Made any dumb [Leica] mistakes lately?

[4season <4season@boulder.net>]

Let's hear your "I can't believe I made such a boneheaded mistake"
stories.

This past summer, I got what may be my only chance to hear the author
Ray Bradbury give a lecture in the historic Chautauqua auditorium. It's
a wonderful space with a barnlike feel, and though it was dark, I was
well prepared with a 90 Summicron-M lens and  3200 film. Naturally, I
had fussed over focus and exposure settings in advance and when the man
walked on stage, I quickly snapped off a number of shots, getting some
fine ones by being the last one to return to his seat after a standing
ovation. For the heck of it, I made a half-dozen more from my seat.

The results? Disaster! The reason was readily apparent: The area at the
back of the stage were a nice 18% grey--I had done my metering off a
black velvet curtain! Mr. Bradbury appears as a ghostlike blob of
featureless light stuffed into a suit--not what I'd call a flattering
portrait.

Oh, but the story gets better: The shots taken from a seated position? I
held the camera vertically, finder-side-up, and sure enough, got a nice
frame-filling image of the head in front of me. Reminder to self: The
parallax correction doesn't work for nearby out-of-focus objects; maybe
safer to hold the camera finder-side *down* next time, just to make
sure.

And you thought I forgot the lenscap :-)

Jeff
Somewhere in Boulder, Colorado