I dropped two of Emile’s lenses on our concrete walkway. It was my fault – although the habit he has of leaving his bag appearing closed when it is not did not help. It all started when I he called me to ask tha I bring his camera to Well Fed (our friend’s restaurant in Gravenhurst – you should check it out) for their 1 year anniversary celebration. He forgot to bring his camera, and since we were meeting there, I grabbed the bag for him.
When we met up, Emile took his camera (Nikon D7000) and one of his lens (I don’t know which one – it was one of the big ones). And left his gigantic camo backpack in my car. Open. Yet appearing closed.
We both left about the same time there, but Emile had to stop to pick something up on the way. At home, I gathered up my travelling stuff (wallet, sunglasses, etc) and picked up the backpack from the passenger seat. I swung the bag in front of me and proceeded to lift out of the driver’s seat. Just to see his two other lens (listen, I am not the photographer, I don’t know which ones – one very small and one medium), his point-and-shoot camera and the flash diffuser tumble to the ground on the a paver in front of our house. From about waist-high.
I sat right down on the paver and started to cry.
Now, the lens caps and the connection caps were on. So, maybe okay. The point-and-click camera was in its case, so unlikely any damage there. The flash diffuser is plastic and relatively cheap. But those lens – the big one a gift from my family and his family for his 40th birthday in November. Oh My God. What if I broke it?
I didn’t pick them up right away. I didn’t want to take the lens caps off and find cracks. Or find dinted connecting rings that would hinder the camera connecting the lens. I just watched them.
Finally I picked up the bigger lens. There were three or four scuff marks on the lens cap and several more on the bottom corner. Pretty small, only aesthetic damage. The small lens’ lens cap had fallen off in the fall. The lens itself was slightly scuffed on the filter rim. I kept rolling them over in my hand looking for obvious defects that I had caused. Both looked intact.
I could only wait until Emile got home with his camera to make sure they could connect without issue and still worked. I picked up everything and moved it inside the house. Spread it out on the dining room table and waited.
When Emile got home, he saw my face first and without knowing what happened gave me hug. “What’s wrong?” “What’s happened?” I told him about my accident and he didn’t even stop looking at me, and telling me it was okay.
When he finally looked at his equipment, everything was okay. Yes, he didn’t like the scratches, but we are talking about a man who doesn’t like his Sony receiver because its buttons don’t match the buttons on his other Sony equipment (thank goodness VCRs and DVDs are moving out of fashion now). The scratches on the lenses are not noticeable unless you are looking for them, or you run your fingers along them. The lenses still take good pictures. Well, in the right hands they still take good pictures.
Close your bags, you never know when some well-meaning person is going to “help” you with your bag.
May 30th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: My husband loves me more than his lenses.
The Daily EO 