Quote Originally Posted by Franglais
Plastic is light and bounces whereas metal is heavy and tends to dent. It was a big surprise when I swapped my plastic-bodied Minolta CLE for a metal-bodied Leica M, dropped it from 3 feet getting out of the car - and into the repair shop.
I once dropped my Fujifilm S6000 on the floor inside a 7-Eleven. I was holding it in my right hand by my side, waiting in line to pay for my stuff. When my turn came, believing that I still had the camera strap wrapped around my wrist, I opened my hand. And the camera dropped. I only had it for a month or so.

I had a table top tripod attached to it and it came off on impact. From the outside, the camera body looked fine, and the lens looked fine, too, without a scratch. First thing I did was to try to take a photo with it to see if everything was still working. The image in the electronic viewfinder looked bad. It appeared the camera couldn't focus. Tried it again that evening at home. Nothing happened. No good !! I really believed I had to take it in for repair.

A few days later, I took it out and checked it again. It was alive! To my amazement, everything came back. No repair whatsoever needed.

Fuji S6000 is a plastic camera. And I am still using it today - on occasions.

BTW, in case you are interested, there're several videos on Youtube now that show a guy abusing a Nikon D3, including dropping it on concrete floor.