Landscape, Nature And Travel Photography

Thanks for this blog! It is very helpful. Until now I always had a spare battery, but running out of memory cards was a bigger risk. That is also the reason that I shooted JPEG instead of RAW part of my trip to India, which ofcourse I regretted again afterwards (I brought a small external harddisk, but I was afraid also there was not enough space and I couldn’t check properly which photos I could delete immediately).

Then ofcourse nr 4 happened to me several times.

Thanks for nr 3: I didn’t know that yet!

And nr 2: last year I let my sensor clean for about 60 euros (=80 USD?) and after a few days in India it had to be done again. But I don’t know how exactly. They always warn you that you shouldn’t do it yourself. So, how can I do this?

Ilse

Ilse glad you enjoyed the write up. Cleaning your sensor is actually a pretty easy thing to do. You might want to look into the following site.
http://www.copperhillimages.com/index.php?pr=products
They provide instructions with their product. Also an air blower will address clearing the majority of dust on a sensor.

[...] Read More… [...]

Oh man. Yesterday alone I did 2, 3 and 4. I intentionally shoot jpegs when I need the speed and bigger buffer. usually for fast moving birds or event shooting. on my camera I think the buffer is like 8 RAW v.s. 24 jpegs.

Richard… too funny. Amazing how these things trip up even the most experienced photographer.

Hmmm, a few of these sound a bit familiar! I might add not backing up is one of the biggest no-no’s of all.

4. Not Double Checking Your ISO Setting & WB

Guilty for this now & then but I am getting better.
I now have a list to ovoid these mistakes.

ABC

Mark I was thinking in terms of camera related versus post-production related. Although your comment gives me a new idea for a blog post.

ABC best of luck. Even knowing these things I still succumb to them from time to time.

#4! i really hate that. if only camera makers put iso reading in the view finder.

[...] На днях, Джим Голдстейн опубликовал в своем блоге заметку об ошибках, наиболее часто совершаемых фотографами. Ни одно из этих правил не касается ни техники съемки, ни композиции, ни обработки фотографий. Конечно, такие ошибки совершают скорее по неопытности. Пробежавшись глазами по списку, я заметил и за собой несколько “грешков” [...]

[...] Jim posted his 5 most common digital photography mistakes and I knew I could come up with a further five, so here goes: [...]

I’m guilty of all but number 1, especially the ISO thing and the sensor cleaning bit. I’m getting better about formatting my cards though. Also, I rarely forget my 2nd battery, but I sometimes forget to charge it — talk about killing a day of shooting.

[...] JMG-Galleries has an interesting article on the 5 Most Common Digital Photography Mistakes. An interesting selection, and I have been guilty of all 5. Of course I am very careful when changing lenses, so #2 hasn’t really effected me at all. Yet the one that I have heard many times and still don’t believe is “3. Not Reformatting Your CF Cards Between Use”. [...]

I’ll add another to the list. Forgetting a memory card on your computer desk at home.

I’m the most guilty of sensor cleaning. I really need to get on that, but I’m nervous about doing it.

Andrew cleaning your sensor the first time is pretty nerve racking, but you’ll find it’s really easy. It’s not like you’re going into your camera with a chisel or iron wool. The equipment used to clean sensors is well made and when used properly is quite safe to use. Start slow with a blower bulb to see if you can remove dust that way, then move on to swabs and solutions. You might be surprised how effective a blower bulb can be.

Hi Jim,

Great list! Thanks for sharing and thanks also for visiting my blog.

Sherri

Kool list.

I’ve heard many pro’s and con’s on raw vs jpg. I guess it boils down to what you are doing, who your audience is and what you will do with the photo as an end result…

@Jim: yeah, everyone tells me that it’s really easy once you get the hang of it.

I guess I just need to get over it and go pick up a blower. Probably sometime this week; we’ll see.

[...] На днях, Джим Голдстейн опубликовал в своем блоге заметку об ошибках, наиболее часто совершаемых фотографами. Ни одно из этих правил не касается ни техники съемки, ни композиции, ни обработки фотографий. Конечно, такие ошибки совершают скорее по неопытности. Пробежавшись глазами по списку, я заметил и за собой несколько «Ð³Ñ€ÐµÑˆÐºÐ¾Ð²» :) [...]

[...] This weekend I was back in Los Angeles visiting family and couldn’t help myself in going out to photograph some areas I’ve long been meaning to. Being a little rushed before flying out I forgot to bring freshly charged batteries for my camera. The result was a weekend of shooting on a batteries 1/3rd fully charged and another 1/8th fully charged. Yes, I’m embarrassed to say I fell prey to a variation of #5 of the 5 Most Common Digital Photography Mistakes. [...]

[...] Many of you know that I wrote an article titled 5 Most Common Digital Photography Mistakes. As of Friday we can add another item to the list. Friday was my first opportunity to test my camera during the day. After configuring my camera tethered to my computer I threw things together quickly to bring my camera along while I walked my dogs. Finding a decent subject to photograph I snapped the shutter and quickly went to review my image via the LCD screen. The result… an embarrassing revelation that I did not have a CF card in the camera and even worse my spare CF cards were in my other camera bag. Given this experience you can guess how paranoid I’ve been since in making sure I have CF cards with me. [...]

Inherent to Flash memory technology is the fact that sectors will inevitably fail eventually. According to wikipedia, “most commercially available flash products are guaranteed to withstand 100,000 write-erase-cycles for block 0, and no guarantees for other blocks… a typical user using a commercial device, such as a camera, with a flash drive will probably not wear out the memory for the effective life of the camera”

Of course, we may not be “typical” users, and the heavy use of the card increases the risk of data loss. Formatting the card regularly will instruct the card to find and skip over failed blocks.