Photography fail moments !!!

[K-amps]

We had a friend and his family leaving town so we threw them a farewell party. the last part was Mr. Photographer, needed to take a group shot. So I set the cap on a tripod, hit the timer to 10 secs, hit the shutter and ran to join the group.... had all the folks smiling or making weird faces.... after a while, when the shutter would not go off... we began to lose our expressions and they became a mix of funny face going to "whats going on" sort of face....

So I ran back to the cam, only to discover I had set the mode to "Video". :-[

Needless to say one of the best 20 second videos we gave them as a momento.

 

[J.R.]

After starting this thread on 6th of February citing photography fail moments of someone else, I got my comeuppance with a fail -

I had traveled to New Delhi on business late last week. I had planned to travel light with just the RX100 because I was sure I wouldn't get any time to shoot given the extremely tight traveling schedule. Just as I was about to start from home, I got a call from my friend who asked me to get my DSLR along as he wanted pictures of his children taken while I was in Delhi. I dutifully packed in the 5D3 + 24-70 and a 50mm.

Meetings were originally planned for Friday and Saturday and as luck would have it, the Saturday meetings got cancelled giving me most of the day free. Given the opportunity, I visited the Auto-Expo and gleefully started clicking photographs.

Bummer ... the 32 GB Sandisk card was over 90% occupied and I noticed it only once it got full. Not having a spare CF card, I couldn't full format the card and was resigned to reviewing / deleting individual photos from the card since I hadn't transferred the images existing on the card to my desktop PC.

After an hour of haggling with the camera freeing up space - shooting, freeing up space - shooting, I realised that I was also carrying my RX-100 which was not being used and which CONTAINED a 32GB CF card. Feeling utterly idiotic, I removed the card from the RX-100 and used it in the 5D3.

Another fail on the same day ... went to shoot the Auto-Expo and forgot to take the CPL along. The glare from the overhead lights killed off enough shots to make me cry :'(

 

[tron]

Lack of film during my very first SLR film camera (when I was 17).
I thought that since I could advance the lever the salesman was so nice so as to put a film inside ;D

Lens cap is no big issue, just a habit of mine putting it back after taking one or a few photos ;D
It protects the lens though (and my subjects from being photographed ;D )

 

[danski0224]

I know, I have and use the setting in my camera! Are there cameras without it? That's what I was asking. I thought since the OP must know that the function is included in cameras, he must have meant that the camera should somehow recognize if it's teathered and then automatically allow to shoot without a card but never allow it when it's not teathered despite the setting, unless it's overridden with another setting, "disable automatic override of cardless operation setting"? Maybe I'm completely wrong It was just my guess of what he was trying to say.

Well, I've never tried tethered shooting, so no idea on how the camera behaves without a card. An assumption that comes to mind is that the image will be sent to the computer over the USB cable, but no idea. I don't have any WI-FI enabled cameras at this time.

I suppose I could try it if I really wanted to...

 

[danski0224]

I was the "family photographer" when I was younger. Mom and Dad had a Nikon EM that they didn't really know how to use. I took lots of nice pictures with it.

I was charged with photographing my brothers HS graduation.

I shot the whole thing with the lens cap on. Probably made those that noticed chuckle- no one said a word. I could look through the viewfinder with one eye and watch the rest of the scene with the other... so I must have tuned it out.

It still comes up once in a while... :

That's my biggest gaffe, but I'm not a pro.

I also forget about the self timer thing after using it.

 

[AcutancePhotography]

he must have meant that the camera should somehow recognize if it's teathered and then automatically allow to shoot without a card but never allow it when it's not teathered despite the setting, unless it's overridden with another setting, "disable automatic override of cardless operation setting"?

Yup. That's kinda what I meant. More percisely, I was wondering why a camera with no card AND no computer connection could not give the tog a message when the shutter is pushed.

As the other posters wrote, there is already a menu selection to allow shooting sans card. That is useful for in the store and if you are shooting teathered. If a tog is in the habit of shooting teathered, and then unteathers, a simple warning could save some embarassment.

 

[cayenne]

I went to take a couple of shot of my kids with my 70-200 2.8 and then decided to switch to a 50mm, stuffing quickly the 70-200 into my bag.
Then my wife, annoyed with my habit of leaving my bag on the bed, grabbed it and... the 70-200 dropped from the open bag directly on the tiled floor... the 70-200 is no so sharp as it used to be now. And blaming my wife wasn't really an option

<snip>

So...she survived the beating, eh?


C

 

[CS]

I decided to do a 24 timelapse (one per minute, midnight to midnight) of the city outside my apartment during one of the shortest days of the year (mid-December). Got everything set up and started -- things looked good. Go to bed and check on the progress in the morning to discover many pictures are missing. Turns out that I had forgotten to switch the camera to manual focus: autofocus would sometimes fail in the darkness of the night, so the camera would refuse to take those shots. Autofocus still worked most of the time, enough that I didn't notice the problem when I started.

I started over the next day, though the weather was no longer very cooperative and the resulting timelapse was mediocre.

Of course, only an idiot would repeat the exact same mistake six months later when repeating the effort during one of the longest days of the year. This time, it got to about hour 22 before shots started failing.

 

[flowers]

I decided to do a 24 timelapse (one per minute, midnight to midnight) of the city outside my apartment during one of the shortest days of the year (mid-December). Got everything set up and started -- things looked good. Go to bed and check on the progress in the morning to discover many pictures are missing. Turns out that I had forgotten to switch the camera to manual focus: autofocus would sometimes fail in the darkness of the night, so the camera would refuse to take those shots. Autofocus still worked most of the time, enough that I didn't notice the problem when I started.

I started over the next day, though the weather was no longer very cooperative and the resulting timelapse was mediocre.

Of course, only an idiot would repeat the exact same mistake six months later when repeating the effort during one of the longest days of the year. This time, it got to about hour 22 before shots started failing.

i don't know what camera you have, but that's why i love backbutton focus makes your Canon a manual focus camera unless you press a button to activate the autofocus. Perfect.

 

[tron]

I decided to do a 24 timelapse (one per minute, midnight to midnight) of the city outside my apartment during one of the shortest days of the year (mid-December). Got everything set up and started -- things looked good. Go to bed and check on the progress in the morning to discover many pictures are missing. Turns out that I had forgotten to switch the camera to manual focus: autofocus would sometimes fail in the darkness of the night, so the camera would refuse to take those shots. Autofocus still worked most of the time, enough that I didn't notice the problem when I started.

I started over the next day, though the weather was no longer very cooperative and the resulting timelapse was mediocre.

Of course, only an idiot would repeat the exact same mistake six months later when repeating the effort during one of the longest days of the year. This time, it got to about hour 22 before shots started failing.

i don't know what camera you have, but that's why i love backbutton focus makes your Canon a manual focus camera unless you press a button to activate the autofocus. Perfect.

Which reminded me that I had activated backbutton focus and had forgotten about it. I ended up taking some unfocused pictures before remembering why the camera was not focusing :-[

 

[flowers]

Which reminded me that I had activated backbutton focus and had forgotten about it. I ended up taking some unfocused pictures before remembering why the camera was not focusing :-[

Ha ha. it happened to me the very first time I set back button AF because I'm used to half-button when AFing. Never after that. I'm much more used to manual focus so whenever I'm holding the camera I think of it as a manual focus camera, unless I want AF and then I push the button to "activate AF" in my manual focus camera. If that makes sense. In other words I forget the AF is there until I need it! Backbutton focus makes it possible and that's why I love it so much. I don't need to complicate things by thinking of my camera as an AF camera where I have to work around the AF!

 

[Corvi]

Reading this just confirms my habit to instantly throw away any lens cap I get with a lens into the trashcan.

Never ever took a picture with a cap on since i never ever used one in the first place.

 

[flowers]

Reading this just confirms my habit to instantly throw away any lens cap I get with a lens into the trashcan.

Never ever took a picture with a cap on since i never ever used one in the first place.

I think taking a picture with a really dirty filter is just as bad as taking a picture with the cap on. All the extra PPing isn't worth it! If you're in the habit of cleaning your filter every time you take a picture then you'll notice it's not a filter but a cap. Problem solved!

 

[Corvi]

Reading this just confirms my habit to instantly throw away any lens cap I get with a lens into the trashcan.

Never ever took a picture with a cap on since i never ever used one in the first place.

I think taking a picture with a really dirty filter is just as bad as taking a picture with the cap on. All the extra PPing isn't worth it! If you're in the habit of cleaning your filter every time you take a picture then you'll notice it's not a filter but a cap. Problem solved!

Well, that can be avoided by not using filters either. Which i hate too. One more thing that gets me flares into my pictures. Im shooting lenses from large format to half format, from canon, hasselblad, leica, rollei, sinar, zeiss, whatever for a decade now .. Never ever used a cap or filter, heck i dont even own a photo bag. I just trow everything into backpack and go ..

 

[flowers]

Reading this just confirms my habit to instantly throw away any lens cap I get with a lens into the trashcan.

Never ever took a picture with a cap on since i never ever used one in the first place.

I think taking a picture with a really dirty filter is just as bad as taking a picture with the cap on. All the extra PPing isn't worth it! If you're in the habit of cleaning your filter every time you take a picture then you'll notice it's not a filter but a cap. Problem solved!

Well, that can be avoided by not using filters either. Which i hate too. One more thing that gets me flares into my pictures. Im shooting lenses from large format to half format, from canon, hasselblad, leica, rollei, sinar, zeiss, whatever for a decade now .. Never ever used a cap or filter, heck i dont even own a photo bag. I just trow everything into backpack and go ..

that's fine but sometime try CPL and a ND400 filter and see what you can do with them. they can allow you to do otherwise impossible things. but if you don't shoot people, windows, bottoms of rivers or waterfalls, you might find them less useful. Still, a good excuse to try something different (Then you can also use LF for longer shutter speeds... But no CPL! CPL can help with skies and reflections )

 

[J.R.]

Reading this just confirms my habit to instantly throw away any lens cap I get with a lens into the trashcan.

Never ever took a picture with a cap on since i never ever used one in the first place.

I think taking a picture with a really dirty filter is just as bad as taking a picture with the cap on. All the extra PPing isn't worth it! If you're in the habit of cleaning your filter every time you take a picture then you'll notice it's not a filter but a cap. Problem solved!

Well, that can be avoided by not using filters either. Which i hate too. One more thing that gets me flares into my pictures. Im shooting lenses from large format to half format, from canon, hasselblad, leica, rollei, sinar, zeiss, whatever for a decade now .. Never ever used a cap or filter, heck i dont even own a photo bag. I just trow everything into backpack and go ..

that's fine but sometime try CPL and a ND400 filter and see what you can do with them. they can allow you to do otherwise impossible things. but if you don't shoot people, windows, bottoms of rivers or waterfalls, you might find them less useful. Still, a good excuse to try something different (Then you can also use LF for longer shutter speeds... But no CPL! CPL can help with skies and reflections )

Yes ... difficult to image life without a CPL. Only trouble is to ensure that I carry it along. I left mine going for the auto-expo and the glare has done its black magic on a fair few shots

 

[flowers]

Yes ... difficult to image life without a CPL. Only trouble is to ensure that I carry it along. I left mine going for the auto-expo and the glare has done its black magic on a fair few shots

I read that, that was unfortunate! I always have my CPLs with me I always carry a camera in a bag and I always have at least the filters in the bag too so I never forget If I just take a camera with one lens I make sure I have at least the CPL that is the right size for that lens when I put it in the bag.