art_haykin Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 YEARS ago, as a kid, I was visiting Hoover (Boulder) Dam and was in the bowels of the dam in the huge generator room. The vast room was quite dimly lit by photographic standards, and only fairly long time exposures would get you anything. In the crowd, I noticed a typical family man, with a wife and 3 kids in tow, grinding away with a brand new Kodak 16mm movie camera, a rather expensive piece of equipment. After a couple of minutes of whirring away, I asked him what kind of film he was using and what f/stop. He said he was using the then new Kodachrome, which had an ASA (now ISO) of 10, and that he was using f/11. I asked him how he arrived at that exposure. He said that he had just bought the camera 3 days ago, told the Kodak dealer that he was going to Las Vegas, so the dealer told him to just use f/11, and everything would be just fine. The dealer neglected to mention that that setting was only good for the bright desert sun. I quickly explained the problem to him, but he merely shrugged, looked through the finder and said, "I can see everything perfectly." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcantel Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 Shooting a wedding,its was the group shot behind the cake i set my MF 55mm wide angle on a small table next to me and it politely rolled off and bounced on the hard wood floor,but the lens is fine.Shooting another wedding in my friends home for his daughter I accidently pressed the release button on my sunpak 522 flash holder and my F2 nikon took a gooood lick on his ceramic tile floor, 150.00 worth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atlatling Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 I photogrqraphed some slides of black and white pictures out of several books for a lecture my wife was to give on historic trails, homesteads, furnishings and other objects of the late 1800s. Stupid me forgot to put on the blue filter while using 3200 K. lights, and the slides all came out in sepia. It was marvelous. Perfect for the subject matter. Later, I used the same technique on purpose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason j Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 I shot a high school football game from the stands on Friday night, so I had to set the ISO to 1600. The next day, I talked my way onto the sidelines for a 1:00 pm college game in full sun and shot some of the best perspectives of my life. I was standing with the players. Imagine my surprise when I looked at the images on the computer and they were all grainy as hell. Ouch! Now, I check all the settings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russ_butner___portland__or Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 When laoding B/W infrared film in your completely dark bathroom, don't drop the film into the Catbox. It's no fun fumbling around in the litter, deciding what is what... Russ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lauren_macintosh Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 Well: In the line of nite mares ,I went and did a wedding with My kowa and canon F-1 went along very happy and with pride I was getting great shots< ,got film back from lab, 50% of my kowa shots were blank ,One back had malfunctioned,;Talk about getting grey fast: Never again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nancy s. Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 Just starting out in 1985 with a Pentax SRT 201 an entire "roll" of 35mm film shot in a a 6-below-zero wind of a less-than-cooperative prize show horse that I was commissioned to make a painting of..... 32 shots in all.. and the film was never in the camera.. it was still in my bag. Fortunately I had a few snap shots provided by the owner and got the painting done.... If I had to tell them I am sure they would have gleefully shot me (with a different instrument than a camera). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwhite3.0 Posted January 13, 2007 Author Share Posted January 13, 2007 Art, good story. Always be open to advice then decide for yourself if it warrants further thought. And maybe something to write on your hand until it becomes ingrained, "don't let your viewfinder fool you". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scot Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 When two people are reviewing images on the screen of a P&S digital, and one of them reaches out to tilt the camera for a better view, it's not good if the person holding the camera assumes that the other person is taking it from him, and releases it. With neither person actually holding the camera, it's amazing how fast gravity will step in and take over. On the other hand, it turns out that a wooden chair does a nice job of breaking the fall. On a more serious note, the worst thing I've ever done regarding cameras is to not have one when a money shot magically apears. Never again.. Scot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brad_horner Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 Homework assignment: Turn in a stop action photograph. I take my Nikon FM and prepare to drop a lemon into bath water to capture fruit plunging into water. I can't remember what flash I used but my shutter was set to 1/1000. Failed that assignment because the frames didn't sync with flash. Learned one reason why people use Hasselblad. I think the flash sync for the FM is 1/100. Yesterday on the beach in 30mph gusts (click shutter between gusts!) with 4x5. Camera tips quickly into sand. Luckily my 22" monorail acted like a roll bar on a Jeep and kept the camera almost sand free. Brand new Canon AE1 Program. Thinking I was the next Jacques Cousteau took the camera on a Coast Guard inflatable power boat with no regard to splashes of salt water. Camera was destroyed by corrosion from the salty mist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_bauer3 Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 I was calling coyotes in the dead of winter on frozen ground . I had my tripod set up with one leg shortened to accomodate the uneven ground when I decided to move back to another position . I put my tripod on the now even ground without resetting my leg and the weight of my 400 f2.8 sent my outfit crashing into the ground damaging my lens , my 2x extender , and my camera. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roger krueger Posted January 14, 2007 Share Posted January 14, 2007 Oh, there are so many... Trying to repair a Sunpak flash, have voltmeter attached to capacitor w/alligator clips to see why it's overcharging, voltmeter falls off table, I manage to grab junction where the alligator leads are attached to the voltmeter probes. Took over 400v thumb to forefinger. Knuckle could predict weather for years. Got 250/5 for my Mamiya Universal, my first lens with a tripod collar. Went through standard rangefinder calibration procedure, right up to "grasp lens firmly and twist ring to release". Since it was the lens that was attached to the tripod, not the camera, the (heavy, sharp-cornered, all metal) Mamiya Universal fell corner first onto my bare foot. I yelp in pain, hop around holding foot, wife laughing hysterically. Ten minutes later I do it again. Shooting a wedding in a tiny historical chapel, only place to shoot the procession from is elevated lectern. While waiting for guests to be seated I turn camera to recheck front element for smudges, tilt camera backwards, flash sails out of shoe on bracket. Luckily I have a springy coiled sync cord, taped to flash because it's fallen out one too many times. Flash swings to and fro a foot over grandmas head. I carefully haul it back in. Grandma never notices. Don't realize the signifigance of my Minolta finder magnifier being smaller than my eyesocket. Makes focus in the dark at a nightclub so much easier. Until someone bumps my lens and the #$%^ thing jabs me in the eye, hard. Spent a minute or so seeing double wondering if I'd done permanent damage. Pop my souped-up lead-cell-powered 283 a few too many times in a row. Client asks "Is there supposed to be smoke coming off your flash?". Uh, no, it's on fire, thanks. I think I'll be going outside now before the Halon system kicks in. (Which, mercifully, it didn't). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donald_bray Posted January 14, 2007 Share Posted January 14, 2007 When I had only one film body I used to swap out partially exposed film rolls, you know B&W to color back to B&W, writing the frames exposed number on the can for later reinsertion and advancing to that number +1. So of course the ink rubs off, I forget the film canister has been partially exposed... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael_dimarzio Posted January 14, 2007 Share Posted January 14, 2007 I have a used Contax G2 where the previous owner set it to leave a leader out after rewind. It looks just like a new roll... So I used a roll of a Brasilian Rodeo photos to take pictures (with a Contax IIIA RF) of an old man filling in pitch on an old wooden fishing boat in the Northest of Brasil. I ruined the best pictures of both locations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnw436 Posted January 14, 2007 Share Posted January 14, 2007 After spending two and half hours in the dark shooting long exposures from the balcony of a parking garage- Only to begin rewinding my film and feeling absolutely zero tension in the winder. "Man, this doesn't feel right..." I really can't tell you how proud I was of the great shots I was getting. Too bad there was no film in the camera. LESSON #2: Bronica ETRS with early film back: Don't forget to pull out the dark slide. Nothing like 15 blank negatives for your trouble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodbyte Posted January 14, 2007 Share Posted January 14, 2007 not very funny, unless you consider how often I keep doing it..... set camera to manual to expose for someting special in one one scene, move onto next scene and still think I'm running a point and shoot and forget to change out of manual. things are often very dark or look like point of detonation of an atom bomb. even in Av mode often jack up ISO and then frequently forget to jack it down again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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