Your worst aviation photography day

[Calfo]

Well, mine was today - A nice and sunny, but cold fall morning I was thinking of going to the airport to photograph a helicopter that I though would maybe come in. Because I would have to bike to the airport, I decided not to go because it was cold. Later, around 10am, I hear this big roar coming from the airport - I race to my room to get my camera (I can see take-off/landings from my apartment), but by the time its pointing out the window, the aircraft is already getting smaller but I still take a photo to try and find out what type of aircraft it was - but its already to far away. A few minutes later, it comes back - but way up there. This time, I can clearly see the reg in the photo - CF-TCC!! Air Canada's 1937 Lockheed 10A Electra - and I miss a (would of been) very nice photo of it taking off in some very nice fall weather!

Nelson is not a busy airport + no scheduled flights = you never know when what is coming = frustration.

Now, around 12pm I see this helicopter coming in, and I don't have a photo of it yet. I race to the airport and there it is already taking off. When I try to take a photo, my camera doesn't want to. I try to find out what the problem is before the helicopters is gone, but I can't - I forgot my memory card on the computer. Now, I can't do anything than go back home.

Boohoohoo, bad day for me.

What was your worst day doing aviation photography?

[ExTrA]

Everytime I go to CYUL and that I take pictures with my crappy 4.0MP Canon Powershot A85. I'm always frustrated about how the shots I took are noisy and unsharp... If only I got a DSLR.

[NeilA330]

About last year for OASiS's first ever flight, we went to the airport, hazy as anything... The aircraft was delayed for over 12 hours, when it finally took off, my camera AF and the battery died, my LCD screen flickered...
Happens everytime something special comes, last time it happened was the last flight of the AC 345.

[ollieholmes]

Turning up at an airshow last year having forgotten to turn my iso down from 1600 from the night before and shooting the entire airshow at that. I only realised that on departures, and managed to get some corkers. But having to leave 800 photos due to a silly mistake was annoying.

[JordanD]

When one of the two (now one) airworthy Carvairs came to SDF in 2005 and I went on top of the parking garage to get it, then saw it going the other way, left the parking garage, then saw it go to the other runway I was just near. So frustrating hearing 4 radials thundering down the runway knowing you missed your chance to get a shot of such a rare plane.

[CPH Aviation]

I have ones rushed to the airport (EKCH) to catch some cargo plane only to find out that I left the batteri for the camera at home when I got there!

Soren

[B757300]

Ollie, I can relate to that. Yesterday at IAH I forgot to change a setting back from when I had been experimenting earlier in the week. The end result is out of all the pictures I took, the vast majority have come out in such a way I can't use them. I think around 8% or so are usable and probably 1/2 of that are uploadable.

Add to that I got a dang sunburn for my troubles.

[Kilroy1313]

The day when Mriya came to Luxembourg ...

... and I didn't have a valuable camera to take a picture.
Should have been in December 2002, when The Antonov came here to load some huge roller bearing.
I had the real chance to see it fly past my office: Wow, what an amazing sight, you want to forget all other planes at once, when you see this behemoth flying by!
[photoid=10657]

Should have been more or less this flight pictured here !

It flew away on the next morning; over my home! I live beyond the flight corridor to our national airport and from my attic I watch and picture the one and other plane passing by.
And more seldom I rush to my attic for a plane, but this time there was something unusual: the noise of the engines was special.
So I could watch it go up in the sky. - That was a great moment - but without a camera !
(to say I had a 3 million pixel camera with 35 mm fixed focus objective...)
Hope to see this plane again ! - After years of waiting I fulfilled my dream to get into a Lockheed C5 Galaxy - maybe one day... ?

[THU]

For me, one day in August 2005 at PEK. PB Air 767, Singapore 777-300 and Thai Airways International 747-400 'Dragon Boat' livery, none of which was visible on PEK for more than 3 times per year, were all there. But no pic was taken due to the pooooooooooooooooor and no more than 1000m RVR

[Harlequin67]

Nightmare

I was at the Kecksemet airshow in Hungary. Media pass sorted. Saturday afternoon comes around after taking 400 shots with my 20D I look into the eyepiece to be presented with bits of camera in pieces.

So I take the lens off and the whole focusing screen assembly has come apart. I am in Hungary, I live in London so I have no access to repair facilities. Luckily I had my old 300D as back-up, but to lose my 20D with a quarter of Saturday and the whole of Sunday to go was gutting.

However, I got some nice shots and found a location I could take some taxi shots with the 300D.

http://web01.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=6069928

Camera setting and wrong ISO nightmares I have aplenty!!

My view is it happens. We can not get every possible picture. We get the best we can.

[FlyingPhotog]

Once I wasted a trip to DFW when my D70 started acting up. There was a problem with the contacts on the lens mount. The body thought there was no lens attached. But the good news is I sent it back to Nikon and they sent me back a NEW D70S.

[z740]

Compared to y'all's bad days, mine are a walk through a nice park on a cool day with the one whom you find special. I probably just jinxed myself though.

-Chris

[tommyalf]

You guys have nothing on me....How about having your car impounded by SCPD for parking in a public parking lot at ISP to spot and then having to pay 100 bucks to get it back. Reason number 1 million why I have no desire to spot at ISP. Got my money back from Islip town and a letter of apology but any day you spot at ISP is your worst day of spotting.

[turbotraker]

Drove all the way from Manchester to Amsterdam, 18 hours later after being stuck in traffic near Rotterdam, we arrived at Schiphol. The light was fading badly by now. Managed to grab a few shots before we went for 'coffee' in the city. Did some 'window' shopping.

Drove all the way back to France to catch the tunnel train back, only to be accosted by French/UK customs. French customs were great, as for the UK customs ^%$$%*$£. Gave us the 3rd degree, why, how, who, when, what. Not beliving our trip to AMS, he demanded to see pictures. After showing him some 30 KLM pictures he asked me how can I prove its Schiphol?
We had to fumble around for car park/food receipts.

Needless to say we missed our train back to the UK. By now its approx 02.00am and the fog decends over mid UK, we crawl back into Manchester at around 7am and straight into bed.

Went to process my pictures in the evening and realised I forgot to check my camera settings from my previous outing...... out of 50 or so pictures, I have 3 uploadables.

[z740]

Drove all the way from Manchester to Amsterdam, 18 hours later after being stuck in traffic near Rotterdam, we arrived at Schiphol. The light was fading badly by now. Managed to grab a few shots before we went for 'coffee' in the city. Did some 'window' shopping.

Drove all the way back to France to catch the tunnel train back, only to be accosted by French/UK customs. French customs were great, as for the UK customs ^%$$%*$£. Gave us the 3rd degree, why, how, who, when, what. Not beliving our trip to AMS, he demanded to see pictures. After showing him some 30 KLM pictures he asked me how can I prove its Schiphol?
We had to fumble around for car park/food receipts.

Needless to say we missed our train back to the UK. By now its approx 02.00am and the fog decends over mid UK, we crawl back into Manchester at around 7am and straight into bed.

Went to process my pictures in the evening and realised I forgot to check my camera settings from my previous outing...... out of 50 or so pictures, I have 3 uploadables.

Sounds like you had a horrible trip. Hope you have better experiences in the future.

-Chris