What 'bad' photography advice have you heard?

[Patrick]

There is some misinformation about photography out there, particularly on the Internet. Though you can also find it in the real, physical world as well…sometimes given out by people who should know better. Ive heard a few classics in my time.

On one particular occasion in a lab in South Australia, the woman behind the counter was giving advice about using long exposures to blur rushing water during daylight hours. She warned not to have the shutter open too long because the earth rotates.

!!!!!!

I could not believe my ears!

More recently (in another lab in SA) I was enquiring about prices for various print sizes. That’s all I wanted to know at that stage…I hadn’t specified as yet what format or medium I would be printing from. The guy who owned the lab stated that 8 x 10 inch prints are not full frame. Huh? Really? Well what about all the photographers out there who shoot 8 x 10 inch sheet film in large format, and for that matter, 4 x 5? I myself shoot 6 x 7 cm medium format film and that enlarges nicely to 8 x 10 without any cropping. I had noted previously that his price sheets included 120 as well as 35mm so you'd think he would know.

So what bad, misleading or strange photographic advice have others had? Whatever it is, please add it to the thread. For newcomers to photography, don’t take anything in this thread as sound advice. It’s really more for light hearted amusement than anything else.

[BK]

"It's better and cheaper and easier to shoot a roll of colour print film and have it printed in black and white, rather than using BW film in the first place"

Bill

[Patrick]

Here's another one...

In a lab in Adelaide a few years ago, I was having a conversation with one of the employees about Super 8 and I happened to mention that Kodachrome 40 was a tungsten balanced film. This guy seemed to think that I was wrong and stated that Kodachrome 40 was a daylight film, saying so with some authority. I corrected him by saying once again it was a tungsten film. And then he stated once again that it was a daylight film. We went on and on until I told him to pick up a K40 cart from behind the counter and have a look on the box. So he did and to his surprise read that it was indeed a tungsten balanced film.

Unbelievable how much time is wasted just to raise one little point about a film stock.

[Patrick]

The seller of a Bolex H16 who seems to be convinced that this camera will always have a 1/66th of a second shutter speed regardless of the running speed.

[Davideo]

"Film is fuzzy and digital is better"

This coming from a guy who's been in video since the seventies. Time for him to retire.

[Patrick]

"The digital age has made tripods redundant."

This quote was from a similar thread on another forum and originally spoken by an employee of an electronics chain by the name of Harvey Norman.

[supa8]

The owner of a local camera shop who advised, completely self-assured and with a tinge of arrogance, to put a filter in front of your lens (for any camera) to solve the 64T issue. Nice one dude

[Muckymuck]

The umpteen independent and semi-independent camera stores in the UK that stocked Kodachrome 40 who were adamant that Kodak was discontinuing the format when K40 production stopped.

I believe that this was due to K40 being part of the amateur photo films portfolio, whereas the others, including 64T were in the motion picture catalogue. There was no telling most of them, though. One told me they only sold about 5 rolls per year in any event...

[Patrick]

"You should 'upgrade' to digital."

Spoken by a young lass behind the counter of a chemist whom I was buying slide film from. I also had my 1970s Canon AE1 hanging around my neck at the time.

[Angus]

Not specifically aimed at me, but I recall when the FujiFilm MX1800 (I think) 2.3 megapixel digital camera came out around 10 years ago, at least one major photographic magazine stated the 2.3MP photos allowed it to be the first mass market camera to compete with 35mm film. You'd really think a photography journalist would know better. It *was* quite a good camera for its time but today a phone can do a lot better.

My local camera shop used to try and get me to purcahse a Bolex H16 that they had for sale for around a thousand quid. "Shoot a commercial with it, and you'll make your money back"...quite true, but nobody actually wants me to shoot their commercial!

[superadio]

Hi. Well, this is not really bad advice from someone. Its more own experience within photo and cameras. I am suprised and shock how short lived the digital cameras are. Its a very fragile technology, and its not worth to repair, or extremly expensive. In my family, the young generation turn up with new cameras all the time, for different reason, while i still use my film based cameras, and happy with it. But maybe they think as me as a bit dusty :lol:

[Patrick]

I had been shooting a lightning storm on negative film and let a local lab do the developing. I really enjoy shooting lightning and had been doing it for a number of years. The lab owner looked at my prints and asked me what settings I was using for shooting the lightning. I correctly stated that I had been using Bulb. To my surprise, he seemed to be insinuating that I was wrong for doing that. He said what I should be doing is keeping the shutter open and wait for the lightning strikes to appear during the exposure time.

Hmmm....which begs the question....how do you keep the shutter open without using the Bulb setting? That had me stumped. Well, I guess you could use the T setting but none of my cameras have a T setting. One could also use a pinhole camera!

[David M. Leugers]

How many transfer businesses advised you could throw away all those reels of film once you had them transferred to state-of-the-art VHS tapes... ?

[Patrick]

Lab owner: (referring to the 35mm still format) "In five years film will be all gone."

[BAC]

How many transfer businesses advised you could throw away all those reels of film once you had them transferred to state-of-the-art VHS tapes... ?

I find these reels at estate sales and garage sales all the time. It looks like a lot of people take that bad advice. In most cases the film has survived 30 to 50 years in excellent condition. You can count on a DVD to last a fraction of that time. Not to mention the projectors that you view the film on will last over 50 years, can you say that about a VHS or DVD player?