Your Biggest Photo Nightmare?

For the past several years I have been planning on going on a month long road trip in the U.S. west. For one reason or another I haven't had the opportunity to go until this year.

My planned photo trip was to go from home ( SW Florida) to Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, then back home to Florida. Along the way I wanted to stop at a few key places like Amarillo, Taos, Santa Fe, Roswell, San Antonio and New Orleans.

So this past month I finally got a chance to go. I packed my bags, packed extra camera bags, contacted my bank, lawn service guy, etc. I debated what equipment to take with me, so I decided on taking my 7dmk2 with 16-35mm 4.0 L, 70-200mm 2.8L and my old Nikon D200 with several lenses.

Weight was not an issue as everything was going in my car with me. Even packed a few empty camera bags for any possible scenario.

All went well the day I left Florida. A couple of days into the trip I was near Dallas, Texas. As a bad storm approached I decided to take out my cameras and get some shots of the menacing clouds . When I reached fir my camera I realised I had only packed my Nikon D200 with a 24mm 2.8 AF-D lens and my 7dmk2 with a 16-35 lens. Nothing else. No other lenses. No filters. No tripods. No flash. Did I mention no extra lenses? ߘ

Here I was, 1000 miles away from home in the middle of my dream road trip living a photograohic nightmare. I had to decide whether to go back home or continue with my two camera/two lens outfit.

So, I decided to continue the road trip. Every time I came up to some beautiful place I felt like kicking myself for having left my equipment back home. My guess is that I got too worried about all the details of the trip and took for granted my photo equipment. Since I never forget to over pack camera equipment I assumed I had packed everything in advance as I always do for short weekend trips. Boy was I wrong!!

Have you ever had a major photo nightmare?

Most of my "nightmares" are to do with settings. A lovely set of overexposed shots id very sad! These days my most common problem is the af or other swiches on the lens being knocked to the worng setting.

I always check my bag: Which bag? Camera with most likely lens attached. Other likely lenses. Do I need lach stuff?. Spare batteries. anything lese I might need. Like you for big trip I take additional bag of might needs and odten a smaller camera bag for lightweght carrying.

Happens to all of us

Had been photographing a state motor sport championship over 2 days.
Went home to prepare a slideshow for the presentation night.
Took longer than I expected - raced out the door, drove 120km (70 miles) to get to the presentation ceremony on time.

Got the slideshow working for them, then went get my gear to take the presentations photos.
Camera? = Check!
Flash and modifiers? = Check!
Spare batteries? = Check!
Memory cards? = Check!
Lens? ... Lens? ... LENS!!!! ... wtf? ... LENS!!!!
... slowly the reality set in ... NO LENS!

You've got to be joking!
Unfortunately no joke ... aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrg​ggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!

Luckily there was another photographer who was able to take the shots
Me? Slunk under a rock.

My biggest photo nightmare has been my wife. She will not tolerate the 'dawdling and fiddling' with camera stuff while on vacation. My vacation/travel gear has been whittled down to: G15/270EX II, batteries, chargers, cards. It all fits in a bag smaller than her purse. Last couple of trips, it all stayed in the bag. Next trip: smart phone camera. Funny, I seem to enjoy my wife, and my vacations, a lot more than my cameras. HOODATHUNKIT?

I was on a similar dream trip to yours being from the east coast we flew into Phoenix Arizona. We were going to be gone for five weeks flying home from San Francisco. The first stop was Sedona i was taking a photo of Cathedral Rocks and proceeded to fall in to the river totally soaking my camera and lens. the lens fogged up and never died the whole trip the camera luckily was fine I was able to purchase a new lens in Flagstaff and use it for the trip I returned it in San Francisco telling them what had happened they were happy to have let me use the lens, although I was worried about the camera the whole trip. When I got home I sent the camera and lens to Canon telling them what had happened, the cleaned and checked both the camera and lens for no charge.

Hrm,

I kayak on the ocean with my kit, in the flats, where there's lots of spray and swells slap the boat and spray more. I'm always wondering when the day will be that I take a full on slap with the gear out. I normally keep it stowed away while I move and only take it out when it's a good time to do so, ie, not eating water or in a bad place with potential to eat water. But, this is a when, not an if, type situation. That day will come. A walking nightmare waiting to happen...

My biggest nightmares are usually equipment failure or fault and missing a moment due to it. I've had too many moments where I have what I want and go to take the image and there's a problem. I was using a long lens that had issues with autofocus and it would hang up and basically turn off from the camera. I had to reattach the lens for it to be recognized again. Blew tons of shots to that. Eventually sent it in and replaced it. But that sort of stuff drives me crazy. When you're out on the water there's no way to take a minute to check things out. If it's not working, you're busted.

I guess I sort of tempt fate...

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/svrk​zN

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/ymPM​2T

I feel some comfort knowing I am in good company! ߘ

Many years ago , BD (before digital), I worked as an assistant to a public relations photographer. While I was with him on an assignment I "tailed him" taking the same shots he was taking from a slightly different angle. Halfway through the assignment he wispered to me he had forgotten to load film in his camera and that I continue shooting as planned. He faked a few more shots while I was doing the real shooting. It was difficult keeping a straight face through the whole thing! ʰߘ

Funny thing was that his nightmare turned out to be my big break as from that moment on he paid me to do assignments on my own! bغ

Back in the days of film I was doing some work for a local newspaper and was asked to cover the restoration of a century old cabin high up in the mountains. Most attending had to hike in, but I was grateful to be helicoptered in with local dignitaries and so had some pressure to perform.

The proceedings were delayed by the unexpectedly long time it had taken to cook a barbecued beef lunch preparatory to the official ceremony, so by the time all the people (over 100) were assembled, with difficulty, for a group portrait for my newspaper, most of us, including myself, were more than "half seas over" due to the availability of free beer that had been flown in.

Having got everyone lined up in ranks on chairs and steps (shortest in front, bigwigs in middle) for the historic photo, I raised my trusty Konica, composed the shot, actuated the lever to advance the 35mm film, and could instantly tell that the film had snapped. My mind went into panic overdrive - photographer's nightmare!

Not having time (or the sober dexterity) to rewind and replace the film (with some irreplaceable shots already on it) I luckily retained the drunken presence of mind to pull my little Olympus P&S out of my pocket and snap off some shots, feeling quite unprofessional peeping through the viewfinder of this tiny camera.

One shot made the front page!

Over at FM a guy was going to Iceland IIRC and while on one of the boats at the begining of the trip, a wave hit and soaked them all. His 200-400 Canon got waterlogged and destroyed. Couldn't use it the entire trip and Canon said it is a total loss.

Also back in the film days... I was stationed in Berlin, Germany, and we'd travel through Europe whenever we got the chance. I don't remember which trip it was, or what country, but my film wasn't on the cogs correctly and never advanced.

If at night you're crying over the missing sun, the tears won't let you see the stars.

LV Moose wrote in post #18084689
Also back in the film days... I was stationed in Berlin, Germany, and we'd travel through Europe whenever we got the chance. I don't remember which trip it was, or what country, but my film wasn't on the cogs correctly and never advanced.

This happened to me so many times that it was one of the big reasons I gave up shooting. I don't know what aspect of the loading technique I was missing. It seemed that I did the same thing every time, but sometimes it didn't work.

Yeah, it happened to me more than once, too. But on one sightseeing trip it had more of an impact, I guess.

Maybe my mistake was being timid about pulling too much film out of the cartridge, not wanting to waste a frame.

Not pulling out enough film would do it, but I must have made a different mistake. I remember trying to shove the end of the film firmly into the slot so the same thing wouldn't happen again. Then wrap around . . . failure sometimes resulted anyway.

I was going to say that digital is so much nicer in that respect. But now, one corrupted card could result in the loss of 1,000 shots, not just 24 or 36.