Camera down !!!

[Photo Lovin]

I want to hear your stories of where you were the first time you camera malfunctioned on you. ( i.e. ) Was it a professional shoot or while you were shooting for fun? Did you have a back up cam? Were you the first or second shooter? What did you do in that situation? etc.

I had a memory card fail about an hour away from the nearest electronics store. I had my laptop with me and i was able to recover most of it. It was raining all day and was very cold... I also slept on the gravel the night before and had to set up a tent in the dark... yea it was a nice trip

[kencaleno]

I play "Fail-safe"- Spare batteries and memory cards for DSLR,same for G3 advanced compact-Both cameras plus accessories share same bag,and 10MP compact point and shoot which goes everywhere with me(Literally everywhere).Ken

[Jim Bryant]

The shutter went out on one of my MKII's while covering a baseball game. Happened right in the middle of a double play, where the second baseman had to leap over the sliding baserunner....would have been a great shot, but only got 1/2 of the photo. No problem, I just put the 400mm on another camera body and turn the broken one into the shop the following day.

[autofocus]

Our story occurred while shooting a wedding with my wife...she with the Canon, and me with a borrowed Nikon D200. Just in the middle of the "I do's, you may kiss the bride," my wife comes over to me in a state of panic, the Canon had locked up. I told her to stay calm, turn off the camera, pull the battery out, reinsert it, and restart the camera, which solved her problem. But we would have missed the shot if it weren't for me there with the Nikon. When it came time for us to buy our second camera I chose the Nikon D300 in spite of a shopping list of stuff we already owned for the Canon. Guess who gets the Nikon when we go out now...two choices, and it's not me.

Vince

[jdepould]

My D700 went down in West Africa in August. It was monsoon season. It definitely hampered my shooting, since I was generally working in low light. The zoom ring on my 24-70 also bunched up about the same time. I shot the rest of the assignment with my D300, adding flash when needed. It worked out, but I could've done without the problems.

[WooD]

I shot a Hispanic Heritage Festival last year. The day before the show they had a press meeting. I took some test shots afterwords with my D300 that I got 3 days earlier. When I got home every shot had either a black or white line thru every image. Had to shoot both nights with my D80.

Not too long ago I was shooting a Caribbean Festival, my D80 died during that one. Shot both nights with my D300 that time.

This coming week I'm shooting the Hispanic Festival again. I'm wondering whats going to break this time. Seems my cameras don't like Latin music.

[FrankLamont]

Someone tripped over my tripod once, sent my camera and tripod toppling to the ground.

Thankfully, the floor was wooden, not concrete; and the lens cap was on. Still, I had to take it to the shop to prise the cap -- and filter -- off.

Not very pleasant, but I had to reinsert the battery to get it working again.

But as for actual erors and sticking shutters -- no. Not yet.

[ddvansti]

Several years ago I went on a holiday with my mother. We went to Gambia. As it turned out, it was her last vacation.
I had a Minolta APS SLR at that time, only a few years old. The first morning we were woken by small colorful birds sitting on our porch. When I wanted to take a picture the door of the film-holder went open and an errormessage appeared. I closed the door but something broke and it wouldn't close. The film got stuck. In the photoshop they removed the film but could not repear the camera.
Not so much to buy as a replacement so I bought a throw-away. Not many photo's of that holiday. Thankfully some people were willing to take pictures of us and they sent those ,and pictures of excursions, to us.

[candleman]

my first and only malfunction was when i was taking pics of a friends kid.

i randomly got a "F--"

after 30 seconds of scratching my head in panic, i removed the bettery... and it stil didnt work.
then i removed and re-mounted the lens.. worked fine after that.