Your worst aviation photography day

[Amsspot]

My worst aviation day ever was at Toulouse Blagnac one year ago.

On our way back from Spain to the Netherlands we decided to have a one night stay in Toulouse to see some A380s fly and to do the Airbus A380 tour.

We arrived at Blagnac just 30 minutes before the tour started so we went straight to Taxiway (the company who offers the Airbus tours). Since it is not allowed to take your camera with you on the tour I had to leave it in the car. I still had some photos on my CF from the previous day so I removed the Compact Flash from my camera and put in my pocket.

The tour was a disapointment so I was glad that we still had some time left to do some airplane spotting around the airport after the tour. We went to one of the most famous spotting places at the airport. We just arrived at the location when I heard an airplane coming in. I couldn't see it until the very last second because of all the trees.

IT WAS THE A380 and at the moment I saw it flying by I noticed that I had forgotten to put my CF back into my camera. I was so annoyed! My dad was just able to stop me from throwing my camera on the ground.

I didn't see any other A380s the rest of the day and the following day we had to go further towards Paris.

[ecapdeville]

My worst day was when I went to use for the first time my 70-200 2.8L in combination with my new 40D, I had a great feeling that it was going to be a great day with thousands of almost ready JPnet deserved photos...

Well... the day got terrible, with big clouds and no light...and since it was the first time I had the camera and the lens I started to understand the way it worked...the sun never came in, took 16Gb of pictures, went home just to see that just a few pics were good (almost any pic were dark and noisy), rescued 10 or maybe 20 pics, fixed them and then put almost 15 in queue...just to notice that in the end I messed with the Color Setting profile and all of them were green!

After all the expectation and number of pics taken I obtained 1 (one) picture acepted and a cascade of rejected pictures wich altered the quantity of new photos to upload.

What a day!

[B7772ADL]

My worst day was when I went to use for the first time my 70-200 2.8L in combination with my new 40D, I had a great feeling that it was going to be a great day with thousands of almost ready JPnet deserved photos...


What a day!

The number of times i've seen a photog use great kit but come out with a huge number of rubbish photos is countless. Never rely on the kit to create the outcome as it wont unless you use it correctly or in the right conditions. No camera will perform miracles in dark, cloudy weather.

[wrxflyer]

Booking a low-cost flight to Geneva, weeks in advance, for a day of spotting over there.

Leaving Amsterdam in the early morning, after checking the weather forecast and discover that 99% of the European continent was in perfect mid-winter weather with clear blue skies.
After 75min of flying over a frozen, but sunny continent, we arrived in Geneva.................with NO visibility!!!!.
Just here, and nowhere else in Europe, was bad fog.
One day of spotting and €100 down the drain.

Execpt of that I had a nice day with my fiend Alex , but for spotting it was a dissaster.

Freek

[Rtyrpics]

My worst day spotting, after traveling half way across England having train staff in my face and being abusive I thought the trip would smooth out with some nice Ryanair shots from Stansted what a fiasco that was.

From my friends house to London Stansted is a 90 minute drive so up at 3:30am to get the early flights we arrived just as the first planes were departing looking good so far were it not for the fact the whole spotting location was in backlit conditions after a hurried discussion me and my friend choose the 90 mile drive to London Heathrow so my 10 am we'd done 150 miles and not taken one decent photo and this wasn't about to change at London Heathrow. After 5 hours merrily shooting just the registrations of the aircraft we choose to have a little walk to try and find somewhere to shoot a decent photo from this failed spectacularly.

I then came home after taking 8gb worth of pictures none of which were remotely JP standard so, Ł23, for train tickets with next day delivery a required addition purchase a bad nights sleep and my friends little brother on Thursday afternoon it seemed to me that it couldn't get any worse and shock of shock horror it didn't, no photos a massive headache, a bad back and sleep deficiency for absolutely nothing at all.

Ryan

[v1images]

21 hours in LAX....all day it was muggy with no good light, go back to the airport to fly back to LHR and the sun comes out with the hills visible....thank's a lot mother nature!

[B7772ADL]

21 hours in LAX....all day it was muggy with no good light, go back to the airport to fly back to LHR and the sun comes out with the hills visible....thank's a lot mother nature!

I remember that well...sitting there with a Corona in the lounge and the sun suddenly makes an appearance!

[brianw999]

Absolutely nothing to do with weather...

...time of day...

...camera settings...

etc.

Have you ever got up, on a whim after a good shooting day the previous day, grabbed just the one camera because you know you only need the one lens, rather than the bag with all the accessories including spare SD cards, gone off to a far flung airfield to shoot some new shots....

Only to find that, on arrival....

The 8 GB SD card from yesterday, from this camera is still sitting in the card reader plugged into the computer at home ?



I f*****g well have !!!

[PMN]

I usually try not to be too disappointed with photography trips if all doesn't go ideally. I tend to just take it as it comes, but one particular time I was a little disappointed was a few months ago. I was touring Japan with the band I mix and we had a day off in Sapporo, so off I trundled up to New Chitose airport hoping for some viewing deck action. The weather looked a little murky on the way up there and on arrival at the airport it was even worse. Not only that, I was about 5 days early for the viewing deck to be open (it closes through winter). As I stood in the terminal looking out from what as far as terminal views are concerned a superb place to view, I saw both Pokémon 747's at the same time. Weather being what it was and shooting through glass, this was the best I could get...



Not happy!

Paul

[G-BNLE]

I was finally at the airport waiting in the Domestic terminal for my flight to Cairns, happily perched next to a big window with a great view of the main runway. Sat there for a good half an hour waiting for something big, my camera at the ready. I decided to quickly delete an old photo still on the camera when the United 744 in the blue colours came streaming past and landed straight in front of me, perfectly.
*Sigh*
Just my luck.

[twr75]

Slid down a muddy embankment at MAN. Spent the rest of the day with mud down the back of my jeans and cleaning the mud out my camera that was in my hands at the time...

[ihatemondays]

Worst moment:

Back in the days of C-5 operations out of Rhein-Main (EDDF) Airbase, there was a C-5 with a gear failure (One of the bogeys had not rotated to right direction) which made 3(!) attempts to land. On number one, they just made a missed approach, but right in that moment, the memory card went full and I could not find the spare. Second attempt was a last-second go-around, but then the Autofocus could not decide what to do and the camera displayed an error message. Since the camera was new by then, I spent too long solving the problem (De- and Reattaching the lens, hard reset by camera battery removal). On third attempt, all went well and the C- touched down smoothly, but by then it was "just another C-5".

Best moment:

Spotting on EDDF's T-1 terrace a few years ago, an airport official came out and waved around some envelopes for interested people who were quick to react. I got myself the big Lufthansa/FRAPORT tour FOR FREE that way, including Simulators (flightdeck/cabin), Maintenance/Repair facilities, visiting several cockpits, Baggage sorting, the long bus tour on the apron...

[Richard M. A. Wood]

Rain,rain and more rain

It was in late March, I drove 180 miles from home to MIA. On my way there I could see the t'storm clouds brewing. Got ther and it was pouring rain. Got together with R. Collazo and all we could do talk about taking shots. Dead day at MIA traffic wise and rain. Left there late in the evening for the 3 hour drive back home without a single picture.