My wide lens is gone

Nope. I didn't loose it to thieves. For a split second, I questioned Murphy's Law and paid the ultimate price. I dropped my 16-35mm ultra wide 2.8L lens while shooting a bride clutching her father entering the church. I was using my 70-200mm lens doing a detailed shot of them just before they entered the room because the father of the bride was so filled with emotion he was trying hard not to reveal. I knew I would be in trouble working with just one camera body for this shoot, but I had no choice. I had to sell my other body back in the Philippines so I could have additional pocket money coming here.

I was in the process of changing lens so I could take a wider shot as they came nearer so I could capture the crowd as well. I didn't see it coming. I mean, who does? For a moment, as I dismounted my telephoto lens, laid it on the floor on a kneeling position (there was no time to place it in my Tamrac waist case hanging on my waist) and went for my wide lens in my left blazer pocket while getting back up, my wide lens, filled with beautiful memories together, suddenly fell off the damn pocket! All 600 grams of delicate light refracting equipment went free fall at the rate of 9.8 meters per second squared from that short distance of my pocket to the floor!

Relax, I assured myself. I dropped this lens before. Not really that high from above my waist, but I dropped it before. Had a slight dent on the dust filter because of that, but no harm done. No big deal, Ed. Besides, the floor was made of wood. Yes Ed, it was wood with some shock absorbing characteristics with probably just a 2.0 on Moh's scale of hardness. (Talc is 1.0, window glass is 5.5 and diamond is the highest at 10). Past impacts were on solid concrete, tiles or polished hard and cold marble flooring.

Who was I fooling? Aside from the imagined reaction of the Iglesia congregation behind my back who emphasized on solemnity of the occasion with an earlier lecture of unobtrusive photography by the officiating head, I knew something was wrong. It's this flashback feeling, the thing you see in movies when you have a car accident and everything flashes right by the victim's eyes. After about two years of shooting with this lens, I actually felt for this lens. Find me over reacting, but its funny how time can also freeze for inanimate objects close to your heart in near death experiences.

My lens didn't exactly die that day. It was more like it was in a state comatose. There was still some life left in it as far as I knew. I peered into it from both ends and knew, there was still life in it. While I couldn't find any data on how much Gs (shock) my lens could actually withstand, it was enough to give my camera body a flatline reading.

Err 01. Communication lens error. Please clean the contacts of your lens.

I did try cleaning my injured lens during the rest of the shoot. Nothing. Took off both batteries from the battery pack to give it a cold reset. Nothing. Let it rest for an hour and hope it heals back itself before the entire wedding ends so I can get a few more important shots. Nothing. It was there, but then again I wasn't sure. I was in a survival mode myself during the past few months and was hoping me, my camera and my lenses would pull it through. One day at a time.

My heart sank that day. My lens let me down. Or was it me letting my lens down? I knew one of these days I needed to be extra careful with my equipment because they were all I got left. With more shooting commitments up in the next couple of days, I went blank myself like my lens.

I shut down. With still a few more hours left in the wedding, I couldn't shoot. My new friend Clark who was also covering the wedding tried to console me and told me to shoot with my other telephoto lens. Nope. It didn't work. Yes, the 70-200mm is my favorite lens and was at least working. But it didn't make any sense. I usually thought of myself as a highly rationalizing being. I work with logic and valid reasoning. The most logical thing to do now was to work with what I have, just like what Clark said. Aside from my favorite lens, I still had with me my fish eye lens.

But no, I couldn't shoot. It felt like a part of me just died.

I did manage to finish shooting the wedding that day. Improvised. Made use of my two other lenses. My heart wasn't in it. But, I had to. It used to be, I loved to. Clark had to leave prematurely and I was the only choice left for the bride and groom who were expecting me to take a post wedding reception shoot for them. Made several shoots later at the reception's garden. Later, I found out it was a damn pretty good garden. Beautiful. Almost heaven like.

It was a long night.

(A few days later, after trying my best to forget my wide lens and get on with it, I checked my shots. In particular, I checked my shots after my 16-35mm was gone. Not bad. Some pretty good shots, actually. And then suddenly I realized the beauty of it all. My wide lens never left me. It helped me see things with a different perspective. It helped me see things from a far perspective.)