The one that got away

[Birdsnapper]

Anglers have their tales of the one that got away so why shouldn't photographers? Visited daughter in Grimsby yesterday. No good photo opportunities, but on the way back a glorious red sun was framed by horizontal clouds - looked like a giant red eye and potentially an interesting shot. But, I was in the car on the motorway and by the time I reached a service station the view had gone. Extreme frustration at my one that got away.

[robski]

I know the feeling

I was parked on the M25 ( which is the norm around Heathrow in the rush 8hrs) the bridges and the aircraft taking off into the sunset. You guessed no camera with me.

[Snowyowl]

I had one recently. A very large bird sitting in a tree not too far away. By the time I stopped my car, backed up and grabbed the camera all I got were distant tail feathers and never did id. the bird.

[nirofo]

Why is it that the best shots are always the ones you missed, for instance how many times have you waited for the perfect sunset only to have a single cloud go across it just as everything else is right for the shot? of course by the time the cloud has passed so has the sunset!

On one occasion I sat all day in a hide set up at a dead pig waiting for the Vultures to appear, weather conditions were perfect, beautifull light, no sign of the Vultures though! The next day in the hide it was overcast and the light was poor, there were up to 400 Vultures circling above, over a hundred at a time came down to the bait? Reminds me of the TV Panda advert. Did manage a few decent shots, but they would have been great in the previous day's light. The pig was all gone within a couple of hours, fantastic experience though.

nirofo.

[gordon g]

It always seems to happen when I'm driving. Most recently I saw a shot of gulls following a plough in perfect cross-lighting, all the furrows beautifully delineated, but as I was in the fast lane of the M6 with the camera in the boot, I couldnt do much about it. The other M6 photo oppurtunity I keep missing is the industrial works near Shap, which often look really interestingly lit with backlight silhouetting the chimneys and illuminating the smoke and steam.

[Dave Smith]

Some time ago now I had a wonderful view of a Moon bow. i.e. a rainbow caused by the Moon instead of the Sun. To the naked eye there was no colour but I suspect that a photo would show the colours as normal. I set up my camera and took a time exposure. This was when I was using film and so could not instantly see the result. The next day all my camera gear was stolen from the car (We were on holiday). I was more upset at losing that shot than the camera stuff. I haven't seen a Moon bow since - they're not very common.

Dave

[ollieholmes]

Ive missed a fer photos due to running out of memory card space. I missed an interesting take off this year due to having to change memory cards.

[blackmarlin]

Why can't someone do this with the blue photos

Alan

[postcardcv]

my worst was just over a year ago on holiday in Cornwall - I spent some time trying to get a decent shot of a herring gull calling. On the forth day I got the shot, back of the birds head was on the left of the frame, bill wide open with bill tips in each of the righthand corners - managed to shoot of 5 frames like this. Reviewed them on the LCD and was very please, just the shot I wanted and they look good and sharp.

That evening I went to put the shot on my laptop only to find that he card had failed on me. I tried to recover the shots with no luck, two camera shops tried for me as did the card manufacturer, but no luck. Nothing worse than getting the shot and then lossing it.