Russell McMahon wrote:
>>> It's also not clear that the D700 and even the D3 have the same
>>> brick outhouse construction of the F3T. That's a important feature
>>> when most of your shots are outdoors in unpredictable conditions
>>> with some physical abuse expected on the way out and back.
>>
>> I can't speak for the Nikon line (lack of experience) but the
>> higher end Canon equipment I use has that construction now.
>
> All professional level cameras tend towards very substantial
> environmental sealing and rugged construction. But simplicity helps
> ruggedness. I dropped a Minolta 7D off the door sill of a car
> (stupidity, etc ...) and it fell maybe 400mm to concrete and the
> antishake mechanism died. As film cameras tend not to have a mechanism
> that waves the film around to combat vibration that part of a film
> camera wouldn't have die. I dropped a Minolta 5D (essentially the same
> inside) about 800mm to a wooden floor (you could hear the gasp from
> the whole room) and it caused no damage. (In that case it was
> tiredness and stupidity and rushing and ... - carrying several cameras
> and swapping to another and assuming the first was on its strap around
> my neck (as it ALWAYS [tm] is, and it wasn't. Those are the only two
> camera drops that I've managed in the better part of a million photos
> taken.

I'm not sure you guys are talking about the same ruggedness I am.  I'm
referring to the extra measure that distinguishes a F3-T from a ordinary F3,
for example, which in that case include titanium in various places instead
of steel.  The bottom plate of my camera has a few scratches and minor dings
in it.  I have no idea what it would look like if it were steel.

Of course I try to be nice to my camera, but stuff happens, especially
outdoors.  Just this summer while out in the desert of the Bisti Badlands I
discovered the hard way that a piece of plastic had broken off the strap
I've had for years, allowing it to disconnect in one place when I moved in
just the right way.  Another time the camera has bounced down a ravine
inside a backpack.  Despite all the indignaties, the only fault I know of is
that the LCD that display status information in the viewfinder is starting
to be just a blob in one of the corners, and the blob is slowly spreading.


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