Happy Holidays all! unfortunately as part of my own holiday, a disabled family member knocked my 7d with the 50mm 2.8 attached off a table and it took about a two foot drop onto carpet. it does turn on...but i realize it's not tupperware. is there any process i can go thru to check for likely areas of damage, or am i stuck with paying canon to give it a going over? any advice is much appreciated!!

If it is mine, I would leave it alone if everything still function fine. The 7D is a pretty well built can easily take a 2 foot drop on to the carpet. Just my thought.

If it works, just leave it!

I've once had a spec on my camera sensor that realistically didn't need removing, but became so OCD about it that I ended up smearing more dirt on to it trying to clean it! and in the end had to spend £30 on some liquid and special brush tips to clean it properly. If I had just left it alone, I wouldn't have had to go through that hassle at THAT point in time.

I wasn't quite sure how to advise you on this without having experienced it, myself, so I intentionally dropped my 5D MK3 with the 70-200mm attached to see what would happen.

Just kidding. It was only the 24-105mm.

Okay. Okay. So I lied. I made the whole thing up. The Nyquil made me do it.

Anyway, this brings to mind an old saying: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Hope all is well with your rig.

Happy New Year.

My 7D has survived -40c, being dropped on tile and ice, scraped along the road while I was hanging from a car, snowstorms, dust in the Nevada deserts, and I've never serviced it.

Landing on carpet sounds like a luxury ;)

My 7D has survived -40c, being dropped on tile and ice, scraped along the road while I was hanging from a car, snowstorms, dust in the Nevada deserts, and I've never serviced it.

Landing on carpet sounds like a luxury ;)

Is yours the one on Craigslist that says "pristine condition?"

Something like this you would have to send it into Canon for servicing. It may be fine.

My only experience was with a lens sitting out on a table while getting swapped got knocked down about 3 feet and seemed OK. Next week, at some point I realized the aperture wouldn't change anymore. I guess that it was damaged, but it was some smaller jostle in my camera bag that broke the camels back.

Is yours the one on Craigslist that says "pristine condition?"

Haha !!! i've seen some nasty pieces of equipment passed of as pristine condition!

Other than obvious cracks or dents, when you have time, shoot a blank, white wall. If you see uneven vignetting, your lens mount may be bent out of alignment. Also check that your lens distance scale is correct. An object 5 feet from your focal plane mark should read exactly 5 feet. If not, the camera could have landed on the lens which pushed the mount inwards, closer to the focal plane.