Those D'oh moments!

[Marsu42]

I discovered after the first ten to fifteen minutes of both days that I had left the ISO cranked up from the night before, D'oh, not critical but it does hurt image quality a bit when you don't need the high ISO.

Something like this is bound to happen sooner or later, you cannot check up on everything esp. when in a hurry. That's why I programed my Magic Lantern build to automate as much as possible so I can concentrate on the fewer things left.

One classic 'doh" moment with me was brushing at the back dial and turning the exposure compensation to +3 or similar. Since I change the ec often using the lock is no option. Nowadays I've coded a small module for ML that lets me limit the ec settings I can chose - if I go below -1 or above +1, it automatically stops there.

Lesson: Fool me once, shame on you Canon, fool me twice, shame on me.

 

[mackguyver]

I discovered after the first ten to fifteen minutes of both days that I had left the ISO cranked up from the night before, D'oh, not critical but it does hurt image quality a bit when you don't need the high ISO.

Something like this is bound to happen sooner or later, you cannot check up on everything esp. when in a hurry. That's why I programed my Magic Lantern build to automate as much as possible so I can concentrate on the fewer things left.

One classic 'doh" moment with me was brushing at the back dial and turning the exposure compensation to +3 or similar. Since I change the ec often using the lock is no option. Nowadays I've coded a small module for ML that lets me limit the ec settings I can chose - if I go below -1 or above +1, it automatically stops there.

Lesson: Fool me once, shame on you Canon, fool me twice, shame on me.

Here's another wrong setting one - f/11 for landscape - switch lens, still at f/11 for wildlife. Not a good setting - and I missed out on the best parts of this sequence because of motion blur:

 

[Marsu42]

Here's another wrong setting one - f/11 for landscape - switch lens, still at f/11 for wildlife.

Whatdoyaknow, of course you're not the only one. Without repeating myself too much, I've also solved this problem with Magic Lantern: I programed my auto_iso module to remember the lens settings, so it automatically selects a deepter dof or slower shutter if I screw on my landscape 17-40L than my wildlife 70-300L. I just grew tired of changing the same settings again and again, and the dslr is a computer after all.

 

[mackguyver]

Here's another wrong setting one - f/11 for landscape - switch lens, still at f/11 for wildlife.

Whatdoyaknow, of course I know this too. Without repeating myself too much, I've also solved this problem with Magic Lantern: I programed my auto_iso module to remember the lens settings, so it automatically selects a deepter dof or slower shutter if I screw on my landscape 17-40L than my wildlife 70-300L. I just grew tired of changing the same settings again and again, and the dslr is a computer after all.

That's awesome!

 

[beforeEos Camaras]

learning to use my new 70d and not noticing the vid was pressed and in live view taking a movie of my turning the camera all over trying to see if I had the lens cap on a 10-22 lens.

and no I want show the short vid of it.

 

[Marsu42]

That's awesome!

As I always point out, you big 1dx people don't know what you're missing .

It took me quite a while to learn how to program the Canon DryOS and ML in C, but now I can do just about everything with it. Unfortunately ML cannot access the phase af system or viewfinder, but playing around with tv/av/ec/iso and relocating keys is most of what I want to achieve.

Another thing I just added today: If I raise iso (and thus lower the available dynamic range) ML automatically underexposes a bit for highlight safety by lowering the exposure compensation. This is also something I kept doing manually: raise ec to ettr on low iso, but too often I got clipped whites once I switched to a faster shutter speed.

 

[Too_Many_Hobbies]

My worst D'oh moment was back in the film days. During our wedding I was picking up tips from our photographer. One of them was to set a custom function so that the film would not rewind all the way back into the canister. Made sense. Until we went on a whale watch some time later and while on the boat I must have tried to change film, saw that the roll "didn't advance right", so I loaded it again. Needless to say, it was the roll I already shot and I double exposed pretty much all of my shots from the trip.

The other thing I tend to do is leave the card in a reader connected to my computer. My favorite time was getting up for sunrise freezing and tired, only to find out that the card is back in the reader at the hotel 45 minutes away. Now I keep an extra card or 2 connected to my next strap just in case.

 

[Sporgon]

Mine is the two second timer. I tend to use this for tripod work rather than cable. Unlike leaving mirror lock up on, where at least something happens when you press the shutter, with two second delay nothing happens. So I press a little further. Still nothing. Further still - ah! It fires. So I try again, same sequence. "OMG my shutter release is going the way of a 40D" thinks I. On one occasion a few years ago it never twigged what was causing the problem so I kept working with it like that for the whole session :-[

 

[NancyP]

The dangerous near-disasters have to do with not tightening various parts of the support or carriage apparatus. I have become accustomed to frequently checking and tightening the Cotton Carrier "button" attached to the L bracket that fits in the slot of the vest (they provide a "key" on a cord attached to the vest). Also I pay attention to the tightness of the screw clamp attachment to the head (it isn't Loctited in, I probably should apply user-breakable Loctite "blue"), it loosens occasionally. And always I check tightness of clamp to L bracket/lens plate before letting go of the camera.

Otherwise, I have the usual d'ohs : forget to check ISO, forget to get off (or on) manual exposure, bracketing error (did I take 3 or 5 or whatever?), and the classic, forgot I was on 2-sec or 10-sec delay. I too use the delay when I am without the wired release (and do I have the three pin versus the single pin version in my pocket?). I often use a compact Sigma DP Merrill camera for shooting (just in case) when hiking with minimal weight and a travel tripod - there IS NO wired or wireless release on the DP Merrills, so 2 sec or 10 sec delay is the "remote" release option.

 

[pwp]

The Big D'oh Moment came for me on my first job with my then brand new 1Ds in late 2002. The purchase coincided with a switch to an all-RAW workflow. After shooting jpegs with the 6.3 megapixel D60, a 256Mb and a huge 512Mb CF card were enough for most jobs. I shot economically then, a flow-on from film days.

The 12 megapixel 1Ds RAW files filled the cards in no time at all leaving me red-faced with an annoyed, barely understanding client who I never heard from again. It was messy. Sigh...They would have been within their rights to sue me.

Most d'oh moments have a silver lining, and for me it was the importance of never being caught short on card capacity, battery capacity and so on. CF cards were expensive in 2002, but losing a client has implications way beyond the few hundred dollars cost of extra cards or portable download HDD device.

-pw

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi Folks.
Wow I feel a little less foolish now I know I am not alone!
I did have 3 other D'oh moments, one was the mode dial got spun to the green box, took a while to work out why BBF quit working! :-[ and the AF/MF button got slid to MF on both lenses, knew what to look for after the first lens!
The last one was forgetting to put the shutter speed back up after trying to get prop blur, damn no props on the Vulcan!
All these mistakes over a 2 day session, yep not going to quit my day job!

Marsu, your automation sounds very enterprising, do we all need to learn to code to achieve this, or is it a settings thing?
I'm guessing learn to code as I don't recall seeing any settings like you use in my O.T.S. ML version. :'(

Cheers, Graham.

 

[DominoDude]

One of my bylines could be: I shoot, therefore I D'oh...
First I had the Canon EOS 50D'oh, and now I have my 7D'oh. The sum of that should come pretty close to what I have "achieved". I have done a few of yours, but a true D'oh-master goes his own ways to find a higher level of stooopido.

Examples:
* For a while I had a habit of checking if my lenscap was on, not by being smart and tilting the camera to look into the hood to see if it was on. Oh no, I reached in with my fingers trying to pinch the imaginary cap to check. You can guess the result.
* A double-D'oh was when I rested my 50/1.4 on a fallen tree while shifting to some other glass. The lens slid off and bounced a few times on branches and then on some moss to make sure the cap came off and the lens could stand deeply in the moss with the front element against it. The second D'oh of that was that it was my Sigma and it didn't show any signs of being scratched or damaged at all. So I couldn't get that final reason to justify me getting rid of that bastard glass.
* 2.5 months ago when my 400mm tipped over and bounced against a few rocks, together with my 7D, before landing in a nice mixture of clay, sand and water.

Any of you guys that care to lend me one of those nice Otuses? Huh? Hey, guys! Don't run away...

 

[shining example]

I do the two-second timer thing so often it doesn't even merit a "d'oh" anymore, just a "not this again" eyeroll...

Speaking of remote controls, though... I use a wireless remote control. The receiver takes a CS2 battery which I always remove when I'm not using it as it will turn itself on and empty the battery when carried around in a gear bag. The transmitter uses one of those flat batteries and needs to be opened up with a screwdriver to change it, but it doesn't usually turn itself on in my bag, or else it doesn't use much battery power when it does - either way, it's never been a problem. But I always keep spare batteries of both types and a tiny screwdriver with my gear, just in case.

Thus well prepared, I set out early one morning to shoot the sunrise. I arrived, bleary-eyed and shivering, at the location from which I was hoping to shoot, set up my gear, fumbled out my remote, inserted the battery for the receiver, connected it, turned it on, turned on the transmitter... nope. Nothing. Dead. So I fumbled out the spare battery and the tiny screwdriver, and took a good look at the transmitter... at which point I realised that it was all well and good having a spare battery and a tiny screwdriver to hand, but opening up a small device held together by tiny screws outdoors in the cold and dark is not a feasible operation, at least not if you're hoping to put said device back together again afterwards.

The real d'oh here, of course, was that I had thought several times over the preceding days that I really should check the battery in the transmitter because I hadn't used it for a while. It would have taken all of two seconds, but somehow, I didn't...

And the sunrise was rubbish too.

 

[AcutancePhotography]

My worst D'oh moment was back in the film days.

Ugg, Don't get me started on the film loading experiences with my AE-1

Far too many outings where I come back and wonder why it only took a few winds to rewind an entire roll of film (facepalm).

Not only do you not get any photographs, you waste a whole roll of film (extracting the leader is not an easy task).

Everything I learned about swearing, I learned from my AE-1. ;D

 

[DominoDude]

That last double quote reminded me of another D'oh from my very early analogue days. Dad's camera and it was loaded with a 24 exp film. Counter was on 24-25 or some such, and I knew he regularly milked 27 or 28 frames out of those films. So I decided to play around a little with those last frames, but first I found a little recessed button that looked interesting - obviously it had to be pushed. Nothing happened. Oh, well, lets find something to shoot instead. I did.
But a button like that had to DO something. I better press it again, and look more carefully if something happens someplace on the camera. Nope, njet, nada. Ok, I give up, I crank it up again and I shoot instead.
I never figured out on my own that it was the button that released the forwarding of the film so that you could crank up the necessary springs and do multiple exposures. We got back a film with one very artsy, and very bright, shot on it - 3 overlayed normal exposures on top of each other.

 

[axtstern]

My classic is to have the bracket on for HDR and forgetting to reset it.
No issue if I will take the next picture because from camera behaviour I know what I made wrong but...
Sometimes my wife will take the camera over and just do on shot (the proper light level one) Than I will get the camera back and either have a dark or blown picture of a situation that can't be repeated.

Another one: Ye olde Sigma design with the switch and the clutch for AF. I you take a Sigma 24mm 1.8 out of a tight backpack you most likely will grab the lens and the friction of the surrounding cloth will pull the clutch to MF. The Canon reflex to flick the AF switch will now put you in the 2nd of altogether 4 possible combinations of which 3 are not favourable. That chaos can be multiplied if you also enlarged if your dioptic adaption wheel is a little to loose and you have dialled a -3 by taking the camera out of the bag. When using the 60D together with old Sigmas I usually start like a pilot: Switch check, Clutch check ....

And my last one: having my M usually in a modus where the screen shows as little buttons as possible I sometimes do a change and forget that now much more of the touchscreen is primed to do changes to the camera setup. M hangs from the strap, screen touches my body and chaos theory unfolds. Each touch starting the sleep timer for the touch screen again. The moment for a glorious picture arrives and your camera is set to 5 sec shutter speed at ISO 3200 and f 2.0 with AF beep and 2 second self timer delay with face detection.

 

[LaetitiaOUI]

Every weekend i used to go to see this web site, as i wish for enjoyment.
Love the site, and keep on keeping on! ;D
______________________________________
coque pour Wii adaptateur wii U

 

[Kahuna]

Would you consider this a D'oh moment. (or DUMB moment)

Years ago my niece was writing a report on the Hearst Castle. Trying to get enough points for Uncle of the Year award I decided that I should take the niece to the Hearst Castle just to let her see it first hand. We had a wonderful time and took many shots for her report. So for no D'oh. We ended the day by visiting the pier down at the San Simeon bay/harbor. A beautiful sail boat was passing and my niece wanted to get a picture so without thought I handed her my "first" 5D classic (w/24-105 w/grip w/batteries). She steadied the camera on the wooden hand rail and started snapping a few photos. Camera still perched she was examining her results and got a tad bit too excited and....yep, splash.

All I could do was laugh ....

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi Kahuna.
D'oh is as close as I can get, I can't spell the oh what the hell, I'll try, that was a (in a soprano voice) aaiirrrgghh moment! Or something like that! ;D
Sorry for your loss, that wasn't your camera that was shown after being recovered from the sea a while back was it?

Cheers, Graham.

Would you consider this a D'oh moment. (or DUMB moment)

Years ago my niece was writing a report on the Hearst Castle. Trying to get enough points for Uncle of the Year award I decided that I should take the niece to the Hearst Castle just to let her see it first hand. We had a wonderful time and took many shots for her report. So for no D'oh. We ended the day by visiting the pier down at the San Simeon bay/harbor. A beautiful sail boat was passing and my niece wanted to get a picture so without thought I handed her my "first" 5D classic (w/24-105 w/grip w/batteries). She steadied the camera on the wooden hand rail and started snapping a few photos. Camera still perched she was examining her results and got a tad bit too excited and....yep, splash.

All I could do was laugh ....

 

[Marsu42]

Camera still perched she was examining her results and got a tad bit too excited and....yep, splash.

Oh my, that is indeed memorable, I imagine moments like this appear rather surreal at the time: "Wasn't there just a camera sitting on this pole"? Actually I imagined something like this happening to me, and with my current budget constraints I see me diving after the camera