Lessons hard learnt.

[Cyberman]

Recently I have learnt the hard way to check and recheck camera settings whilst out and about.

The first situation arose whilst on a tour of the disused parts of Highgate Tube Station.
I thought it had all gone well, and looking at the screen on the camera I was optimistic of some good images.
However, I was very upset when I loaded the images into Lightroom and started editing. Initially it all looked ok, and I have some images which are not too bad, but later on in the sequence of images some started looking very blocky and odd.
I started editing them and realised they looked very poor.
It turns out I must have knocked the touch screen and changed my file type settings from RAW to the smallest JPG option, needless to say these images were deleted as unusable.

Then again whilst on holiday I started thinking my images looked a tad dark.
I had accidentally changed the exposure compensation setting, fortunately the problem was easily resolved in Lightroom this time.

So, the moral of the story is check your settings, then check them again and then keep checking them.
I messed up so you don't have to!!

[Trev B]

Re: Lessons hard learnt.

Been there, done it, got the Tee shirt and video. Last big disaster, I went out without a battery in the camera, travelled all the way to Dartmoor before I realised it. Now when I remove a battery for charging I slip a red plastic tag in the flash shoe to remind me.
Damn nuisance this old age thing and memory!

[jk224]

Re: Lessons hard learnt.

Couple of weeks ago I went to a local hillside hoping to get a shot of the BBMF Lancaster overflying a local show. Got to where I wanted to be early, so as to get a good spot, then waited patiently for the big bird to arrive. 5 minutes before the supposed time I did a quick scan with the camera to check the shutter speed etc, only to see "Card" flashing at me at the bottom of the viewfinder. I'd taken the SD card out to download the shots from the day before, and like an idiot forgotten to put it back in! Had to run back to the car and bang a spare in, with just seconds to spare.

At least it should have been seconds. The BBMF had decided to alter the schedule, and the Lancaster had flown over 4 hours earlier! At that time I was at home in the bathroom having a wash, thinking if I didn't know better I would say that noise sounds like 4 Merlins! If I'd gone to the top of our road I would have got a shot of it, as its flight path took it half a mile from my house. Bummer!

[Tigger]

Re: Lessons hard learnt.

we all have the horror stories.....mine was I put what I though was a fully charged battery in my backpack to find out after driving for 4 hrs and noticing my battery was drying that changing it over made no difference I picked my shots very carefully

[colin C]

Re: Lessons hard learnt.

I have made all the stupid mistakes going, so I have a mental check list before I depart, which includes batteries and CF Cards, plus spares etc.

I also check my settings and regularly view the histogram, which will quickly show anything amiss. What I would like is a separate button to "Lock" my chosen settings: that would prevent any accidental changes.

[Cyberman]

Re: Lessons hard learnt.

Glad to see it's not just me!

[colin C]

Re: Lessons hard learnt.

Glad to see it's not just me!

Nope.

It's a very non-exclusive club. You become a member at any time, usually when you least expect it.

[the black fox]

Re: Lessons hard learnt.

Yep I can relate to most of those tales

[El Sid]

Re: Lessons hard learnt.

I made the mistake of not taking my 40D to a local show on Monday but decided to use my D7000 (from N---n). I haven't quite got the hang of it yet which meant I had problems with setting the auto-ISO for best effect, I somehow managed to keep getting the basic aperture and it took me at least half an hour to figure out how to set the AF to continuous - so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that 99.9 of any action shots were basically a load of poo...

The 40D sure is a lot less complicated...