That’s key for getting the plug-holder to obtain a more guaranteed solid connection with the base plate. Forces them to relay back to you when they have successfully removed the conn while also describing it and its condition, and allows you to say: oh good, now go ahead’n jam that all the way into the base plate…
Turned on the lights and looked at beautiful film wound on a glistening chrome spiral before realizing I’m not supposed to be looking at undeveloped film. Its supposed to be in the tank when I turn the lights on…
Was important shots taken in a faraway country…
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I spent five hours last night trying to work out how I’d managed to mess up my RawTherapee processing profiles. I was about to throw myself down the stairs when I noticed the name of the file I was working on — to cut a long story short, the photo I was editing went all soft and blury; turned out I’d selected the wrong one: instead of loading up the one I was working on , I’d somehow managed to select the previous shot that was out of focus!
If I’d zoomed in, I would have realised - sometimes there’s a real use for pixel peeping!
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After coming home from a high speed car rally with my camera gear backpack full of dust (exaggeration) I carefully unloaded all the gear, cleaned it and put it away.
Feeling kind of impatient I decided that the best way to clean the the bag would be to take it outside and hose it out with the garden hose!
Halfway through I thought, “this is a heavy bag… Even though it’s empty… Isn’t it?” Turned out my small 12in laptop was still inside. And wet!
I would have taken the battery out but it’s hard on this one so just made sure it was fully powered off left as near to the heater as seemed safe. 2 days later I tried it and it worked fine, except for lots of mottled marks in the screen - now 6 days after it’s almost back to usual…
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I bought a Canon EF 24-105 f/4 L IS USM just to sell it a few years later, shortly before going on a trip to Scotland, because I thought I’m better with the Canon EF 28-80 f/3.5-5.6 (from 1991!) I had also lying around. Well - turned out that the 24-105 was not only the better lens in terms of optical quality (d’oh) and build quality but also the focal length range is better suited for travel.
I felt stupid for the whole two weeks on the trip and even more stupid when looking at the images back home
I’m still not completely sure why I sold the lens in the first place, but back then I thought I need a lighter setup. Turned out, I should have sold the 5D mkii instead - because in comparison to the RP I have now, it is a heavy beast of a camera… It wasn’t the lens I should have worried about.
So lesson learned: When thinking about reducing weight of a setup, consider both camera and lens.
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Not photography but (telescope) optic-related nonetheless…
I was at a “star party” (amateur astronomy event) and I was trying to drift-align the equatorial tracking platform under my 14.5" f/4.5 telescope. It’s the circular device under the scope in this photo:
It’s an iterative process of 1) align on a star, 2) observe drift, 3) adjust the platform alignment relative to polar north and 4) repeat – For a star in the south, then again for one in the east (to adjust both azimuth and altitude of the platform’s polar axis). In the real world, it means kneeling in the dark (with a dim red light), adjusting tilt screws, lifting, pulling and heaving on the 120 lb. weight of the telescope, etc. I.e., not just a quick process.
After almost an hour of uncharacteristically random and illogically poor results I finally realized I was trying to observe the platform’s tracking process… with its power turned off.
Duhhh…
I got so frustrated I just went back to my room and pouted for a while. 
Once I got over being mad, I came back out to the field, turned the platform power on and was done in about ten minutes.
Sad but true.
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That’s even better than the story about the hapless suit calling IT because “I deleted the internet” (meaning they accidentally deleted their desktop browser icon) to which the response is “So that was you!”
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I probably did the stupidest thing ever the other day: I contacted the Fujifilm repair center and asked them if they could send me a replacement part! I’m such an idiot! — they’re a repair center, not a parts supplier! They very kindly offered to fit one for £156, but I’d already ordered one from ebay for £4.50. Boy, do I have egg on my face!
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Height of drop does not equal the amount of damage done.
Had one of those early Nikon AF lenses, a 50/1.4 and at home it bounced onto my desk, maybe 10cm. From that moment on the AF was really really slow because the metal of the lens got bent - this can’t happen to lenses made of plastic, lesson learned: plastic is good.
Anyway, it did not bother me, because the extra stiffness worked fine with my FM2.
Some months go by, I’m with a friend in Vienna, Graben … we sit on some stairs, have lunch, my backpack falls over and the 50/1,4 bounces down all the stairs to the street.
“Well, I’ll guess the AF should work correctly now” were my words with a hiss of sarcasm.
We walked into a photo shop, they still existed back then, asked for a Nikon camera with autofocus to test the lens and sure, it worked perfectly. Would I recommend this procedure of repair? Not really.
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Not really photo related, but I was at least developing an image
when I reached out to grab a 0.5mm mechanical pencil with my right
hand. Automatically I clicked it twice to advance the lead.
Instant pain! I forgot to ensure that my thumb was resting on
the advance button at the back of the mech pencil — I pressed
at the tip, and now my thumb sports an 0.5mm black crater.
Grumpf.
It could have been worse, though. It could have been an 0.2mm
mech pencil — and that would surely have gone through my thumb.
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Long, long ago I was in a woodwork class in school, sawing a piece of wood while talking to another pupil. As I pulled the saw back from the cut, I realised that the edge was bloody.
They took me to the school nurse and the deputy headmaster came in to see what was happening. The nurse had to attend to him too, as he nearly fainted.
I still bear the faint white scar, decades later.
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Back in 7th grade (13 years old) the Duncan yoyo craze was in full swing. I was using a sharp pencil to try and loosen the tightly wrapped string from around the shaft of my prized Butterfly yoyo. Under considerable (and ill-advised) pressure it slipped. I bore a dark grey spot on / in the middle of my left thumb muscle for several years. Not hugely painful – no medical attention given – but it lasted quite a while.
Been there… In the late 70s I had a friend’s brother’s “lock” blade knife fail to lock under pressure. I still have a slight “valley” in my right thumb to remind me of it.
OT, but I had to upvote your comment for using the correct word. Pupils aren’t “students”, America!
Pupils aren’t “students”
Ho-hum. Me [innocently]: that depends on where you live :-)))
Ah okay. I thought it depends more on when you lived.
Of course not
Why should you be?
This just in:
Earlier today, I decided to merge my Virtualbox snapshots as I needed the space.
On the first attempt, I corrupted the VM. I had to delete it and copy the whole lot over from a backup — which took 2 hours!
On the second attempt, I deleted one too many snapshots — which basically meant I spent 4 hours deleting… well… everything! I had to copy the whole lot over from a backup again, which took another two hours!
On the third attempt, I somehow manged to repeat exactly the same mistake as my second attempt!
I’m now – after 14 hours! — on my fourth attempt.
At least this is a good example of why one should always make backups!
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