D200 "Dropping Lenses"?

Daniel_Terpstra · #1 10-31-2007, 12:14 PM

I'm sure this will be interpreted differently by many folks but I'd like to see a show of hands of people who've experienced this issue.

Has anyone had a lens drop off, fall off, loose connection, or freakishly disconnect in the middle of shooting with your D200? I have spoken with a few people who've experienced it as I have and wanted to see if this community has had the problem.

Situation: Shooting a long day with a 17-55 f2.8 DX lens on my D200. I had a group huddled together on a river-walk made of cement to get the city in the background. I snapped a few shots and pulled the camera away from my face to direct the group slightly and when I pulled it back down the lens simply fell off and onto the ground.

Nikon's theory is that:
1) I must've hit the button and rotated the barrel to loosen it up
2) It could not have been loose or problematic since and would've been incapable of taking any shots if it wasn't "fully clicked".
Both seem unlikely for my situations and eye-witnesses observations.

After 2 times of this problem for me (once bad, once caught the lens) and hearing two other's stories, I'm leaning toward a flaw on the connection point.

Any thoughts?

DFWdude · #2 10-31-2007, 12:43 PM

Never had the problem. Had a D200 for over a year and shot over 10,000 images so far. I did have an interesting thing happen a couple days ago though. I was unscrewing the lens hood on my 85mm lens and somehow the whole insides of the lens came tumbling out. It took a while to figure out how to put it all back together. Haven't finished the obligitory testing yet to see if I got it right. That's my only "dropping lens" scenerio.

Dennis_Vied · #3 10-31-2007, 01:47 PM

Did you inspect the locking pin and the hole in the mount? It could be that the fit is just far enough out of tolerance that a little flex will cause it to come unfastened. Since this has happened more than once, you could have a genuine problem with it.

David_Buzzard · #4 10-31-2007, 03:25 PM

I've lost lenses because I've accidentally hit the lens release button. It's about twice the size on the D2 and D200 models as it was on older Nikons, so it's not that hard. If you hit the button, it might take a while for the lens to actually work it's way off.

As Denis says, you may have some damage to the mount on either the lens or the camera. Check the little pin that sticks out of the lens mount on the camera and make sure it's not worn down, it should have nice squared edges. Again with the hole that it goes into. They get worn, especially on the larger lenses. Also check and make sure that the screws that hold the mounts to the camera and lens are tight. If there is any question about the mounts, have them replaced by Nikon. It's not that expensive, and is usually a part of normal servicing.

David Buzzard's Technical Blog

larry_angier · #5 10-31-2007, 05:05 PM

I didn't have the lens drop off, but shooting a grape harvest a couple of weeks ago, I was changing my 17-55mm and couldn't get it to mount.

Seems one of the lens mount screws dropped out and a couple were loose. Thanks to my Swiss Army knife, I was able to continue shooting!

billsstills · #6 11-02-2007, 08:14 PM

I haven't lost a lens the way the OP suggests but I'm guessing that due to the movement of my camera strap I've lost the cover off the ten pin remote terminal and the flash sync terminal too.

I'd bet that you're having similar movement issues.

Bill.

Daniel_Terpstra · #7 11-05-2007, 12:03 AM

Hey Guys,
Thanks for the initial thoughts on it all. I actually sent the D200 back to Nikon immediately and they saw nothing worn. The witnesses remember it much the way I do which makes it pretty hard to have hit the button right then and Nikon told me there was "Absolutely no way" it would be loose for a little while and have been shooting 5 seconds before it dropped off the camera.

I'm assuming we'll hear about this problem from a few others since I know of a few other people to experience the problem.

I do agree about the size of the button, though, and wonder if that has ANYthing to do with the many other troubles I've heard about. I really look forward to hearing from more people since D200 has been in for repeat service for the same issues. Very frustrating.

Thanks again,

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