AAAARRRRRGH!!!!!!! timing is everything....

[dave54]

Wife and I went paddling on Walker Lake (Mtn Meadows Reservoir is the official USGS name on the maps, but no one calls it that). Came around a point on the reedy marshy shoreline and not 30 feet away are two of the biggest sandhill cranes I think I have ever seen. They were half again as large as normal. The sedges were kind of tall, and we immediately went silent and still, just slowly drifting in closer. The cranes saw us (at least one looked towards us) but paid no attention, just wandering along the shoreline presumably looking for frogs to eat (a bumper crop this year).

I quietly and slowly reached down to my fanny pack to grab my camera. I turn it on and raise it to my face, zoom and focus. Press the shutter, and...

NOTHING!!!!

Batteries are dead!!!

I quickly fumble through my pack for the spare batteries. I insert the extra batteries and press the power on button, and...

NOTHING!!!!

Spares are dead.

After cursing at myself for not checking the batteries I realize I can rob the batteries from my GPS, turned off and buried deep in the dry bag.

By the time I do that they are gone.


Then almost like someone throwing a blanket over the lake the drift smoke from the fires at Antelope Lake just over Keddie Ridge from us settled down on us, obscuring the far shore where I parked the truck. So it's put the batteries back in the GPS....


Yeah, there's a lesson here. A lesson I already knew and always preach to others.

[Shawn]

I hate it when that happens...............

[mountaineer]

That is NOT a very funny story.

[Hikin Mike]

Well that sucks!

[SSSdave]

It has been many years since I've had a camera battery problem because I use detailed checklists and always have spares in my pack. However in my younger days had a few experiences as disgusting as yours. On one trip to Kibbie Lake in Yosemite, my SLR battery went bad and I had managed to have not replaced a spare after I had used it previously. My career is electronic test. One of my flashlights used two AA's. I knew a couple of those were similar in voltage to the two small camera cell batteries. Using a short length of wire and duct tape, I rigged up an external battery that connected into the camera battery slot. It worked too though was a bit intermittent at times since the electrical connections were wimpy. ...David

[ifernau]

I know how you feel. Happend to me during shooting fireworks. By the time I went back to the car, got the spare, the show was over.

[Snow Nymph]

Once I brought the wrong batteries on a 8 day trip! I had two different cameras that took different batteries. I think it was the 6th day it died. I got about 10 more pics by warming up the batteries under my armpits before taking a photo. We asked everyone on the trail if they had extras to sell. We ran into a woman that had the right batteries, but just bought them before she left. About 1/2 hr later, SnowDude ran down Dusy Basin (the section dropping to the JMT) with $40 to offer her for her old batteries. She wouldn't take it, and gave them to us. She said she thought about it after we had parted, but it was too late, and she knew what it was like being a photographer.

Another time I hike to some lakes, but forgot the film at camp.

[Robert]

When I shot film, I have taken some awesome photos...until I reached frame 37 ;-)

[copeg]

What a bummer of a story. Not a battery problem, but recently after I bought my new camera I went up into the hills to try my luck. Sure enough not 30 feet away a coyote was posing for me. Camera out, focused in and I pressed the button and....error 99. huh? Again and again. Turned out my old sigma lenses won't work on the new digital SLR's when I try and stop down (worked at home but I had never stopped them down). :retard: I lost a few remarkable shots that day...