My biggest bozo move as a newbie

We get lots of newbies on here who show their inexperience. My message to them is don't be embarrassed. Even the most proficient and skilled photographer started out in your shoes. We've all made mistakes. Here's the one from my history that sticks out in my mind.

I was just learning to use a (borrowed) SLR. At the time, I don't think there were any cameras with autofocus. So manual focus and narrow depth of field were new experiences for me. I took a picture of a forest scene looking up through the trees at a remarkable, crystal blue, cloudless sky, which I thought was the most attention-getting part of the scene. I showed the shot to a friend who was a photographer for the yearbook. He asked me why the trees were out of focus. He looked at me like I had just arrived from Mars when I explained what I thought had to be in focus (you can just guess). He was quite charitable and patient when he explained to me that there was nothing in the sky to focus on. I don't know what he told his friends. But I'm sure they got a good laugh about it.

So, anybody else?

I've done the 'trying to shoot with the lens cap on'....and checking for the lens cap was the LAST thing I checked when wondering why all I saw was black in the viewfinder LOL!!! That is a LONG 2 minutes looking at settings and dials trying to figure out what's wrong before you finally realize the lens cap is still on!
You keep doing it of course, but you learn to check for a lens cap FIRST

BrickR wrote in post #16484803
I've done the 'trying to shoot with the lens cap on'....and checking for the lens cap was the LAST thing I checked when wondering why all I saw was black in the viewfinder LOL!!! That is a LONG 2 minutes looking at settings and dials trying to figure out what's wrong before you finally realize the lens cap is still on!
You keep doing it of course, but you learn to check for a lens cap FIRST

Yep... Done that so often that the lens cap is the first thing I check.

My favourite trick is to forget to change back from delay to single shot, so I feel like a numpty holding the camera for the 2 or 10 seconds, while my putative subject slowly moves out of frame... sometimes I wish there was an "escape" key to abort the shutter at this point . . .

without film to 'lock in' an ISO, i often (yes still, although im relatively new to digital) go from one shooting situation to another with my ISO cranked way to far one direction or another and usually end up blowing out the first couple of exposures...

yes, i know i should be checking out the info in the viewfinder but im usually doing that composition thing. i check the info at first and usually dont unless my scene or subject changes more than just a little...

back with film, if you set 400, you left it until you changed film...

Ltdave wrote in post #16485001
without film to 'lock in' an ISO, i often (yes still, although im relatively new to digital) go from one shooting situation to another with my ISO cranked way to far one direction or another and usually end up blowing out the first couple of exposures...

yes, i know i should be checking out the info in the viewfinder but im usually doing that composition thing. i check the info at first and usually dont unless my scene or subject changes more than just a little...

back with film, if you set 400, you left it until you changed film...

This is easily cured by making ISO the last thing you set. Pick your aperture for DOF, then pick your shutter speed for the subject motion / handholding limits. Finally, pick your ISO to set the exposure. Then you will never have this problem again.

OK, so here was my most stupid technology encounter with dSLRs:

I had just gotten my first dSLR that had video, and I tried it out just to see how it worked. A couple weeks later I wanted to take a sunset shot from super low on a tripod at f/11, ISO 100 and 1 second exposure.

It was a PITA to get my eye to the VF, so I enabled live view. Unknown to me, this turned on video mode. So then I spent the next couple minutes cursing while I tried to figure out why my camera would suddenly not allow any shutter speeds longer than 1/30th of a second (the time of one video frame). I was frustrated beyond belief as the sun sank towards the horizon and my damn camera would not do what I wanted.

As far as general stupidity with photography, I've certainly fallen in several pits that I'm sure many will recognize.

1) It took me some time to really look through the viewfinder and study not just the subject but the whole frame. Until you get to that point, you get a lot of crooked horizons, ugly crap included in the frame, things growing out of people's heads etc.

2) When I first discovered fast prime lenses, I was Mr. shallow DOF all the time and not in a good way. I eventually realized that very few pictures where the subject is mostly OOF are good. I also learned how it is possible to still blur the snot out of a background without having to put up with too little DOF too.

3) I had to learn that perspective is everything, and perspective is where you put yourself. For me though, this one was an easier lesson than the first two, but still one that took a bit of time to become standard. Now I look at subjects first and lift the camera to my eye only later when I have moved to the perspective I am thinking of.

Took me 4 months to figure out the little bar in the view-finder tells you if the exposure was over or under haha.
After that, was like learning how to ride a bike, "ooooh that's how you know roughly where to expose…" I felt seriously dumb that after trying so many times to shoot manual and wondering why it was so overexposed or underexposed. Should have read the manual

I took the memory card out of the camera while it was still being written to. I lost the card but learned what that blinking red light was!

packing my gear, charging the battery, lugging it with me. Except the memory card, that was at home, LOL

My last airshow I carefully checked the batteries and all my gear the night before. Got everything all ready and packed in the car. Downloaded all the stuff off my superfast SD cards onto my desktop. Got to the airshow the next day and had to walk a country mile to the tarmac. Got ready to shoot the opening acts and saw No Card on the screen. Argh!!! Trudge back to the car to get my cards and find out that I left the card case sitting beside my desktop at home. Luckily I had my EOS-M with a (slow) SD card in it, so the day wasn't a total loss. But that card was half full, so I didn't get as many shots as I wanted.

JeffreyG wrote in post #16485114
1) It took me some time to really look through the viewfinder and study not just the subject but the whole frame. Until you get to that point, you get a lot of crooked horizons, ugly crap included in the frame, things growing out of people's heads etc.

I still struggle with this occasionally. I really have to be concentrating on the whole shot and not just the immediate subject.

And BTW, I'm not a newbie. I am a bit of a dumbass at times, though.

This happened just last week.

My right eye sight is not great so I have the focus wheel next to the viewfinder set to the furthest it can go on the + side, somehow it must have moved whilst in the bag.

Picked up a Helios 58/2 and adapter and mounted to my 5DMII, looked through it, moved through entire spectrum of closest focus to infinity and what the hell it's so blurry. Sonuvabitch I got ripped off with a broken lens I was so angry.

In absolute frustration jumped onto eBay to buy another one and almost went through to check out before checking the focus wheel, two clicks after, ah-ha!

emvy wrote in post #16485543
This happened just last week.

My right eye sight is not great so I have the focus wheel next to the viewfinder set to the furthest it can go on the + side, somehow it must have moved whilst in the bag.

Picked up a Helios 58/2 and adapter and mounted to my 5DMII, looked through it, moved through entire spectrum of closest focus to infinity and what the hell it's so blurry. Sonuvabitch I got ripped off with a broken lens I was so angry.

In absolute frustration jumped onto eBay to buy another one and almost went through to check out before checking the focus wheel, two clicks after, ah-ha!

You can get a diopter lens for the viewfinder so that you will have better diopter control instead of the adjustment at the very end.

My parents gave me my first camera - a Brownie Holiday Flash - when I was about 8 years old.

I'm not sure if my blooper was with my first roll of film or not, but at one point early in my learning process I just HAD to see the images I'd just made. So, I opened the camera to look at the film. My parents were great. Even though they knew what the results would be, they paid for processing the roll of film and I got a great lesson about film.

SkipD wrote in post #16485984
My parents gave me my first camera - a Brownie Holiday Flash - when I was about 8 years old.

I'm not sure if my blooper was with my first roll of film or not, but at one point early in my learning process I just HAD to see the images I'd just made. So, I opened the camera to look at the film. My parents were great. Even though they knew what the results would be, they paid for processing the roll of film and I got a great lesson about film.

Yup! Film doesn't take too kindly to chimping.

SkipD wrote in post #16485984
My parents gave me my first camera - a Brownie Holiday Flash - when I was about 8 years old.

I'm not sure if my blooper was with my first roll of film or not, but at one point early in my learning process I just HAD to see the images I'd just made. So, I opened the camera to look at the film. My parents were great. Even though they knew what the results would be, they paid for processing the roll of film and I got a great lesson about film.

That was considerate of them. I am ashamed to say that I probably would have not done that were it my kids in that situation.