X70 dropped from 1.5m and survived

[Yuri Gershberg]

after a long shooting day it was a mistake to put a camera on the car roof
while unloading the equpment. as the last door was closed, X70 took a dive to
a concrete floor of a parking lot.

sennheiser G3 receiver (rear shoe) took the first impact and detached from its plastic base,
then NP-FV100 (compatible) battery pack got the main impact and detached from the camera.

looks like I was extremely lucky when camera dropped on its tail, not the lens side.
all functions are OK, it took some super glue to put the battery pack back together,
so no serious damage, phew.

[Noa Put]

My father was shooting a dance concert a few years back and had a sony xr520 on a small tripod, he was securing the feet of the tripod with gaffertape to a platform 1 meter above the ground, just when he went around to fix the last tripodleg someone bumped into the camera and with only 2 out of 3 legs attached with tape it toke a nose dive to the concrete floor, lens down first. I still have that camera and it has a dent on top of the lens but to my surprise it still works. Sony must have a collision testing facility like they have with cars :)

[Paul Hardy]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

My father was shooting a dance concert a few years back and had a sony xr520 on a small tripod, he was securing the feet of the tripod with gaffertape to a platform 1 meter above the ground, just when he went around to fix the last tripodleg someone bumped into the camera and with only 2 out of 3 legs attached with tape it toke a nose dive to the concrete floor, lens down first. I still have that camera and it has a dent on top of the lens but to my surprise it still works. Sony must have a collision testing facility like they have with cars :)

With my previous cameras (Sony NX70's) I had a faulty tripod & one of the leg clamps just randomly failed & came crashing down screen first (it was still flipped out). The screen took the full weight of the camera, tripod, fluid head & radio mic - the camera still works fine, so it shows that they build their cameras well - the screen is now permanently bent, but I can live with that (Sony wanted £500 to fix it & the s/h value is only £800)!

The worst case of equipment dropping I ever experienced was a wedding photographer doing a group shot from above at a place called Tattersall Castle in Lincolnshire UK. It's 130ft high & he dropped his Canon 1D from the top - It still ended up in one piece more or less, but lets just say it was a little mis-shapen flat (& yes I did have a chuckle!!)