How's this for a bad night....

So, we were hired to photograph a Girl Scout Father Daughter Dance, not a big job and should have been low stress...

20 minutes before the start of the dance our software (dslrBooth) stopped working... apparently there was an update released on Friday that we didn't know about...and it would not print photos at all.

So we went to our back-up plan and printed manually. Everything ran smooth for about 15 minutes, then my camera (60D) started flashing 'BUSY' and wouldn't do anything...no big deal...grabbed my backup camera and was shooting in less than 2 minutes. 2 shots later the battery on my backup camera died...and guess where my spare batteries were...AT HOME!!!!

So I grabbed my 60D and fiddled with it for a minute or so and got it working again, I think it was a bad SD card...

So...everything ran well for about an hour, then our printer went down. Started POURING ink onto the prints and they were totally unusable. Fortunately we had a backup printer and only took a minute to switch them out.

So on this low level job we had to use a backup printing plan, backup camera and backup printer! Fortunately we were prepared, but this could have made us look really bad in front of over 250 families that were there for pictures!

Sorry to hear that but MAN! Your professionalism with preparation is something to be admired!

Think I would have kept that disaster to my self...sorry to hear and hope you did ok.

Nice save! Backup equipment is worth the cost for sure, and glad to hear you got your main camera operational again.

Murphy's Law!

One is none, Two is one. Sometimes you've got to work a little harder to earn your pay.

Bad night? I don't know; finding out that you were prepared for multiple failures might be considered a pretty good night (once it's over).

Nice test of your backup plan dude! Very professional. Now make a note to bring spare batteries for your backup camera.

Might want to do some maintenance on your equipment though and make sure things aren't going to keep breaking.

Just wanted to applaud your preparation for situations like these. Well done.

Hmm.. normally I use a good backup strategy to avoid issues like, I have all my backup equipment with me insuring that nothing happens to my primary equipment. The minute I forget some piece of backup equipment that's when the primary will fail. Anyway, great story and really clearly shows why a backup plan ahead of time is so necessary.

Elfstop wrote in post #15648246
Think I would have kept that disaster to my self...

I think sharing it here is pretty good. Having "backup everything" is so often stressed but it's rarely demonstrated just why it's so important. It might be a once-in-a-career thing, but everything can and does go wrong!

I would ask a Mod to change the thread title to "This is why you need backup equipment."

Then it would be easier to find, the next time somebody with one camera, one lens and one flash unit decides to be a wedding photographer.

Great story and nice work pulling it off. That's the difference between uncle Bob with a camera and a Pro and exactly the reason that I have 2 or three of everything at a wedding including sets of clothes.

gh patriot wrote in post #15650192
Great story and nice work pulling it off. That's the difference between uncle Bob with a camera and a Pro and exactly the reason that I have 2 or three of everything at a wedding including sets of clothes.

yep. figured this out after i split my pants at a wedding. haha

rpaul wrote in post #15649981
I think sharing it here is pretty good. Having "backup everything" is so often stressed but it's rarely demonstrated just why it's so important. It might be a once-in-a-career thing, but everything can and does go wrong!

Yeah after some thought that is better shared...thanks.