Each time when friends are traveling to China, my first advice to them is always that let them look after their belongings well especially when visiting the crowded areas or taking the mass transportation vehicles. Traveling in China is very safe, but some tourists’ journey will be ruined by the pickpockets there.
A pickpocket disguised as a photographer accidentally caught in a picture when he was making the stealing during Guangdong Foshan Drangon Boats Festival
Nowadays those heinous thieves go well beyond just pick some small items (like wallet, headphone etc) from a tourist’s pockets, they can now even steal much bigger gadgets like a photographer’s expensive photography gears from their backpacks. Too many cases have happened and for sure continue to take place. So please do pay attention to this kind of matter, when touring and photographshing in the crowded tourists attractions in China!
The following is the story Tragedy! Today My friend’s white Nikkor 70-200/f2.8 lens stolen, camera body with attached Tamron A16 fell down the ground posted on the Chinese photography forum Xitek.com by Xu6eon whose friend was hit by such an misfortune days ago in Shanghai.
Translation:
Today (October 2) is the second day of the week-long holiday for National Day, my friend went to Shanghai Wildlife Zoo, and the tragedy struck him…….
Equipment:
Nikon DSLR body
Tamron lens A16 17-50mm/f2.8
Nikkor 70-200/f2.8 (White version)
Lowerpro Mini Trekker Aw BackpackAt the time, Nikon DSLR body with A16 attached and Nikkor 70-200 lens were in the Lowerpro bag and my friend carried them on the back when he used a point-and-shot camera to photograph some an animal in a crowded area.
Suddenly, a big sound originating form something hitting the ground was heard, my friend felt something wrong, he turned back and only found his Tamron lens with the Nikon camera was laying on the concrete floor and the Lowerpro bag was open. He immediately checkedthe bag and was stunned that his Nikkor 70-200 lens was gone.
Around the surrounded crowd, nobody was holding the Nikkor 70-200 …… it had gone!
He picked up his DSLR, luckily, it was fine. But for A16, as its front end hit the ground, B+W filter was broken.
The foremost optic of A16 was cracked by the broken UV filter. And because the outer brass screw thread of the UV filter and A16′s inner screw thread were crooked, the UV could not be removed.Lodging the police report
In the police station, there more several other fellow photographers who suffered the same encounters. One of them lost a Cannon EX580 flash gun.
It seemed those pickpockets were habitual thieves. They specially targeted the backpacks and picked whatever they can take once open the zips
Junjunshikong, who revealed him to be the victim, posted the three pictures in the thread initiated by Xu6eon
Very miserable, I am that victim, it’s my mother who let me photograph that monkey, before I never flocked into the crowd and always pay attention to my bad. Sign, miserable…….
It was so miserable to the extent that I’m speechless
Residual, the white Nikkor 70-200/f2.8 lens was used only several times
Another photographer pointed out in the same thread there were more than ten 70-200mm/f2.8 lens stolen during a single day of recent Chengdu Auto Show. Shocking! I sympathized with those Junjunshikongs and reprimand the immortal thieves.
Source & Images: Xitek.com
PS: Light Stalking has a very nice article on how to let your photography gears avoid being targeted, check out Whose Fault When Camera Gear Gets Stolen When Travelling?
