Come on, we all do. Share yours common mistakes when taking a picture. Let's learn from one another.
Here are mine:
• Shoot in manual mode, forget to check the camera settings.
For instance: at night i did long exposures. The morning after i pick the camera, shoot and boom: long exposure at daylight! Resulting in a white blown-out frame.
• Forget to focus in a picture when i think autofocus is ON. (lots of blurred unusable images!)
• Forget to balance the white. Typical: use tungsten balance at daylight. ARGH!
• Forget to set the aperture to a higher value when shooting landscape. Lots of not so well focused images at f3.5, haha. Crappy depht of field.
• Forget to check the exposure of the sky when shooting outdoors. Expose for a shadowed object, the sky turns out blown out white. And i usually only realize the mistake when i am back at home. That should be the time to do bracket photos!
Same thing happens with windows when indoors.
• Opposite situation: sky well exposed, primary object underexposed. When i forget the camera on automatic mode and it does the exposure the way it thinks its cool. (never is). I almost NEVER get a picture the way i want in automatic mode.
I use it when on a hurry only.
• When Autofocus is ON, but it gets crazy and focus on nothing!
• When Autofocus is ON but can't focus: you press the shutter and nothing happens! Moment lost, no picture registered. ARGH.
• When flash measure things it's own way and decides it should blown everything away with light! (try to measure your exposure by a guy wearing a black shirt to see what happens!)
Really: i can't keep track of how many pictures i lose everyday. I usually shoot about 150 images every photo walk. I get around 30 which are usable, 10 that i like and about 3 i like well enough to post here.
I am posting this because i NEED TO improve my ratings. I want to go out and come back with more photos correct at each time.
I rush myself when taking photos of people. I worry about annoying the subject if I don't get out of his/her way quickly. Rushing = crappy shots because I don't take time to think about light, composition, distracting backgrounds, etc.
Good to know that I'm not the only one who makes the same mistakes more than once.
I always forget to check how charged the battery is... I get about 10 minutes in and then it dies! Always ends in a wasted journey! I also forget to take the lens cap off, more often then I care to admit :P
all of the above - also taking a shot too quickly and not thinking about focus point, composition etc - come home look at it and get annoyed with myself as the picture could have been so much better
forget to take tripod
miss photo opps cause too tired, lazy or too cold outside
i took a nice walk to the lake by my house (not very far) and realized when i got there i forgot my memory card...had to walk back and get it....not a long walk, but, it was very very cold out
also forgot my memory card when i went to a photo class (luckily it was at a camera shop, so i had to quick go buy one)
oh, also forgot my memory card at my nephew's b-day party last year...but my dad had his so i took it...
i see a trend....
@mortisa yup. Also i am starting this discussion all because i went to a photo walk and the sun was to f**cking bright and all the outdoors photos came out like crap. ARGH. Wrong sun setting!
Leave my SD card in the laptop at home.
Lose my lens cap while out night shooting and drinking wine.
Bring the wrong frackin lens for whatever shoot I happen to be doing.
Tell myself I won't need my tripod. And then I need my tripod.
Bring too many lenses and then fret about which one I should be using, pretty much guaranteeing that I'm using the wrong one.
What's annoy me most is run out of battery. I used to shoot 80% with my Canon G11 which is handy and I carry almost every day. It stays in my bag, so I forget to check and replace with charged one. I just realize when I'm shooting. This just happened yesterday.
Forget to clean old pics and get memory full when you're in the middle of shooting site. Lost to much time to select and delete one by one. Have to carry spare memory.
Set the focus to manual and forget for a while, lost many chances.
All of the above... It's like golf when you first start out. Way too much to think about when you are over the ball. It will just take time and routines become automatic and the images get better and better and the ball goes straighter and further.
Main one? Thinking I won't need the camera so don't take it. It's when I see all the best shots!
Forget to change the ISO from the day before.
I read somewhere that people leave their camera at the end of the day on auto or on aperture setting so they can grab and shoot. I've never remembered to do it myself....
Forget to bracket, rely on in camera exposure meter, and ... mistake! I'm always back home when I find out.
All of the above. Plus, I forget to format my memory card once I take my photos off it (and back them up), meaning I have to sort through them all again the next time.
Oh wait. I remembered one of THE WORSE MISTAKES.
Accidentally erasing your memory card. Nothing is worse than erasing a good photo you had already taken.
letting other people use your camera at the same time as you, you forget which shots are yours and which are theirs. then you'll upload one later and they'll be angry about it saying "HEY! I took that picture!".. such a hassle.
my worst mistake to date is, going to a tourist spot here in LA, then I when I grabbed my camera, I found out that I forgot the Memory card in my laptop. wew.
I would FLIP if I accidentally erased a memory card!!!! :-O But so far for this challenge I'm only using my phone so luckily I don't have to remember a lot of things, I am rather forgetful! I always have it with me already so I'd say the most common thing I do is forgetting I had the zoom on...
I shoot in manual so I have a laundry list LOL:
not paying attention to my exposure when moving around
blowing out my sky/water(see above)
not moving my focus fast enough to keep up with the kids I am chasing
letting my battery get too low before recharge(funny, i do the same with my gas in the car)
does drinking one to many and forgetting that you wanted to take a ton of photos that night count? or drinking one too many and finding odd photos on your cell phone the next day count? Both happened to me in the same night. My biggest mistake is not setting up my tripod and thinking I am holding the camera steady enough for a still image.
oh my. As everyone else, I forget my memory card :/ it's a huge bummer since with three kiddies there's not much inclination to go back and get it, and if we are walking it's with a couple of big crazy dogs.
The reason I forget it is that with this years's project I dump my photos daily so the day's folder auto- creates. I plug the card in to either computer and well, out of sight out of mind!
But that's improving.
I often forget I was shooting differently before: high iso, continuous af (I'm no good with this!), repeating flash etc.
This is so refreshing... I've made and continue to make every single one of the mistakes mentioned and probably others I've forgotten. Rushing through shots of people is a big one for me too and I've got a long way to go to figure out this mysterious metering business. Thank you so much for sharing!
I just want to say thanks to everyone for making me feel right at home about all of the mistakes I make which are the same as yours. I though it was just me!
For those who stress about white balance and the occasional blow out try shooting in RAW - you can change the white balance in post and usually recover some of the highlights also.
@charlescellist@bmnorthernlight I'm thinking about trying RAW soon. How big a learning curve am I looking at here? I still have miles to go just shooting .jpegs!
I used to pull my hair out with the auto/manual focus problem (my lens is auto focus with manual overide now, so all good) and whitebalance problem (WB is now fixed by shooting in RAW).
But what i HATE is forgetting that i'm using spot metering and getting LOLWTF exposures (especially because i don't check my LCD aftershots very often).
@lesphoto Leslie, all you really need is adobe lightroom (or photoshop if you want to splash out a bit) to edit RAW files. Once you've played around with several photos, you quickly get the hang of it. there's also a lot of resources on the internet on how to edit RAW files (As well as people on 365 who are more than willing to help you) so don't feel intimidated.
Thanks for starting this discussion! As a beginner at photography this makes me feel not so lame. Other people even the more experienced still make the silly mistakes I make.
@lesphoto haha, be prepared to fill your hard disk with images.
Raw make much bigger files. But it's a must, specially for night photography. Every low-light situation. Try it.
I forget my memory card way too much. I always take it out and put it in my computer to play with pics, and forget to take it out. At least I always have my phone on my for back-up.
I work as a journalist and have lost count of the number of times I've looked through my viewfinder to find nothing but complete blackness and had an immediate reaction of feeling sick in my gut because I think my camera is broken, only to have the person I'm taking the photo of suggest it might help if I take my lens cap off......looks soooo professional......
@branwensmith hahaha, one time a model alughed at my face when i did that. I do that almost every day. See through the view finder first, take the lens cap later.
All is black in the view finder: "what the heck i did with my exposure??"
A feeling of rush to open the shutter, lower the aperture, highten the iso and then i remember the lens cap.
Whenever I use the camera on timer, I always for get to take it off again, so the next time I go to press the shutter for a regular photo, it's like :beep beep beep.....Dammit!
I am the queen of forgetting to change my settings, which is so aggravating when shooting manual. Also, I forget to meter when the light changes which seems to be constant around here where it is cloudy 1 minute and 2 pics later the sun has come back out, ugh!
I am sure timer has been mentioned, but here it is again. I do a lot of low light and macro so have the timer on a lot. I will almost always forget to reset and have missed many a quick shot; I cringe every time I hit that shutter release and hear the beeping... ugh!
i do this one ALL THE TIME!!
• Forget to focus in a picture when i think autofocus is ON. (lots of blurred unusable images!)
HATE THIS!!!! My camera does this all the time! i think its focused but it wont take the picture!!
•When Autofocus is ON but can't focus: you press the shutter and nothing happens! Moment lost, no picture registered. ARGH.
Taking shots the morning after the night before without even remotely remembering what I did the night before...ISO out, W/B out, and lots of really cool totally blown out shots. Must check camera before leaving house (my new mantra)
I forget to change my setting way to much...I only shoot in RAW these days but I am getting better at remembering to check.
I was taking photos a few months ago (of a castle) and I was perplexed as to why I had to have my shutter speed on 1/4000 to get any decent, none blown out shot...until i checked my ISO (1600 from the night before ;P )
I had to buy a new SD card last week as I went out without one :) @stuckinoz lolo done that!!!
@gabrielklee I do the "leave camera on manual mode" and blow out or under expose way too often - usually missing one of those 'amazing' moments that you just can't do over.
I have a problem with shooting crooked - think my head is on crooked - thank goodness for the straightening tool but then it crops my image.
Framing up a pic and not noticing a tree sprouting out of someone's head or a person in the background
Having camera on manual focus and thinking I have just not got contacts in properly = lots of blurred photos.
@gabrielklee forgetting to reset 1) the ISO, 2) the exposure compensation. I do it all the time and it drives me crazy - especially the ISO since it doesn't show up on the histogram. I took a bunch of waterfall pics with 20-30 second exposures last year... on ISO 400. Aaargh!
@ashpanelli I have stopped this problem (finally), I never reshut the little "door" where I took my card out when I put the card in the computer, that way you never forget to get the card when you grab the camera.
oh god... everything from forget to turn the camera on, to forget to reset the manual settings, forget to switch back to auto from manual focus, forget the card in the computer... you name it... the suckiest one is forget to thing to freakin' COMPOSE the shot... k'thunk k'thunk k'thunk (that would be me hitting my head against the desk)...
last week I drove 5 hours to take pictures of high school basketball teams and few minutes into the first game my camera died. I went to my bag irritated with myself for not putting my batteries in the camera. When I then discovered I had left all my batteries and charger @ home. Thankfully one of the parents works for the newspaper and happens to have a 7D.
I believe I have learned that lesson for good!
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- forget to charge the battery
- forget the camera
HAHAHAHAHAHA this is THE WORST!
Good to know that I'm not the only one who makes the same mistakes more than once.
forget to take tripod
miss photo opps cause too tired, lazy or too cold outside
also forgot my memory card when i went to a photo class (luckily it was at a camera shop, so i had to quick go buy one)
oh, also forgot my memory card at my nephew's b-day party last year...but my dad had his so i took it...
i see a trend....
Lose my lens cap while out night shooting and drinking wine.
Bring the wrong frackin lens for whatever shoot I happen to be doing.
Tell myself I won't need my tripod. And then I need my tripod.
Bring too many lenses and then fret about which one I should be using, pretty much guaranteeing that I'm using the wrong one.
Forget to clean old pics and get memory full when you're in the middle of shooting site. Lost to much time to select and delete one by one. Have to carry spare memory.
Set the focus to manual and forget for a while, lost many chances.
Forget to change the ISO from the day before.
I read somewhere that people leave their camera at the end of the day on auto or on aperture setting so they can grab and shoot. I've never remembered to do it myself....
Forget to bracket, rely on in camera exposure meter, and ... mistake! I'm always back home when I find out.
Accidentally erasing your memory card. Nothing is worse than erasing a good photo you had already taken.
not paying attention to my exposure when moving around
blowing out my sky/water(see above)
not moving my focus fast enough to keep up with the kids I am chasing
letting my battery get too low before recharge(funny, i do the same with my gas in the car)
The reason I forget it is that with this years's project I dump my photos daily so the day's folder auto- creates. I plug the card in to either computer and well, out of sight out of mind!
But that's improving.
I often forget I was shooting differently before: high iso, continuous af (I'm no good with this!), repeating flash etc.
Shooting in RAW has saved me a few times from the WB problem, but mostly I forget to change the ISO setting back...arrgh!
- Pick up camera
- Try to take "artistic" photograph
- Realise how bad it is
- Cry
But what i HATE is forgetting that i'm using spot metering and getting LOLWTF exposures (especially because i don't check my LCD aftershots very often).
@lesphoto Leslie, all you really need is adobe lightroom (or photoshop if you want to splash out a bit) to edit RAW files. Once you've played around with several photos, you quickly get the hang of it. there's also a lot of resources on the internet on how to edit RAW files (As well as people on 365 who are more than willing to help you) so don't feel intimidated.
Sometimes I forget to turn the camera ON
Raw make much bigger files. But it's a must, specially for night photography. Every low-light situation. Try it.
I'm glad I'm not the only one!!
All is black in the view finder: "what the heck i did with my exposure??"
A feeling of rush to open the shutter, lower the aperture, highten the iso and then i remember the lens cap.
• Forget to focus in a picture when i think autofocus is ON. (lots of blurred unusable images!)
HATE THIS!!!! My camera does this all the time! i think its focused but it wont take the picture!!
•When Autofocus is ON but can't focus: you press the shutter and nothing happens! Moment lost, no picture registered. ARGH.
I was taking photos a few months ago (of a castle) and I was perplexed as to why I had to have my shutter speed on 1/4000 to get any decent, none blown out shot...until i checked my ISO (1600 from the night before ;P )
I had to buy a new SD card last week as I went out without one :)
@stuckinoz lolo done that!!!
I have a problem with shooting crooked - think my head is on crooked - thank goodness for the straightening tool but then it crops my image.
Framing up a pic and not noticing a tree sprouting out of someone's head or a person in the background
Having camera on manual focus and thinking I have just not got contacts in properly = lots of blurred photos.
I believe I have learned that lesson for good!