Now you know why you have duplicates/backups of everything. Even little cords and such. It is not uncommon if you shoot lots of weddings, to have some little glitches here and there. The backups let you get by them smoothly and without giving yourself a heart attack.
I look forward to seeing some of the images you took. -- Best regards, Bruce Monday, March 9, 2009, 12:17:08 AM, you wrote: JC> Just got back from shooting my first wedding. Holy crap, that was hard JC> work, and I probably had it easy since I knew most of the important people. JC> It was surprisingly fun, though. :) JC> Anyway, my weekend could have been completely ruined, however, had two JC> random problems not somehow solved themselves. JC> First, when I got to the wedding site (a *beautiful* place called Monte JC> Verde Inn (monteverdeinn.net) in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada JC> mountains), I was getting my K10D and DA*16-50 ready when suddenly IT WOULD JC> NOT ZOOM. JC> "HOLY SHIT, I'M FUCKED," was all I could think. I had other lenses, but JC> nothing like that one. JC> The lens was stuck at about 19mm, and wouldn't budge. I dismounted and JC> mounted it several times, knocked on the sides, played with the focus ring JC> and aperture lever, nothing would make it move. Then, to make the lens JC> easier to handle, I went to take the lens hood off. Apparently that little JC> bit of torque on the front of the lens caused the zoom to unlock, and the JC> problem went away as suddenly as it had arrived. My heart was racing for a JC> while afterwards, though. I know any decent professional photographer has JC> backup cameras and lenses, but I just can't afford that (plus I was doing JC> this for free, so there was no hope of making any money later to pay for a JC> replacement if I had to run out and buy something). It made me even more JC> nervous than I already had been (that is to say, considerably!). JC> Not an hour later, as we were walking around the grounds after rehearsal, I JC> half-pressed the shutter release to wake up the camera and heard a rattling JC> noise from my flash. The zoom gearing in my AF540FGZ had decided to JC> impersonate a machine gun rather than work the zoom. Now, this wouldn't JC> have been insurmountable, since it still fired and I did have a backup flash JC> (an old one, but it works), but it was still another OH SHIT moment. Again JC> I played with the stubborn bit of equipment, and again the problem went away JC> on its own. JC> I don't know what the heck was going on with my equipment, but it all worked JC> in the end (I have 802 photos to prove it (would have shot more if I'd JC> bought better batteries for my flash. recycle rates were pretty awful)). JC> Many thanks to everyone who offered advice and let me look at their photos, JC> and big thanks to Nate, boyfriend of one of the bridesmaids, who brought his JC> good camera equipment and became my backup (he saved my behind two times, JC> and tooks hundreds of photos too). While I don't think I'm good enough to JC> do this for a living (or even half a living), I think this might be a good JC> way to make a few extra bucks from time to time. I just have to figure out JC> how much my work is worth, which will be difficult (as you can see from the JC> preceeding sentence, my self-confidence in this matter is low), and then JC> just get my name out there. JC> I know they won't all go like today's went, but it's something I can do JC> reasonably well. Might as well get paid for it. :) JC> John JC> -- JC> http://www.neovenator.com JC> http://www.cafepress.com/calemp JC> http://www.cafepress.com/neovenatorphoto JC> -- JC> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List JC> [email protected] JC> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net JC> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
