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What’s the worst gear mistake that’s happened to you?

olafphoto

Administrator
Staff member
Let’s share our horror stories about gear: dropping cameras in the water, forgetting batteries, breaking the tripod, etc. Let’s learn from each other’s mistakes and have a good laugh together.
 

MGrayson

Subscriber and Workshop Member
I picked up a backpack. One strap was looped through my tripod leg. The mounted Cambo/SK/IQ160 did a rapid face plant. Right in front of the system’s owner. I was borrowing it. Fortunately, only permanent damage was to tilt/swing lens mount.
 

olafphoto

Administrator
Staff member
I picked up a backpack. One strap was looped through my tripod leg. The mounted Cambo/SK/IQ160 did a rapid face plant. Right in front of the system’s owner. I was borrowing it. Fortunately, only permanent damage was to tilt/swing lens mount.
Wow! Just in front of the owner! Quite a situation! Thanks for sharing.
 

olafphoto

Administrator
Staff member
Early in my career I did a few weddings, mostly for people I knew. It was still very stressful to me and the entire wedding took place in a very difficult lighting environment. I set up my camera for RAW and when I got home I realized that I did just opposite - only JPEGs!!! You can imagine the horror HA HA HA. Fortunately, once I calmed down and looked at files they somehow turned out quite well. Since then I am double checking all my camera settings before each trip/shoot.
 

darr

Well-known member
I was getting ready for a road trip and wanted to pull out my gear to make sure I was not over packing. I took my Linhof MT 3000 out of its bag and placed it on the tripod I would be traveling with. It is an RRS 23 with a 40 series ball head and had a screw-type clamp. I went through the checklist in my head and was getting ready to pull the camera off the tripod when the phone rang. I was operating in 'complacency mode' because when I returned to breaking down the camera, as soon as I touched her, she slid off the tripod and head first onto the tiled studio floor. :eek:😰

$675 and four months later, she returned to me and I had a shiny new lever-release clamp waiting to secure her to the tripod.
With lever-release clamps you can see if your camera is locked down or not whereas with screw clamps you cannot!
Lesson learned, albeit painfully!
 

MGrayson

Subscriber and Workshop Member
...
With lever-release clamps you can see if your camera is locked down or not whereas with screw clamps you cannot!
Lesson learned, albeit painfully!
Interesting! I feel the other way. Unless all your plates are from the same manufacturer, a supposedly clamped camera may still be loose. With screw clamps, I always assume that they are loose (like all guns are loaded) and check them every time.
 

olafphoto

Administrator
Staff member
I was getting ready for a road trip and wanted to pull out my gear to make sure I was not over packing. I took my Linhof MT 3000 out of its bag and placed it on the tripod I would be traveling with. It is an RRS 23 with a 40 series ball head and had a screw-type clamp. I went through the checklist in my head and was getting ready to pull the camera off the tripod when the phone rang. I was operating in 'complacency mode' because when I returned to breaking down the camera, as soon as I touched her, she slid off the tripod and head first onto the tiled studio floor. :eek:😰

$675 and four months later, she returned to me and I had a shiny new lever-release clamp waiting to secure her to the tripod.
With lever-release clamps you can see if your camera is locked down or not whereas with screw clamps you cannot!
Lesson learned, albeit painfully!
Wow! And "the phone rang" - you cannot imagine how many times it made me do some stupid things, for example replacing an empty battery only to put it back HA. HA HA
 

darr

Well-known member
Early in my career I did a few weddings, mostly for people I knew. It was still very stressful to me and the entire wedding took place in a very difficult lighting environment. I set up my camera for RAW and when I got home I realized that I did just opposite - only JPEGs!!! You can imagine the horror HA HA HA. Fortunately, once I calmed down and looked at files they somehow turned out quite well. Since then I am double checking all my camera settings before each trip/shoot.
Back when I shot weddings, it was with 220 and 70mm film.

After the ceremony we would shoot the family formals that included the bride and groom together. Prior to the ceremony, we made sure the bride and groom did not see each other. I have a few stories but this one was embarrassing and funny. So we are finished with the formal portraits and grandpa is being helped down the steps from the alter. I am watching grandpa walk down the steps and directing my assistant to move the lights away from the area as I am unloading the last roll of 220 shot. Just like that, from my hands and onto the center aisle unrolls the last roll of 220 I shot!! Look at all those family portraits with grandma and grandpa in them, and look how long that 220 roll of film is I say to myself. Then I say, "Quick get everybody back!!" Assistant runs to the church hall to get the necessary people back up on the alter area and I put the lights back in place. One saving grace was at least the reception was not at a local hotel!

Before cell phones, my assistants would sometimes have to take the studio van and drive around looking for out of town family members that would get lost between the hotels and the churches. That was always fun. Or when the florists would be so late delivering the bridal bouquets, the before ceremony bridal session would have to be rescheduled after the wedding causing havoc for us and for the wedding. So many stories that make me feel "its all about the journey" and not the money! :ROFLMAO:
 

darr

Well-known member
Interesting! I feel the other way. Unless all your plates are from the same manufacturer, a supposedly clamped camera may still be loose. With screw clamps, I always assume that they are loose (like all guns are loaded) and check them every time.
I use to think that way too Matt until I became too comfortable for my own good.
I only use RRS stuff. Do not know if it is better, just bought into their system years ago and stayed with them.
 

Shashin

Well-known member


I had just spent the day climbing from a camp site on the other side of the peak on the horizon. I had taken this image in the afternoon. This was after having spent a couple of weeks in the North Alps of Japan. My plan was to continue for another week heading north along this ridge.

A few hours after this image was taken, my wife and I left our new camp site for an evening stroll. I was standing on a slop of fine scree to take a picture. Suddenly, the scree gave way under my feet and I fell backwards. My arms flew out to balance myself and the camera I was holding swung around and hit the ground lens first. The Mamiya 6 mechanism that extends the lens was bent, rendering the only camera I had useless. To say I was a bit disappointed was an understatement.

Now, I always take a backup camera when I travel (even my Prius has a backup camera ;) ).
 

olafphoto

Administrator
Staff member


I had just spent the day climbing from a camp site on the other side of the peak on the horizon. I had taken this image in the afternoon. This was after having spent a couple of weeks in the North Alps of Japan. My plan was to continue for another week heading north along this ridge.

A few hours after this image was taken, my wife and I left our new camp site for an evening stroll. I was standing on a slop of fine scree to take a picture. Suddenly, the scree gave way under my feet and I fell backwards. My arms flew out to balance myself and the camera I was holding swung around and hit the ground lens first. The Mamiya 6 mechanism that extends the lens was bent, rendering the only camera I had useless. To say I was a bit disappointed was an understatement.

Now, I always take a backup camera when I travel (even my Prius has a backup camera ;) ).
Wow! Quite a story! I am glad you got out of it unscathed.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
I have of course had a few moments of horror, but somehow have managed to either forget them or block them all out of memory. The only one I remember was when a friend of mine, a priest of some years, asked me to photograph the ceremony of his final vows. At the time I had my Nikon F and was very very comfortable using it. So the ceremony goes on, I've caught a bunch of really nice photographs of the event. Afterwards, my friend comes over to thank me and pick up the film so he could develop it (he was the moderator of our high school photo staff, I was his chief photographer at the time). In a moment of complete brain fade, I whipped the back off the Nikon and grabbed/pulled out the film canister ... before rewinding it. Ugh. He processed the film anyway, most of it was a total loss, but there was ONE frame, about number five on the roll, that had an only slightly exposed stripe that we could salvage a photo of him.

I got ribbed from him over that one for years... LOL!

G
 

olafphoto

Administrator
Staff member
I have of course had a few moments of horror, but somehow have managed to either forget them or block them all out of memory. The only one I remember was when a friend of mine, a priest of some years, asked me to photograph the ceremony of his final vows. At the time I had my Nikon F and was very very comfortable using it. So the ceremony goes on, I've caught a bunch of really nice photographs of the event. Afterwards, my friend comes over to thank me and pick up the film so he could develop it (he was the moderator of our high school photo staff, I was his chief photographer at the time). In a moment of complete brain fade, I whipped the back off the Nikon and grabbed/pulled out the film canister ... before rewinding it. Ugh. He processed the film anyway, most of it was a total loss, but there was ONE frame, about number five on the roll, that had an only slightly exposed stripe that we could salvage a photo of him.

I got ribbed from him over that one for years... LOL!

G
Thanks for sharing the story
 

MGrayson

Subscriber and Workshop Member
A million years ago, My Canon 1D with Sigma 20mm lens attached fell off a ladder. The lens broke in two. The camera was unfazed. My feeling at the time: "Tanks are built like a Canon 1D" :ROFLMAO:

(These pixels go up to eleven ... microns)
 

GrahamWelland

Subscriber & Workshop Member
Over the years I've had plenty of bad days ...

The day in Sedona when my Phase One DF/P40+/75-150 slipped out of the Arca quick lock on top of the Cube and hit the rock with a WUMP destroying the hood, locking up the lens and jettisoning off the P40 from the body. Only the lens suffered and I learned to significantly tighten the clamp on the Cube.:rolleyes:

3 months later the shutter failed in that Phase One DF and exploded. I removed the back and the entire shutter had cut into itself and blew out leaves - luckily not hitting the sensor/IR glass on the P40+. It looked like a fire cracker had gone off behind the shutter.

The day my buddy hit the remote trunk release in our rental car and I watched in slow motion my camera bag withFuji XPro and lenses plummet out the back of the SUV - snapped the mounted X mount lens clean in two. Luckily the last day of the trip.

And then two very similar situations, one on a bridge over a raging river at Gullfoss, the other on a rock at Bar Harbor lighthouse. In both cases my Alpa Mount wasn’t locked at the top and the back (IQ260) fell off the body and only the sync cable and my lightening fast reactions caught the back before it hit the bridge or tumbled into the sea. The Bar Harbor light trip was another GetDPI trip and my assistant with me from CI I swear almost passed out in shock when he saw me catch the back! After those two situations I became absolutely paranoid about checking MFDB amount plates on bodies when swapping from horizontal/portrait orientation!!

Now I’m not extraordinarily clumsy but if you’re out enough, you WILL eventually have a mishap.
 
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