have you ever had camera fail in field?

Qarik

The standard advice is to have 2 camera bodies on any paid shoots in case one goes down. To preface this, I agree. But what are the real numbers behind it? How many paid sessions or event have you done and how many field failures have you experienced? (of course 2 cameras also allows you the freedom of having two lens at ready..I have to point this out because if I don't, SOMEONE will:ivar )

I will start..7 events and no field failures.

FedererPhoto

Never have had one go down while on a paid gig.

That doesn't mean I don't show up to a wedding with 5 bodies (and similar stupid amounts of other equipment), however, just in case


(I've had one go down on personal travel before, however.)

Art Scott

If a camera is used a lot it will fail in the field....I have had TLR,SLR AND DSLR's to fail in the field and 1 med foramt rangefinder......it happens.....not a matter of IF....but....WHEN.........it has been everything from film winding mech. quiting to shutters and mirrors not moving........I was alway enthusiactic about taking photos so even before considering it as a vocation I wanted a back up when jst out for a vacation.....just like I always owned more than 1 fishing set up, more than 1 bow , shot gun, rifle.......I never wanted to have to quitdoing what I love just because of my 1 piece of equipment failing..........

Qarik

FedererPhoto wrote:

Never have had one go down while on a paid gig.

That doesn't mean I don't show up to a wedding with 5 bodies (and similar stupid amounts of other equipment), however, just in case


(I've had one go down on personal travel before, however.)

curiosu..how many events would say you have shot? round number is good!

Qarik

Art Scott wrote:

If a camera is used a lot it will fail in the field....I have had TLR,SLR AND DSLR's to fail in the field and 1 med foramt rangefinder......it happens.....not a matter of IF....but....WHEN.........it has been everything from film winding mech. quiting to shutters and mirrors not moving........I was alway enthusiactic about taking photos so even before considering it as a vocation I wanted a back up when jst out for a vacation.....just like I always owned more than 1 fishing set up, more than 1 bow , shot gun, rifle.......I never wanted to have to quitdoing what I love just because of my 1 piece of equipment failing..........

Art, so at least 5 field failures? geez! A guess on ho wmnay events you have shot?

It's like the asking a biker about dropping his bike..not if..but when!

Cygnus Studios

Luckily I have not had a body fail yet. Just flashes and mem cards, but have backups of them also.

Art Scott

Qarik wrote:

Art, so at least 5 field failures? geez! A guess on ho wmnay events you have shot?

It's like the asking a biker about dropping his bike..not if..but when!

i actually cannot even give and estimate, but will try.....at the that time in my life i was shooting a minimum of 3 weddings per Saturday at least 2 on Sunday (7th Day Adventists) and around 10 concerts per week.....I was contracting for 5 studios and bridal companies here and was shooting the concerts on my own....plus working a 40-50hr a week J.O.B. .........on weddings I ran between 10-25 rolls of film and concerts were around 25-50 rolls of film + 2-5 5ths of Jose 1800+ mini keg of Dinkel Acker+6 pack of John Courage (each concert paid by artists:D:Dnever a hangover it was food)....so it was not the number of events but the number of frames I would put on my equipment before it broke..........

ChatKat

None with clients but
I have never had a gear failure with a client;

I did have a card failure that lost a whole shoot of my grandchildren who were visitng from out of town. It was in my studio and I was very disappointed. The card (Sandisk) is history now. I could recover the jpgs but not the raw - hence I shoot raw and jpg so I have two copies on each card and I use multiple cards through out a shoot now.

I also had a failure where a 20d gave me an Error 99 with my 24-70 2.8Land I couldn't clear it immediately - that was doing personal work. And I had some focus issues with a lens (75-300 is) that I had to send to Canon - the focus motor was replaced. That was a personal lens that I was using in Alaska during a whale watch expedition. None of my whale shots came out - all oof.

pathfinder

Cameras get dropped, lenses get dropped, cards fail, shutters fail, stuff happens. Not if, but when.

Professionals are expected to expect these things, and take them in stride.

Plus, life is just so much less stressful, when you have two bodies with one wide, and one long lens.

The second body does not have to be top of the line, but merely adequate and serviceable.

Qarik

pathfinder wrote:

Cameras get dropped, lenses get dropped, cards fail, shutters fail, stuff happens. Not if, but when.

Professionals are expected to expect these things, and take them in stride.

Plus, life is just so much less stressful, when you have two bodies with one wide, and one long lens.

The second body does not have to be top of the line, but merely adequate and serviceable.

so..uhh..have you had camera fail in field?

ziggy53

Once I had 2 - Mamiya C330 cameras plus a Hasselblad 500C all fail to fire at the same event. Fortunately I had also brought a Canon AE1 Program along and it worked fine.

One of the big problems at many events is that if anything happens, you may not have time to sort it out without loosing shots. Having that spare camera waiting where you can grab and gun is what separates success from failure.

thegridrunner

I had two events where the battery in the camera went dead. All personal events, not paid shoots.

FedererPhoto

Qarik wrote:

curiosu..how many events would say you have shot? round number is good!

Well, I've got 57 events (roughly a quarter million frames taken) on my currently-connected external drive - which spans more than the life of my current set of bodies. Like I said, no body failures on any of those gigs. Knock on wood.

I have had 5 CF cards (ridata = absolute trash) go down while on paid gigs, however. And the one body on a non-paid endeavor, as I said before. Had one lens go 'down' during a gig only to find out it was simply dirty contacts.

Tango

zero camera fails
zero lens fails
1 tripod fails
20 - 30 photographer fails

sirensofsong

A few months ago, I turned down a pay gig (b/c they wanted a full copyright grab) and it turned down to be a good thing b/c in the middle of the tournament my 40D quit on me. I'd hit the shutter button and nothing. Making matters worse, I'm new to photography, so I only have one camera body.

To this day, I have no idea what went wrong, but thankfully, it hasn't happened since.

pathfinder

Yes, just a few weeks ago, at an outdoor event.

Dropped my 40D less than 18 inches onto a wooden picnic table. Really did not think anything would have been damaged, but the AF bit the dust. Fortunately, I had another body with me.

Canon Factory Service repaired my 40D within two weeks door to door.

They have replaced a shutter for me on 1DsMk II under warranty.

Three weeks before I was to go to Scotland for Marc's workshop I sent my 5D in for a scratch in the antialiasing filter. It arrived in time to go with me. Not a 'failure in the field', but a failure getting ready to go into the field.

Tamron repaired a 200-500 zoom that stopped working in the field for no apparent reason - one minute it was working fine, and 30 seconds later it was DOA - would not work on any of three different bodies. So it went it for repair. I still have it and use it, but Tamron service was slower than CFS, has been for me.


I have had several other near misses that did not result in failed machinery but that easily might have.

I would not go to a paid gig, with only one camera - I admit I am a belt and suspenders kind of guy.

I find factory service, whether from Canon, Sigma, Tamron, Nikon to be a great importance.

pathfinder

AaronNelson wrote:

zero camera fails
zero lens fails
1 tripod fails
20 - 30 photographer fails

You're young, just wait!

Chris Geiger

In ten years I have had two failures during paid events. One was a wedding and the other was a product shoot. The product shoot was many years ago and I had to reschedule for another day as I only had one camera at the time. The camera locked up and no amount of resetting would make it work again. The wedding failure was a firmware problem with my D200. It would only take a few photos and then shut down. I also had my D300 with me at the time, so I switched to using it. I had been doing wide angle work with the D300 and telephoto shots with the D200. In ten years time I have done something like 300 shoots.

Mad Cat

Qarik wrote:

The standard advice is to have 2 camera bodies on any paid shoots in case one goes down. To preface this, I agree. But what are the real numbers behind it? How many paid sessions or event have you done and how many field failures have you experienced? (of course 2 cameras also allows you the freedom of having two lens at ready..I have to point this out because if I don't, SOMEONE will:ivar )

I will start..7 events and no field failures.

Years ago I very calmly walked into a church parking lot about half an hour before the wedding was supposed to start, rewound the film, romoved the lens, and bounced a brand new Canon Elan off the asphalt and jumped up and down on it until it was almost flat. Could be I wasn't smart enough to get it to do what I wanted it to (manual synch to my strobes, if I remember), but that ended the problem and I successfully shot the wedding with my trusty EOS 620.

When your gear doesn't throw you under the bus, you (or another human) will do it for ya - one time another guy I was going to shoot a wedding with came to pick me up, his truck wouldn't start when we got ready to take off. We took my vehicle - and left every single piece of equipment he had behind. Luckily I had a spare Nikon N80 (shoot with Nikon now) with me so we pulled it off.

The mother of the bride will forget she needs new panty hose. The little altar girls will show up in white dresses wearing black panties underneath and guess who's gonna get elected to run around a part of the city you've never been in, looking for underwear for little girls.

Sooner or later the worse will happen to you - and it will be at the most critical, worst possible moment. Right now I'm shooting with a single Nikon D80 and no back up body and so far so good (knock on wood), but every time I get ready to shoot it's a real Hail Mary.

Don't EVEN ask me about shooting events and trying to do a rolling display on your laptop so your clients can watch the progress of the shoot.....

Redundancy is the answer. The more gear you show up with and keep within hand's reach - bodies, lenses, clamps, and duct tape - the less stress you'll have to endure. Thanks for listening. Wess

whiteagle

Last year I was hired to accompany a group to the middle east once and shoot the whole thing. I was in the middle of switching lenses. Took the 300mm off my body and laid it on the seat next to me in the bus. Was putting a 85mm on the body when the bus driver slammed on the brakes. The 300mm shot off the seat all the way down the center isle (I was almost at the back of the bus.) and hit something at the front. That was a long walk down to the front. Whatever it hit, it hit glass first. Shattered the UV filter, but the lens was fine. Babied it the rest of the trip and put another UV filter on when I got back.

Haven't had a body fail yet, but my backup is in my bag just waiting for that day to come.

Matthew Saville

Qarik wrote:

The standard advice is to have 2 camera bodies on any paid shoots in case one goes down. To preface this, I agree. But what are the real numbers behind it? How many paid sessions or event have you done and how many field failures have you experienced? (of course 2 cameras also allows you the freedom of having two lens at ready..I have to point this out because if I don't, SOMEONE will:ivar )

I will start..7 events and no field failures.

Qarik, funny you should ask and you have a D200. Just a few weddings ago, I forget which; my D200 (second body, main body is D300) just stopped focusing, mid-wedding. Just up and quit. Totally toast.


Most events / photo sessions aren't really "life-or-death", but if someone ever shoots a WEDDING with just ONE camera body, can I tag along? I want to club them to death with that camera if it fails... (No offense...)

=Matt=

Toshido

i am very new to photography, and newer still to professional photography. But I agree that is only a matter of when, not if, a camera or other vital equipment will fail.

ziggy53

Mad Cat wrote:

Years ago I very calmly walked into a church parking lot about half an hour before the wedding was supposed to start, rewound the film, romoved the lens, and bounced a brand new Canon Elan off the asphalt and jumped up and down on it until it was almost flat. Could be I wasn't smart enough to get it to do what I wanted it to (manual synch to my strobes, if I remember), but that ended the problem and I successfully shot the wedding with my trusty EOS 620.

...

Sooner or later the worse will happen to you - and it will be at the most critical, worst possible moment.

...


Redundancy is the answer. The more gear you show up with and keep within hand's reach - bodies, lenses, clamps, and duct tape - the less stress you'll have to endure. Thanks for listening. Wess

Wess, welcome to the Digital Grin.

Thanks for the insight into your experiences.