Learn from my fail...

[ALwin]

There's this website group called the CheezBurger network which started with a shopped photo of a cat asking for cheeseburger "I can haz cheezburger" and one site in their network is called "Learn from my fail" where people share tips to avoid certain situations from their experiences.

I thought it would be nice to do something like that on DP forums where we can share our 'fails' so that others can take note and learn what to avoid.

I guess I'll start: "When doing portrait photography, never ever shoot in lighting conditions or under any light that you cannot control. It will be a pain in your rear trying to correct the white balance and skin tones."

Was doing staff portraits at my office for some colleagues and with all the rush I forgot to take into account the color of the office rooms' fluorescent lights and the late afternoon light coming in from the windows. I only factored in for the amount of light needed to get fast shutter speeds and avoid blurred images from camera shake. Now some shots need to be redone.

[Troy]

You can't NEVER take photos in lighting conditions you can't control, unless you're God and can control the sun.

I would say never to take on an event/party as a favour to a friend, especially when they think you are amazing because you have a 'big' camera.

[ALwin]

I had my speedlights and lightstands with me in my bag, but they were in such a rush I didn't get to even take them out. But it's only 3 people that I need to redo, the rest were alright, just a pain in my rear carefully adjusting the skin tones. The bright light from my SB900s would've 'overwritten' the light from the office fluorescent tubes.

And I agree, never cover events or parties for a friend unless they understand that you're only taking these photos for fun and not as actual 'work'.

[Troy]

I did take photos for my parents reunion not long ago, in an awful venue with no lights except the disco lights. They were expecting something excellent, but i didn't even have use of a speedlight, so nothing came out very well at all. I tried to warn them, but no.

[Rosie]

But on the plus side Troy did take some awesome photos from our work Christmas party last night - so you have learnt from your mistakes obviously!

Great post ALwin! Looking forward to more posts in this thread!

[Troy]

Well thank you Rosie. Hopefully there are enough good ones to please the big boss.

Oh and that D3x kinda helped.

[simon3116]

But on the plus side Troy did take some awesome photos from our work Christmas party last night - so you have learnt from your mistakes obviously!

Great post ALwin! Looking forward to more posts in this thread!

Why aren't these photos in the gallery?!!!!!!!!!!

[D Pentney]

I think this is a really, really, great concept for a thread! I could probably sit here all night recounting my 'fails' - no shortage there!!

I think the one that keeps coming round and stinging me in the backside is; if you have to change your settings beyond what you normally would during a shoot, put them back BEFORE you turn off your camera. This, for me includes; Going from RAW to a low res jpeg so I could hand a picture to my mum without having to play around with it and she could upload it easily. Forgetting I'd had my ISO up to 800, or changing the focus setting to auto instead of point. Well, probably loads - forgetting I'd been using manual focus recently caught me a cropper. The thing is, while you have the moment of realisation and give yourself a mental slap on the forehead and simply flick a switch, a lot of time the shot you had is gone. I keep my camera in my front room in case my kids do anything particularly entertaining and the amout of shots I've missed because I assumed the settings were my sort of personal defaults is just countless.. and actually, pretty stupid.

Agree with doing shoots as favours.. especially weddings!!

[ALwin]

Nice advice, and one that has happened to me quite a few times. Especially when doing low lights shots in the evening with high ISO that the next day I forgot to change it back and kept on shooting until afterwards I just slap my forehead and exclaim "Oh crap!"

So the tip is not only "remember to change back to your preferred default settings" but also "double/triple check again anyway before your next photo session".

(I just realized I forgot to reset my ISO settings, if you hadn't posted I would've forgot. )

[Egon159]

Excellent thread ALwin!!!! And I can see a trend already, remember to double/triple check your settings!!! My 'fail' falls into this category....sort of. I got asked by my Uncle to take some photos of beauty products his friend made for her website. I had everything arranged, my studio lights setup correctly and the camera set for the correct exposure and the products arranged nicely. So I started to snap away and I checked the images briefly on the LCD and everything was coming out fine. Excellent! Maybe not!!! It wasn't until right at the end after I had taken all of the images and downloaded them onto the laptop to get a proper look at them that I noticed something wrong! I hadn't taken the shutter speed of the camera into account and had it set at 1/250 instead of 1/200. All of the images had the shutter shadow right on the bottom!!!! I was absolutely gutted! And my uncles friend wasn't overly happy either I think. So to summarise, know your equipment and how it interacts together and double/triple check all of your settings!!!

[Troy]

But on the plus side Troy did take some awesome photos from our work Christmas party last night - so you have learnt from your mistakes obviously!

Great post ALwin! Looking forward to more posts in this thread!

Why aren't these photos in the gallery?!!!!!!!!!!

Well they are of the whole of Imagine Publishing, and most of the DP team were hiding from the camera!

[ALwin]

But on the plus side Troy did take some awesome photos from our work Christmas party last night - so you have learnt from your mistakes obviously!

Great post ALwin! Looking forward to more posts in this thread!

Why aren't these photos in the gallery?!!!!!!!!!!

Well they are of the whole of Imagine Publishing, and most of the DP team were hiding from the camera!

Hmm, this can be interpreted in two ways.
1) The DP team members are camera shy, which is unlikely since they are supposed to be members of Digital 'Photography' team
2) They know your skills as a photographer

[Troy]

Hmm, this can be interpreted in two ways.
1) The DP team members are camera shy, which is unlikely since they are supposed to be members of Digital 'Photography' team
2) They know your skills as a photographer

My skills are nothing short of incredible. Possibly though, like me, they are much more comfortable on the other side of the camera

[claireg]

I have a good fail! I didn't format my memory card once and was shooting for about 30 mins before i realised none of the images had recorded.

[Chris Humphreys]

Probably my biggest fail was organising my kit the night before a shoot only to realise on arrival that I'd been so organised I'd left all my memory cards neatly laid out on the side at home.....75 miles away.

That was a couple of years ago, needless to say I'm slightly paranoid about checking my kit now!