Cats will be cats, whether they're your cuddle buddy at home or king of the jungle. And as such, they'll cause mischief and destroy things for their own entertainment. One photographer learned that the hard way when a pride of lions decided his camera equipment looked tasty.
Thomas Selig was in the Kenyan National Park at the Maasai Mara National Reserve photographing lions, when he noticed another photographer had set up a tripod for remote shooting using his Canon 40D and EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM lens. Unfortunately for the other photographer, the pride of lions came a little bit closer than intended, their curiosity piqued, and after smelling the camera and licking it, one of the lions bit into it, causing an audible crack. They then trotted off with their newfound toy.
https://500px.com/photo/26511423/lion-and-camera-by-thomas-selig
https://500px.com/photo/26511415/lion-and-photo-camera-by-thomas-selig
After an hour of playing with the setup, the lions grew bored and left it, leaving the unlucky photographer to retrieve their gear, which was now worse for wear. I guess in this case, curiosity got the camera.
[via Daily Mail]
I would just love to see the insurance claim on this one :-)
At least he's got proof of how it was damaged.
Obviously those cats work for Nikon.
Back in the days of the 40D they did not have the cat-proof coating yet.
I guess they had it, but it really degraded image quality.
Pride eats photographer's pride