Had a near heart attack yesterday. Went on a church picnic with my family. We
took a short cruise on the Belle of Louisville, one of the few stern-wheeler
steam paddle boats still plying parts of the Ohio River. About a three-hour
cruise. That should have made me cautious. ;-)
Naturally I had to take my OM4 with Winder 2, Tokina 70-210 macro zoom and an
assortment of other lenses. Took several pictures. Had the OM-4 laying on a
table. My 6 1/2 (going on 12) year old granddaughter wanted to get out into
the aisle. Close quarters necessitated lifting her over the table. Busy with
her, I missed what was about to happen. (Can you guess?)
My wife called my name just as I swung my granddaughter over the table. Too
late! Granddaughter's foot had caught the strap on my OM-4 and it hit the
deck about the same time her feet did. Shock! Panic! Adrenaline rush! I
picked my camera off the floor and carefully examined it. Camera looked fine.
Lens looked fine. Except for a scuff on the Winder bottom, everything looked
OK. Apparently the Winder took the brunt of the fall. Thank goodness for that
extra weight on the camera bottom.
Then I looked through the viewfinder. Oh no! The view was enough to give me a
near heart attack. I saw what seemed to be two halves of the focusing screen
with a dark line in the center, offset in the upper two-thirds of the
viewfinder. The lower third was dark. Severe panic! I almost hyperventilated.
Had the prism been cracked? Knocked out of place? Was the mirror broken? Then
reason prevailed. I had a thought. I removed the lens and...sure enough...the
focus screen holder had come unlatched and the screen was half out of the
holder. I carefully replaced the screen and the lens. I rechecked the
viewfinder. What a relief. The view was normal, bright and beautiful. The
viewfinder electronic display seemed to be working fine.
I focused. Tried a shot. Winder worked great. Film advanced. More relief.
Breathing and heart rate returned to normal. Took more shots. Seemed like
business as usual. Guess I'll have to see how the pictures turn out, but I
appear to have survived a near OM disaster. My fault. Should have remembered
the old photographer's maxim. "Protect your camera at all times." I'll have
to watch it more closely. I'm also trying to teach it not to talk to
strangers...just in case. ;-))
Robert
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