Won't make that beginner mistake again

[ChefJayPeek]

I've done the ISO thing and once left the camera turned on when I put it in the bag and came back to both batteries flat. Luckily I have two more, so I was still good. Have not forgotten to put the card back in the camera, although I almost did the other day, but I do have a spare two gig in the bag. I think I may get another eight or maybe a 16 gig card now

I also put on my 50mm lens once and wondered why I was getting a lens error whenever I turned the camera on. Turns out I bumped the aperture ring when taking the lens out of the bag, glad I figured that out fairly quickly.

At least I learned from every instance, photography has been a great learning experience for me so far, and I know I will be learning more and more!

Chef Jay

 

[gnd]

The other worst mistake is to find you've been shooting in bright daylight and left the ISO at 1600 all day

Yeah, this is why I configured my camera to show ISO speed in the viewfinder and top LCD instead of the available space on the SD card ...

 

[mtbdudex]

ahhh, group therapy posting time....
(btw, i've also done the ISO 1600 in daylight taking by mistake, etc....)

Big Q to the group, what are the "stages of Photography"?

As a person who does cardio exercise (I run and MTB ride) there is this viewpoint for "The Five Stages of a runner" http://www.shelterpub.com/_fitness/_running/run_5_stages.html (I read that book 20+ years ago and still relevant)

Q1: when does a person "stop" being a beginner and move into mid-level stage of photogaphy?
Q2: Who is the judge/jury? Peers? How many "hits" your photo(s) gets on some forum?

Doing a Google search shows someone posted this interesting chart, I sorta like the "The Five Stages of a runner" text descriptions approach, does not seem to be similar one for Photography

 

[TheReef]

Ever go somewhere with the intention of getting some good shots, and when you click the shutter the first time, "No Memory Card"?

First you get hit with the initial "damnit" seeing the message,
then get that terrible feeling hoping the shot'll still be there by the time you run/drive home, grab the card and go back!
What's worse is when you return, and the card is full

It never happens to me anymore though, I've put a spare card in my grip

 

[Kebabselector]

..... "No Memory Card"

Not happened yet, though I usually download from the camera anyway so it's always got a memory card in there

Why reformat after each shoot?

I quite like a nice clean card, less chance of FAT corruption (in my mind!)

The other worst mistake is to find you've been shooting in bright daylight and left the ISO at 1600 all day

Aye, it happens. Though for me it's iso 3200.

You didn't chimp once to see your shots?

Learning to read the screen rather than look at the pictures!

 

[sprtnbsblplya]

First you get hit with the initial "damnit" seeing the message,
then get that terrible feeling hoping the shot'll still be there by the time you run/drive home, grab the card and go back!
What's worse is when you return, and the card is full

It never happens to me anymore though, I've put a spare card in my grip

I feel like I'm just emerging from the HDR hole, but I'm gonna be stuck in the time period just after that for awhile I feel. So much to learn...

Reef, I said way more than that. At least I was alone in the woods.

 

[JDDavis]

I'll join in. Took my daughter to tour a cavern for the first time in Virginia recently. Got all the way down in the cave. Camera...check. Tripod...check. Wireless shutter remote....check. Memory card....check. Hey, why won't this thing turn on? Battery...sitting in the charger at home.

I was very glad that my iphone 4 takes much better pics than my old 3g. Lesson learned though and I ordered a spare battery. (so know I can forget both batteries)

Also, I always reformat cards everytime I put them back in the camera (after downloading pics of course).

 

[Schtumple]

I did that for the first time the other day, luckily I have a spare card I keep in my bag, so I managed to shoot anything, still, I felt like a bit of a n00b

 

[FourCandles]

In the days of film.
.....

Oh, I missed that one....

• Changed film and left the ISO setting unchanged (pre-DX days)
• Used the exposure compensation knob and then left it so for the rest of the roll
• Accidentally moved the knob from Auto to 1/4,000 sec (Nikon FE2)...the worst part of that is not knowing when you did it

Not to forget my ultimate horror (only did this the once) - being sure that I'd just rewound the finished film, and popping open the back, to reveal......

 

[gnd]

First you get hit with the initial "damnit" seeing the message,
then get that terrible feeling hoping the shot'll still be there by the time you run/drive home, grab the card and go back!
What's worse is when you return, and the card is full

It never happens to me anymore though, I've put a spare card in my grip

IMHO one of the best features of Pentax grips

 

[mmoto]

The other worst mistake is to find you've been shooting in bright daylight and left the ISO at 1600 all day

I've made this mistake while shooting in the auto modes. When shooting in manual mode, large ISO mistakes become obvious rather quickly. Of course there is always some other setting that I can bungle unknowingly.
I shoot primarily underwater. If something goes wrong with the camera I usually need to give up on photography until the next dive.

-Brad

 

[rekud]

Did that

Went to Chicago and got a lot of great pics. Downloaded everything to MBP when got back to the hotel that night. Driving home to Cleveland the next day, directly off the Turnpike Pike there was a Corvette Rally going on.

Pulled off, walked up to the track, turn camera on. No Card.
No spare card, no pictures.
Good thing had everything downloaded on MBP at least.

Now, before leaving always have at least (2) with me. Besides what is in the camera.

 

[peskaa]

Laughing at the HDR hole - luckily I've never touched HDR, and never will. I saw it getting popular and just thought it was junk... (actually, I've seen about two good HDR images, ever)


In regards to cards and batteries? I have spares in my kit bags, so luckily never experienced that. I have however gone on holiday and found out I haven't taken enough GB with me, leading to overseas purchases which I get grumpy about as I can never seem to find a retailer with SanDisk Extreme IV cards when I want one.

My worst booboo was some foul up with developing chemicals. A roll of Delta 400 only processed properly on half the roll (horizontally), with the top half all washed out in comparison. Took days of post processing to get the two halves matched up on all 36 shots.


mtbdudex:
Q1) My rough guess as to mid-level is when you take the camera off Auto and start shooting in Manual and other priority modes, whilst understanding what you're doing (ie: aperture, shutter speed etc. all mean something to you and the impact it has on the image)

Q2) Judge & jury is yourself. Hits on a website (I have over 120k deviantART hits dontcha know?) mean little, and a bunch of forumers mean equally little. If you're in to the professional end of things then obviously your peers can cast qualified critical comments.

 

[funkboy]

I have two 16GB cards. There's always one in the camera and one in the bag. The one in the bag is always either empty or double backed-up so I can format it if I need it quickly.

I never close the CF door of my camera without a card in it. Same goes for the battery door.

 

[Doylem]

It's interesting that even with today's 'foolproof', hi-tech cameras, it's still possible to screw things up. In fact, it's probably even easier now, thanks to all those buttons and sliders and nested menus (I run photographic workshops, and find that hardly anyone really understands their camera's controls ).

I have a rather idiosynchratic way of working, for 95% of my pix, anyway: tripod, one lens, ISO 100, f11 and whatever shutter speed is required. So I'm typically working with speeds of 1/80sec, 1/100sec, 1/125sec. This means I'd notice straight away if I had made some catastrophic change, like ISO 1,600.

By keeping things simple, I feel there's less to go wrong. I have a (very brief) checklist before I go taking pix, including a tiny case that holds three batteries and four cards (totalling 13gigs, more than enough for two day's work). Batteries and cards don't go back into the case until they've been recharged or reformatted.

Happily, there are still plenty of other mistakes to make...

 

[= bluntman =]

My camera has dual memory card slots (CF and MS). The CF card is my main card (faster read and write times compared to the MS) but I always keep a 16GB MS card in the other slot for just these kinds of situations.

 

[El Cabong]

ahhh, group therapy posting time....
(btw, i've also done the ISO 1600 in daylight taking by mistake, etc....)

Big Q to the group, what are the "stages of Photography"?

As a person who does cardio exercise (I run and MTB ride) there is this viewpoint for "The Five Stages of a runner" http://www.shelterpub.com/_fitness/_running/run_5_stages.html (I read that book 20+ years ago and still relevant)

Q1: when does a person "stop" being a beginner and move into mid-level stage of photogaphy?
Q2: Who is the judge/jury? Peers? How many "hits" your photo(s) gets on some forum?

Doing a Google search shows someone posted this interesting chart, I sorta like the "The Five Stages of a runner" text descriptions approach, does not seem to be similar one for Photography

I'm in the "Why do I even bother taking off the lens cap?" hole.

 

[RHVC59]

I carry a spare card in the zipper pocket on my Black Rapid RS-5 camera strap. I also sewed the case for my Nikon ML-L3 remote to the camera strap, now I always know where to look for it.

 

[peapody]

This is what I do. First, I don't want to rely on the cards to store images so I pull them off ASAP. Second, formatting the cards will find any card errors before you attempt to use them. Formatting also is my signal that the pictures have been pulled off the card and it's ready to go.

I also have collected all sorts of memory cards over the years that I keep in my camera bag. If I do forget the main set of cards I use I'll at least have something to work with.

I reformat after every shoot as well. Keeps things more organized for me, since I am very DISORGANIZED!

 

[HBOC]

On my camera, you have to hit 2 buttons (at the same time) to change ISO, mode, etc. To erase an image, you have to dig into the menu quite a bit.

 

[abijnk]

I'll join in. Took my daughter to tour a cavern for the first time in Virginia recently. Got all the way down in the cave. Camera...check. Tripod...check. Wireless shutter remote....check. Memory card....check. Hey, why won't this thing turn on? Battery...sitting in the charger at home.

I was very glad that my iphone 4 takes much better pics than my old 3g. Lesson learned though and I ordered a spare battery. (so know I can forget both batteries)

Also, I always reformat cards everytime I put them back in the camera (after downloading pics of course).

I did this for the first time a couple weeks ago. It's such a great feeling isn't it.