Photography Nightmares

NSXTypeR

surprisingly Ive never had a dropped lens nightmare (even tho Ive dropped many lenses). My worst Plunk happened at an art museum where I got to sit in with an exclusive lunch between a mayor and a Chinese diplomat. My 14-24mm fell out of the holster onto the wood floor. It bounced like a ping pong ball (literally, 7 hops;The first 2 at 2ft the 3rd at a foot and the rest under that) too and of course the 20 people present all stopped to stare at the flying lens... It worked after that although the zoom was stiff. Ive shot a whole session where a memory card failed on me....

A true nightmare is the infamous canon mount fail. Ive witnessed that 3 times.

Wow, I've never heard that problem before. Could you elaborate on that?

I've had a memory card fail on me before in 2005. I had brought a Kingston 512mb SD card and a Nikon Coolpix E3700 on vacation to Hong Kong. That Kingston card was my ONLY memory card and since it was only a 3.2 mp point and shoot, it would be plenty of memory. After a couple days in HK, I got a weird error message and the camera shut off and rebooted itself. However, the camera still took photos and I can review them as well, so I thought little of it and continued on my vacation as planned and even went to Japan. Little did I know that the card would screw up with file naming- the camera would see one set of files, while a card reader on a computer would see another set of files. However, you would be unable to access both set of folders at the same time on a computer.

After my vacation ended, I had let the card sit there for about 3 or 4 years because I was too afraid to mess with the folder system and unwilling to pay for recovery software. Well one day I decided the heck with it, I wasn't going to be able to access the files anyway. So I then got the bright idea that deleting the folders I could "see" might allow me access to the ones I cannot "see". I could do that if I delete the folder and cancel the delete sequence afterwards. Since I had a old computer I had a lot of time to cancel the deleting immediately. Ultimately it worked and I "found" about 75% of the missing photos from that vacation.

Lesson learned- I will never buy SD cards from Kingston again and I bought a 2 gig Sandisk card. On that card I can shoot over 10,000 shots because the memory counter ran out of room after 9999.

spraynpray

The Canon random lens detachment mechanism is a well documented thing. It seems they made it very simple and unnoticeable to brush the lens demount while using the camera and have the lens unlock but work and stay attached. Some time later that sound is heard oh-oh. A number of pro's petitioned them but being hard headed they not only ignored it as an issue, they made it identical on the 5D3. One guy who raves on about the problem will not even upgrade because of it. I think he has paid for at least three lens repairs on his 70-200.

Msmoto

The D4, or for that matter almost any camera can of course have the lens mount release button accidentally pushed. I cannot remember which lens came out of my D4, but it only went a few inches onto carpet so no damage. I am a bit more careful now...LOL

Several years ago I was unpacking the top case on my motorcycle, pulled a cloth out and a lens went to the asphalt, landing on the hood after the four foot drop. Broken hood, lens worked fine. Eventually sold it as it was a DX lens.

Golf007sd

My most resent "nightmare." Got back from my great trip in Colorado where I spend the last day shooting all over Denver (pictures will be on PAD soon). After downloading 100+ images from my adventure that day...what do I find after transferring the files to my computer: All shots taken in JPEG in basic mode. Not sure how the setting got changed but needless to say I was not a very happy camper for about 20 minutes...arrrrrr.

NSXTypeR

The Canon random lens detachment mechanism is a well documented thing. It seems they made it very simple and unnoticeable to brush the lens demount while using the camera and have the lens unlock but work and stay attached. Some time later that sound is heard oh-oh. A number of pro's petitioned them but being hard headed they not only ignored it as an issue, they made it identical on the 5D3. One guy who raves on about the problem will not even upgrade because of it. I think he has paid for at least three lens repairs on his 70-200.

So it's a problem with the 5D MkII as well as the MkIII?

I wonder if it's an issue as well on the 6D, my cousin has one and he's really happy with it. He doesn't really change lenses on it though.

Wow, that's pretty bad too. I nearly dropped the 50mm f/1.2 when I mounted it on the D7000. I realized something was wrong when the camera wouldn't recognize anything past f/5.6. I pushed it past f/8 and the lens popped off the mount. I was happy I was cradling the entire lens or else I most certainly would have dropped it. It was my fault for that though, usually there's an audible click when mounting lenses but I really have to be forceful with the 50mm 1.2 if I want to mount it, much more so than my other lenses.

Golf- that may just because you brushed your camera up against a bag and spun a dial by accident. That is an unfortunate mistake however. Somewhat like the time where I left my D7000 on ISO 10,000 by mistake when shooting in broad daylight. I must have been shooting indoors in the greenhouses when I went outside and forgot to lower ISO back down to non-stratospheric numbers.

FlowtographyBerlin

@Golf007sd: Did you also have the size set to "Small"? If so, no need to worry: At that size, you won't see any difference between the quality settings anyway. :-P Oh man, that really sucks.

Golf007sd

@FlowtographyBerlin & NSXTypeR: I have a feeling I know how it happened: msmoto came in to my room at night and went into my bag and changed it knowing I would not look at that setting. On our trip she just loved change all my setting then hand it back to me with this evil look in her eyes. I can hear her say: Muhaaaaaaa 8-} )

spraynpray

As you know Ali, the bottom button on the left rear is quality and I have often pressed that thinking it was the ISO while looking through the viewfinder. I have learned to stop and check my settings when I spin the command dial and don't see the ISO changing since going to jpeg in error. 8-|

Golf007sd

@spraynpray: you are quite right on that department...But, I still like my hypothesis much more appealing than user error. 8->

NSXTypeR

@FlowtographyBerlin & NSXTypeR: I have a feeling I know how it happened: msmoto came in to my room at night and went into my bag and changed it knowing I would not look at that setting. On our trip she just loved change all my setting then hand it back to me with this evil look in her eyes. I can hear her say: Muhaaaaaaa 8-} )

Haha, sabotage!

kyoshinikon

Ive actually seen a 7D's whole mount come off. And unlike a nikon, when a L series 24-70mm oldie hits the pavement the glass goes with the frame. As to the memory card failure it was the only sandisk that has ever failed on me in the field because the little SD tab broke off. Ive lost about 6 sandisk extreme cards.... Those Sd's get lost before they fail. I once corrupted a CF card when the charger fell out of my mac during transfer....

Speaking of photo nightmares I killed a 1Tb hard drive knocking it off my desk (you've gotten the point I'm clumsy) Luckily all but one folder was backed up and the folder that wasn't was still on a card. It was a bummer as it was my edited drive but I had all my raw files which saved me 3 clients.

My most resent "nightmare." Got back from my great trip in Colorado where I spend the last day shooting all over Denver (pictures will be on PAD soon). After downloading 100+ images from my adventure that day...what do I find after transferring the files to my computer: All shots taken in JPEG in basic mode. Not sure how the setting got changed but needless to say I was not a very happy camper for about 20 minutes...arrrrrr.

Probablyset on U1/U2. My D90 and D7000 frequently change on me (especially when they are on one of my 300mm's on a black rapid) There is a reason I call it a crapdial. I love my D700 and D200 for not having one.

Speaking of settings errors I once did a pro moto shoot on small Low rez on my D200... and the client was printing posters. I was PISSED! Never let a student borrow your camera. On my D7000 it would have been bad but on my D200 it was a nightmare edit.

bland

I had a nightmare at a Willie Nelson concert about a month ago, never seen anything like it.

Here's how it went down. He comes out and starts to sing and then I saw his eyes get big and was looking to the right of me. It was then I was ran over by 30 - 40 hillbillies who came out of the hills to see their legend, 40-50 years in age. Try picturing the Duck Dynasty cast on meth and you'll see what I was up against.

They surrounded me and started throwing elbows at me, clawing me, shoving me and one gal even gave me a boot to my butt and told me to move. I was the only photographer so it was easy pickins for these inbreed toothless wonders. Security finally shows up and runs them out there, but it's not over.

I only had two songs to shoot so I was ripping off shots in the 2nd song when guess who rushes the stage from the other side, yep it was them again and this time they brought their entire clan, more than doubling the previous ground assault. Next thing I knew I was pushed down on all fours trying to protect my cameras as I was shoved into the rose bushes that were in front of the stage, still trying to find away to rip off shots. It was then I could see security out of the corner of my eyes herding these misfits of society out of the pit.

I took a big breath and kept shooting while Willie started grinning at me and then this hand started to push me on the shoulder with this person saying HEY HEY. I figured security would get this person so I didn't turn around, then that same hand grabbed my shirt collar and yanked hard. That was it, I turned around and to my surprise it was a lady security guard and she yelled at me, "You Might Be The Casino Photographer But That Doesn't Give You The Right To Destroy My Roses".

Well, that did it and I said some things I've never said to a lady before. Then I headed out with steam coming out of ears only to find the aisles blocked by these half wits. I went through them like a bull in a china store.

On the way home I decided that was it, it was just that bad. But the Casino contacted me two days later and apologized, all's good!

Edited to add:

Here's when Willie was grinning at me, priceless! LOL

Killerbob

Excellent story, and an excellent shoot of the Red Headed Stranger...

kyoshinikon

Great shot . I love Willie btw... What a funny story too

Vipmediastar_JZ

@bland awesome story. I was able to relive your experience with my imagination.

bland

Thanks everyone, I'm laughing about it as well now but I sure wasn't for several days. Next time I see a Hillbilly crowd, I'll be the one running for the hills! lol

FlowtographyBerlin

Hahaha, that one:
"You Might Be The Casino Photographer But That Doesn't Give You The Right To Destroy My Roses"
was the best! :-D

kanuck

Good thread with lots of interesting stories. Here in Korea it is peak holiday season so its chaos in the two national airports right now. While checking in for a domestic flight I noticed a rather large 22L Lowe Pro Hatchback bag on the floor right in front of the checkout counter when it was my turn in line. The top flap was unzipped I noticed probably to remove a passport to check in. Perhaps somebody had been really pressed for time? I strolled up put my bag down and while down, I unzipped the Lowe Pro back's main compartment. I did a quick 360 and saw that nobody was immediately looking for this bag. Inside was a D4, 14-24mm, 24-70mm, 70-200 VR1, SB-900 Flash and a 50mm 1.8 G. A Full kit basically. Without thinking I gave it to the busy lady working at the counter who was basically too preoccupied to notice the value of the $11 grand backpack. She didn't even smile just grabbed the bag from me and called Lost and Found... Hopefully the owner got it back right away before flying out. As I boarded my flight I tried not to think too hard about what I had found if you know what I mean. Really it was so hectic and crowded, but I am glad I made the right call This could be another thread titled "Jackpot" or "What would you have done? Honestly?"

Golf007sd

@kanuck: What an amazing story....and find. If it was me I would have kept it and looked threw the bag and try to find whom it belonged to personally and then reach out to the owner. One can do that many ways buy the serial numbers of the equipment. I would not have given it back to the people running the security at the airport!

kanuck

Yes I thought about this afterwards while on the plane actually. I guess it all happened so quickly and it was so busy in the line with people crowding around everywhere. It probably would have been easier to hold onto it and try to personally reach out to the owner. I think the lost and found would be the first place people would go to try and locate their lost items. With the cost being so high on this bag it probably should have become a personal matter like you suggested....

Rx4Photo

WOW! What a rare situation and find, Kanuck. After watching a news story on how our airline customs agents have been busted for stealing passengers' items I too feel that it will be a miracle for the owner to get his or her gear back. Truly unfortunate.

Surely would have made a great companion to a D800 . . . . . just saying' . . . and just kidding...

Msmoto

Getting back to looking at some of the posts I notice Golf is imagining things.....mmmm......actually I hypnotized him and he changed the settings himself. LOL )

Oh, super shot Bland... a real keeper!

Ade

Kanuck you did the right thing. If you had held on to the bag to find the owner, you could be mistakenly charged with theft due to some misunderstanding. Sad but true; as the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.

kanuck

Ade, yes another interesting perspective for sure. Kind of like the guy who tried to help a woman in distress only to get sued for trying to help in the end. I think with the amount of money involved in finding the backpack I wanted to resolve it rather quickly I guess. Hopefully the owner has it now

Msmoto

Or, what you saw, Kanuck, was a stolen bag abandoned, because of the risk of discovery at security....it seems almost an impossibility one would forget their bag.....unless they were old like me )