where there’s smoke there’s forum fire
Simple enough, as photographers we try to find an interesting shot... and get royally annoyed when we miss it.
The worst shot that I ever missed was when it rained and yet dipped below freezing- every flower, plant, etc. was covered with a uniform sheet of ice. Luckily for me- I had my camera with me...
But I left my SD card in my reader.
What was yours?
Doh!
Best shot I ever missed would be a hard one. I've missed tons, though. Normally it's because I forgot to change the last little thing back from shooting panos for work.
1 - manual exposure needs turned off (hard one to forget)
2 - manual focus needs turned off.
3 - gotta switch JPG back to RAW.
4 - VR needs turned back on if I'm using a VR lens (forget this all the time)
5 - mirror lockup needs turned off (forget this all the time)
6 - ISO needs set back to 100 (not that high ISO = missed shot, but it equals less-than-ideal shot.)
7 - polarizer needs screwed back in (if I'm in bright daylight I have it on by default)
Yea - odds are I'll forget one of those seven.
:(
I missed one shot in particular that I still vividly remember. It had just finished raining and the sun was coming out of the dark clouds. A row of palm trees was in the foreground. I shot about 10 frames with my camera thinking how beautiful the pictures were going to develop. A week later I got my film back and that roll of film was blank! I have no idea how the film was ruined but I was so disappointed it still haunts me :^(
There was another time I saw the Oscar Meyer Weiner mobile try to make a tight turn and the front was hanging out over a small cliff. The driver (a guy) had this look of "I can make it" and the passenger (a girl) had a look of sheer terror as if she was about to die in a Weiner mobile! It was hilarious but I didn't have a camera with me!
oooh its got to be one of the shots whn I just grabbed my camera coz something was happening and shoot like crazy ...half way during the shot you understand that the moment is gone and for some reason shutter speed was a little bit to quick\slow by the sounds of it - thn looked at the pictures just to realize that M mode was set from last time I used it... meeeeh moving on with life :)
I was at work, about 36 or 37 years ago, in Paris Orly airport, and I saw 2 nuns: One black dressed in white, and one white dressed in black. Guess what ?… I didn't have a camera with me ! Aaaaaaaargh !
Another time, about 12 years ago, I was at an air show in Houston (Wings over Houston) and there was this beautiful P-38 Lightning there, the very first one I saw for real. I used my Rollei 35 and shot almost a full roll. The day after, the air show was over and we were at NASA. I carried on using the Rollei to finish off the roll. When I saw the counter run past 36, 37, 38… I knew something was wrong. I opened the back and realized there was no film in it. Has anyone felt so stupid as I did then ?… Aaaaaaargh (again) !
My number one is this one:
I am on a 5 week holiday back in 86 in Europe with a Friend of mine. He had a brand new Pentax ME Super, so we used it more than my Canon AE-1. Problem we dropped his camera somewhere in France and the Camera look fine and way we went, took hundreds with that camera. Only to find out that any shot taken in Auto Aperture mode was way underexposed, something had broken in the connection to the aperture control, so put it this way there were only one or two pictures of me from that trip
Pete
I missed one while driving in wellington NZ. I have been wanting to recreate it for years. It was raining lightly and the sun was setting. I had just driven up a steep slope and just as I was near the top a lovely lady in a nice black dress and a light raincoat and umbrella step out onto the road. There as a nice damp sunset sky behind her and the warm light of a passing car just caught her face highlighting her eyes and red lips for a second.
Oh!
and #8 - Bracketing.
I have missed more shots by failing to turn off bracketing than likely all others combined (though I can't blame that on my setup for panos).
Someone could look at all of these sources of error and say "Soap, why don't you just look at the bottom of the viewfinder, most all of those are indicated there"
and I say "Get off my lawn! When I was your age we had a needle in the viewfinder if we were lucky and we liked it!"
;)
soap said:
Someone could look at all of these sources of error and say "Soap, why don't you just look at the bottom of the viewfinder, most all of those are indicated there"
I would love an easy (one button with a scroll dial?) way to switch the kinds of settings you list all at once, Soap. Maybe have it an option on the assignable Fn button on the newer cameras.
jonnyapple said:
I would love an easy (one button with a scroll dial?) way to switch the kinds of settings you list all at once, Soap. Maybe have it an option on the assignable Fn button on the newer cameras.
Personally I would like the Qual bottom changed to an instant access to customs settings, I would think 5 settings would work for me
Pete
Back in film days missed an implosion of a building because of a wrong setting, the film did not advance and shot the whole implosion on one frame.
Well you can reset the camera to defaults before each shoot. Not sure exactly what button combination it is on each camera, but I know it's there. That way you are pretty much forced to go through each setting to make sure it's what you want.
Doesn't Canon have a dial for selecting setting banks?
ShadeofBlue said:
Well you can reset the camera to defaults before each shoot. Not sure exactly what button combination it is on each camera, but I know it's there. That way you are pretty much forced to go through each setting to make sure it's what you want.
Wont't reset VR switch, Focus select switch, and don't think it will change jpg back to raw. But, yea, that would catch some of my error sources.
The one that I didn't take because I thought that the shot had been taken ad nauseum by everyone else who owned a camera ;) Why, oh why, didn't I pursue a different perspective?
My most recent one: just few weeks ago I went to the beach, on the way back to the car I saw a snake eating a lizard just 2 feet away from me on the path to the parking lot. It was a slow process... I watched the whole "show" - did not have a camera (not even a cell phone).
Well I was up at the Maine/Canada border in the Calais area and I was trying to find a nesting bald eagle. Well, I found the bald eagle while I was driving. As I was getting out of the car an osprey came onto the scene. With camera and 200-400 in hand, the osprey came up above the eagle and they came together mid-flight for about two seconds. Unfortunately my lens still had the soft lens hood on. I can still see the shot in my mind and it will forever haunt me. (For the record, I hadn't tried to shoot with the hood on, I just didn't have time to take the hood off.)
You win some, you lose some. So goes it.
I actually was just able to get my first decent bald eagle shot in my three years of photography in the past month. Sometimes you have to wait a while to get what you want. Although, I'll never get the shot I missed.
Cabo San Vincente, Portugal. Was considered the "end of the world", with sunsets you can ONLY imagine.
May 2009.
Had my D40x with me and forgot the charger back in the states. Battery died just before I got to the end of the world, as the sun was setting. No shots, only a memory of what was.
Sigh. . . .
Hope y'all don't get too tired of my "me and the presidents" stories, but I do have one more for this thread -- I was crossing Connecticut Avenue in D.C. one day and had made it half way across when Gerald Ford's motorcade came down the road. Motor cops got into the intersection and tried to block traffic, but it took a few seconds. Ford's limo puled right up to me and stopped. He was sitting there smoking a cigar. I was probably two feet from his window. Figured that I really didn't want to suddenly pull out a camera and try to get a shot, because I'd probably BE shot. He glanced at me, and just kinda nodded his head a bit to acknowledge my presence. After about ten seconds, they took off again.
This morning I got really pissed off that I inadvertently buried my point and shoot under some clothing. I was cleaning up stuff, opened up my blinds, and was slightly surprised that it snowed overnight. It looked really nice out, because the old snow started turning black.
I was preparing some breakfast to eat and all of a sudden a freaking red fox comes bounding past my window. My dorm window (!). How often does that happen in your life? I scramble for my stupid point and shoot which is now under a ton of clothing but by the time that happens, obviously it scoots away.
But boy, foxes are majestic creatures. I enjoyed that moment, even though I couldn't get a shot off. It had that deep rust coat, a long flowing tail and that sharp face. Just a really handsome looking animal, especially with that fresh coat of snow that was still falling. And it looked kind of small too, so it might be a juvenile. I wish I am able to see foxes more often, other than the stupid opossums or raccoons.
Moral of the story- buy the biggest damn DSLR and lens combination you can get your hands on so when you bury it in your clothing it's easier to find.
Even if it were the D40 it's still way larger than my stupid point and shoot.
On a very cold January morning I watched the sun rise on the way to work. The ice crystals in the air created 3 sun dogs around the sun. off the arcs created by the sun dogs there were spirals rising up to the heavens. An incredible sight and no camera.
There I was, clear line of sight, no more than about 15 feet away from Fergie... Sara Ferguson, of the British royal family. It was only about 6 months after she was married to Price Andrew.
Perfect soft light, coming in from above right, a nice large bright wall was on my left that did the job of filling in and provided just the right amount of shadow. There was a sheen on the ground behind her after a recent rain shower that reflected the light just enough so there was just a faint hint of rim light to her hair... in fact, she was tossing her hair back, with a really vivacious look about her...
She was at her peak with everything to live for and I just happened to be perfectly placed for THE shot...
Think I had a camera with me?
Pah!
I was camped in my office as Transformers 3 was filming right below my window.
I had just come back from the bathroom so I had no idea an explosion was going off.
I had my camera sitting next to me and the next thing I know there is a giant fireball right in front of the window.
Luckily I didn't mess myself, but I missed the shot too :(
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