Dumb mistakes I have made

[ksmattfish]

Yesterday I was having problems with the viewfinder on my 20D. Everything was blurry, and it was hard to see through. I examined the lenses (both front and rear elements), the mirror, and the viewfinder surfaces, and couldn't see anything wrong, so I started to assume that my eyes were just really tired. About halfway through the day I realized that the viewfinder diopter was turned all the way in one direction (I normally keep it at -1 or -2 clicks). Doh!!!!

Post your dumb mistakes so that others may learn. :)

[SLOShooter]

Changed the ISO setting for night shooting, didn't change it back the next day for some landscapes. Turned out all grainy.

[Hertz van Rental]

Processing some important B&W film for a client I put it to wash and proptly forgot about it. I remembered some hours later only to find that I had put it on the hot tap and the emulsion had melted and floated off.
I spent the rest of the night trying to think up a good excuse. The real one was that my wife went into labour and gave birth to our second son whilst the film was washing - but i didn't think that the client would believe me. I told him the lab had screwed up and got away with it :lol:

[terri]

Gosh…I have so many. :lol:

Off the top of my head, there was that time I convinced myself that my fastest lens, a Pentax 85mm 1.8, was broken because my camera suddenly wouldn’t fire. It had worked fine till I put that lens on. I took it on and off a few times and was breaking into a cold sweat before I realized I had the camera on "manual" and the lens was set to "auto"… :blushing:

And the first time I developed film (Matt will remember this one) I carefully poured my developer into the tank and then inverted it without putting the tank lid on…slosh! About 2/3 of my film developed perfectly, though. :mrgreen:

[Mitica100]

I shot an entire roll while in Rome, by the Colisseum. A day later, after 'finishing' the roll I pushed the Rewind button and opened the cam to put in another roll I realized -with horror- that there was no film. Camera didn't have a film window and no manual rewind, so... :(

[darich]

I've done the same as SLOShooter so many times i couldn't count!!!
Adjusting the ISO for dim light then forgetting to take it back to 100. There should be a dial or marker that displays the current setting...or am i just looking for excuses??
hehe

[Unimaxium]

Had a blurry viewfinder, thought the diopter was set wrong, but actually the viewfinder lens was just dirty :lol: Just the opposite of your problem. Ok, well maybe it's not that dumb.

[Meysha]

There should be a dial or marker that displays the current setting...
Hahaha! I reckon there should be a big sign out the top of the camera - like a flag - that tells you what you're set to. It's sooooo frustrating!! (hmm maybe we should mass email canon complaining about it - then something might be done)

Ummm I've done heaps of stupid dumb things with my cameras - like opening the back of my Holga with film still in there... d'oh! I swear I thought I'd taken it out the night before. :irked: Those evil film pixies are back. :-(

[LizM]

1600 ISO, 1/120 sec, F4 for an early evening football game (I HATE dark color jerseys). Started snapping the next morning and then chimped and wondered what the @#$(&%^ happened - the display is all white!!! Then the "Doh!" hit me and I fixed the settings.

[Dweller]

Pull up a chair..

spending all day taking shots of hummingbirds only to find no film in the camera (I was abotu 14 at the time and using my dads camera)

Waiting for hours for a fireworks show to start, cranking out a roll of film to find out the film had not been loaded properly

Forgetting to hold down the little rewind button and breaking the film by forcing the rewind handle

Shooting in the rain with nothing to protect my camera (survived unscathed fortunatly)
ISO setting wrong

Waking up at some horrid hour to catch hot air balloons launching, spending an hour or two getting shots, then realizing I forgot to load the camera.. (quite a few years after the first incident.. but I still do it hehe)

But the good part is I almost always learn something from the mistakes.. and thats the point, right? hehe

[Digital Matt]

How about this:

Pack up all the camera gear and rush to the beach to catch the sunset. Get out, start putting the backpack on, have an oh no second, realize I have no CF cards, so I run home, grab them, get sidetracked, leave them on the kitchen table, and drive back to the beach, where I get out, and repeat step A. all over again.

DOH....

I did drive home, get them, and still make it back for some interesting shots, but I was pretty angry at myself :p

[Nikon Fan]

How about this:

Pack up all the camera gear and rush to the beach to catch the sunset. Get out, start putting the backpack on, have an oh no second, realize I have no CF cards, so I run home, grab them, get sidetracked, leave them on the kitchen table, and drive back to the beach, where I get out, and repeat step A. all over again.

DOH....

I did drive home, get them, and still make it back for some interesting shots, but I was pretty angry at myself :p

:lmao: Ouch Matt...I've done the same thing...just not twice :lol:

[DocFrankenstein]

Today I left without a battery in my camera.
I've shot lots of shots with some keepers with small jpeg

I make it a habit to "reset" everything

ISO 100
f/8 on Av
125 on Tv
f/8 125 on M
RAW
CF empty and in camera
Charged battery
One Shot focus
The kit lens on the body

[HoboSyke]

I have done the ISO thing and shot on higher ISO's then nessecary.
Also forgot to change metering on occasions. So many options its hard to keep track of them all, all the time. Which isnt a bad thing. lol.

[Marctwo]

I've done the ISO and WB but my most serious mistake was sleeping with a rugby player's girlfriend.

[spike5003]

I think I got all this beat... I heard fire trucks go by my house so I grabbed the gear got in the car and followed. Got to the scene of the fire, It was huge lots of good shots to be had. Grabbed the tripod and the camera bag. Set up the tripod quickly opened the camera bag and realized The camera was still sitting on the table where I was cleaning it the night before. So I drove home got it and went back... THe fire was mostly out and I got nothing worthwhile...

[Becky]

Set a high exposure on an old compact digital during some night shots, dropped camera next day, was a bit beaten but still turned on.... used it on hols a couple of days later and pictures were pure white... I assumed it was damaged from the dropping.....took me about half a day to figure out I'd left exposure up high!

[Christie Photo]

...I told him the lab had screwed up...


I've been using that same lab for years! You'd think they'd get it right.

[LizM]

I've done the ISO and WB but my most serious mistake was sleeping with a rugby player's girlfriend.

Well, that finally explains the avatar for me! :lmao:

[Unimaxium]

To quote the Editor's Comments section of a recent issue of my favorite photography magazine, Lenswork, in which the Editor gives a list suggestions for photographers to go by when going out shooting with friends:

"#1.) First and most importantly, before you leave the house and drive 800 miles on dirt roads, be sure to pack the groundglass back of the 8x10 camera. Do not assume the ohter guy has done so. It is not the best plan to discover your mistake when setting up the camera for the week's first exposure."

:lol:

[heip]

Shooting a wedding and after moving inside didn't change the shutter speed back to synch speed for flash on an old Pentax. Had trouble trying to convince bride/groom that night was approaching in half the shots. :)

[Neophyte Photographer]

bought some fuji color 800 speed film

shot both rolls

then before we went to yellowstone my mom bought me 4 rolls of kodak color 200 speed


shot 3 of the 4 rolls in yellowstone without changing my iso...now i have to get the lab to develop it..

[ksmattfish]

Some recent dumb mistakes...

Walked (struggled would be a better description) a mile into a swamp to catch the sunset, only to realize I left my tripod's quick release plate at home.

Tried to dust off my DSLR sensor with a brush that I thought was clean (I washed it like 10 times), and left smears. Oh well, got some Pec Pads on the way.

[LittleMan]

Well, I haven't posted in this thread yet...
I have a really funny one...

When I was out and about the other day I was having trouble with my old Canon Rebel, everyonce in a while I would see a black speck inside my viewfinder... so I check the lens. All clear. Then I took the lens off, looked inside... all clear, not a spot anywhere. so I just ignored it, put the lens back on and started shooting more.
It happened again, that little black spot... only this time I saw it moving... :confused:

I took the lens off once more to find a fruit fly had gotten in my camera somehow... :lmao:
I'm surprised it didn't die when the mirror slapped up. :lmao:

[ajmall]

My first opportunity to get some shots in a magazine came up about 3 years ago and had an old nikon film slr and bought plenty of film with me. I was very used to the camera but on this occasion forgot the rear door had been changed (due to a tiny piece of plastic coming off) and it showed a bright yellow indicator when the film was loaded properly only the old door wasn't quite the same. I've taken a few shots on the film and thought, is this loaded properly? I risked it in bright day light and opened the door to find it was in fine! bye bye film!

oh and not too long before that happened I wondered why my camera wasn't working - i had knocked the aperture ring on the lens so it wasn't locked on 22! took a good hour to figure that one out

i don't know if this counts but in italy a couple of years ago i managed to take photos that were out of focus (with an AF camera) after having a few beers...

[uberben]

I have done this a couple times and it pisses me off everytime...

I think the film has been wound and camera is empty so I pop open the back to see the film staring back at me and a loud F&#@ coming from my mouth. One time it was a roll of film from my wife's first time doing urban night shots. I had a lab develope the film and blamed it on the photo lab.

[jadin]

forgot memory
forgot batterie(s)
forgot romote cable
left a battery in the camera for several months (died)
didn't back up photos, lost about a years worth when i had to format drive.

[Meysha]

to find a fruit fly had gotten in my camera somehow...

HAHAHA!! OMG you poor thing... I would've thought I had some weird eye disease!

[Dan]

Formatting my CF and losing 80+ pictures.

[ksmattfish]

Formatting my CF and losing 80+ pictures.

I made sort of the opposite mistake. near the end of a wedding ceremony my CF filled up, so I grabbed another out of the bag, put it in, and started shooting again. 6 pics later it was full too. I forgot to format it, and it still was full of old pics.

[Nina Paget]

I appreciated your post. I was just at another new forum website that had similar context. I'll include the main authors article here, and a link to the website.

:thumbup:
Hi, I am photo daughter. I was raised, quite literally in a photography studio. Till the end of time, I will associate the smell of developer and fix with being with my father. My father dropped out of college to follow his dream of owning his own studio. By doing so, I remember him being, forever the blacksheep. He had two brothers, one a doctor, and the other a priest. A photographer? Definately the black sheep.

But what did it mean to my dad? It meant that he could take the world by storm, doing what he loved to do most. I think that originally it was the photography itself that my dad loved. I don't know for sure, though, because although I've seen the black and white photos that my dad shot while a teenager, I wasn't there. Was it the love of the image? Capturing the expression? I think it may have always been something more.

I think my dad loves people. And when he is taking their picture, he searches for the very best part of each of them. He wants to capture their essence to save for their children, and grand children.

Everytime our family has any sort of get together, you guessed it. The inevitable point of the gala would always bring us into a large clustered group, waiting for dad to "cock his shutter." (He'd often have us all ready, counting to three, only to pull away from his camera because he'd forgotten to "cock his shutter."

When dad first opened his studio, his first order of business was to sell, sell, sell. Dad would turn on the charm, and within a few years, he had contracts with nearly every school in the Denver Metro Area. Thus began his life as a school photographer.

Now, let me tell you, there is some pretty decent money attached to this. But there is so much more. A this point, it is easy to feel like you are no longer an artist, capturing a person's essence; but a machine - a talking, focusing, machine. You get about 30 seconds to take each shot, and your lines can go on for hours and hours. On top of that, Dad had to remain charming for the principals, teachers, and custodians. Even then, if one parent is unhappy (and vocal about it) with their child's picture, dad stood to lose a contract. As the city of Denver grew, the competition amongst photographers became fierce. Not to mention the national companies that moved in. The stress became a constant part of my father's life.

Schools, seniors, little leagues, reunions, and everything in between. We were a family business. I lived through it all, and by the time I turned 19, I was ready to retire.

Believe it or not, now my husband and I own a business that creates backdrops!!! We began this company by doing our sales on the road. We'd take turns staying home with the kids while the other one was out visiting studios and meeting with photographers. What an education we both got!

There are some special qualities within most photographers. They are independent, creative, risk-takers. Photographers are self-starters who have a tendancy to learn things the hard way. That is why I wanted to start this web page.

Photographers are not alone! Although this is a vastly competitive field, their are other people out there who can share the good, the bad, and the ugly with you. I'll start the forum out with a few topics, and a few short articles; but there is so much to be gained by sharing with eachother. So, register with freewebs and sign in to post with us. How did you get started? What are some of the biggest mistakes you've made? What is your funniest experience as a photographer?

For Example: I will use my dear old dad :)

Dad went to a wedding early in his career. He was dressed in his usual, black dress slacks, white button down cotton dress shirt, and a black tie. (I think this was his uniform... oh yeah, and black shoes... in case you didn't guess). Anyway, he'd shot the pre wedding bridal party shots, but everyone was waiting for the groom. Finally, dad stepped into the grooms dressing room to find the young man in a panic. The black tuxedo had been delivered, but the pants were missing! Well, everyone immediately noted that my dad was roughly the same build as the groom, and dad's pants were, of course, black. So dad ended up dropping his drawers and handing them over to the groom. Dad missed just a few shots until my mom showed up with another pair for him. The things he did for a job...

http://www.freewebs.com/photodaughter/

[doenoe]

Made a mistake yesterday.............was a clear sky, was turning red and i needed to hurry to get to the place to take some sunset pics. I was driving like a maniac and stuff. Finally got there, just in time...........sun was at a perfect spot.
Turned on the camera.....................didnt work. Turned off the camera and turned it on again...........still nothing.
I forgot to put in the battery. Left it at home in the charger DOH

[DocFrankenstein]

Forgot the CF card in the reader today! :evil:

[joeboot]

Well I make plenty of mistakes, but a couple stand out. Many years ago, I needed to develop a roll of urgently needed security-related film for my dad's business. I rushed it to the darkroom, got the film in the tank, and promptly added the fixer. Needless to say, the negatives were a little thin.

A few years ago, I managed to underexpose an entire roll of film at Death Valley by failing to set the correct film speed. I kept a lot of them, though. If I didn't know they were caused by a screwup, I'd say some of them look almost artistic.

[Christie Photo]

Forgot the CF card in the reader today! :evil:

Wow. You're livin' my life. I did the SAME EXACT THING... same day.

I immediately went to the camera and found a setting that will prevent the shutter from tripping without a card. A day late and a dollar short. Like I say... oh well.

I will do "additional photography" on Monday. Ya see... I NEVER have to redo a job, but sometimes additional photography is necessary.

-Pete

[montresor]

I dunno, guys, these all seem like honest mistakes. To really qualify as dumb, they need to be way more stupid. Like the time I picked up a rangefinder after shooting SLR for months and blew through an entire roll of film with the lens cap on.

Now that's dumb! :lmao:

Had I been thinking, I could have rewound it, fished out the leader, and shot again. Dunno why I didn't, I was too locked into being dumb. :confused:

[DocFrankenstein]

Wow. You're livin' my life. I did the SAME EXACT THING... same day.

I immediately went to the camera and found a setting that will prevent the shutter from tripping without a card. A day late and a dollar short. Like I say... oh well.

I will do "additional photography" on Monday. Ya see... I NEVER have to redo a job, but sometimes additional photography is necessary.

-Pete
yeah, I don't know why, but my 300D can trip the shutter with empty card by default.

I was watching a documentary on james hatchwey and the guy would always check the cameras before leaving on an assignment. Is the battery there? Is the shutter still flipping?

[ksmattfish]

I decided to photograph my own wedding in 4x5 BW. My advice today would be: 1) Don't photograph your own wedding, and 2) If you are going to photograph your own wedding, don't try to do it in 4x5. But I was silly like that back then.

I metered off my father's black pants with the intention of under exposing 2 stops from the recommended settings. Instead, because my mind was on too many other things, I over exposed 2 stops from what the meter said. I took all the posed portraits 4 stops over the exposure I intended. Fortunately, for some reason in the middle of our honeymoon it popped into my head what I had done. I was sure I had wrecked the photos, but I did my best to estimate a reduced development time, and they came out alright. Low contrast, but very printable. ;)

With my landscape photography it's been a while, knock on wood, since I've found an accidental double exposure or blank sheet of film when developing 4x5, but I've made plenty of darkslide mistakes. :)

Here is a link to possibly the most famous photography related dumb mistake: 95 out of 106 of Robert Capa's D-Day photographs from Omaha beach destroyed in the darkroom.

http://www.skylighters.org/photos/robertcapa.html

[mentos_007]

hmmm I forgot to take of my NDx4 filter and while shooting in the late evening I was wondering why on f/2.8 the exposure time is about 1/10 sec... of course everything was blurry

[Meysha]

Like the time I picked up a rangefinder after shooting SLR for months and blew through an entire roll of film with the lens cap on.

Hahaha! I did that with my first roll of film in the Holga. I accidentally left the lens cap on, took a photo, realised the cap was on... wound the film on, took cap off, took new photo. D'oh, why did I wind on? :scratch:

Just this evening, I forgot the CF card for a basketball game I wanted to photograph. D'oh! Luckily my sister dropped it in to me. AND! the guy next to me let me borrow his huuuuge telephoto lens he had! How awesome!