My camera fell off my monopod today

Joe T

Joe T

Joe T

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Joined
1 Apr 2003
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Northamptonshire
My Sigma 120-300 2.8 fell off my monopod today.

Now I have a tripod collar foot with a busted screw thread and a lens hood with a big dent in it.

Pics of the damage:

Screw thread in tripod collar:

DSC_2979a.jpg


Lens hood, this should be perectly round:

DSC_2980a.jpg


A new lenshood is £100 and a new tripod collar is another £100.

The lens is ok though.
 
Was the damage to the collar caused when the lens hit the ground or did a failure of the collar cause the lens to break away from the monopod ?

The Manffoto tilting head on my monopod has a recomended max load of about 2.5Kg BUT my Sigma 300 f2.8 + Nikon D200 comes to about 3.5Kg.... I haven't tried using it yet.
 
Ouch, unlucky there Joe, I recently dropped my Camera body and I was mortified.... hope you manage to get it repaired/replace soon, glad to here the lens is ok.
 
Joe,
Sorry to hear of your mishap. All may not be los on he tripod foot. Go to a good engineering workshop. They should be able to drill out the faulty threads and insert a helicoil, this is basically a metal insert with threads on the inside as well as the outside. Check it out before you buy a new one. They might also be able to do something with the out of shape lens hood
Regards
 
It should be very cheap to repair the thread. It takes about 5 mins, 10 if a simple retap doesn't work so they have to do the above. Obviously it'll never be as strong as it was, but it'll be much cheaper than sending it back to the manufacturer for repairs.
 
Sorry to hear about this Joe, you'll have heard this already but at least it wasn't the lens that took the hit.

So much expensive gear accidents do happen unfortunately!
 
bad news m8 sorry to hear that

BUT

it better news that what i read

I misread the title as
"my camera fell off my moped today"

which would have been even worse
 
I didn't even know Monopods existed...a quick google sorted me out tho!
What's the benefits of them, possibly lighter to carry around and no setting it up like a tripod?
 
Hard luck Joe, Its my biggest nightmare those things hitting the ground.. :(

If you need to retain its actual value forget the above repairs and buy new mate. ;)

If you are happy with a helicoil fitted be prepared to take a big loss if you ever decide to sell the lens. :(

And remember the helicoil will not be as strong as the original mount so it will always haunt you that its going to maybe take another dive one day.. :o
 
re: the thread.

It looks like the screw of the tripod was not screwed in properly into the thread, the rest of the threads appear intact, but a better picture would be wanted to pass final judgement.

Regarding Helicoil repair, in most cases a helicoil repair is better than original on acount of the helicoil being a harder material than the alloy or plastic it is used in, if you are worried about it, just put a drop of stud lock onto the helicoil before fitting it, then allow it to set completely before trying to screw anything into it.
 
in most cases a helicoil repair is better than original on acount of the helicoil being a harder material than the alloy or plastic it is used in,

I go with Chocki on this one, the repair will be every bit as strong. I've seen helicoils used on engines where spark plugs have stripped out the threads and they work perfect. FWIW check out the tripod foot on the 70 - 200 F2.8 it's the weakest link in the chain for when you use a tripod, it's just a threaded collet glued into the tripod foot.
 
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