Trials while traveling

It happens to the best of us. You’re out and about, possibly even a long way from home and suddenly the unthinkable happens. Absolute heartbreak. The trials while traveling …

Let me tell you about my woes. I had spent an amazing day at Hartleys Crocodile Adventures, in Far North Queensland, Australia. I had taken so many photos of crocs jumping, swimming, sunbathing and more. I had captured other amazing animals as well.

I was sitting in the croc arena watching and capturing the Croc Attack show (the absolute highlight of the day). I was on burst mode — I mean seriously these things are so quick you could ONLY use burst mode. I was so excited with the images I just knew I was capturing.

In my excitement and adrenalin state, I hadn’t realized my battery was getting low. I was sure my camera had finished writing to the card (and it was a pretty fast card), so I turned my camera off to quickly change the battery before the finale, of course, all in a rush. When I turned my camera back on, there was an SD card error. I was trying to fix it, but it seemed my only option was to do a repair. Thankfully I had another camera with me, but I pretty much missed the death roll. Woe is me.

Later I attempted a repair, at first, all my images seemed to be missing. Two days of shooting in incredible locations were gone! Thankfully, on further checking all I had lost was my last couple of burst mode sets. Phew! What I lost still hurt, but it could have been far worse.

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The moral of the story?

Replace fresh batteries before heading into high adrenalin, high shoot scenarios — not halfway through. Make sure you have time. Make sure your images have COMPLETELY finished writing to your card BEFORE turning your camera off.

Just in case, I did NOT use that card again for the rest of the trip. I made sure I had spare cards with me in case of failure. While traveling, where possible backup images as often as you can. Do all this and hopefully, you can avoid the trials of traveling.