D600 cracked body

Ironheart

Perhaps we should give Nikon engineers a bit of credit on this as I'm sure this type of fall is unfortunately fairly common. They see the failure rates and repair cost/complexity reports. I'm also sure they have drop tested at least several hundred prototypes. It may be that the polycarbonate is designed with several stress fracture points in order to minimize damage and facilitate repair.

Or they could just be cheap and designing throw-away cameras...

PB_PM

Indeed, cameras are not designed to be dropped on hard surfaces, regardless. Even if a drop doesn't damage the frame it doesn't mean that the fall has not lead to miss alignment of important items, like the mirror and auto focus.

mk2pop

I had my D90 tumble from an open camera bag onto concrete, although there were no crack but the af was off after it and needed adjusted

donaldejose

It is correct to state that D40, D80, D90, D3100, D5100, D3200 and D5200 are all plastic body construction? And that the D3, D700, D3s, D800, D300, D300s are all magnesium body construction? And the D7000 and the D600 are hybrid plastic/metal body construction?

PB_PM

@donaldejose Yes

donaldejose

Ok, now anyone ever heard of complaints of the D7000 body front plastic plate cracking when the camera was dropped? I had not seen any. Had not thought the front plastic plate was ever a problem which surfaced with the D7000.

Perhaps it is a combination of body and lens. The large and heavy 2.8 pro lenses are more likely to be mounted on the FX D600 than on the DX D7000 with the camera attached to a tripod by the camera body rather than by the lens tripod mount? More likely to be a D600 inbalance than a D7000 imbalance making this scenario more likely to happen with a D600 than with a D7000?

spraynpray

I wonder how many peoples D7000's have diminished in their estimation now that they know they are not all magnesium...

Donald for one I'll bet :P

spraynpray

"Perhaps it is a combination of body and lens. "

You have a point there Donald, but when the body is mounted on a tripod via the lens foot, it is LESS likely to break than if the body is the fixation point for a similar weight lens.

PB_PM

I've seen a number of reports of people breaking the mounts off of D7000 bodies. I suspect that the vast majority of D600 and D7000 owners will use the respective kit lenses and never use anything else. With those light kit lenses, I doubt it is as much of an issue. For those that do choose to use higher end lenses it could be an issue. I think the rule of thumb is just not to drop your gear, period.

Just because I have a D700 and D300 doesn't mean I purposely go, "oh well it's metal, it's okay if I drop it."

spraynpray

"I think the rule of thumb is just not to drop your gear, period.

Just because I have a D700 and D300 doesn't mean I purposely go, "oh well it's metal, it's okay if I drop it.""

)

donaldejose

Yes, I do think less of my D7000! From the DPReview statements I had thought it was built as strong as the D300s! Doesn't really make any difference, all psychological. It is just that I am now disappointed that Nikon had not "upgraded" it as much as I thought they had from my reading of DPReview. I hardly use it any more except when I want to carry less weight and produce only DX file sizes because the images will only be on PAD or facebook or e-mailed. Today's new PAD image is only 640 on the longest side so an image cannot be larger than 640 x 640 which equates to only 0.4 megapixels! Seems silly to be shooting 36 megapixels for PAD or for display on your computer monitor or HDTV which will only display about 2 mp. I find I can do just fine for PAD images with a D90, D3100, D5100 and D7000. The only reason I don't like to go back to the D80 era is that I like to use the modern Nikon picture controls and D-lighting features.

donaldejose

The 24-70 f2.8 lens is a heavy lens and it does not have a tripod mount foot so Liono must have had his camer mounted to the tripod. He doesn't say if someone bumped it or why it fell over. Perhaps the tripod legs were not extended full with or perhaps the tripod was too small and too light to handle the weight well. Anyway, it is a warning to us.

PB_PM

Yup. I did the same thing with my D700 and 24-70mm F2.8G last spring. Had it mounted on a tripod, put it down on an unstable spot to help another photographer and down it went. Of course with it mounted on the D700 the only thing that broke was the lens hood.

spraynpray

"Yes, I do think less of my D7000! From the DPReview statements I had thought it was built as strong as the D300s! Doesn't really make any difference, all psychological."

That is very honest of you Donald. Nice one. I too would prefer all magnesium but hey - the images it makes are pretty good for the price so I'll take PB's suggestion and try not to drop it. :P

donaldejose

Right! ) How ridiculous are we to think Nikon owes us a glass/electronic/ mirror flipping/ thousandths of a second shutter camera that should be able to be dropped on concrete without any harm? We wouldn't fall on the same concrete without any harm, would we? Concrete isn't "camera friendly."

Ironheart

Concrete isn't "camera friendly."

Looks like a tag line for the NR t-shirts

Golf007sd

@liono So sorry to hear about your new gear. I think the best correct action is to Send It to Nikon. If you do not mind, please let us know how it fell down. Was it due to some gear malfunction or something else?

Side note: Given that I live in the USA, I use American Express for all my electronic gear for they offer 90 day damage/stolen protection plan. Lastly, should this have been the result of tripod malfunction, then I cannot stress enough how important it is in having a good sturdy tripod and head to go with your gear.

Symphotic

I'm in the habit of clipping my camera bag to the bottom of my tripod, giving it a very low center of mass. It is then virtually impossible to knock over.

I started doing this after I knocked over a tripod once by backing into it after making small adjustments to my subjects. Fortunately, I was using an F2 with a 60mm macro lens, a pretty much indestructible combination. Pretty unprofessional looking, though. The people watching me laughed their rear ends off...

Just a bit of pedantry, so please forgive me. The energy of impact is proportional to the square of the velocity and directly proportional to the mass of the camera/lens assembly. The velocity is proportional to the square of the distance fallen. This means that one lens/camera assembly that is twice as heavy as another will impact at with twice the energy. But if it falls from twice the height, you'll get something like 16 times the energy of impact. A heavy lens on your D600 (the 24-70) is going to create a lot more damage than a 50 mm f/1.8. Just a little fun with physics...

Here's the 20 year old dent:

donaldejose

Yes, camera bag clipped to or hung from the tripod is a good idea. Mass helps steady the tripod and secure it.

SquamishPhoto

Today's new PAD image is only 640 on the longest side so an image cannot be larger than 640 x 640 which equates to only 0.4 megapixels! Seems silly to be shooting 36 megapixels for PAD or for display on your computer monitor or HDTV which will only display about 2 mp. I find I can do just fine for PAD images with a D90, D3100, D5100 and D7000.

Why you feel the need to repeat this like gospel is baffling to me. Not all of us that own D800's only post our photos to web forums, if thats all you find yourself doing with yours then it seems odd to keep it considering the veritable arsenal of camera bodies you own. Some of us also understand that one of the single biggest advantages of the D800 sensor is how great the files come straight out of the camera. My processing time has been more than cut in half from what I used to have to do with the D700. Fixating on MP in camera with MP in display is not only erroneous its also unproductive and it conflates the two when really they're two very different things. Understanding the value and utility of the D800's 36MP sensor is key to making good use of one. I think your superfluous number of cameras had made it hard to see this value as something you want for just about every single picture you're going to bother taking with a DSLR.

liono

@golf007sd It was 100% my fault; I thought the tripod was sturdy however it was on slightly uneven ground so fell over from right to left, landing on (I think) the lens hood, and then the left side of the camera where you can see from the pictures it cracked. @symphotic I will certainly make sure I hang my bag off the bottom when possible from now on.

I've called Nikon, who said that if the lens appears to be working normally then there is no need to send it in. I took it out yesterday and it's fine, so I'm just going to send the body and wait for the bill. Anything below £300 and I'll be happy. Well, maybe not happy, but you know!

thomasv

I think the amount of metal inside a DSLR is overrated. First: You draw your 'build quality' assessment from the amount of metal used inside the camera but there a lot more to it than that.

I've seen some broken DSLR and while of course a D7000 is less likely to survive a fall than a D300 don't kid yourself into thinking that full metals bodies never break. It is however much cheaper to repair a plastic dslr than a full frame.

Remember that a plastic body while breaking absorbs the shock from the fall while a full metal body may not and this could but extra stress on other internal components.

This is a not reason to buy a more expensive camera. But that's just my 2 cents...

donaldejose

SquamishPhoto: My "seems silly" comment was limited by the phrase "shooting for PAD or for display on your computer monitor or HDTV." I did not say it "seems silly" to use a D800 for any other purpose. You seem to read a lot of my postings erroneously and attack me for saying what I have not actually said which suggests you have some sort of predisposed negative emotional opinion of me and that negative emotion colors how you interpret what I write. I have been using my D800 for HS basketball and for 24 x 36 inch prints as I mentioned in other threads and love many features it offers: much better auto white balance under changing lights than my D7000, much higher ISO ability than people predicted, the ability to fine tune the image in camera so as to greatly reduce post processing time just as you mentioned, the ability to crop extensively when needed, and finally the ability to print even a cropped image to 24 x 36. I have also been using my D600 for HS basketball and thought I would like it better for its lighter weight and smaller file size but find that I do not. The reasons are unclear to me since I have not had enough experience with the D600 at this time. I just pointed out that since the forum has changed the small megapixels in a PAD image have become even smaller. Some members may feel intimidated posting to PAD because their equipment is not "the latest and the greatest" when they see so many D4s, D800s, D600s, D700s and D7000s. Truth be told they need not feel their image will appear "inferior" on PAD just because they are using a 6mp D40 or a 14mp D3100. If you have one of the camera bodies I listed in that prior posting don't be afraid to post its images to PAD, they will look just fine. I made the comment once before (and illustrated it with my own postings on PAD taken with "lesser" cameras going back to a D40 and D70) when PAD was limited to 800x800 (0.64mp) and just mentioned above that PAD has now gone down to only 0.4mp while sensor mp have increased dramatically. My comment is an encouragement to participate in PAD postings even though you don't have a recent or expensive Nikon body. However, one could also think PAD is moving in the wrong direction. It should display more mp rather than less. Why cannot PAD even manage 800 x 800 anymore?

Msmoto

@ Symphotic

I seem to have a couple old "F" bodies and by golly, they all have dents....I have dropped the body face first into gravel during a shoot and had to replace the filter, but I was able to just straighten the metal screw-in lens hood. These old ones were rugged! [-O<

ChromiumPrime

Remember that a plastic body while breaking absorbs the shock from the fall while a full metal body may not and this could but extra stress on other internal components.

Bingo! :-bd

Just look at how cars are made today vs. 60 or 70 years ago, you know, those huge bulky looking ones. Back then people used to die on impact from the smallest of accidents, even though the body and cabin had little to no damage at all. This is because the force of impact travelled freely from the exterior into the cabin and then to the passengers killing them instantly. Nowadays, a car's body seems to break (or dent) if you so much as touch it the wrong way. That's because now the body is designed to absorb most of the shock of impact before it reaches the cabin and affect the passengers.

The old film Nikon bodies did not need to absorb so much of the shock of impact of dropping a body since their components were mostly mechanical and were most likely able to absorb the most of the shock without breaking. Electronics, OTOH, are more delicate and can't absorb shocks like mechanical components without breaking or malfunctioning.

I suspect in the case of DSLR's with full magnesium bodies that Nikon also has to use higher grade shock absorbant materials within the interior to absorb the extra shock they receive.