Never Ever Do This

I am going to give you some advice and if you are like me you will hear the advice, know that it is good advice and then you will find ample opportunity to ignore it. I knew at the time that what I am about to tell you was a good practice to follow and I ignored it and learned from real life that yes, indeed, it really is good advice.

The Green River

I was on my way to Moab, Utah, driving in from Grand Junction along the Green River. It was early October and the cottonwoods were in color and since I was looking for color you might say I was in photographer’s heaven. A bit west of Fisher Towers to the south of the highway I saw a line of trees against a silhouetted background. To shoot it I had to pull off the road and hike up a hill, maybe a half mile, not far. It was late afternoon and the sun was getting low casting backlighting on the trees. The scene held promise.

Green River Valley

I reached the top of the hill and began shooting and looking for good perspectives to improve my composition. I was standing there and I thought, “I wonder how it would look from right over there?” Over there being about 15 feet to my right. Leaving my camera in place, firmly attached to my tripod, I walked over to the possibly better spot and as I walked I heard a dull thud behind me. Turning, I saw that my tripod had tipped over, camera attached, and the lens was face down in the soft soil, half buried in dirt.

Need I say more? The dirt had entered the lens and I could hear and feel it in the focus mechanism. So much for that lens on this trip it would have to be professionally cleaned. I am sorry to say it was one of my very best lenses, a Canon 24-70 mm f/2.8L II lens.

I knew better. Never leave your lens unattended on your tripod. (That’s the advice part.) Ah, but there is more to the story. Wouldn’t you just know.  Now I was driving around Moab, into Arches and Canyonlands and I was thinking this would be a great subject to blog about, warn folks of the perils of leaving your camera on the tripod – because you never know what will happen: could be wind, could be soft soil, maybe an earthquake….

fiery Furnace

Fast forward three days. The sky has been pretty much cloudless until this day and now a lovely storm is brewing. I got a nice shot of the Fiery Furnace and then drove out to the end of the road and was photographing Sand Dunes Arch when the storm began. Thunder, lightening, rain. I jumped in my car and headed for Panorama Point thinking I would have more choices of things to shoot from there. As I drove into the Panorama Point parking area, the sun broke through the clouds and the scene was so gorgeous I didn’t know which way to point my camera. It was beautiful and dramatic everywhere, and wet, and cold. I was shooting away and noticed my shoe lace was untied. No time to tie it, I kept shooting while the light is good. I’ll tie the shoe later.

Panorama Point

After about 45 minutes of this pure joy I was back to the car, which was parked in the parking lot on asphalt. Smooth, firm asphalt. So I figured this was a good time to tie my shoe. My camera was attached to my tripod and my tripod was on firm, smooth, level asphalt (can you see it coming?). I turned away from the tripod and bent down to tie my shoe and I hear this “thud”. (That all too, by now, familiar thud.) I turned and looked and my tripod and camera had tipped over and there were two of them: my camera over there to my left, face up with loose wires sticking up out of it and a few feet away on my right, my lens. Or to be precise, half of my lens. When the camera hit the ground the lens casing broke and the part of the lens that houses the heavy glass, that part broke away ending up a couple of feet from the other part of the lens that was still attached to the camera, wires dangling. It was an awful sight and unfortunately I can still see it. Vividly. 

It wasn’t an earthquake, or the wind, or soft ground. One of the tripod legs collapsed because it wasn’t tightened all the way, even though I thought it was. Now this event was worse than the first because now the embarrassment was almost as heavy as the loss of my favorite wide angle lens. A lens can be replaced or repaired, but the embarrassment. What do I do about that?. And all I could think was, “I did what? I did what? . . . .Twice?!”

So now I am hoping for you that you are not like me and that you will take this advice seriously, "Don’t Leave Your Camera Unattended On Your Tripod”. You never know what unexpected thing might happen, even though you think it wont.