Leica M9 falls from balcony onto granite, granite comes off worse

My friend accidentally dropped a Zenit E from the 11th floor. It landed on grass, bounced back and then his asphalt for the second time. It had a few scratches, but worked fine. The lens needed to be cleaned from dirt though, as it got some grass and soil stuck to it. Nothing broke.

i had the same thing happen with a kodak disposable camera. it lived. :)

Speaks a lot of the Chinese granite quality... :)

It probably fell on the lens hood first, which absorbed most of the impact. The tile broke off which likely absorbed a part of the energy. Wonder what happens if it did the same fall on a corner of the cameras and in the middle of the granite tile...

It just LUCK! come on!!!

No mention as to whether or not the lens survived in working order. I once dropped two Canon (V300s from memory) that I used as a twin rig for 3D photography. The tripod mount broke and they fell 5 feet straight onto a concrete floor. The cameras and one lens survived perfectly intact. One lens absorbed most of the impact but ended up a little compressed and out of line. Surprisingly it still auto focussed.

The concrete was just fine.

Never made the headlines though!

Doubtful claim, especially "breaking the granite" part.
If that part wasn't there, one could say "maybe", and that the owner got lucky that the hood is what hit the ground and absorbed all the energy from the fall.
The added spice made the story less believable.

Always secure your camera. Don't take safety for granite...

DPR should drop their A7R II from a balcony for comparative purposes.

Hmmm... both of my Leica M6s had their rangefinders knocked out alignment so easily that I couldn't count on them. A simple fall of 6 inches onto a padded surface did them in.

The camera is now on Ebay now being sold as mint and beautifully maintained.

Chinese granite vs German steel.

The sensor cover glass in this model is notorious for spontaneously developing cracks. Then it came out that the sensors also suffer from corrosion over time. The tripod mount is attached to the baseplate. The baseplate is not well secured to the body. It turns out that when the camera is on a tripod, the brittle body casting can break where it attaches to the baseplate and the camera can fall.

Leicas had issues where the neck strap lugs came unscrewed due to oversights in manufacturing. Many M8s & M9s have had shutters that failed. The issues on the M8 are numerous. The LCD can develop a "coffee" stain. When the LCD fails, it can't be replaced. I'll stop here.

Or... you could simply buy a half dozen "disposable" $1,500 cameras, and throw them away after you drop them. You would end up saving money that way.

I will always remember a set of presentations given by a bunch of camera reps at an art school I snuck into to audit. The Nikon guy talked about their fancy new LBCAST technology, (yeah, I'm probably a little older than you) and Canon talked about their fancy new AF technology.

The Leica rep walked out to the center of the stage, put the camera on the ground, and then put his full weight on it with one heel.

"I bet the other guys didn't do this, did they?"

(Camera still clicked a few photos, of course, and the guy continued to give a presentation that I have since forgotten the rest of...)

A fortunate landing. If the body had struck the pavement, the damage to the camera would have been worse. The lens hood absorbed most of the energy of the impact.

More like the granite sacrificed itself to save the camera.

I bet the camera owner will be replacing the camera because he would keep on thinking "Could this be caused by the accident"?" as he process his photos.

My K-3 vibrated off my washing machine as I was racing to get a prime because tornado sirens and lightning were going crazy outside two days ago. The K-3 didn't even have a scratch and besides the shattered UV filter the lens has not a single mark. Pentax makes some tanks too. Thank you Ricoh!!!!!

Could've been the pool!

Of course they won't mention this but I'm afraid the lens will have some internal damage, even though it looks ok on the outside. If any of the glass elements inside have shifted only very slightly, and that's quite likely in this case, the lens will undoubtedly produce images with soft corners and/or soft sides! Don't believe me? Ask Roger Cicala @ Lensrentals.com.

Proof that a lens hood provides better protection than a filter. A hood aborbs energy while a filter transfers it. I had a hood break but protect my camera and 70-200 f/2.8 lens and during a fall, and also had a expensive B+W filter crack and split open a 35-70 f/2.8 lens during a fall. Although i bever dropped anything from a two story balcony

Ok...
Line up, take a number, and share your most horrifying experience with a camera that fell from the higher altitude. Like if we care.
By the way, once I had this puppy who fell from the ninth floor to... Ah, never mind.

Interesting to see the rangefinder was accurate. But was it accurate before the camera fell?

This is the standard way that rangefinders have always been calibrated in Wetzlar.

What a ridiculous story.

First it is a thin granite tile with air and quickset underneath it and the camera hit right on the tile edge where was probably only air underneath the tile. So really it was a 5mm of tile being hit with a huge advantage.

Second looking at the position of the camera you can see it was moved because there is no way it would land that way hitting like that .... so the picture is staged.

More likely they dropped it from head level. From wherever it fell it was only the breaking tile that saved it as the break absorbed much of the momentum and converted much of the rest into rotation .... much which was then absorbed by the soft leather case.

All and all a very lucky camera.

Typical case of

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!

According to Leica Store Hong Kong 'AF system works fine after the accident'

back in my he film days, my Rolleiflex once fell from the table. I was so relieved when the first pictures afterwards all pictures were not ok in all areas of the image. A bit of deformation would have yielded frustratingly fuzzy pictures. So I can imagine how the leica owner felt.
As an aside, this memory made me decide to pick up my Rollei again for pictures. I made my best pictures with it, mainly because it forces you to slow down.