A 50mm Lens, a Wombat and a Hill

FORMATT HITECH AMBASSADOR FOCUS

A 50mm Lens, a Wombat and a Hill Losing a lens on a shoot is every photographer’s nightmare. This is the time it happened to Collin Harrington.

In 2014 I was at Bonny Doon in Victoria, Australia filming a wakeboard movie for Liquid Force Wakeboards. Our last night of the trip Raph Derome, Bob Soven and I decided to hike up an overlook to shoot the milky way at about 10pm. I would say it was probably about 1000ft or so incline. The hill below is a similar size to give some perspective.

I had brought minimal gear with only tripod, Canon 7D, Canon 16-35 and a Canon 50mm 1.2. While I was getting my settings right, I snapped a shot of us hanging there on the log. My 50mm was sitting on the ground just on the other side of it. Right after this group shot was taken Raph (with guitar) stood up and I heard a noise. For some reason I instantly knew what it was without even seeing it.

We were all tired and decided that our only hope would be to come back at day break and search for an hour before we had to head to the airport. Raph and Bob headed toward the car and I started my trek back up the hill to retrieve my time-lapse setup. I took a little different path up from where we searched on the way down. Out of the dark, this weird creature came running towards me. We both stopped and stared at each other. I had no idea what the heck it was. We were way out in the country. It finally disappeared and continued my hike. I later did some research and it was a wombat.

Suddenly I hear Bob yell, ‘Found it!’.

After finally getting my camera and making my way back down they told me where it was. It had rolled all the down the hill, had enough speed to make it through the flat spot with thick grass, through the fence, off the 10ft drop, cleared a wide ditch and somehow landed on the dirt or something to break the fall before rolling across the road and stopping literally right next to our car.

After inspecting the lens, it seemed fine. I put it on the camera and it seemed to work. I could hear a little dust in the focus ring but that was it. This was a pretty serious hill it went down. I was quite relieved. When I got home, I gave the lens to my repair guy and he said the lens checked out fine besides cleaning out a little dirt. I still use it to this day. I still can’t believe it survived.

I took off running down the hill and could see the 50mm rolling just out of reach. The hill is mellow at some spots and steep at others. It’s mostly dry grass with big patches of thorn bush scattered around. I ran until it went down a steep part and I started sliding and slipping down the hill. I could only sit in the dirt and listen to it bounce down the hill until it just vanished in the night. I walked back up, found the lens cap on the way, and decided to setup the time-lapse while we were going to carry out our search and rescue mission for the lens.

We had 3 head lamps and spent a few hours scouring the hill looking. There was a possibility that it had gone deep into a huge patch of thorn bush but we weren’t sure and it was too thick to go in. At the bottom of the hill it flattens off in tall grass, then a barbed wire fence, then a 10ft drop into a ditch, and then the road where we were parked. We got to the fence and figured there was no way the lens made it through the tall grass.

Collin is a photographer, film maker and adventurist. He is a Formatt Hitech ambassador.

Find him online at instagram.com/collinharrington

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