In my previous post in this series I posted some things that I would have liked to be in my camera-bag, but were not. This post is inspired by one of most recent mistakes and/or things that almost happened. I just hope I will not have more ideas like this next Monday, but I honestly have my doubts about that.

But now let’s get started:

• when going to a shooting, make sure the batteries are charged. If you need to use your flash, check those batteries also. If in doubt, just charge everything
• if you’re planning to use your tripod, check that you have the plate with you, in case it’s not already on the camera. It’s nothing worse than standing in front of a great shot, and you realize that you can’t use the tripod you carried all the way, because you left the plate on your desktop at home.
• if you shoot first indoors and then plan to do some landscape photography, check your ISO settings. If it’s on 400 then dial it down and make sure you don’t get caught in that conversation with your shooting partner so you really dial DOWN and not UP. Check it twice, be focused on what you’re doing and also note that “H” really means high and NOT low. If you don’t to do that, you might end up with some nicely composed but ridiculously noisy images.
• Be focused on what you’re doing, not only on composition, also ensure that your camera settings (f-stop, shutter-speed, focus, ISO etc.) are correct (also refers to the last point).

While this is more self-criticism than anything else, I hope this might help me or anyone else not do the same mistakes (again), because it’s no fun. And doing photography should be fun.

If you have a similar experience to share, or would like to add something, feel free to have your say in the comments.

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