Wedding Lens Horror - glad I was 2nd shooting

Shima · November 16, 2008

So it finally happened, I dropped my body / lens at a wedding... and the lens broke. (I've dropped things short distances before and they've always worked)...

Anyhoo... so within the first 10-20 minutes of getting to the bride's house this morning (er yesterday, I guess it's "tomorrow now" I should get some rest soon....) I have my lens on a chair and somehow manage to knock if off (I can't even remember how I did this, I just know it was my fault and not someone else's). So I shrug it off assuming the 1 foot fall should be fine... go to take a shot a few moments later and crap, the auto focus work... and oh crap, the manual focus won't work either. So after some smiling and acting like it's not a big deal (don't want the client to see me in panic mode) I swap it out for the 50 1.4 and contine about shooting things.

After Cindy and I get to the church (and she lends me her 24-70 to use for processional and what not) and the long Catholic ceremony is in mid progress, I sit down during one of the photos not needed due to repetiveness moments and inspect the lens. Turned out that it was no longer focusing past the 3 meter mark, wouldn't go to infinity. Well great, nothing visible anywhere on it that looks damaged, I seem to just have knocked something loose or something....

So anyhoo, although I NEVER use the lens ever, I always do bring the 28-135 in my "random stuff" bag (not my main camera bag) and this is proof that just in case something that should never happens, does happen, that could have been a life saver if I was by myself. Without it my widest would have been 50 1.4. Thankfully in this situation I was second shooting for Cindy and she lent me her 24-70 (and then later I exchanged that to borrow her 17-40 for some reception stuff)... so of all the times it could break, it broke at a time I had other options available.

This further solidifies my mind though that while I love my 17-55 and will be keeping it glued to my 40D whenever the 5D Mk2 arrives... I need to get an extra *high* quality lens in that focal range... so next year when gigs start kicking up again I'm giong to save for part 2 of the holy trinity, a 35L. On a FF it would be like a 21mm or so is on my crop bodies, so that should be a good partner in crime to have in the future.

Alas, I'm not rich, so that won't be until next summer or something at the earliest. But it's definitely going in the list.

In other news, you can evidently submit your repair request for Canon online, so I did that tonight and will be dropping off my baby at Fedex tomorrow so they can send it out first thing on Monday and have it overnighted to be at Canon NJ by Tuesday. The estimated repair cost is only 95... so added to my 60 dollars or so cost to overnight it, I'm hoping I won't have to spend more than 200 bucks to fix this baby, and if that's the case, totally worth the repair.

So that's my story, really more of my ramble (and will probably be copied into my blog shortly, heh) feel free to share sympathies, other horror stories from hurting your "children" (lenses) at weddings, etc, whatever you feel like talking about in here that my ramble has spurred up in your head, go for it.

One last thought - I am soooooo impressed by how calm I stayed all day in the middle of this disaster. I never once broke down and cried over it! I'm shocked / impressed w/ myself.

David_S85 · November 16, 2008

:yikes

So sorry to hear of the accident. :cry You did get the job done, so I hope what you make can go to the repairs. Good thing for that spare lens, eh?

Shima wrote:

One last thought - I am soooooo impressed by how calm I stayed all day in the middle of this disaster. I never once broke down and cried over it! I'm shocked / impressed w/ myself.

I would have screamed like a baby. For days.

angevin1 · November 16, 2008

Wo man! Woman! Geesh...sounds like you did all the right things, eh? I hated reading this just cause it hurts... and how!

Just last week, about thre days before my computer hardrive crashed killing all my photos from a hike and , well lots of photos I was too lazy to B.U.....I was scaling up this very tight little ravine, actually pulling myself up a rope, when my camera strap failed and down tumbled my new D300 and 17-50 tameron attached!...they tumbled and rolled jumping and landing and more of the same... oh and this at the edge of a water fall...so I knew when it landed and stopped it'd probably be with an H20 cushion...low and behold as I got myself together to go down to find it...it had stopped short of the falls and was sitting there in wet leaves...wiped it off and spent the rest of the day in shock, agony and sweet, sweet, sweat.

cheers, tom

sherijohnson · November 16, 2008

so a thought comes to mind, do you have insurance on your equipment?

mmmatt · November 16, 2008

I had my backup body/lens hit the floor when on a tripod a few weeks ago... if it would have been my 5d and my 24-70L I would have been moritfied. The lens broke in half. It was a 24-60 f2.8 sigma, and that was only my 2nd outing with it. I got if for $200 and I thought it was a great deal for a fast backup lens, but I only shot it maybe 50 times before it hit the spare parts drawer. Such a waste!

Good job keeping cool under pressure Shima. Sorry you had to go through that.

Matt

BradfordBenn · November 16, 2008

Gravity sucks

Shima · November 17, 2008

sherijohnson wrote:

so a thought comes to mind, do you have insurance on your equipment?

Nope, got a quote for it and it was ungodly expensive. Unless stuff breaks like this regularly (which the statistics / odds are in my favor not to) I did the math and it's cheaper for me to pay for repairs like this than to have insurance. For now.

One day if I'm rolling in the dough and can afford to add insurance on, I certainly will... but right now I just don't have the spare cash so I'm going the cheaper route and just paying for repairs.

If I didn't make money off my photography it would be really cheap to insure the equipment. Because I own my own business for it, that immediately jacks the insurance price up a ton.

If anyone knows of insurance that would be less than the insurance I pay on my CAR, please let me know. It was about the same yearly cost as my car insurance and that made me weep. (and my car is only 2 years old... bought her new, so it's not like I'm comparing to some old car that has cheap insurance... I got full coverage on that baby)

Shima · November 17, 2008

David_S85 wrote:

:yikes

So sorry to hear of the accident. :cry You did get the job done, so I hope what you make can go to the repairs. Good thing for that spare lens, eh?

I would have screamed like a baby. For days.

I had a lot of fun playing w/ Cindy's spare lenses... though I think my 17-55 was more accurate w/ nailing the focus than the 24-70 was during the formals, I missed it for that reason. the 24-70 kept trying to grab the wrong spot behind the people, don't really have that issue with my 17-55. The 17-40 worked like a champ during the reception, but I wouldn't want an f4 lens again, it was only ok since I had flash on the whole time. Still it was fun to experiment.

I still took over 900 pictures during the whole day. I think only 15 of them were w/ the 17-55 before it died that morning, heh.

Canon should have my lens tomorrow by 10:30am.... I checked Fedex tracking and it doesn't have any updates since I dropped it off at the store yesterday, but I paid for the overnight, so I'm assuming they just haven't updated the tracking since it's on a plane or something to NJ...

aktse · November 18, 2008

Shima wrote:

Nope, got a quote for it and it was ungodly expensive. Unless stuff breaks like this regularly (which the statistics / odds are in my favor not to) I did the math and it's cheaper for me to pay for repairs like this than to have insurance. For now.
....

If anyone knows of insurance that would be less than the insurance I pay on my CAR, please let me know. It was about the same yearly cost as my car insurance and that made me weep. (and my car is only 2 years old... bought her new, so it's not like I'm comparing to some old car that has cheap insurance... I got full coverage on that baby)

Actually, wedding photographers need to buy insurance, but it's not because of repairs and damages, but because of liability. The price quoted to you was probably for gear + liability.

There are also places in which you can just purchase a gear policy only. State farm has a personal article policy for gear only and I think it's bout $1.30 for every $100 worth of gear and I think it's about $1.60 or so per every $100 for professionals. However, this is just gear coverage and does not include liability. Also, you need to list every single individual item, but it's very reasonable.

But if you're a wedding photographer, or any pro dealing with events, I learned from that meeting that you really get some liability coverage.

We discussed this issue during our local camera club meeting in the bay area.

Rich Bui took notes -- I was the one who dropped the 20D and 70-200 and had my claim paid without any issues. Personally, I don't have liability insurance, but don't shoot events, and on the rare occasions in which I'm paid for a job, I just shoot from the sidelines, don't talk to people, don't pose people, don't use strobes, etc; I just observe like the other spectators. If I interacted with other people (models, events, etc, then that's another story...)

Shima · November 18, 2008

aktse wrote:

Actually, wedding photographers need to buy insurance, but it's not because of repairs and damages, but because of liability. The price quoted to you was probably for gear + liability.

There are also places in which you can just purchase a gear policy only. State farm has a personal article policy for gear only and I think it's bout $1.30 for every $100 worth of gear and I think it's about $1.60 or so per every $100 for professionals. However, this is just gear coverage and does not include liability. Also, you need to list every single individual item, but it's very reasonable.

But if you're a wedding photographer, or any pro dealing with events, I learned from that meeting that you really get some liability coverage.

We discussed this issue during our local camera club meeting in the bay area.

Rich Bui took notes -- I was the one who dropped the 20D and 70-200 and had my claim paid without any issues. Personally, I don't have liability insurance, but don't shoot events, and on the rare occasions in which I'm paid for a job, I just shoot from the sidelines, don't talk to people, don't pose people, don't use strobes, etc; I just observe like the other spectators. If I interacted with other people (models, events, etc, then that's another story...)

Maybe I'm remembering the pricing wrong, I'll have her re-quote it, can't hurt.

Wedding Lens Horror - glad I was 2nd shooting

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