Error Prone Scotland Trip
Now that I've been home from Scotland for two weeks, I have had plenty of time to reflect on the trip. In short, I had a ton of fun. The first week of the trip I spent with friends in St. Andrews. They had to work most every day I was there, which was fine because I was recovering from jet lag, so I spent a lot of time sleeping in, taking afternoon naps with the dog, and wandering around town sipping on pints and snapping photos. The tripod didn't even make it out of the house.
The second week of the trip was my photography workshop with Dean Allan Photography on the Isle of Lewis and Harris. I've been on a few photography workshops, and this was the best I'd been on. Dean wasn't vlogging the entire time and wasn't concentrated on getting his photos, he was there for the participants. With each location, he dispensed composition tips for multiple shots for each location, and then every few minutes he'd make his rounds to see how everyone was doing, and to offer tips and help in any way he could. Fantastic workshop leader!
As for the title of this blog post, I made a comical amount of errors on the trip. I hate to admit to a lot of it, but I need to make sure it never happens again. Before I even got on the plane, I forgot to pack waterproof and windproof pants and spikes for my tripod. I picked up a pair of pants for $25 from local outdoors outfitter, and figured I'd be okay without the spikes. Buying the pants was a wise choice, not having spikes turned out to be terrible. The weather in St. Andrews was pleasant and mild, a bit of rain here and there, but the weather on Lewis and Harris was a different story -- rainy and wet, with high winds. It was downright inhospitable.
On day one, at a tiny beach, we literally and figuratively, got our workshop feet wet. The tide was headed out, but the surf was fairly intense on the small beach we were camped out on. The weather was partly cloudy, with wind gusts over 25mph. It was after several minutes, I remembered to check my bag. Thankfully, this time I remembered to drop it well out of reach of the incoming surf. But, I did not zip it up. A quick check revealed the access panel was flapping in the wind.
At that point with not a hint of wind, I made the foolish decision to leave my tripod and camera unattended and run back to my bag to zip it up. I ran as fast as I could in my wet weather gear, slowed by the sand, but made it to my bag before it toppled over in to the sand. I quickly zipped my bag, and turned around to a horror story. The wind picked up just enough to topple my tripod, with my Canon R5 and RF 24-105 lens attached, face down into the sand. Dean was the 1st person to reach my tripod and camera buried in the sand face down. Initially, the damage was limited to a broken polarizer and 3-stop ND filter. They were shattered into hundreds of pieces in the sand, and then I noticed the lens had been damaged. A few small pockmarks along the outer edge caught my eye. I was disappointed more than upset.
The major damage was not discovered until later. When the camera landed in the sand, the L-bracket twisted the body enough to cause it the lower body panel to bow out, which meant the L-bracket did not fit as securely as it needed to. In December, I plan to send it in to Canon for repairs.
The next day, to pour more salt on my wounds, I dropped my wireless shutter controller. While out photographing some bothies, when I attempted to put it in my pocket, it slipped down my pant leg into the heather. Never to be seen again.
To save the day, Dean loaned me a polarizer, and a 3-stop filter for the remainder of the trip. In the end, two new filters cost me $150, a new wireless shutter controller was $45, and there is no telling how much the camera repair will cost. I am planning to budget $500 for the repairs. The lens will just be mine forever. I took several photos with the lens and there is no loss of optical quality, but, any sort of damage to the front element, no matter how cheap the lens, generally scares potential buyers.
There will be more photos posted over the following weeks and months, here are a few to get things started!
