Yesterday was sunny and springlike in Scotland, so I decided to burn up some of my last rolls of Velvia. I had some film in my PZ-1 and an LX with a partly used roll in it, so I packed a bag and headed into the hills.
There is a lovely glade with photogenic waterfall near us and I set up the tripod at the top to take some shots. The PZ-1 was loaded with some 400 ASA stuff and I snapped a few shots with that ahead of doing some slow speed shots of the water. I was about to reload the PZ-1 with Velvia when I decided that I'd rather use the slow exposure settings of the LX, so put the PZ-1 down, opened the LX back and stared blankly at the half finished roll of Velvia that was already in it. Doh!! I reloaded the LX, set up the tripod, put my F28mm f/2.8 on it and started shooting. I then decided I wanted to go a little wider, so went back to the bag and picked up the FA* 24mm f/2. I walked back to the tripod, slipped, kicked the tripod with LX and lens attached towards the waterfall, made a despairing grab for the assemblage and only succeeded in sending the 24mm after it. Trying not to cry, I looked down and saw that both lends and tripod / body / lens were stuck against rocks in the water, so I waded out across the slippery rocks above the waterfall and managed to retrieve all the kit. By this stage my appetite for photography had vanished, so I went home, put the soaking bits on the central heating boiler to dry out and went to read my insurance policy. I've just looked at the kit and the damage report isn't as bad as I thought. The LX looks fine, and the shutter is working in both manual and electronic modes, and although I got nothing out of the meter this morning, much to my amazement it seems to be working perfectly now. The finder is still a bit misty inside, and I need to check the alignment, but this 25 year old body seems to have survived a 20 foot fall plus partial immersion in a mountain stream for 5 minutes very well. Even more amazingly, the 28mm also appears to have escaped unscathed! I put it on the PZ-1 this morning and it stopped down and autofocused perfectly. No damage to any glass either. The 24mm is slightly less well off. Mechanically and optically still perfect, stops down OK, but autofocus is not functioning and my istDL can't get any sense out of it in terms of aperture readings etc. My initial despair has receded somewhat, and it seems that all the insurance company has to do is cough up for a repair job on the 24mm. Peter -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
