TP: Your greatest regret in photography - the one

Re newworlddude: +1

Dyxum has been one of the finest photographic influences upon me. I am grateful for it and for the efforts which Dyxumites of all nations, persuasions, abilities etc. have contributed and performed. Dyxum has become a treasured addition to my support system, Freundschaft and family.

Thank you, everyone.

Respectfully,

Jocelynne Littlebear

1.To be to long alone in my fotografic hobby for the last ten years, with no feedback, and lost foto interest for several years in my life. (no internet).
And always on a ship is the reason off it. On land only for a day/hollyday or a few hours. Only bad for my fotolife.
Water is my soul and real life.

2.When they ask me, take a foto off my best side. I never said, you sit on it.

3.A trip to the white world off Antarctica, took one thousand foto's, and left the lenscap on my lens.

But a year later, I used the foto's succesfully in a documentary off a coalmine in the dark.

Greetings Captain Willem.

Ok, I felt compelled to dust off this thread and post something more current.

I regret not entering this hobby earlier than I did. I'm still learning some pretty basic stuff and I enjoy it just like I always imagined. It does take time and money to do it right and I've made some pretty big mistakes! I bought into Leica; hook, line and sinker, and that was the worst hobby experience of my life! Still, I recovered and now I have fresh eyes while I spend less money on the 'really right stuff' and I'm now happy.

The difference was like' night and day! I had four super Leica primes in silver/chrome and they were the best lenses I have ever used. When I nailed it I nailed it, but my keepers were few. Still, soon after switching to the A900 and ZA 135/1,8 I was pleasantly shocked! I instantly saw better images with a lot more keepers.

I bought my A900 gear just before they stopped production and I have no regrets! I only wish that I bought more ZA glass before the last price hike, but it still pales in comparison to Leica.

The magic of good glass rewards the price payed.

None is perfect.

I blew my greatest photographic opportunity to date by trusting the camera instead of myself. I knew what I needed to do. It didn't look right on the back of the camera, so I changed it. I'm unlikely to ever get the chance to fix that mistake.

But I'm young (ish) and it will be a valuable lesson to not rely on technology when I already know what I need to do. (Which is kinda funny for a professional computer guy.      )

This may not be the most popular answer on this site, but my biggest regret is in not realizing earlier that every so often, I should just put down the camera and enjoy the moment. One example is when I was in Redwoods National Park; I came across an area where the forest ended at a cliff that was overlooking the ocean. When I realized that I was never going to be able to catch the image I wanted, I put my camera back in my bag and just stood and watched the sunset over the ocean framed by those mighty redwoods. Just a few years earlier, I would have been trying so hard to get the impossible shot that I missed the moment. Instead, even though I never got the shot, my memory contains so much more that the camera could have never captured. The smell of the woods mixed with the salt air, the sound of the waves crashing and the birds crying mixed with the almost deafening silence of the forest. To this day, it is probably my favorite memory from that trip, and it is made all the more special because it is NOT recorded, and just lives in my memories.

Sometimes it is better to have the memories than the photographs.