The Missed Shot

Has anyone else ever had a great shot they missed?

I'm sure most photographers are haunted by that shot they almost had. Early yesterday morning I headed out for a video shoot before sunrise. I got to my destination and found that I had stumbled out to the spot at just the right moment. A tug boat was towing a giant industrial ship not more than 100 yards from me. The pre-sunrise sky had streaks of colorful clouds that formed a perfect backdrop to the scene, it looked almost surreal. It was still dark enough that the lights on the ship were also clearly visible. I set up my tripod, affixed my camera, looked through at the LCD screen and saw just a faint glow of light visible. What the Hell!

I checked to make sure I didn't leave a filter on the front of the lens...checked the aperture...changed lenses quickly wondering if maybe it had some type of malfunction...then it hit me...I was messing around trying to capture muzzle flashes with some extremely high shutter speeds a week ago. I usually leave my shutter speed at 50 since I shoot 24fps unless an odd situation calls for a higher shutter speed. It wasn't even on my radar because I never mess with it. By the time I remedied the problem and set up for the shot again the ship was a sliver on the horizon.

Lesson learned...check your equipment out BEFORE you go on a video shoot and be prepared to jump right into the fire. This would have been my highest priced video to date had I captured it...oh well!

Oh yeah, last week on a freelance run and gun shoot. Was shooting school kids visiting a nature reserve and caught great shot of the kids watching a big flock of egrets up close. Only problem was it appeared that when I was "buttoning on" I was indeed actually "buttoning off." So lots of footage of the ground and my trousers, none of the kids with the egrets...

A classic mistake to make duh!

aw man, that stinks! I notice you have a ton of great natural disaster videos, definitely don't need to be adjusting anything the moment the volcano blows or a tsunami hits!

I've had that same thing happen earthcut!!! When you get out of sync and think you are starting when you are actually stopping recording. worst feeling ever.

Haha yes Michael, luckily haven't missed any crazy shots yet whilst filming disasters. Filming lightning can be really annoying at times as I'm sure Vader would attest to!

Nah... I am so good at predicting the strikes that I have yet to miss one. ;)

It's the tin foil hat he wears during storms ... works every time.

one day I tested every video mode on my camera, from HD right down to SD, every quality setting. so I ended up on SD, 720x480, with the absolute lowest quality setting. next time I used the camera, it was to shoot a TV commercial. by the time I realized it was shooting the the low quality mode, I had already finished shooting the principal actor.

I do have a camera (SONY), a few of them, that allow you to push the record button after the event, and it will record 3 seconds before you push the button, since it stores the video in a buffer. I prefer to use this mode. so you push record when you see the event end, and hope it was less than 3 seconds.