Totting up the damage

[Peter Rush]

How much does your gear suffer during an average season? As mine has now drawn pretty much to a close with only a few weddings before Xmas I though I'd treat it as a little excercise - here's how it worked out.

Cracked accessory door on A7s
Scuffed and scratched lens hood from Zeiss lens following a fall
Ripped tripod bag - will need replacing
Missing QR plate from Slik table top tripod - already replaced
Faulty Tamron lens sent for repair - won't be cheap but necessary
Missing diffuser from LED light
Damaged Olympus lav mic - went in the bin

Also everything seems just to have few more slight scratches and scuffs compared with the previous year - especially tripods and light stands

Pete

[Craig McKenna]

Ouch, Pete.

And to add to your thread, how much money do you set aside for said replacements / fixes?

I have shot six weddings so far, and a few other shoots to my name. I've yet to lose or break a piece of equipment, though I have dropped my tripod once or twice - the most damaging when it fell out of my car door - I didn't realise that it was resting against the door. This caused a nice few scratches on it, but thankfully, it withstood the crash quite well.

Hope your season went well, Pete! :)

[Peter Rush]

I don't really set aside an amount - I just ensure I have a healthy business balance to take care of stuff like this - last year I lost a canon 50mm 1.8 lens and Sony pancake 16mm and wide adapter - about £300 in all - was very annoyed with myself about that!

[Phil Stanley]

6 shoots this year for me with no damage or loss, I am a little anal about my gear though

[Chris Harding]

Hi Pete

I scratched a brand new LCD screen ..it has a big gouge in it but it still works! I think all this falls under wear and tear??? Apart from dropping stuff and damaging beyond repair we have to expect running costs! At least your season is almost over!!

[Al Wong]

So far for this wedding season.

- The bolt holding the feet snapped off of my Benro video monopod

- A wedding guest accidentally walked backwards and kicked my the Rode Videomic off of my camera that was on the floor mounted on a slider. This caused the mount to snap in half.

- My second shooter dropped my 5D Mark III with my 70-200 lens from 6 feet in the air when transporting it, mounted on a tripod. Luckily only the lens hood broke, but I was ready to strangle him!!! Lol.

- Missing about 5 lens caps

[Steve Burkett]

Not bad this year. I left behind a tall light stand I used to mount a camera at 1 Wedding, forcing me to buy a replacement. I left a rather expensive tripod at another Wedding, but went back for it the next day when I realised. 3 hour round trip but saved me £500 replacing it. Shamefully left my pocket audio recorder that was attached to the Groom during the Ceremony and then used during the Speeches. However the hotel picked it up and placed it in lost property so I eventually got it back.

Damages, only my monopod that I ran over with my car, but still works albeit with scratches. No loss of lens caps or other damages to speak of. However 1 of my GH2s plays up now and then, freezing up randomly, and only removing the battery seems to unlock it. I've had worse years.

[Steve Bleasdale]

Photographer stepped back bent my new mono pod, lost three lens caps, broke two lens shades, Voice recorder smashed from best man dropping it to give me back. Kid knocked tripod over small back up cam saved by the shade but needed a new lens shade, Slider screws worked loose and gone missing buy new. Computer hard drive packed in lost full film had to do it all over again from another drive (backed up this time on another drive pheeeew).Ha well, its only moneeeeey

[Noa Put]

My gh3 has fallen to the ground 2 times from about half a meter height but is still running, my gh4 has a scratched viewfinder and my rx10 has a scratched lcd screen.
My zoom h4 fell to the ground twice when it was mounted on a mini tripod and a guests bumped into it, after that it randomly started to record without any error message to find out in post there was only a 0kb file with no sound, I replaced it with a tascam dr40.
One of the zoom h1 mics stopped working, replaced that one with a new zoom h1.
Other then that no major problems, I"m also very careful with my gear.

[Rob Cantwell]

let my new FDR-AX100 slip out of my hands..... stuck out my foot and saved it from smashing off the ground, foot was sore for a while after!

scratched my car maneuvering around a tight spot at the back of a church - still not repaired. Thank god for lens hoods, lots of scratches etc.

[Ian Atkins]

For the second year in a row, I have excited 40+ weddings for the year, plus multiple other promotional videos, live events, and photography sessions. In other words, my gear is well-used.
Like most on the board, I am particularly careful with my gear...especially the lenses.
I put clear ND filters on my most-used and expensive lenses to protect them. At times, I get glares like the one seen here at 00:28

Just the Way You Are on Vimeo

But for me, the small and very occasional visual compromise is well-worth the headache of damaged glass.

This year, my GH3 tipped over on a tripod that was about 3 feet off the ground. It landed on asphalt and was scratched/dented on the body, but the lens and internal mechanics survived, which is all that matters. I've always been a proponent of investing heavily in glass and as little as possible in the bodies.

My Manfrotto monopod also started to squeak incessantly despite constant grease applications. The tightness of the legs have also started to loose pressure, so some of the joint drops inches suddenly while filming. As a result, I've just ordered a new monopod by a different manufacturer.

I've also left a couple ND filters, lens caps, and minor odds and ends at various places. I put a sticker on EVERYTHING I own that includes my company name and website address since I bring a lot of gear to events and tend to leave something behind.

I've also replaced SD cards this year even though they have been working fine. Cards are so much cheaper than they were a few years ago and most of mine were 3-4 years old.

My eldekrone slider takes the most hits because I use that thing constantly. I am always having to replace various small parts and screws that come off that thing, but eldekrone (so far) has been really good about sending me the spare parts and all I do is pay for shipping.

The biggest damage that occurred this year was a drone crash that was covered under warranty. I didn't pay for the parts or repair but it sure did take a while.

All things considered, my gear has held up very well despite heavy (but careful) use. You are able to claim depreciation on your taxes on this stuff for a reason :)

My current camera/audio kit is really great and I don't anticipate any major purchases for at least 6 months...hopefully a year. But I tend to say that after every credit card statement that comes in. LOL

I think my next investment will have to be upgrading my computer. It is only about 3 years old, but is already aging. I hate investing in stuff like that because it really don't improve my product. But it is important to back up hard drives and data because they seem to be the first things to go despite being the most important.

[Arthur Gannis]

Finished my 76th wedding this year and had to replace just a faulty battery charger and fix the zipper on the camera bag.

[Andrew Maclaurin]

One of the pins on the XLR unit of my Canon C100 broke whilst setting up the first shot in a wedding in the middle of nowhere so no XLR sound. Had to rig up a lav mic to min jack for scratch sound. Tedious! Still have to fix the pin as I have to send the camera to Germany.
Tamron lens seems to have grit in the focussing mechanism.
A couple of cables have gone missing.

None of this is as bad as my back as I usually shot hand held with a simple camera support!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Polaroid-Vid.../dp/B005MRXPE4

Pilates is slowly getting me back into shape!

[Michael Silverman]

Originally Posted by Ian Atkins

I put clear ND filters on my most-used and expensive lenses to protect them. At times, I get glares like the one seen here at 00:28

Ian, which clear filters do you use? For much of 2014 I used these Tiffen filters because they weren't too expensive and got great reviews:

Tiffen 67mm UV Protector Filter 67UVP B&H Photo Video


However, I noticed on multiple occasions that I would get some strange glares in my footage and considered shooting without the filters. I then read that B+W filters don't have this same problem and are also much easier to clean. I then replaced the Tiffens with these guys:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/756189-REG/B_W_1066123_67mm_Ultraviolet_UV_MC.html

They made a huge difference as I don't get the issues with glare anymore and they also take much less time to clean than the Tiffens. Of course they're more expensive but I've found that it was worth it to upgrade because I don't have those same issues that I had with the cheaper Tiffen filters.

[Ian Atkins]

Mike,
That's great information. Thank you! This is definitely worth the cost for the two lenses where I see this is noticeable problem. I'm going to order these so thank you for sharing.