Another plastic DSLR horror story

Now imagine this happening with a good magnesium body. My E-1 went
down, tripod with it, hit a floor, on the hot shoe and nothing
happened to it. But plastic is another story.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...ssage=26180392

In article
,
RichA wrote:

Now imagine this happening with a good magnesium body. My E-1 went
down, tripod with it, hit a floor, on the hot shoe and nothing
happened to it. But plastic is another story.

Dropping your crappy Olympus on the floor could only be an improvement.

RichA wrote:
Now imagine this happening with a good magnesium body. My E-1 went
down, tripod with it, hit a floor, on the hot shoe and nothing
happened to it.

I would hate to think what happened to the calibration of the camera,
though. I try to treat my Nikon DSLR camera like the precision optical
instrument it claims to be.

David

On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 12:16:23 -0800 (PST), RichA
wrote:

Now imagine this happening with a good magnesium body. My E-1 went
down, tripod with it, hit a floor, on the hot shoe and nothing
happened to it. But plastic is another story.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...ssage=26180392

The fault is more the design of the Pentax flash, something
I have criticised many times on the Pentax forum. A
well-designed system flash will have a shoe that fails long
before the camera's hot shoe, but unfortunately the Pentax
540's foot appears to resist failure to the point it will
tear off the hot shoe if the impact is great enough.

Nothing to do with plastic, much to do with designing a
sensible point of failure on the flash/body combination.
Thoroughly bad design by Pentax.

--
John Bean

"Mr. Strat" wrote in message
...
In article
,
RichA wrote:

Now imagine this happening with a good magnesium body. My E-1 went
down, tripod with it, hit a floor, on the hot shoe and nothing
happened to it. But plastic is another story.

Dropping your crappy Olympus on the floor could only be an
improvement.

Dropping "Mr Strat" on the floor to see if the Olympus suffers more?

On Dec 27, 10:58*am, "David J Taylor" -
this-bit.nor-this-bit.co.uk wrote:
RichA wrote:
Now imagine this happening with a good magnesium body. *My E-1 went
down, tripod with it, hit a floor, on the hot shoe and nothing
happened to it.

I would hate to think what happened to the calibration of the camera,
though. *I try to treat my Nikon DSLR camera like the precision optical
instrument it claims to be.

That was kind of my thought as well, I try not to let my cameras fall,
I am funny that way.

Scott

On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 13:55:55 -0800 (PST), Scott W
wrote:

On Dec 27, 10:58*am, "David J Taylor" -
this-bit.nor-this-bit.co.uk wrote:
RichA wrote:
Now imagine this happening with a good magnesium body. *My E-1 went
down, tripod with it, hit a floor, on the hot shoe and nothing
happened to it.

I would hate to think what happened to the calibration of the camera,
though. *I try to treat my Nikon DSLR camera like the precision optical
instrument it claims to be.

That was kind of my thought as well, I try not to let my cameras fall,
I am funny that way.

It's no joke Scott. Much as we all try to avoid accidents
they still may and do happen. If you drop a camera with
atached flash expect someting to break; in most cases it
will be the foot of the flash - an inexpensive repair by
design - but in the case of a Pentax flash it will be the
camera that suffers to the extent of several hundred
dollars/pounds.

It's an awful piece of design by Pentax.

--
John Bean

On Dec 27, 3:58 pm, "David J Taylor" -this-
bit.nor-this-bit.co.uk wrote:
RichA wrote:
Now imagine this happening with a good magnesium body. My E-1 went
down, tripod with it, hit a floor, on the hot shoe and nothing
happened to it.

I would hate to think what happened to the calibration of the camera,
though. I try to treat my Nikon DSLR camera like the precision optical
instrument it claims to be.

David

So much for rugged pro use. They're built to take the punishment.

On Dec 27, 5:12 pm, John Bean wrote:
On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 13:55:55 -0800 (PST), Scott W

wrote:
On Dec 27, 10:58 am, "David J Taylor" -
this-bit.nor-this-bit.co.uk wrote:
RichA wrote:
Now imagine this happening with a good magnesium body. My E-1 went
down, tripod with it, hit a floor, on the hot shoe and nothing
happened to it.

I would hate to think what happened to the calibration of the camera,
though. I try to treat my Nikon DSLR camera like the precision optical
instrument it claims to be.

That was kind of my thought as well, I try not to let my cameras fall,
I am funny that way.

It's no joke Scott. Much as we all try to avoid accidents
they still may and do happen. If you drop a camera with
atached flash expect someting to break; in most cases it
will be the foot of the flash - an inexpensive repair by
design - but in the case of a Pentax flash it will be the
camera that suffers to the extent of several hundred
dollars/pounds.

It's an awful piece of design by Pentax.

--
John Bean

It's still shows how WEAK plastic is. 2lbs of camera falls (how high
was it that this little kid could reach it? 2-4ft?? The body would
have taken it easily if it had been metal.

RichA wrote:
On Dec 27, 3:58 pm, "David J Taylor"
-this- bit.nor-this-bit.co.uk wrote:
RichA wrote:
Now imagine this happening with a good magnesium body. My E-1 went
down, tripod with it, hit a floor, on the hot shoe and nothing
happened to it.

I would hate to think what happened to the calibration of the camera,
though. I try to treat my Nikon DSLR camera like the precision
optical instrument it claims to be.

David

So much for rugged pro use. They're built to take the punishment.

... but will likely work better or longer if they are treated with a degree
of respect. Pro cameras may also need more maintenance to achieve their
longer in-service life.

David