The Best Shot You Never Got

[RobbieKB]

This thread idea has been shamelessly stolen but I thought it would be interesting to see what some of the 'togs on here say as we've got people who have been doing it for years.

I've not really had any gut-wrenching ones. Two spring to mind, firstly I was driving home in a storm which had lightning and a rainbow over a rapeseed field and my kit wasn't in my car. It was very brief and I don't think I would have captured it as it was too bright out to get the lightning accurately.

However, the second was a few weeks ago. I was at my girlfriend's house sitting by the double doors overlooking her garden. For once, I'd left my kit at home and sod's law kicked in. A sparrowhawk (I think, I'm st with bird names, it was a smallish bird of prey) swooped in to the garden and started tearing apart this other bird limb from limb on the lawn. I was all of 8 meters away. I mean this sparrowhawk was going to town on this thing. It would have been an incredible set.

Ok, time for the Grandfathers of photography to top that story!

[littleredrooster]

Mallory Park a couple of years back.

Motorcycle racer called Ryuichi Kyonari was about to have the biggest get-off of his career and I was tracking him. Pressed the button for a burst shot just as he started to unload and a fat bald bloke stood up in front of me; I got ten out-of-focus shots of a fat, bald greasy head. Fantastic.

[tim-b]

Not exactly the best shot I didn't get, but I was asked by a magazine to take some photos of a specific car at the Goodwood FoS one year. The car was listed towards the end of the first pack up the hill, and as it was pissing down I had the camera under my jacket. Of course the car I wanted came up first, taking me completely by surprise. I consoled myself that I could still get it coming back down the hill, so waited patiently for it to return, camera all set up for the shot, this time held outside my jacket so I just had to raise it and click away. I covered the lens with my hand to stop the rain getting on the glass, but when the car came into view I looked through the viewfinder to see that the warmth from my hand had caused the lens to completely fog up! I was not a happy chappy, but I did learn some valuable lessons that day, one of them being that it's no fun taking pictures for someone else

Another recent example was last Saturday at the Nurburgring. There was a Porsche 935 in the main Eifelrennen classic race, one of the most interesting/rare entrants in a very mixed field (as you often find at the Nordschleife) of 70's-80's machinery. I'd found a great location (difficult with so much catch fencing there) and waited patiently for the 935 to come around - not a short wait considering the length of a lap. When it did come around after ~9-10 mins, it was right on the bumper of a stty Opel Astra, unable to pass on this twisty section....so my shot consisted of an Astra with a 935 peeking out from behind it I could have waited another 10 minutes but I was keen to keep walking to get a more varied set, and also didn't want to hog the spot for too long.

Missing shots happens all the time, it's unavoidable so don't dwell on it, just make sure your camera is left in the most useful/flexible settings at all times, and use custom modes to cover off eventualities if you have them (I absolutely love these on my 5DmkII, the single most useful feature to be added from the 5DmkI). Then at least the miss rate goes down

Edited by tim-b on Tuesday 12th June 10:32