14ers.com

dropped my Canon A590 IS point-and-shoot camera off the NE ridge.

That's the same camera I have. It's been through accidental drops, jungles, desert sand, etc.

I have this one, and while I have no idea if it would survive a tumble like the one you described, it's pretty tough. 100% survival rate from 5' onto concrete. That's a pretty solid drop. Most drops are far less than that, and tumbles, while there's a bunch of individual hits, are each significantly less than a big 5-foot fall onto flat kinda hit.
14 megapixels, freezeproof to 15 (although my other P&S has survived similar temps with no worries), and waterproof to 10 feet, which means no snow, rain, or mist will touch it.
All for $200.
Not greatest zoom (3.6x), but good P&S for the mountains.

http://www.backpacker.com/gear-zone-gea ... gear/15542

Yeah, I've heard the Olympus is a tough camera.

This wasn't your average tumble. It glanced off a rock, sailed over the edge straight down, smashed into a rock and rebounded about five times that we could see, then did some tumbling and stopped. After witnessing this we didn't see any point in retrieving it. But I wanted the SD card (which wasn't actually still in the camera, but I thought it might be).

And though technically it survived, it's not exactly unscathed..

Canon is a bit like REI, send it in, they either replace it or repair it, provided you bought it within a year. My latest policy is spend less $200 on the camera, send it in when it quits working, I've replaced 3 times on one camera purchase. Utah dust is generally the culprit. I always tether my camera as well so it never gets dropped. I've never owned the A590, maybe I should have.

Canon ROCKS! I bought the Canon S95 at the recommendation of this site and a few friends back in May '11. I fell (ironically on an easily stroll up a peak near Independence Pass) and trashed the lens last weekend. Immediately sent it back to the Canon repair service center and amazingly I'll have it back in my hands by this Wed. Cost me $100, but it's better than $400 +tax for a new S95. I'm amazed at how fast Canon can turn around repairs. I'm a customer for life!

d_baker wrote:Boggy, you should send Canon an email, with this story.
See what they have to say, or give?

^^That's always worth a shot. Though, I have to admit that Garmin never even replied to the e-mail and pictures I sent to them after I drove over one of their GPS units accidentally (still works, and I still use it).

I will say, I haven't put my Canon camera through that type of abuse, but have certainly had a couple of minor mishaps with it during the course of the 7 years or so that I've owned it. The camera still works, and still takes great pictures. I've probably taken well over 20,000 photos with the camera, and have actually worn out an SD card. But, it still functions despite being used in extremely hot weather, extremely cold weather, high altitudes, some rain (it isn't a waterproof model), and having been dropped a few times.

Gotta love Canon Powershots. I've been tough on mine for 3 years now and dropped it multiple times. I paid $180 for it and carry it in my pocket in the mountains and while doing trail work. Its just as good as the day I bought it. I will never by from a different company again.

Well, the display finally died. But the adventures of Badass Mountaineer Camera go on! Today I finally got around to swapping out the LCD panel with the one from my other A590 (see below). When I took the case off all kinds of things that had broken off the motherboard and the inside of the case fell out--resistors, caps, plastic, chunks of LCD, etc. It was quite a humorous pile of components that the camera has been functioning without.

This was actually my second A590. I bought one new in '08 for $100 and after a year and a half of 14ers it started having sensor issues (I think--photos were plagued by random blurring, zoom came out all blurry). Canon had stopped making them by then, and as they no longer carried a PowerShot with full manual control short of the G11 ($$$), new A590's were selling for upwards of $300. I bought a used one on ebay for $100. That's the one that fell off Mt. Adams.

Anyway, Badass Mountaineer Camera now has an intact case and shiny new LCD panel donated by Bad Sensor Camera, which unfortunately did not survive the operation. BMC is recovering (actually it's working great). I wonder what all those parts that broke off the MB were for.. meh.

Good to hear the franken-camera survived its operation! I have a few year old powershot that has seen its fair share of abuse, and is now a little "iffy". For all the trips it has gone on, and 14ers it's summited, it was my wife's purse that did the most damage. Somehow... and I still don't know how, the last time I grabbed it out of there, it started leaking water. I ended up shaking/blowing out most of it and it now works when it feels like it. Unfortunately, this past trip to Yale was one of those times it was not in the mood.

I need to jump on the loyalty program!

Boggy - I have no personal experience with it, but I have read that you can pretty easily hack Canon P&S cameras. The lower end models have all the parts of the more expensive ones, but the features are "turned off" in the programming. Once you hack em, you can have complete manual control if that is what you are looking for!

First, Michael, congrats on even attempting such a delicate operative procedure. While it is unfortunate that the donor patient succombed, BSC was not without serious comorbities going into the transplant operation, so I would consider the overall outcome and the current health of BMC a huge success.

I have two dissimilar Canons which would likely not be surgical candidates for that reason. : ( But the little 1200-IS really is on its last legs. All functions have been disabled as of the last drop and fall on Wilson Peak - no zoom, no macro, no exposure adjustment, nothing - it is literally just a point and shoot in its purest form. It has been interesting getting photos like that (sort of like a single-speed mountain bike) - but I'd at least like a real macro function and the ability to adjust exposure.

So, do you guys think there is anything to be done for this little patient? Would the risks of operative intervention outweigh the potential benefits?

A purse is no place for defenseless electronics!

I did actually install the CHDK firmware on this camera but found it drained the battery faster so I pulled it.

Jim - it probably wouldn't hurt to crack it open and see what's going on. In the A590 there's a daughterboard that handles all the controls, so if it lost its connection to the mainboard (it's a little flat "cable", don't know the technical term. Another possibility is the soldered red/black power wires were severed or the solder broke) that would explain loss of controls.

d_baker wrote: See what they have to say, or give?

ha- canon? give something? My p.o.s. canon broke about 2 months after i got it by simply sitting on my desk. it was working one day, set it on my desk, the next time i turned it on the LCD wasn't working. i mailed it to them, under warranty, and they said it was abuse so they couldn't fix it free. it was the single worst instance of customer service in my life. tried jumping through every hoop and they said i broke it. bulls**t. i did NOTHING to that camera. i'll never buy one of their garbage products again and go out of my way to make sure people know of their awful customer service and unwillingness to stand by their product.

amazing how mine wasn't even able to stand up to the harsh conditions of room temperature on a desk and yours can fall down the mountain and be fine - good for you