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Lens fell off during shoot

T

TonyM

New Member
I was stunned this morning during a photo shoot in church. I had my 500CM mounted in a Lindahl Trigger grip bracket with my Stroboflash atop it. A special event was taking place in front of me that I was there to photograph. My left hand was clutching the handle grip with my left index finger on the trigger. As I started turning the focusing ring on my 80mm F2.8 Planar CF to the right, the lens came off in my hand. I was lucky I did not drop it. The camera was cocked and the dark slide was out. I quickly put it back on the camera, focussed and hopefully got the shot.

I have no idea why the lens fell off. I did not touch the lens release button. I had been using the camera for 30 minutes and had taken 9 shots already. No other lens was used prior.

Any idea what may have happened? I tried to make it happen again, but the lens appears to be solidly attached. I also am wondering if I exposed the fllm to light when the lens came off. Since the two back doors on the camera were closed, do you think they prevented light from coming in? As I said, the dark slide was out. I will know in 2 days when I get the film back from my lab.
 
It may be a good idea to have the 500CM body checked with special attention to the lens release mechanism. This is the first time I heard of a lens becoming detached without the lens release button being pressed.

Could it be the lens was not locked completely?
Locking a lens produces a distinct "ping" from the body when the lens is mounted.
 
The lens locks on tight now. I spoke to David Odess and he referred me to Hasselblad in N.J. Both suggested that the lens lock might be worn or that I did not have it locked into place correctly. I will have a tech look at it. Maybe it was not attached correctly, but I had not taken that lens off for at least a week and had used the camera several times before.
 
Could the lens release button have been knocked taking it in our out of the camera bag? Maybe just enough for the lens to then work loose, so that when you twisted during focussing it came off?
 
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