I recently went through an event totally unexpected, disconcerting and finally cheerful. Since it's totally photography related, I decided to share it here. Sorry if my english writing is a bit approximate.
With some friends, we recently made a 20 days birding trip in Kenya. That was day 9. We were hiking in the Aberdare National Park. We choose this place because here it is possible to hike above 3000m quiet easily. We were looking for the specific birds living at these altitudes: sunbirds, chats, cisticolas, spurfowls, etc.
We left our camp early morning for a 2-3 hours walk. There were no real difficulties, the mountains are like big hills covered with low vegetation alternating with some rocky aera. The walk was relatively easy, we decided to travel light. I had a D780 with a 400mm f2.8 FL, and a 24-120 f4 mounted on a Z5 in a shoulder bag along with a battery and a bottle of water. And binoculars around my neck, of course.
Despite a poor light, especially for photography, we managed to observe almost all the species we expected. After 2 hours we reached a small ridge culminating around 3600m. We spent a moment there observing some Red-winged Starlings, then decided to go back down to have a well deserved breakfast. A few minutes later a Mountain Buzzard flew above us at close distance. This is when it happened. Trying to follow the bird with my eyes, I didnt checked my footsteps and slipped on a small stone. During the the fall, I managed to pull the lens close to my chest to keep it away form the rocks that were surrounding me. It has not been a big fall, I just ended up sitting on the trail. The 400mm was safe, but not the camera. The D780 hitted a rock and got ripped off the lens. Stunned, I found the camera on the gravel. A friend quickly picked it. We then noticed horrified that the metal ring of the camera's lens mount was still attached to the lens. I've had a moment of despair, felt like my whole trip just got ruined. There's been a long silence, my friends being almost as confused as me. This is not my first time in this part of the world. If it had happened during a previous trip that would not have been so dramatic because I was usually travelling with two DSLRs. That would have given me the possibility to use the 400mm on the second camera. But this year I decided to give the Z mount a try and swapped a D750 for a second hand Z5 bought a few weeks before. So, no backup solution.
After a deep breath I switched the camera on, expecting to see the fatal 'Err' message. But no, on the top lcd there was just the usual layout with the aperture set at F0, for obvious reasons. The screws maintaining the metal mount had also been ripped off during the impact along whith some small plastic parts of the body. We found that the screws were still in place stuck between the ring of the camera and the mount of the lens. We had nothing to lose, so we decided to attempt an emergency field surgery.
We unrolled a backpack raincover on a flat stone and placed the gear on it. I gently removed the mount ring from the lens. A second thin metallic ring poped up form the main one after we carefully removed the screws. We did not know the use of this piece but we put it back on place a bit randomly on the camera. We then placed the main ring, using the hole for the screw driving AF as a guide. It made a worrying sound when we clipped it back, and we also noticed that the plastic supporting the ring was slightly distorted. Not good. That made us say that even if the camera works, it is unlikely that it can produce sharp images... We then had to put back the screws... They are small, very small, and the only screwdriver we had was in our car. Fortunatly, I always carry tweezers with me. If you have ever encountered safari ants, you may know why. They bite so hard that generally their mandible remain in your flesh. Extremely unpleasant. Anyway. This 'tool' has been extremly useful to insert the tiny screws in their holes. And the end of the tweezers as a flat part, that could be used as a screwdriver. It worked, not smoothly, but it worked. Only for 3 of them though. The plastic threads of the others were to damaged, the screws were loose.
At this point we were quiet happy with the result as the metal ring seemed to be well fixed to the camera even with only three screws. That was a bit unexpected. I blew all the dust, sand, and plactic particles out of the chamber and decided to mount the lens back. It clipped in nicely, but I quickly noticed that it was not perfectly in place, the camera was slightly 'wobbling' around the lens mount (yes, with a lens the size of the 400mm f2.8, it's the camera that moves around the lens, not the opposite), probably because of the distortion of the plastic support. Still, we don't give up. Decisive moment, I turn the camera on. Top lcd displays a satisfying F2.8. I try to change the aperture, it works well. Half press of the shutter button, the AF reacts perfectly. We all started to cheer at eachothers. I then carefully aimed at a flower, approximatly 8 meters away from us. It focused quickly and accuratly. I took a few pictures, aperture f2.8, to be sure. Then nervously checked the images on the back screen. All the details of the flower were crisp and sharp as expected with this lens, just like if nothing happened. What a relief... Secound round of cheerings, louder this time.
I must admit that this was totally unexpected. After what the D780 had endured, I had little hope that it could work again. But it did! Our emergency fix even lasted for the rest of our trip. I just had to thighten the screws once a few days later. I often use a 1.4 teleconverter but decided not to mount it after the accident, the risks seemed too high.
I got back home on Feb 17th and immediatly sent the camera to Nikon Switzerland for repair. We will see how much that will cost. In the meantime, 6400 photos are waiting to be taged and developed.
It was a bit long, sorry. Thanks for reading!