Dropping Your DSLR Down a Mountain Can Be Bad for Its Health

One of the questions that comes back most often when people learn what I do for a living is: how do you manage not to drop your camera? Up until Saturday, I could (somewhat smugly) answer that I am being very careful and have been lucky so far.

Two days ago, I was shooting Heather Geluk and had just gotten some pretty amazing shots of the climbers with Dent du Géant in the background, when my camera decided to go for a hike on its own (I’ll keep the exact details of how the camera came to be dropped confidential for now, as I want to discuss it first with involved gear manufacturers). The D700 and attached Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 II bounced around on the rock and ice slope, until the lens disappeared in a crevasse field. Amazingly, the camera stopped 150m lower and we managed to retrieve what was left of it… Sadly, the memory card was also damaged, though I have hopes of getting a specialized company to retrieve the photos from the morning.

We did finish the shoot, using a small Canon G12 and climbing the super fun Aiguilles d’Entrèves traverse:

Because nothing beats broken camera porn, here is what my once dear D700 now looks like. The screen is completely gone and I cleaned the glass fragments out.

And now, the hunt for a D800 in time for some big shoots next week begins!

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About the author: Alexandre Buisse is a mountain adventure photographer based in the French Alps. Visit his website here. This post was originally published here.