So I was out photographing some birds this evening at a wetland near where I'm currently living. I was on a boardwalk that went over the wetland and was reviewing some pictures I had taken. My 100-400mm lens was on my camera and I had it resting on the railing of the boardwalk as I was looking through the pictures, when I felt the lens rotate and then watched it fall 4 feet hit the water and sink to the bottom. I couldn't believe what just happened and could hardly even move for a few minutes. I could still see the lens as the water appeared to only be 5ft deep or so. So I raced home got a fishing net and raced back. Despite my best efforts I could not reach it. (I would have jumped in the water myself to get it but I'm in Florida so there are lots of Alligators around and it was getting dark) As I was walking back out thinking of what I could use to make the net handle longer I was stopped by a park ranger and told they were closing the gates to the park and I would have to wait until morning to get my lens.

As you can imagine I will be there first thing in the morning to try and retrieve it. The question I have for people here is, how bad do we think it will be screwed up? Will it be repairable or just a really expensive paper weight?

I was also told by someone that its actually better to keep it underwater right up until it can get taken apart and fixed. Logic apparently being is if it dries out on its own it will have even harder to clean and cause more problems. Does this make sense to anyone or should I just dry it out and then send it in for repairs?

So I'm sure some of you are asking the same question as I was: how does a lens just un-mount itself from a camera and fall into the water. I know it had to be on the camera correct, because I had been shooting with it for several hours already. What I think happened was, as I was reviewing pictures, I must have made the mistake of holding the camera in such a way that I pushed on the lens release button. And since it was resting on the railing, the weight and me moving a bit allowed it to rotate free.


Nick