Lament for a broken digital camera

[santino]

I dropped my Kiev 4 once, no bump, nothing but my wooden floor has a notch.

 

[sfb_dot_com]

I managed to scrape together the dough to buy what must have been the cheapest car at that time, and have driven it since (12 years). Over this 12 year life time, I've had less expenses in repair than I had with that Saab EVERY SINGLE YEAR! I'm planning to keep this el cheapo for another 12 years at least..

Saabs are very fine cars to drive, but a disaster in the cash department..

So put us out of our misery then. What is that car, so we can all get one... :bang:

On the indestructable camera front, I had a Nikon FE a few years back. Dropped it whilst rewinding the film which resulted in the rewind crank being bent at an angle of 45 degrees. Just bent it back straight and it kept on working fine. Mind you the seals were shot and it leaked light pretty badly. My current D100 is also pretty tough, and although never dropped it's coped with temperatures from -30 to +40, sand, water, wind and my dyspraxic fingers without any visible signs of damage. My Zorki 4 is pretty tough too, and has already suffered one fall without problems, but the Bessa L feels quite flimsy. Having said all that it's the results that count whether you use a £5 disposable or a £20k Hassie digital.

I'm thinking about getting another FE as they're going for a fraction of what they went for even five years ago.

Andy

 

[peterc]

I've just come back from my camera shop, brought in my 16 year-old daughter's Nikon Coolpix 6.2 MP which she just dropped off her dresser.....it's scrap.

Sorry to hear about the digicam demise, Mike. The local camera store here gets about a dozen dropped digicams a week ... most of them beyond repair.
But comparing the build quality of digicams to Leicas is a bit like comparing ripe peaches to light armoured vehicles ... there isn't a comparison. Most of the high-end dSLRs are designed to take a bounce, but most digicams are pretty delicate. My Coolpix 5000 is touted as having a "magnesium alloy body" but I'm not planning to subject it to a drop test to find out how tough that makes it.
My policy on digicams is to buy them a generation or two behind the bleeding edge. You get a couple of megapixels less, but the price is 80-90% less and at $100-$200 (CDN) for a camera, you can treat it as disposable.

Peter

 

[thafred]

but the Bessa L feels quite flimsy

ha! I dropped my Bessa R on hard concrete floor as I was carrying it in my coat pocket (had the Orion on it which makes for a pocketable setup)....it fell out of my Coat and hit the floor at the RF-Window from aprox. 1 meter! the plastic top rf housing broke at the Edge of the housing (1,5cm long crack) and the RF was out of alignment...no big deal .. glued the housing with two component glue and adjusted the RF and it serves me since then!... (maybe if I had the Nokton on the difference of 300g would do more damage ..doubt it thou)

My Digital Kodak P&S (which I really hate and only use to take pictures of my other cameras) would never ever survive such a fall! meaning that it´s not even fun to trash the damn thing...well..