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Watch: Photographer nukes camera by opening a collapsible reflector

by 89 Comments

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.

😭😩😫😭😢😭😭😭😭

Posted by Photography Memes on Thursday, June 6, 2019

The video was shared by Photography Memes and we don’t know who the unlucky photographer is. But you can see the moment when he opens the reflector which knocks his camera over. The poor camera bumped down the stairs a couple of times. The lens hood got detached, but it seems that there were some other bits and pieces of the lens flying around the place. I’m pretty sure that the lens couldn’t survive a fall like this.

Now, I think that this wasn’t pure bad luck, but there was some recklessness involved, too. Sure, it took some really bad luck to bump your camera with the reflector, and send it down the stairs. However, it wouldn’t have happened if the guy didn’t leave the camera where he did. Or perhaps this could have been avoided if he opened the reflector like a pro. Either way, I hope that he at least learned a lesson. Although, it was an expensive one.

What’s the worst thing that you did to your gear? Any funny/painful stories to share?

[via Photography Memes]

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  • I tripped and went face first into the mud with a brand new (expensive) lens. Even after cleaning, it never worked right.

  • I broke the top screen of my D7100 with my tripod ball head, in the supposedly relative safety of my living room.

  • The worse mistake (in the video) was having the camera on a narrow ledge/near an edge with the strap dangling from the edge.

  • I’ve been lucky so far but I put my camera on a pretty new tripod and went to turn the camera sideways…except it wasn’t clipped in properly. Thank god I have good reflexes because I caught it on the way to the concrete.

  • Those reflectors are pure evil 😄 hit myself hard with one in the face 😄

  • Had a camera and lens on a strap with the attachment on the long lens… for some reason the lens got separated from the camera and it drop down…. but I was very lucky as it rolled down my leg landing on my foot before touching the ground… the impact was taken by my toes not by the concrete slap…

    I now have a safety strap on the camera…

    • Mason Seidel LOL…. need to add that to my camera equipment… LOL…. I am telling you…. I was so happy that I don’t remember having any toe pain!!!

  • That was the stupidest decision anybody could make during a job putting your camera on the edge of a rail, really stupid

  • I left a camera lens up on the seat of my car. Kind of like frying bugs with a magnifying glass. Sensor melt. Also had a shutter slam shut on a cleaning swab.

  • Worst nightmare

  • ummm who puts a camera on a railing above a stairwell?

    • I could easily be that idiot .. I do not always think ahead 😀

    • Angelina Wiese Devine but now you know.

    • Dan Sulla Easy to judge while you’re sat on your ass. I’ve never dropped a camera in 13 years of shooting, yet I’ve put it in way stupider places in the heat of the moment and then forgotten where it was. Though with this guy I wonder where the heat is, looks like he’s still prepping.

    • Madelien Waegemans 30 years in the industry nothing broken. Camera on the railing it’s an unforced error but yeah thanks for lecturing someone that did this for a living for thirty years.

  • Paul Monaghan

  • He had so much of surface there he could’ve rested the camera safe, without a chance of falling, and opted for the railing.

  • NO SYMPATHY

  • I hope and believe its fake, a photographer can’t leave his camera this way, and why filming him mounting his set up? It just can be an old camera without value use to make this video

  • Dropped my 5dmkii down a hill in Amsterdam.

    Somehow navigated climbing up and down a windmill no problem.

    A two foot even gradient hill? Lol

  • My camera with flash attached fell while being mounted on tripod as I probably didn’t tighten enough one of the legs. The camera took the impact more than well but the flash was completely torn apart at the hotshoe junction.
    Luckily it kept working with RC mode while finding a repair (Olympus setup) so that kinda saved the day. 😅

  • As the old saying goes :”Put the camera on the ground before it ends up there”

  • Dropped my 24-70 f/2.8 from about 6 feet during a wedding a few years ago. While going for a high, wide angle shot, I raised the camera above my head while zooming out on the lens. Feeling the lens turn in my hand, I assumed it was the zoom ring turning and let go, only to watch it fall straight to the floor in front of me. Turns out I had bumped the lens release in the transition and it was the actual lens itself turning in my hand. Oops.

  • I also splashed a flash during a water drip shoot so i set it in the sun to dry fast. Looked out the window when i heard lightning but it was too late..downpour. i am brutal on gear.

  • That looks so obvious fake – it must be real

    • Rick

      Very small space… ginormous lens. Nothing real about it.

  • Well, I took my camera, without noticing the strap was caught to a handle – it made the camera jump back, like it was a fucking bungyjump-cabel and not a camera strap – banging against the radiator at full speed – and from there on to the floor where it bounced twice before finally just laying there – you could hear the gasps from everyone around (it was my brothers wedding) .. and then dead silence…

    I was 100% sure my next call would be my insurance company – I just smiled (while dying on the inside), I have a spare camera ha ha – it is insured, ha ha, no worries (inside my head was fuck fuck fuck) and my husband muttering something about “being more careful” (that is how I nearly became a widow).

    I picked up my camera, the lens-hood, badly scratched – the camera and the 24-70mm 100% undamaged and working fine – yay quality canon. The radiator however also got scratched…

  • Watched a guy in front of me shooting waterfalls. We were both putting our cameras on tripods. He let go before making sure it was tight. Snapped his lens in half. Almost wanted to give him a hug he looked so crushed. Luckily the lens took all the hit. Camera was totally fine.

    • Whatdoyknow

      Lenses are not necessary cheaper than the camera.

  • I cant watch……watching someone doing this turns my stomach…..it could be any of us…and no way should it be laughed at.

    • Duncan Knifton Yeah, I’ve put my camera in way stupider places in the heat of the moment.

    • Laughter is all I have to cope with this inevitablity. It’s gonna happen because I’ll never be vigilant enough to ensure it doesn’t.

  • owww my heart hurt

  • Did this once with my D4 on my desk with the strap hanging over the edge. Caught it with my chair and sent it to the ground, buggering up my 24-70 and costing loads to fix the lens and it’s mount. Never again – I’m paranoid about where the strap lies now. Ugh.

  • Always take out the camera last 🙂

    • Aaron Alonzo Wigfall

      Absolutely!!!

  • MDGIII 14

    Hope he has insurance

  • Not good, hope the lens hood help!!!

  • президент Putin

    It happens to me too 1 time.

    Fortunately my “camera” was an old nokia 3310. You can google it searching “how to create a black hole”

  • Put my camera on a bar on a Sunday after shooting nightclub events the two nights before to turn and look at the horror on fields face as it dropped off the bar. New flash and top cover on the camera. To be told by insurance it wasn’t covered on home policy. Proper insurance now.

  • Pchips

    I was unplugging a flash unit from the base. As I unplugged something triggered the flash and there was an arc. The sound was deafening. By the grace of god I was not electrocuted and no damage. It was shocking for both the photographer and I.

  • Don Yates

    I left my Olympus OM1 out in the rain one night. Dried it off next day, waved some chicken bones over it, worked like a champ. That was 20+ years ago. Still have it, still works like a champ.

  • Insure your shit.

  • Darwin

  • Anyone that puts their camera on a railing deserves the consequences.

  • Interesting looking crab. Slippery rocks. The sea.

    You can probably work the rest out yourselves.

  • David Lake

    Expensive camera… Check
    Ledge high above the floor… Check
    Replacement camera on order… Not priceless!

    I don’t feel bad for people that do stuff like this ever. Come on you have to realize what you’re doing when you set your camera like that anywhere anytime. If anything like someone previously mentioned your camera should be the last thing out of the bag and if not it should be on a very low surface where it can’t roll or be kicked or knocked off. That’s just common sense.

    The best lessons in life are the ones that hurt the most. Welcome to your lesson.

  • Davide

    DAMN!I`ll get a bunch of nightmares this night because of you guys and your horror story!

  • I fell in a canal in Venice but luckily all I did was break a lens hood and shorten the life of a Sigma lens (it died a month later). I’ve also been caught out by a waterfall in Iceland but luckily the gear dried off fine.

  • I once showed a band the back of the camera while holding only the lens, and somehow hit the lens release button with my finger? I never knew it was that sensitive but my camera just gracefully twisted off the lens and went smack. The flash took all the hit. I could still use it on a tripod with a Pocketwizard, but no longer on camera. I never did that again. Imagine going a 6-headed band going OHHH DAMN that did not just happen!

    Also never have stuff in your back pocket. I once had a Pocketwizard go down a toilet. They usually dry down just fine, but I really needed it… yeah.

    • Madelien Waegemans ? I guess the lens wasn’t screwed all the way in.

  • NinoBr0wn

    When I read “nuked” I figured something electronic was damaged internally.

  • Jeff Beardall

    Rule: cameras last in, first out.

  • Idiot… but the good things is that we all learn from our mistakes. 🥴🤯

    • makapav

      Not according to my wife.

  • Good thing he had a UV filter on it.

  • Steven Burton

    I have ZERO empathy for this clown!
    WHY in hell would you balance your camera on a railing like that?
    MAYBE to get some particular shot, but just as a place to set the camera, HELL NO!

    ‘Life is hard,
    It’s even harder when you’re stupid.’
    John Wayne

  • Ted Clutter

    A real pro… or is he a semi-pro?

  • Not as catastrophic as that, but while visiting Niagara Falls, I saw a guy shooting a 4×5 view camera on one of the foot bridges connecting the islands on the American side. A wind came along and blew his dark cloth into the river and washed it over the falls.

  • Reuben Zuazua

    This is a.joke for. Clickbait

  • This was hard to watch but I somehow watched it like 30 times

  • The risk of setting up on a railing raises the stakes and makes it more interesting

  • Chris Go Paul Träger René Schumann 😅 die arme Sau

  • I was putting something in camera bag and forgot to zip close it. Few minutes later I piccked up the bag from the table and camera just felt out from the bag on the concrete floor. Luckily just slight damage on the plastic.

  • Woops

  • I broke my kit lens in two when I dropped my camera (lens unscathed). I got a quote for a repair, which turned out to be more than the lens is worth. So I decided that I’ll do it myself.
    The lens doesn’t have AF, but I prefer MF anyway, or wide-angle capability. But it’s great for close-ups, better than it used to be. Luckily I love doing close-up/macro… This is my happy accident 🤣

    • Josh Wood

      “I broke my kit lens in two when I dropped my camera (lens unscathed).”
      Makes sense.

  • Dani

    Looks like a school photographer, and that would definitely ruin picture day lol. R.I.P. camera!

  • Dani

    Doesn’t look fake at all. He’s just an idiot. Looks like he was setting up to possibly do staff or graduation pictures at a preschool, and wasn’t smart enough to know to take the camera out LAST, and balanced it in a stupid spot because he’s clearly an idiot. I used to do preschool photography and I’ve seen people break equipment by doing dumb stuff like this, but not nearly as dumb as this. He must be brand new…. to the earth 🤦‍♀️

  • Eric Ford

    I feel like i would have this type of luck

  • Conveniently being recorded when it happened.

  • I thought about this and I don’t think I even feel bad for the guy. Why the hell would you balance your camera up there in the first place?Learned a lesson that day, didn’t you friendo?

  • One time a reflector was in my passenger seat and it popped open in my face while I was driving. Thankfully I didn’t get in a car accident and die! I’ve never trusted those beasts since then.

  • Didn’t wreck my camera, but… I was going to take photos of elk in a field and had to walk through a large ditch to get a closer view. There was a nice path, although narrow, already made through the chest-high cattails and weeds. Happily walked down the path, made a slight curve, and a muskrat met me coming from the other direction. Came up on each other so fast, there wasn’t time to stop, and he ended up sitting on my feet (I only had flip-flops on). Understandably startled, I made a garbled sound and tried to back up, which didn’t work because he was sitting.on.my.feet. I ended up falling backwards onto my butt, my camera flew up and out of my hands, and now I’m face-to-face, eye level, with the muskrat. He’s just staring at me, so I pull my feet out from under him and scramble backwards like a crab, and he finally bolts back the way he came. Camera landed a few feet away in the weeds and was fine. Fyi, muskrat fur is really soft.

  • I once tested out my “mechanic skills” by removing a sensor speck on my Sony RX100, put it back together and it became basically a paperweight. 🙁

  • 1dx2,16-35 II and my hitech firecrest filters fell off the tripod head. Luckily insured but was mortified at the time

  • This guy has to learn about kinetic energy.

  • I always keep my gear on the ground, much less further to fall

  • Pretty stupid to place it on the rail in the first place!

  • A Word to the Wise is Sufficent!!

  • If you want to put down your camera, have it close to the ground as possible.

  • I’ve dropped the following in various ways:
    The stuff that didn’t make it
    Nikon D700
    Nikon D200
    Sigma 100-300f4
    Sigma 17-50 2.8 x2 – yes I’ve killed 2

    The stuff that’s been able to be repaired or just minor cosmetic damage

    Nikon D500
    Sigma 10-20
    Sigma 120-300 2.8
    Sigma 70-200 2.8

    Needless to say I’m hard on gear. It’s amazing the licking this stuff takes and keeps going.

    And this doesn’t include having beer sprayed on me and my gear, rain, mud and champagne bottles thrown at me. Hahaha

  • Noel Kerns

    I’m on my third D810 body right now. First one stolen in San Fran, second one – on the first shoot with it – fell off Manfrotto tripod with a knock-off quick-plate attached to it, shattering the mirror box. Thankfully, 16-35 Nikkor survived the fall unscathed.

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