Sydney Big Day Out 2009

I had a bit of a shocker at the Big Day Out. After shooting Children Collide i dropped my 70-200 lens onto the grass. I didn’t think much of it at the time but about half an hour later i noticed it wasn’t working. Whenever i attached it to my camera it went haywire and the aperture reading would just blink and it wouldn’t take photos.

I switched lenses around and there were different problems. All the focus points were disabled so the camera wouldn’t autofocus. Playback was also disabled.

I asked some of my fellow photographers and they were as befuddled as me.

After some time of trying to shoot with the crippled camera to poor results i bit the bullet and headed back into town to Whiltons Camera Repair. I also picked up my old 350D as a back up. Whiltons managed to fix the camera problem on the spot but said the lens problem was more serious and that it would take longer to diagnose.

So i headed back to Homebush in the sweaty peak hour train traffic without my telephoto lens.

I fudged through the evening and shot a bit of crowd stuff, but felt very restricted without my long lens on those big festival stages. I was also really dissapointed to miss several of my favourite bands while i was on a detour back to town.

A frustrating day out.

I did catch some good performances from local bands and watched Neil Young perform Hey Hey My My so it wasn’t a total loss.