DIY Photography

Your one stop shop for everything photo-video

  • News
  • Inspiration
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • DIY
  • Gear
Search

Submit A Story

broken lens

ESPN camera lens shattered during Little League game

Aug 29, 2023 by Alex Baker Add Comment
  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Wrong place, wrong time. At least it was if you were the ESPN camera operator at this Little League baseball game!

A foul ball during the international final between Curaçao and Chinese Taipei at the Little League World Series left the ESPN crew grappling with a shattered camera lens.

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Baseball player smashes a $12,000 lens at 104mph

Sports photographer has $12,000 lens smashed by foul ball

Jun 27, 2023 by Alex Baker 336 Comments
  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

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.

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Watch: Baseball player smashes cameraman’s lens with a foul ball

Apr 8, 2021 by Dunja Djudjic 3 Comments
  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

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.

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Apparently, yes, you can you shoot portraits with a smashed up rear lens element

Feb 16, 2021 by John Aldred 1 Comment
  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

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.

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Trending Quizzes

quiz film camera from the back

more quizzes

This is why you shouldn’t throw away smashed ND filters

Jul 27, 2020 by Dunja Djudjic 2 Comments
  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

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.

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Watch: Photographer nukes camera by opening a collapsible reflector

Jun 7, 2019 by Dunja Djudjic 89 Comments
  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

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.

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

The exact moment this photographer broke his $800 lens

Sep 26, 2017 by Dunja Djudjic 12 Comments
  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

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.

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

This man repairs the cameras and lenses that no one else can

Aug 14, 2017 by Dunja Djudjic 5 Comments
  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

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.

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Learn Photography

Learn more

Delta Air Lines caused $8,000 worth of damage to my camera gear, but they don’t care

Jun 29, 2017 by Jake Mosher 85 Comments
  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

I’m breaking tradition here, both in style and also in asking for help. Please, if you read this, share it. Link to it. Copy from it and Tweet about it and post it. Help me get the word out where, perhaps through the power of social media, a wrong can be righted. Thank you!

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Why you should stop worrying about damaging your gear

Apr 17, 2017 by Dunja Djudjic 12 Comments
  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

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.

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp
  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Submit A Story

Get our FREE Lighting Book

DIYP lighting book cover

* download requires newsletter signup

Recent Comments

Free Resources

Advanced lighting book

Learn photography

Recent Posts

  • The Nour Triplet V 2.0 lens is more about art than sharpness
  • Surreal Icelandic landscape wins 2023 Epson International Pano Awards
  • 2023 Siena International Photo Awards winner shows the pain and meaninglessness of war
  • Why and how to use photography to document your personal life
  • Shooting long exposures on film with minimal gear

Udi Tirosh: from diyphotography.netUdi 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: from diyphotography.netAlex 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

David Williams: from diyphotography.netDave 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: from diyphotography.netJohn 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: from diyphotography.netDunja 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.

Copyright © DIYPhotography 2006 - 2023 | About | Contact | Advertise | Write for DIYP | Full Disclosure | Privacy Policy