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How the bellows? I would keep an eye on then if you have the leather bellow. I got an 8 x 10 camera coated with salt spray. When I got back to the inn I was staying at the camera went into the shower. Still using that camera today that was 10 years ago.
Richard Ritter
www.lg4mat.net
I replaced the ground glass with a Linhof Super Screen (moulded plastic), and instead of a cover glass I protect it's surface with a piece of vinyl with penciled lines (to level it by). No glass to break this way.
A friend of mine here had a true disaster happen. His Tachihara 4x5 fell off his old Zone VI wood tripod at near full extension, onto a slate tile floor, lens first. Amazingly enough, the lens was fine, other than a crunched filter. The camera, not so much. The front struts for the front standard, and some struts for the rear standard got bent, and a piece of wood on the focusing screen surround broke. Fortunately, we have a friend who is an aerospace engineer in addition to being a serious hobby tinkerer. He was able to straighten all the bent pieces and bring them back into near-factory tolerances. To see the camera before he worked on it though, there was a serious question in my mind if it could ever be fixed.
I was photographing Delicate Arch in Arches from across the canyon with my 8x10 and standing on a tiny outcropping, barely enough to hold me and the tripod. The wind came up and threatened to blow my tripod over and I thought I should grab my camera so it wouldn't. It occurred to me that if my camera went, I went with it!!. I got away from there!!..Evan Clarke
A similar thing happened to me in the winter of 2000- however frozen ground and pine needles aren't so forgiving, and several pieces of my Z-VI splintered. Luckily Calumet honored the lifetime warranty, and repaired the camera for free. I'm a bit more careful now...
My Zone VI 8x10, w/ Fuji f5.6/300mm on a Ries Pod was falling over into Cascade Creek. I dropped what I had in my hands (Pentax Digital Spot meter) and grabbed the camera in time...then grabbed the spot meter before is has carried away from me in the current.
Took the battery out of the meter and no water leaking out after a partial dismantelling. I put it back together, but did not use it for several days (this was the last photo of my trip -- I was headed out of Yosemite Valley when I stopped at the creek. Still using the meter several years later.
A fellow who dropped his digital spot in the ocean on a workshop was not so lucky. We dunked the meter into fresh water, took it apart, dried it...it "worked" but was no longer accurate.
Vaughn
PS...congrats on the save!
On Memorial Day weekend while shooting in Shenandoah right before a storm, while I was putting the lens away, a gust of wind tossed my Ebony onto the pavement. It shattered the ground glass (not surprising), chipped the body, and cracked the bed. I sent it back to Ebony via Badger, and though it took just under six weeks, it looks almost like a brand-new camera now.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Tamerlin...22793473865746
About a month ago, I stopped off at the top of a small canyon to make a photograph of the sunset. I made my exposure next to the cliff edge. I thought to myself when I was packing up, self, that camera is awful close to the edge. So I picked it up and set it behind me away from the cliff edge. I turned back to what I was doing when I heard a crash and I saw my camera sliding off the other edge for a 35 foot landing with my 75mm lens still attached. That canyon has never heard a louder potty word, I'm sure :-) I downclimbed to fetch the ruins and found the groundglass was still intact, the lens was ok, minor abrasions to the tripod, but my Osaka wood field was shattered! Oh dismay. Glad it wasn't an Arca!