Your one stop shop for everything photo-video
There are bad days at work, and then there are bad days where you lose $12,000 of equipment. This unlucky sports photographer was in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time when shooting a baseball match when the ball struck his lens, taking out all the glass.
Jim Rassol was covering the match in Florida between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Miami Marlins. His Sony 400mm f/2.8 lens took the brunt of the 104mph ball, leaving Rassol with little more than a bunch of smashed glass and a rueful expression. And for good reason: these lenses cost around $12,000.
Incidents happen in sport in a blink of an eye. And it took precisely that long to leave this photographer with a lens smashed into pieces. Professional baseball player Tyler O’Neill sent a foul ball straight into his lens, and it was caught on the very camera that got hit.
So many of us baby our gear. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Despite the fact that the odd scratch here and there isn’t going to affect the performance of my kit, I’m still going to try to take the best care of it that I can. But sometimes accidents happen.
And an accident is what happened to Christopher Hamberger when he dropped his $1,200 Nikon 35mm f/1.4 Ai-S lens and shattered the rear element. Can it still shoot, though? How will that decimated rear element affect the images? Well, there’s only one way to find out. Shoot with it.
What would you do if your ND filter got severely cracked? Throw it away, of course. But don’t do it just yet – you can still make something awesome with it even when it’s broken beyond repair. Photographer Parker Rice experimented with a smashed filter and he got some really cool effect in his photos.
Some photographic accidents are lucky and end up in fantastic images. Sadly, way more of them just end up in broken gear. This photographer knocked over his camera simply by opening a collapsible reflector, and it’s caught in a video that’s pretty painful to watch.
What do you do when you shoot in the harsh wind? Well, photographer Mathieu Stern learned it the hard way that he should add weight to the tripod when it’s windy. Although he has quite a collection of cheap vintage lenses, the wind managed to tip over the tripod with his camera and an $800 Sony E 10-18mm f/4 lens. Since he was shooting the video at that moment, he accidentally captured the unfortunate event, too.
Even when all repair services discard your camera or lens as “irreparable,” there’s still a way to repair it. Mr. David Hilos can fix all the gear others can’t (or won’t). This 49-year-old Filipino based in Singapore is communications engineer, but he is also a hobbyist camera repairman who can save your gear no matter what happened to it.
Photographers know him as “camera whisperer” and he is a miracle worker when it comes to repairing photo gear. He converts digital cameras to black and white, “transplants” pieces of one camera to the other, and even brings drowned cameras back from the dead.
Do you baby your gear and protect it from any possible harm? Or you go out there and shoot even in the harshest conditions?
Some people worry about the gear so much that they don’t even put it to use when there’s a bit of rain. It’s understandable up to some point, but it has some downsides for your photography. If you belong to this group, you may find this video from Thomas Heaton enlightening. It explains why you should stop worrying and just go out there and shoot, no matter the conditions.
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe
Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.
John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!