OOPS.
I ended the event as I usually do: camera on my holster and extra lens in a random airport tote bag with a sweater, water, and some candy. I was getting out of the car and the tote slipped out of my hands. I heard it before I saw it, really. Just a light clunk as my Sigma 50mm F1.2 fell about a foot to the asphalt. Ooops.
I picked it up, turned it over in my hands. The only visible damage was the barest hint of a scuff on the hood. Cool, not a big deal, I thought. I got back to the hotel, put it on the camera and took a frame or two just to make sure it functioned. It looked like it was working fine, so I didn’t think any further about it. I had another event the next day which I had planned on using that lens specifically for. I didn’t change the lens at all, and I used it for the entire two hours. I got back to the hotel room that second day and loaded up all of the images. Oh no. My stomach sank. They were all soft. Just the barest hint of a shift of focus. Every single one of them.
I am not a careful photographer
20 years, seven camera bodies, 21 lenses, and 3 million (ish) frames. I do not baby my gear. I use a Spider Holster so the camera is exposed at all times. If I’m using two lenses on a session, the other lens is literally driving with me in my cupholder in my car.
When I get a new lens, I open the box then put the hood back in the box, remove the lens cap and put that in the box, remove the back cap and put that in the box, and then I put that box on the shelf, never to be seen again. I put lenses on the ground while I’m swapping them. I leave them uncovered when I’m working in the snow. I hang my gear on bathroom door hooks. I have been submerged in a creek. I have slipped and landed right on top of the lens. I have dropped one in the mud. I have had glitter blown directly at my camera. I have been caught in downpours.
How is it that after years and years of what should have completely wrecked lenses, a seemingly little clunk is ultimately the only damage I’ve ever had? What does it actually take to break this gear and what happens when it does?
What has survived over the years
I don’t think I can explain how much I hate camera bags. I’ve tried to love them over the years, and I still use one to get through an airport, but I patently refuse to carry one on a session. It’s a burden, it’s hot, it’s heavy, it’s sweaty – I don’t want to interrupt my session to set something down and dig through it. So my gear goes without: no bag, no protection, nothing between it and whatever happens next.
Ground drops
I have fumbled my lenses several times I was attempting to swap focal lengths and dropped it in the dirt, grass, or mud. I even once slipped and fell while walking down a hill and landed on top of my macro lens. I had a nice bruise on my thigh, but in all of these instances… nothing happened. I wiped the dirt off the front of the glass and kept going. Autofocus was fine, no grit in the mechanisms.
Weather
It’s hot and sunny in Georgia where I’m running my business. I’ll do my best to get a backlit image in every session, which means looking directly into the setting sun with my subject in front of me. The heat and the sun I’m sure are not the best conditions, but really that doesn’t compare to the downpour I was caught in while looking for jumping spiders in the woods. Complete pop-up thunderstorm. I had no shelter, and of course, no camera bag. I was soaked, my gear was soaked, I finally made it back to a picnic pavilion after about 20 minutes of running through the rain. I made sure to not actually use the camera in the pouring rain and I did let it dry off before testing, but I love that it worked completely normally afterwards.
Glitter
I know this is an odd paragraph, but because of my work, I had to include it. I used to do sessions where I would have kids blow glitter directly at me. I love this look, I feel like it’s super magical, and it’s a great experience and fun way to end the session. However, it meant that I would end up covered in glitter, my camera gear included. The lens that I used at the time was a Sigma 50mm Macro which means I was about 4 inches away from this pile of glitter being blown directly at the lens and camera. I never had any trouble with the lens, although the camera manufacturer once sent an itemized report of how many pieces of glitter they picked out of the camera body during a routine cleaning. I don’t know how many times I had to blow glitter pieces out of the buttons on that lens, but it never got into the interior.
What didn’t survive (but was rescued)
Back to that little clunk out of the tote bag.
Since I had never had a problem with any of my Sigma lenses until that moment, finding out that my lens was damaged definitely took me by surprise. But I needed to get that lens back in working order as soon as possible. I immediately contacted Sigma to diagnose the issue, and I sent images from the event to show what was happening. Yes, they said it needed to come back for repair, so I shipped it to the service department in New York, and I received a 100% repaired lens in about two weeks.
What does this mean for you?
I’m pretty sure that most people treat their gear better than I do, so do you really need a lens that’s going to stand up to mud and glitter and cupholder transport? Honestly, yes, because if it’s not those I’m sure it’s something else. You might be a working photographer, you might be a student, you might be a hobbyist. But you probably don’t have time to babysit your gear. I know I want something that’s going to stand up long term and be reliable every time I need it.
If my gear can survive years of exactly the kind of treatment it isn’t supposed to get and still be the lenses I reach for every time, I will still keep using Sigma. And on the rare occasion something breaks, I know I can trust them to fix it.
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