Share your disaster stories

Last weekend I went to Cradle Mountain to try to shoot a particular scene. I had a vision of snow encrusted rocks in the foreground before a mountain covered in snow reflected in a still lake. My plan was to get some dawn light onto the snow. I rarely go to a place with such a premeditated shot in mind but I already have many alternative Cradle Mountain photos in my portfolio. When I arrived, most of the snow that had fallen a week ago had either melted on turned into ice. Over the first 2 days I struggled to make a decent shot. Either the clouds were not right or the wind caused waves in the water obliterating any reflection.

On the 2nd last morning of the trip things didn't look very promising. Thick cloud obscured the mountain which was invisible. Strong winds made the lake look more like the sea. I decided to climb one of the minor peaks in the area that I had not explored before. Snow started to fall during my climb. When I reached the plateau on top the snow was falling heavily & swirling around. I took quite a few photos then headed down for sunset. Halfway down my descent the lighting suddenly became very interesting. The clouds around the Cradle Mountain thinned to reveal it's substance. The last rays of the setting sun somehow penetrated through the heavy cloud & illuminated the thin tendrils of mist in front of the mountain turning it pink. I quickly pulled out my Canon 5D to set up. To my dismay, the LCD flickered & fizzled out & I was unable to get an exposure off. The phenomenon lasted maybe a minute. It was an awesome spectacle to witness but I was also disappointed. Never before had I so utterly failed to take advantage of such great lighting. It looked like the snow that had been stuck around my camera had melted while in my bag. The water had seeped into the camera & caused it to fail.

To add insult to injury, the next morning I woke to a windless dawn. Powdery snow was everywhere. I tried to get my 5D going but to no avail. I have not been able to even review the shots from my CF card since the trip. Ironically I recently stopped carrying around a spare body.

This has been the first time that a shoot has gone so spectacularly wrong for me. I thought I would start a 'tales of woe' thread.

Oh well, there's always next time. Please share some of your stories.

I don't have any specificly outstanding disasters to speak of, but I do have a series of disapointments which have taught me to be ready to revise my expectations as conditions change. A good example is the project I'm working on this year. I'm presently collecting a body of work in Frontenac Provincial Park which could take up to 2 years, all 4 seasons. The geology is very beautiful but extremely rugged and only accessable by canoe. So that means that you go prepared to camp and portage into some very remote country. Spare batteries, Epson P3000 hard drive, lenses ranging from 21mm to 600mm and a flash are a must.

This past weekend I was into Buck Lake for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Friday night was gorgeous! I portaged up to Slide Lake (no camping) for late day sun and came back to camp with some exquisite pictures. Saturday dawned magenta/red and Buck Lake looked like something enchanted ... again fabulous pictures but around 10AM it clouded over and began to rain. It rained hard all day and all night. This could have been a BIG disapointment but , in such a case I revised my expectations and went out looking for wild flowers and water lillies. They look gorgeous and saturated when wet. I also used my flash to add a bit of fill and contrast. The day was a smashing success but largely because I'm blessed to have an all magnesium, weather sealed body and lenses that can take this sort of thing and also stand up to the punishment they get being bounced around such rough terain. Never had a camera failure in all the years I've been doing this. I've stayed with the same brand both film and digital for almost 30 years.

Bob

I was doing a location shoot on an airport ramp, out among the planes. Because things were happening fast, I slung two cameras over my neck, one with a wide zoom and other with a midrange zoom. The plane I was working with started and turned to taxi straight away from me as arranged, and I needed to switch from the wide to the midrange quickly. I simply dropped the one camera to allow it to dangle as I reached for the other. Problem was, the wind blast from the departing plane had lifted the camera strap up and over my head. Cameras make really nasty noises when dropped from shoulder height onto asphalt! Surprisingly, it still worked and I was able to go on about my business.

Exactly a week later I climbed off a helicopter with the rotor still turning and ran to the side for a lift-off shot. Same blooming thing happened when I switched cameras! And the camera (same one in fact) still worked!

Now all my cameras wear extra long straps allowing me to slip my head and one arm through the strap so the camera hangs at waist level and to the side. Actually turns out to be a lot easier and more comfortable to manage, whether one camera or two. Highly recommended, both for safety and to save wear and tear on your body.

That is really sad to hear Kah - the 5D is one expensive body to replace. I hope you had insurance, but I'd be interested to hear what Canon has to say about this. I recently switch to the 5D, so I am keen to hear more about your particular story.

I myself never had any problem with my equipment, because I take extreme precaution to when handling my equipment - like ziploc bags when to store my camera incase it starts snowing or raining, etc.

I will probably miss a few things that happened, so here is an abridged version of my Minnesota trip a few years ago.

The north shore is about a day and a half away from central Ohio. I planned to leave after work and get past Chicago the first night. Well, I got on the road about an hour later than I intended. Not too bad, but it was going to be a long night. Around Elkhart, Indiana, I was in the left lane on the interstate, with a car on my right and the median on the left, and doing bout 75 at night. Uh oh, that piece of wood doesn't - thunk, thwap, crunch. It took out one of my tires.

The next day, I was able to get it fixed. Without thinking, I continued along my original route, which was the Dan Ryan through downtown Chicago. At noon. Bad plan. I made it to the west side of Chicago about 16 hours later than I intended.

After much driving, I made it to Deluth about 10:30 at night. Too late to pull into north shore campgrounds, which were still another 30-45 minutes north, so I look around in Deluth for a motel for the night. Well, it turns out that both universities have summer orientation then. There is not a room anywhere. I did briefly pull into the nudist colony, realized where I was and decided to go elsewhere. Even the indian casinos just south were full.

Okay, it is now 12:30 at night. I turn around and head down to Minneapolis. 2 am, I find myself in downtown St. Paul at a red light, looking around, trying to figure out what next. I am soon approached by a couple of lightly clad women. Hmm, a single male at 2 am, in a car, in one of the less than respectable nieghborhoods. WHERE'S THE INTERSTATE!!!!!

I eventually make it make to a northern suburb of Minneapolis (alone, I should add). It turns out that there is the annual midwest youth soccer championships that weekend. The only room I can find is $125 a night, and a smoking room. It is near 3 am, and it is someplace to sleep. I take it for the weekend.

The next day I check out the weather reports. 93 and not a cloud in the sky, for the entire week. NOOO!!!

Finally, Sunday afternoon, I pack up an head back to the North shore, find a campsite, settle in. I head down to the water that evening for some shooting. I bring my film bag instead of just a few rolls because I just want to shoot. I stand by the edge of the water, working the shoreline and then thwap, splash. Yep, the last few rolls of the orginal Velvia 50 will be making it to Niagara falls in a few centuries. I recovered most of it, though, but man, Lake Superior is cold, even up to the knees. I still have about 30 rolls of it left, if anyone wants it. I think it stayed dry.

Around Tuesday, the black flies showed up. In small numbers, they are tolerable, but we are talking hordes of hungry insects. One of the best sunsets I got that week took nearly 15 minutes to set up. Put down the tripod. Run away. Go back. Put down camera backpack. Run away. Go back. Open the camera bag. Run away. Repeat, repeat, repeat... Actually, the one thing that worked well, is that I was forced to stay to the end, just to get something nice, and nice it was.

Wednesday, very little shooting. I am in the shower, and the black flies have followed me there as well. A couple are biting low on the legs, then higher, then the knees, then the thighs, then the... Well, there are just some places you don't want to be bitten by them, especially since they can be really itchy.

Oh, and the weather reports are dead on. I think I saw 17 clouds all week and spent a far amount of it at least slightly dehydrated..

Saturday, it is time to leave. I wake up to a glorious sunrise. Great clouds, great color, overcast for the weekend. Why I am working that day job???? (I know, to pay for this trip). I shoot the sunrise, and get on the road. For pretty much the entire trip south, to around 70 east of Chicago, I am followed by this massive and black storm front. I've seen storm clouds at night that were brighter. It is moving about 70 mph, and so am I. When I stop for gas, I am overtaken by the clouds, and it takes about 30-40 miles to get back into something resembling daylight. I can see in my rear view mirror the lightning and cars passing me as I get on the road again are just drenched. This system produced several tornados.

I stop for dinner about 50 miles from Chicago and eat a mediocre meal and pay for it with my credit card. It takes a while for the card to return, to the point where I start looking for the manager to get it back.

The following Monday, after a bad day at work, I come home to a message on the answering maching from my credit card company. It turns out that I felt so sorry for those scantily clad women in St. Paul that I just had to buy $750 worth of clothing from one of the finest clothiers in Chicago. (Well, actually, I just had the purchase show up- I don't know what happened to the clothes).

One of these days, I'll go back up. Beautiful part of the country and great people, but the trip still remains fresh in my memory.

I was using my new tripod for the 2nd time about a month ago at Huntington Beach Pier. I didn't have the camera strap around my neck and was getting sonething from my backpack. the beach kind of slopes so a wave washed up and knocked my tripod and camera into the Pacific Ocean. I wasn't paying attention and din't realize that til about a minute later. The tripod fell over because I didn't tighten one of the screws enough.

camera vviewfinder worked properly maybe one out of the next four shoots. A week ago it started working again in Monterey, about the 3rd day into my current trip.

At the end of last year, I was out doing a sunset along the lake close to where I live. I set everything up ready to go and I notice a Coke bottle floating along at the edge of the lake. I leave the camera to go and remove the bottle from my shot.

At that moment a wind gust comes up and actually blows my camera over. All I heard was a big klunk on the rocks and I didn't like the sound of it. I turn back to see my D70s hugging a large rock! The 12-24 is surprisingly fine but the D70s body is cracked in a few places, ouch.

There is a happy ending, the insurance company payed for a replacement and that was a good excuse to upgrade to the D200. I still have a sick feeling in my stomach when I think about it.

Good luck with the 5D Kah.

Andre

Nothing so dramatic as expensive. While in Puerto Rico, a friend dragged my camera off of her table, where it smacked into the floor and crushed my new Nikkor Micro 105 VR. The filter saved the front element, but the autofocus is screwed. No worries! I have a spare 105! On my wife's camera, a D80 (my back up body). So she promptly drops this on the floor, and as it spills out of her unzipped camera bag, the camera slides all the way across the room to rest at my feet, taunting me. The front lens element is OK, but the focus ring won't turn.
Cost of one Nikkor Micro 105 VR = $800
Cost of two Nikkor Micro 105 VRs = $1600
Telling my wife I love her, it's only camera equipment, while jumping and screaming on the inside = who am I kidding..........

I've had two incidents where my camera needed repair due to "carelessness". The first was a film camera that fell off the tripod (yes, the camera WAS locked on!), lens down and smacked on the sidewalk about 3 feet down. The lens was okay, but it messed up the autofocus on the camera pretty good.

The second was about 6 weeks ago while on location doing a commercial shoot . After the last days' shoot, I took my three month old K10D off my shoulder to place on the table and on a gentle downward swing the LCD screen smacked into the corner of said table, producing a very sickening sound! Cracked the screen really good, sent the camera in for repair after I came back home. Thank goodness for a backup camera! I just got the camera back today ( YESSSSSS!! ) at a cost of about $300.

The upside is that my insurance covered every penny of that bill!

These are all pretty good, but Dan, I have to say yours had me going. Been there, done that with black flies and some of those other mishaps, not to mention you were in my back yard.

Thanks for sharing guys. I should point out this 5D was the one drenched in seawater a year ago that the lab stated was beyond salvage. Yet it has given me a year of solid use since. I suspect it was a combination of the melted snow getting onto the corroded circuits. When the camera feels hot & you smell smoke in a snow storm, you know the camera is in serious trouble. On a happier note I have replaced the body. And on the day I picked up my reserved 5D, the shop called to say the price had gone down $400 that morning! I used it to buy insurance. Brian I can certainly sympathize with you. Winnie can't take a trick handling cameras. I can't remember how many times I have seen her drop gear with a sickening thud or looked up to see the camera lens end in the ground after toppling over. Curiously she has never broken anything.

I used it to buy insurance....

Now THAT was your best move!!