Ok. I'm down in Marshville, NC preparing to shoot on a documentary I'm working on. I put my tripod plate on the GL1, place it on a stool and start working on the Bogen when right before my eyes, the camera rolls and hits the CEMENT floor, lens first (sunshade, actually). An approximately three-foot drop. My heart skipped several beats and I couldn't move.

I picked up the cam, checked the lens - not a scratch (but the sunshade is pretty scratched on the side). No other visible damage except to the "mode wheel", which is scratched.

I tested the cassette eject - worked fine. I ran 45 seconds of video, tested the zoom and manual settings - all fine. I put it in VCR mode and played the 45 seconds back - no apparent problems!

Now I know I'm either extremely blessed or lucky (or both). My rather long-winded question: What problems (if any) could I expect from this? Is there potential problem I should look for?

PS: I swear, it was sitting on the middle of the stool, very stable. I don't know what caused it to lean, but I won't make that mistake ever again.

Thanks in advance.

From the sound of it, your cam survived---but you won't really know until after you've used it for a while.

Thanks. Makes me feel like I have a timed detonator on my camera and at any time it can just "POP"!

My biggest fear was that the heads became misalligned and I would have pixelation everywhere. I'll keep my fingers crossed. Thanks for the info.

Mark,

Similar experience, except it fell out of a saddle bag on the horse I was riding at a full gallop. Same luck, it's contined to work fine and that was 10 months ago. Not sure the Optical Image Stabilization is working well (anyone know of a good way to test it?). I sure was impressed when I dusted it off and saw that it still worked fine.

At least you could blame a galloping horse to shake your cam loose. My mishap was caused by the ever-menacing bar stool!

Glad to hear it still works, though. It gives me hope! Thanks for the info.

You're a lucky fellow. The lens hood is actually designed to absorb a certain amount of shock. If the camera had landed flatter on its side the results might have been different. Keep an eye on your tape transport (play, record, rewind, ff) for a while, particularly the record. It's possible that you knocked a head out of alignment but if it's not already apparent (i.e. streaky or blocky video) the chances are that it's ok.

Thanks Ken. I'll do that. That was my biggest fear, the allignment. I'm going to hold my breath. I still have three months of shooting to go!

Test head alignment by playing some old recordings to see if they track OK.

Thanks, Don. I'll do that.