Philip Mason ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) was saying something along these lines: >Any other dramatic camera demises out there ?.
Oh, yeah. 1. Long ago, I drove off in my car having left my FM2/MD12 with a Tamron 28-80 zoom on the roof. I realized something was amiss when I saw a suspicious cloud of dust off to the side of the car as I backed out of the driveway. I stopped and went back for the camera, fully expecting to pour shards of the mirror out onto the ground. But except for the vinyl finish on the bottom of the motor being chewed up, it was fine and I continued to shoot with that camera and lens for years. 2. In the middle of the Arizona desert, I was railfanning with friends and we got surprised by a train. We pulled over and did an emergency bail-out. I was in the back seat of a passenger van. I slid the door open, and jumped out. Unfortunately, the neck strap on my F-1 caught on the armrest of the seat and yanked the camera out of my hand. In an amazing coincidence, the length of the strap was such that as the camera fell, the prism landed exactly on the corner of the door step, crunching the prism. Then it fell out into the dust. (You know, that desert dust that's about as fine as baby powder and coats everything like paint.) It took me forever to get all the dust off of the outside of the camera enough that I could even open it up and take a look. But, as it turns out, all seemed well, and I continued shooting with it for the rest of the trip. Thanks to removable prisms, I just put a new AE prism on it and still use it today. I dissected the old in the name of science. It wasn't much later that I bought a second F-1 and motor! Let's hear it for tough cameras! They just don't make them like they used to. Scott Scott Withrow Terre Haute, Indiana (more or less) www.railcenter.com -> SPORRS: 'Serious Photographers Of Railroad Related Subjects' -> Web Site: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs/ -> Message © 1998 SPORRS® - All Rights Reserved
