put out of whack.

But I have damaged an M3 in an ever ready case, the strap of which slipped off my sholder as I sat down - I suppose that the camera was only a foot or two off the floor. Another time my lovely until then mint M4P got a diing when sitting in a padded good quality camera case it slipped off a low bus stop bench to the ground (maybe a one foot fall) and I put a large ding in a Pentax MX pentaprism when I walked through a door with it over my shoulder again in an ever ready case and it swung lightly against the door frame as I wlalked by. Having said that all of these worked just fine. I think if I dropped my M3 down a cliff as some report, I would curl up and die.
 
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