Ever make a rip roaring buffoon of yourself when buying new gear as a beginner?

ShooterMcGavin

ShooterMcGavin

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Screenshot 2024-01-29 204659.jpgStill learning the ropes, and just received my latest body upgrade, a cheeky Nikon D810 earlier this evening. Was all excited about the unboxing to the extent I insisted my wife and thirteen year old son witness the glorious occasion. Woe was me to promptly discover the viewfinder appeared to have a big dirty crack running through it and was completely dead. Within seconds I was having a suitably miffed webchat with the good people at the usually reliable MBP, who had sold me the gear with the condition listed as "good" which this most certainly was not. I even sent a phone pic (see left) to the customer service guy, showing the damaged viewfinder, and he promised to get right on the case with the returns team and sort me with a replacement, as there had clearly been some heinous distaster while my camera was en route to me.

2 minutes later I was fiddling with that funny wee switch, like right next to the viewfinder, and to my surpise the "crack" magically slid out of view. Turns out this is a nifty wee feature of the D810 which I didn't know about. Another rather embarrassed webchat ensued, with me admitting my faux pas and asking MBP to cancel the returns process. Then nearly contacted them again five minutes later as though I could see through the viewfinder now, everything was blurry. Raging. About 2 minutes on Youtube showed me how to adjust the diopter focus with the other wee dial, and all is well with the world. :LOL:

So yeah. got a Nokia D810. Yay!

Give us your best rookie moment of dumbassery, and make me feel less of an idiot. :LOL:
 
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Welcome to the club. To paraphrase an old pilot saying, there are those who have done it and those who will. Simples.
 
Well, nothing quite like that. Although, I recently picked up a Zorki 4k and was mighty impressed by the split screen focussing. But then it went all blurry. It took me a while to work out that the little lever on the top was for the diopter. :p
 
You wait until you want to unscrew the eyecup for some reason and you find it won't move. Those cunning engineers at Nikon made it so you have to close the cover before it will turn.(Unless you have a good reason to take off the eye cup, don't go messing with it. It will just start falling off.)
 
I suppose the modern equivalent off rtfm is wtfy (watch the fkn YouTube)?
 
ShooterMcGavin said:
I'm guessing that means read the fkn manual?
Yeah right. Like that's ever gonna happen Have you seen the manual for the D810? I've seen skinnier bibles.
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New systems get the "bog book" treatment - the manual sits beside the karzi until I've read it all! That's after sitting for a while with the manual open at the "Getting Started" page until I'm reasonably confident of switching the thing on and taking a shot at the settings I want.
 
I was about to post the same
If a week goes by when I’ve not been a tit at least once, it’s worthy of celebration
 
A whole week? I reckon an hour's doing well for me!!!
 
I had to get a different diaoptic lens ( because of my eyesight) for mine, but I did keep the original DK lens so if I ever sold my D810 it can be swapped back. this ment unscrewing the eyecup and removing steel ring to get to the actual lens. Not hard to do but pays to remember which way around parts go.

best book is this about £10 on ebay with 576 pages , well worth getting. I own a copy

P1060195a.jpg
 
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My most major gaff to date was going out for a photo session while completely forgetting the memory card that was still safely ensconced my computer at home.

Also, my son and I went on a motorcycling and photography trip to Wales once and he forgot to put the battery back in his Nikon before he came away.
 
Nod said:
That's after sitting for a while with the manual open
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This bit took a couple of reads before I realised what you actually meant.
 
To to be honest, It doesn't look like a crack to me. It could have been cleaned a little before sending it out to you.
 
thatis no crack, that is the shutter closed behind the eye piece, use the little lever to open it
 
Another rookie mistake with a D810..... When I got my D810 last year the first few shots I fired off had a mix of over, under and perfect exposures...... The previous owner had been using bracketing and when i got it I'd forgotten to do a factory reset on it!!!

I agree about David Busch's book...... a great read....
 
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ShinySideUp said:
My most major gaff to date was going out for a photo session while completely forgetting the memory card that was still safely ensconced my computer at home.

Also, my son and I went on a motorcycling and photography trip to Wales once and he forgot to put the battery back in his Nikon before he came away.
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That's nothing. I went on a photo-shoot to set up a 'smoke and fire' project photo. An 'installation' you could call it. Drove half-an-hour, walked another half-hour to site, got out the 70-page report I had written about the issue on the situation there, got out the matches to ceremoniously burn the report (for the smoke and fire), got out my tripod, got the remote control out.
Left the camera at home......
 
My first SLR, a FUJICA ST605, secondhand from a local camera shop (1970s). No manual with it. Couldn't find a release to open the back. Took me nearly two days to work out that I needed to pull up the rewind knob to release the latch. Twas a common thing back then but this idiot had no idea.
 
ShinySideUp said:
My most major gaff to date was going out for a photo session while completely forgetting the memory card that was still safely ensconced my computer at home.

Also, my son and I went on a motorcycling and photography trip to Wales once and he forgot to put the battery back in his Nikon before he came away.
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At a guess, 90+% of us have done both, with the percentage rising to 99% for one or the other!!!
 
We've all done it.
I got back into LF last summer.
My Linhof arrived in a huge box fully assembled.
I hurriedly mounted it on my tripod only to find the lens shutter would not open.
I was straight on the phone to the dealer wearing my angry hat.
He calmly suggested I remove the lens cap.
I lost it at that point and shouted "Do you think I'm an idiot, that's the first thing I did?"
He replied, "The rear lens cap"

Ground swallow me up!
 
I think I have told this story before, but for those who joined recently and missed it

When I had my own business I took time out with my manageress to visit bird of prey centres. On one of these trips we were having a coffee break in their small cafe, at the next table a middle aged couple sat down. Well this guy was having a right go at is wife saying that the day before he should have purchased a Canon camera not a Nikon as his wife suggested. This Nikon doesn't work
His voice was loud enough so everyone could hear, so my manageress lent over to offer to help saying that I used nikon which she borrowed somtimes being a Canon owner herself. He gave the camera to her and she asked for the battery so she could turn it on. "BATTERY?" he said. Turning to his wife he shouted at her "you never told me about it needing a battery!!! so my manageress gave him back the camera and he stormed out of the cafe with his wife trailing behind.
of course everyone in the cafe had a good laugh over the episode
 
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Even when you think you know what you are doing design changes can catch you out.
I've had 3 A series Sonys so know them inside out, then I bought an FX30 and couldn't initially work out how to ... Open the flap to charge it.
Well it is similar but not quite the same.
The card door also operates slightly differently so once open it seems like it won't stay closed when sony muscle memory tries to work it.
 
realspeed said:
I think I have told this story before, but for those who joined recently and missed it

When I had my own business I took time out with my manageress to visit bird of prey centres. On one of these trips we were having a coffee break in their small cafe, at the next table a middle aged couple sat down. Well this guy was having a right go at is wife saying that the day before he should have purchased a Canon camera not a Nikon as his wife suggested. This Nikon doesn't work
His voice was loud enough so everyone could hear, so my manageress lent over to offer to help saying that I used nikon which she borrowed somtimes being a Canon owner herself. He gave the camera to her and she asked for the battery so she could turn it on. "BATTERY?" he said. Turning to his wife he shouted at her "you never told me about it needing a battery!!! so my manageress gave him back the camera and he stormed out of the cafe with his wife trailing behind.
of course everyone in the cafe had a good laugh over the episode
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He doesn't sound like he was a very nice man, I think his wife would have done better shoving the camera 'where the sun don't shine'.
 
It never ceases to amaze me how we get these ideas in our head and can be so wrong.
 
realspeed said:
I think I have told this story before, but for those who joined recently and missed it

When I had my own business I took time out with my manageress to visit bird of prey centres. On one of these trips we were having a coffee break in their small cafe, at the next table a middle aged couple sat down. Well this guy was having a right go at is wife saying that the day before he should have purchased a Canon camera not a Nikon as his wife suggested. This Nikon doesn't work
His voice was loud enough so everyone could hear, so my manageress lent over to offer to help saying that I used nikon which she borrowed somtimes being a Canon owner herself. He gave the camera to her and she asked for the battery so she could turn it on. "BATTERY?" he said. Turning to his wife he shouted at her "you never told me about it needing a battery!!! so my manageress gave him back the camera and he stormed out of the cafe with his wife trailing behind.
of course everyone in the cafe had a good laugh over the episode
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I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't have a memory card either.
 
ShooterMcGavin said:
Give us your best rookie moment of dumbassery, and make me feel less of an idiot. :LOL:
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Buying a Voigtlander Bessa R3M. Marvelling at it's 1:1 viewfinder. Head down to London on a train for the day. Load up my first roll of film and start getting to grips with zone focus and shooting with both eyes open. And the moment when, about 24 frames into the roll, looking at the lens. Well, more specifically, the lens cap still firmly clamped in place hiding behind the lens hood.
 
Spirit Vision Photography said:
And, while in your completely dark bathroom, loading B/W infrared film into your camera, do not drop the roll of film into the cat litterbox. You will have to locate it using the braille method. :-O
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At least nobody would have seen.
 
Oh yes, the darkroom.
Those that have done it will know that loading film to a spool can be a bit fiddly...I used to practice with a length of old film keeping my eyes closed.
First roll of exposed film all set up and chemicals ready, entered dark room, loaded film, opened eyes...forgot to switch light off! :oops: :$
 
I recently complained to a photo lab about nasty black lines on my negative scans whcih must have been in the scanning process. Magically they disappeared after I wipped the laptop screen.
Often I make errors and not just about photography and so for this reasonI have a wife. I take things back to stores as "the wife didn't like it" "she ordered the wrong thing" or "gave me the wrong dimentions" etc. I'm not married. Also handy for "I'll have to go home and check with the wife before I buy somthing like that".

For many years many years ago I worked in various camera shops. I can tell you it is not the "beginner" that makes a buffon of themselves. Common errors from the experianced user brigae are batteries in the worng way. Not turning it on. Dioptor correction not set correctly, some of these have been self reported above so no need to feel bad.

There are many other ways people get things wrong however there are two groups who deserve special attention.

When a customer quickly states "I am a professional photogrpaher" you can be sure of two things. He sometimes shoots weddings at the weekend or similar and he (always a he) is about to say somthing dumb. I have met countless pro togs over the years not one of whome has ever said "I'm a pro" at the start of a conversation.
The other group will start a conversation with "I'm having a problem with my... it hasn't been dropped"
 
I custom map a button on the front of my camera to switch to Log profile video immediately to save me routing through menus when I want to shoot video. I didn't realise I'd clicked accidentally pushed this after attaching a newly purchased lens to my camera.

Cue a panicked me, drastically checking why my expensive new lens was producing such a dull and flat image. Took at least 5 minutes for it too click. Idiot.
 
Decided to try BBF on one of my cameras, then didn't use it for several months.
Forgot I'd changed the setup when I did next pick it up, and just couldn't figure out why the AF suddenly wasn't working..... :headbang:
 
Driving 40 minutes out into the countryside only to realise I left the memory cards behind
 
Set the camera to be perfect for 120fps slow motion. To cover a pre event activity. That meant smaller images.

Went to the opening ceremony.

Ended up with a load of tiny photos of the main stuff. No amount of Basil Fawlty digging around in the memory card made any difference :(
 
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