So here's a story for Nikon to put in their "keeps a lickin & keeps on tickin" book.

We're in the Grand Canyon and I'm on a day hike off the river back in some pools of blue green water. I of course think "what a cool picture it would be to get a shot from up above the cliff looking down on everyone in the pools below"…I take my camera off my neck as it was a pretty steep cliff and I didn't want it swinging out from my neck & hitting the cliff side damaging it or worse, throwing me off balance so I lay it down on what I thought was a safe ledge about 1/2 way up (get where this is going?). I maneuvered around the camera & as I bent down to pick it up to continue to the top to take my shot, my camera starts tumbling down the side of the cliff. Once the cliff ended, it launched off & hit big 3 rocks on its way down to the dirt path below. Bang, bang, bang - on the 2nd bang I saw plastic go flying and the battery go in a different direction. Let me tell you , the feeling in the pit of my stomach as I watched my almost $3,000 piece of equipment launch off that ledge and hit those rocks was awful. Yes, why wouldn't I have my 18-200 lens attached to the cameraAnyway, I billy goated my way down off the cliff and got to the camera. I picked it up expecting the lens to be shattered...To my surprise, the only damage I could see was a little mark on the lens body…The lens didn't shatter and the camera didn't have any visible damage…no more than what my D70 has...We even found the battery and the battery holder flap - which was apparently the plastic I saw go flying. I picked it up and took a few pics…it still works!

The Nikon D200 ROCKS! (literally)