Destruction of Property

My smashed UV lens filter ring after taking pilers to it to remove it from my 18-70mm lens.

Crap! Just after putting my camera on a counter and hearing the guy in front of me yell "look out", eyes widening, then hearing a smash, I turned around to see my D200 on the floor. "Crap, crap , craaap!" I thought to myself. The UV filter, thank godness I even had one on, was shattered. The SB-800 flash smashed in. My brain tallied the damage in monetary terms. This was going to financially hurt. This little accisdent would end up costing mee tens times the amount I'd take in tonight.

I might have looked quite calm when this all occurred. The last thing I wanted the client to think was that I just destroyed my gear before his event started. He had just asked if we could take some shots of him before the main event started. I asked him for ten minutes to get ready and moved over to the garbage container to remove the remaining glass still lodged in the filter ring.

Upon closer inspection the UV filter ring, made of metal, had been squished into the plastic 18-70mm lens destroying the threads and cracking the outer glass on the actual lens. Luckily the crack was along the edge. Taking pictures could still be done with no flaws. That was something but without repairing the threads I'd never be able to use another filter.

The SB-800 had suffered the lost of the wide angle dispersion plastic flap. It still worked otherwise but I wondered how much that would set me back. The falling of the camera over the counter side was all due to having that stupid Gary Fong light dome on, attached to the flash and making my camera top heavy. That and me being stupid enough to place the camera on the counter in the first place.

Lucky for me I brought all my lenses to the job as well as all my flashes. I swapped the busted SB-800 with my only other good one. I have a third where the camera shoe is bent thanks to some idiot on set trying to help me wrap my equipment and not knowing how to slide the flash off. Instead he tried tugging it off resulting in the bent metal piece.

Thankfully the camera survived. Not even a scratch on the body. That was a relief. I manged to shoot the book launch without any other incidents occurring.


"Aspirations", one of the books being launched


This girl stayed behind these tables all night watching other people eat and drink food.


Lisa gets her book signed by the author, Sanjay Burman