Dumbest Photographer

[MATT]

Well, It must be me.. Took the kids for a drive 1h 45mins to do a bit of shopping and visit the botanical gardens which include some animals.

After dragging around the shops we got to visit the animals at about 3.00pm..which happened to be feeding time..Excellent..

Camera gear out, back pack on.. Koalas feeding time first.. Mounted the 80-200 2.8d ed "lookout kids ,stand back"; I said .. Oh arnt they cute they said.

Zoomed in , but would not take the pic. Uh Oh whats going on?? The veiw finder was dark, Hmmm seems a bit light.. Oh dear the Battery is still on the charger , 160klms away..

I'm still coping it fromt he wife.

Anyone else like to confess.

MATT

[huynhie]

I can put up my hand to that as well, but I was only half an hour away.

[birddog114]

MATT,
Did I say something about this few day ago on another thread?

I mentioned:
Charge the battery up and don't leave home without it.

[birddog114]

So both of you only have one battery for the camera? no spare in the bag?

[MATT]

Birdy, still on hte charger Now

The wife thinks I just want to buy another...

MATT

[birddog114]

And I think another Queenslander (xerubus) got caught with it one time long ago.

[birddog114]

Birdy, still on hte charger Now

The wife thinks I just want to buy another...

MATT

Good timing! propose with her now
She'll say :YES!

[MATT]

To make it worse , I went to great lenghts to make sure I didnt leave the CF card behind..

Which I did when I had to photograph a visitor for the local paper

I thought I had everything covered.

MATT

[MCWB]

I've done this once too, very annoying! Thankfully Birdy loaned me a battery for the day, champion that he is, but I soon bought another one. Now I keep one fully charged spare in my bag and swap it in as soon as the other one dies, so I always have a battery in the camera. Ditto for CF cards.

[Oneputt]

Matt we have all done something similar

[ozczecho]

Good excuse to go again

I took my whole kit to the city around Xmas time (to keep myself occupied while the boss went Xmas shopping), took one exposure and camera went dead. Battery finished. So carried my backpack all day.

[Big Red]

oh how i would like to rub in the fact that the pentax can use alkaline AA batteries if needed ...
Luckily i'm a nice bloke and wouldn't even consider that






[ have to admit to taking every thing needed to shoot with the A* 600 f5.6 ... except the tripod ]

[avkomp]

no problems, just put the 2nd battery in from your kit.
Steve

[Alpha_7]

I've done the lens cap on, the ISO @1600, but so far I've always had all my gear, probably as I alway bring everything and the kitchen sink.

Oh, and I have had many embrassing issues with the wrong thread size, and buying filters/lens hood that don't fit my gear. Or filters that don't do what I want them too.

[Grev]

I have brought my camera, my tripod, but forgot the tripod mount.

[birddog114]

oh how i would like to rub in the fact that the pentax can use alkaline AA batteries if needed ...
Luckily i'm a nice bloke and wouldn't even consider that

The D70 can take other batteries in as well, but just the incovenience of leaving the charged battery at home.
+ sometime you couldn't find the suitable battery or the AA battery adapter is not in your bag.

[Ant]

MATT,
Did I say something about this few day ago on another thread?

I mentioned:
Charge the battery up and don't leave home without it.

Yep, that would have been to me. Took the battery but forgot to charge it! The damn thing lasts so long I often forget to check.

Ant.

[Raskill]

I carry about 6 batteries, and charge them leading up to a shoot.

It must be a QLD thing this forgetfulness. I travelled to Qld (driving 15 hours) and forgot my tripod plate.

And my evil wife wouldn't let me buy a new tripod up there! Something about mortgages and babies....

[Greg B]

My wife reckons I'm a bit battery obsessed. Could be right too.

The D70 battery lasts so long, you only need two. One in the camera and a charged one in the bag, if
you change over, charge as soon as you get home and put the recharged battery back in the bag.

Yes I know - the bleedin' obvious.

(One battery is not enough)

Same with the SB800 batteries, 5 in the unit, 5 charged spares on standby.

The battery is our friend.

[DaveB]

The D70 battery lasts so long, you only need two. One in the camera and a charged one in the bag, if you change over, charge as soon as you get home and put the recharged battery back in the bag.

Aha, but that plan only works if you only ever use one bag!

I think my most "impressive" trick was driving about 2 hours out of town (on a trip that should have taken 2.5 hours) and suddenly realising that my vest (which had spare batteries, and all my CF cards) was sitting safely on a coat hanger on the loungeroom door where I'd put it while packing for the weekend away...
Or was it the time I drove half-way to Gippsland for a day-trip before realising that both camera bodies were still at home...

And Fozzie will remember me forgetting a certain key...

[Jamie]

OHH! That reminds me - i have to put my ISO setting back down.

Shot all day yesterday with it at ISO 250 (not so bad i guess).

[Sheila Smart]

The worst case I experienced was when I lived in Canada. A friend came back from holiday in Florida and said to his flatmate - "oh, I borrowed your camera for the trip (which was in the days of film) - I'll replace the film". His flatmate said "what film"

Cheers
Sheila

[Manta]

A bit off topic...

I haven't done anything stupid with the camera gear YET (touch wood) but I did drive for an hour and a half to put my catamaran in once, not realising 'til I was almost finished rigging it that I'd left the mainsheet and block at home. (The rope and pulley system used for pulling the boom/sail in and out - quite vital!)

Not to be beaten, I de-rigged the boat, drove all the way home, got the mainsheet, drove about 15 minutes to a ramp on the Brisbane River, put the boat in, sailed for about a half hour before the weather clagged in, then packed it all up and went home. Damn it, I was going to sail that day!! (Probably worked out to about 6 hours of mucking around for 30 minutes of sailing!!)

I think I sold the boat a month later.

[poiter86]

Been there as well. I was half an hour into a a ferry ride to one of Hong Kongs surrounding islands when I pulled the camera out to take some shots ... woops, battery is is in the charger back in Honkers. Needless to say, I now have backup battery.

Doh!

Pete

[blacknstormy]

I've taken the camera, batteries (yes, I have 2). flash, recharged batteries for said flash, all my cf cards, tripod and mount ... got out to the bush, all ready to go......
had changed backpacks.....
and forgotten the lenses

[gstark]

I guess this isn't the thread for me to tell y'all about our trip to Birmingham (yep the real one, England) from Modesto in California, way back in 1994.

I was going there to speak at a software developers' conference, departing from San Francisco, which is a good 90 minute drive from Modesto.

We were a bit more than halfway to San Fran, when somebody who shall remain nameless wondered whether he'd remembered to put his laptop in the back of the car, along with the rest of the luggage.

We actually made the flight - just - and of course it was far better to have realised the problem halfway between MOD and SFO rather than somewhere between SFO and LGW.

[ABG]

Unfortunately I can also contribute to this thread. Just after buying my camera last year I went to the A1GP at Eastern Creek with an 'access all areas' pass. A few of my mates were running in the Formula Ford support race. There I was perched on the pit lane wall, camera in hand waiting for the start. Green light comes on, I press the shutter release button and nothing! The battery is flat as a tack! All I came away with were some photos of the FF's in the marshalling area before the race. I always check the battery is fully charged before heading out with the camera these days, but I still haven't got around to buying a back-up battery

[nito]

Finally, got a moniter calibrator. Took a bit of saving. Saw that my colours were totally off on different monitors. Made a huge diff when you can see your PS editing. It aint black unless its calibrated black.

Order from adorama, which asked for a ton of details for a weborder. I certainly didnt feel confortable sending a pic of my CC with a copy of the CC credit card statement for the order.

Hope its okay to paint over some numbers, so people cant use it.

[Andyt]

.........I remember this bloke (whom I won't name for fear of embarrassing him) who took all his camera gear inc' PDS device to Europe for 4 x weeks, only to arrive and realise that the voltage / plug adapter was home in Aus on the bed where he left it so it would not be forgotten! Could not obtain the correct one over there after trying every town / city that was visited. AAA European batteries are expensive and do not last long in winter time but are most excellant at improving ones memory!

[MattC]

The dumbest thing that I can lay claim to (so far) is running out of power on my SB800, dropping the discharged batteries into the bottom of my camera bag (I was in a hurry), then promptly spilling the fresh ones in on top of them. I put the SB800 away in disgust.

Cheers

[Grev]

I can't believe you guys can forget stuff like camera bodies or lenses...

[blacknstormy]

[PiroStitch]

Dumbest thing I've done was to rock up to friends graduation with 1 flat camera battery and another which was close to flat. Kept having to turn the camera off after about 10 shots :S *sigh* Thought i'd recharged both of them

[moz]

I certainly didnt feel confortable sending a pic of my CC with a copy of the CC credit card statement for the order. Hope its okay to paint over some numbers, so people cant use it.

I've done that both times (again when I changed CC number), and they accepted it quite happily. I think it's a fairly effective way to discourage card number fraud. I blanked the middle 8 digits and they didn't object, but to show they actually check I got an email when I photographed the ATM card by mistake. Is that a dumb photographer story?

[mikephotog]

I spent some 20 odd years shooting weddings. Used to have dreams on Friday nights about opening my case at the brideshouse and finding it empty. Or turning up at the church and finding all my film missing.

After 20+yrs of weddings....I'm due out of therapy in 2015

[DaveB]

only to arrive and realise that the voltage / plug adapter was home in Aus on the bed where he left it so it would not be forgotten!

One time I arrived on King Island (in Bass Strait) at the start of a week-long stay, only to find that the AC adaptor for my laptop which was my storage device (a Libretto retrofitted with a 10GB drive - I was shooting JPEG in those days) was sitting at home. Managed to scrounge together a charger after a visit to a local store, but the solution did involve several paperclips. Luckily we were staying in a house so it didn't have to survive being packed away each day...

Over the years I have left HEAPS of things behind, but I like to tell myself that I've learnt from the experiences. At least now I do have more of a system going on with what equipment I use and what I carry it in!

[daniel_r]

The dumbest thing that I can lay claim to (so far) is running out of power on my SB800, dropping the discharged batteries into the bottom of my camera bag (I was in a hurry), then promptly spilling the fresh ones in on top of them. I put the SB800 away in disgust.
Cheers

After a similar mishap of "er... which batteries are the charged ones... um" I now have the batteries labelled as "Set A", "Set B", and "Set C". Also helps determine how old they are

[xerubus]

And I think another Queenslander (xerubus) got caught with it one time long ago.

you have a good memory. yep.. i left home very early in the morning and drove for a couple of hours to lamington national park. battery in charger at home

cheers