Ouch

[nickanderson]

my d300 camera fell out of my bag today whilst I stood helpless to prevent it rolling and bouncing 30m down the rocky mountain side. The sigma lens stayed put almost to last but was totalled. the body lost its battery cover and has a cracked edge around the battery compartment but the battery was still in place and it was still swithed on!!I removed the defunct lens and fitted another one and it worked!!!! The flash is not working but if you saw where and how far and fast it fell you would be as suprised as I that is is not in lots of tiny bits.
So apart from saying that nikon bodies are tough I would like to hear from anyone who has had major surgery carried out on their nikon body - do nikon offer body part replacement? I guess the flash is just a bulb and the battery door shold be easy to replace.
Any comments or suggestions welcome although I have already called myself a clumsy bar steward!! so no need to remind me.

[wavemachine]

Sorry to hear about the mishap, pretty gut wrenching I know.

I had a similarish experience with a Canon A640 a few years back, in my case it was only the battery flap and part of the case that was damaged. I thought it was going to cost a fortune to repair but one day I plucked up courage to send it off for an estimate thinking the worst.

In the end it was £25 including parts, labour and return postage, they were a little old fashioned sending a full quote in the post but they did a good job.

These are the people I used, maybe worth a phone call at least.

I guess it is a case of weighing up the cost of repair against a replacement, it may also be worth checking out your house contents insurance to see if it is covered.

Good luck.

[nickanderson]

Thanks for the advice, I will give them a try. I managed to get a new battery flap of ebay - although its on the way from th U.S. So its just the flash now which must be fixable and cheaper than a replacement camera although I have been eyeing up the D700 but I was waiting for it to come down in price which can't be far off now.
Cheers again though.

[wavemachine]

What is wrong with the flash is it just not firng?

If that is the case then one solution maybe to get an external flash, if you are going to stick with Nikon kit then that could be transferred to your next camera assuming you don't have one already.

Personally when I know I am going to do flash work I always use my external flash although sometimes the built in flash is quite handy.

If you decide to go down that route it will probably be worth testing the flash on the camera before you buy just to make sure the hot shoe is still working.