Know Your Gear, Save Your Shot!

I vividly remember my very first maternity session, which I shot for friends. It was so exciting to capture a special time in their lives, but even though they were friends I wanted to execute the session perfectly to make them happy and begin a new portion of my portfolio. Well, we did capture images that I adore, but there was a moment when my "oh crap" poker face came in handy. Finger on the shutter button, I pressed down and nothing happened. Nothing. My screen showed a dreaded error, but I'd not yet learned everything I should have about my camera body. FEE kept flashing at me, taunting me when all I wanted was the shot below with my 85mm. Luckily for me and my friends, I also had my 70-200mm on my other camera body for nicely compressed portraits. It only took a few seconds to switch cameras, but my heart was beating so quickly with the thought that my expensive lens or camera might be broken. A quick Google search when I got home relieved my worries, but I couldn't help but wonder what I would have captured if I'd only known I had to simply move the aperture ring on the lens and reattach it.


Being a student allows you the freedom to experiment and push your gear to the limits. To get the most out of it, though, you need to learn everything it's capable of. Read your manuals, look at reviews to learn how each piece excels or falls flat, and definitely memorize those error codes so you don't end up in a situation like I did!

Do you have any anecdotes about times when you wish you'd known your gear a bit better? Leave them in the comments so we can learn from one another.