Crap! I lost a lens

gary in nj · Apr 17, 2017

I managed to lose a Rokkor 50mm. I had it about four weeks ago because I remembering offering it to my son to use and he declined. I've gone on two shoots since then when I brought out my full bag - and both times I carefully laid out my equipment on the tailgate of my pick-up - so I know I didn't leave it out. I didn't use that lens for either shoot. But I went to grab it from my bag yesterday and it wasn't there. Searched the house with no luck.

40 years of photography and I've never lost a single piece of equipment. Getting old sucks.

Toffle · Apr 17, 2017

That is indeed unfortunate. Hopefully your lens is not truly missing and is only visiting in another dimension with my lens caps, shutter releases and tripod adapters. (which seem to disappear on a regular basis, only to re-appear on my shelf a season or two later)

greg zinselmeier · Apr 17, 2017

as my wife says, "check the frig?" I almost inevitably put (misplace) everything in the refrigerator. !!!

BrianShaw · Apr 17, 2017

I hate when that happens. Bur rest assured... your not the only one to have this experience. Here are my two options on how to find it:

1. sell the camera. Once you have no need for the lens it will turn up.
2. Prayer to St. Anthony, patron saint of lost things. (this is not an endorsement of any religious ritual, nor a recommendation of any religion or religious belief. It is merely offered as a historical option.)

jeffreyg · Apr 17, 2017

Check with your son it might be mounted on his camera. Two bad memories don't make one good one.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

Chris Johnson · Apr 17, 2017

I have a couple of extra 50's for Minolta. If it does not turn up, PM me, I'll send you one.

Old-N-Feeble · Apr 17, 2017

Were other people around when your equipment was out in the open?

gary in nj · Apr 17, 2017

BrianShaw said:
Here are my two options on how to find it:

1. sell the camera. Once you have no need for the lens it will turn up.

That is funny right there!

gary in nj · Apr 17, 2017

Chris Johnson said:
I have a couple of extra 50's for Minolta. If it does not turn up, PM me, I'll send you one.

Let me look in some unusual places first. If I can't find it I'd be happy to buy one of yours.

gary in nj · Apr 17, 2017

jeffreyg said:
Check with your son it might be mounted on his camera. Two bad memories don't make one good one.

I'm sure he doesn't have it. I was lending him my XD11 while I repaired his 201. I said to him, "here, you'll need this MD lens for the Aperture Priority mode". His reply, "no thanks, I'd rather use my lens (Rokker-PG 1.4) and shoot in manual mode". Snobbish of him...but for good reason.

I'm sure the lens went back into my bag...but maybe not. I have to look.

ciniframe · Apr 17, 2017

Way back in the 70's while riding the Ravenswood L in Chicago I was changing lenses on my camera and left a 105mm f2.8 Takumar on the seat! Suffice to say I never saw it again.

Luckless · Apr 17, 2017

Having stuff walk off is frustrating. I had an 8 cell battery charger for my small flashes walk off and somehow wind up in a closet at a relative's place. I had been looking for it for months, trying to figure out where it could have gotten to when they randomly asked me if I could use 'this weird battery charger' they found, along with a note book and a few other things. No sweet clue how they got there.

greg zinselmeier said:
as my wife says, "check the frig?" I almost inevitably put (misplace) everything in the refrigerator. !!!

So, how sure are you that your wife isn't sneaking your stuff into the fridge just to see if you notice?

Vaughn · Apr 17, 2017

I have 6 or 8 exposed but indeveloped sheets of 11x14 in a film box from when I had to reload quickly. Great potential images -- no idea where the film box went.

Can't find the 4x5 negatives from the 80s I really would like to use. If you set a pair like this, let me know!

Sirius Glass · Apr 17, 2017

I learned to look for lost things in the last place that I would look first. Think about it, when something is lost it is always found in the last place that you look. Therefore to save time and energy, just go to the last place that you would look first. Easy!

mshchem · Apr 17, 2017

My wife left her Kindle on a United airplane today. I expect she will get it back, but it will have a broken nose and two missing teeth

Vaughn · Apr 17, 2017

It is amazing I have not lost much camera gear. Years of backpacking, packing mules, and traveling overseas trains one to look twice if not a third time around you before you take off. Out of habit one eventaully establishes a packing-up routine that helps one from missing something, hopefully! Oh, a lens cap or two have bounced down rock faces (gone), a Pentax Digital Spot into the creek (still works 10 years later), and that sort of fun stuff.

darinwc · Apr 17, 2017

I loose one item of my camera gear almost daily. While I am looking for it, I often find what I lost yesterday. Seriously.

Arklatexian · Apr 17, 2017

gary in nj said:
I'm sure he doesn't have it. I was lending him my XD11 while I repaired his 201. I said to him, "here, you'll need this MD lens for the Aperture Priority mode". His reply, "no thanks, I'd rather use my lens (Rokker-PG 1.4) and shoot in manual mode". Snobbish of him...but for good reason.

I'm sure the lens went back into my bag...but maybe not. I have to look.

The last Weston meter that I owned was placed on top of my auto while I took a picture or pictures, When I finished, packed camera and tripod away, got in the car and drove off, I looked in the rear view mirror, saw a car stop and the driver get out and pick something up and drive off. It wasn't until I stopped to make more pictures that I remembered where I left my meter. Sure did like that old Weston. Try going back and looking in the weeds somewhere. You probably won't find your lens either..........Regards!

Harry Stevens · Apr 18, 2017

A long lost 15m still sealed bulk roll of 35m film I bought in 1995 turned up last year in a old film bag I had lent my daughter in her college days. She found it in her attic.

I bought a Russian TLR in 1979 took it out first time and lost the shutter release cable.

Last December I repaired my beat up old Rolleicord left the front leatherette loose in case it needed more work took it for out test shots returned home and noticed leatherette missing............Still the repair was a complete success.

Luckless · Apr 18, 2017

Thinking more on it, I have to go with my most impressively 'lost' items being the spare battery for a camcorder, and a tape measure. Both were tucked away in my camera bag, carried daily as it is the only bag I like for my laptop, and eventually both were forgotten that they were in there.

Tape measure had slipped been slipped into a small space between some padding while trying to get more gear into the bag before heading to an event, rather than sitting in its usual spot. Battery went into this little pouch that was intended for SD cards, which seemed like a great place for it, given that I don't actually carry spare SD cards because my gear is mostly all film or CF card based, and I had nothing else to store there... The camcorder rarely got used, the main battery was more than enough for the little use I've gotten out of it, and eventually the spare battery in the pouch was forgotten. Which meant that I tend eventually went through every bin and shelf remotely related to camera or technology gear wondering where on earth I could have stashed that spare battery away before heading to an event that I might have wanted it.

jeffreyg · Apr 18, 2017

Sometimes you get lucky and find lost objects. Some years ago while on a trip to Sedona i was driving to photograph an Anasazi ruin, It was an eighteen mile drive and after a couple of miles on a gravel road I stopped to take a couple of photographs. After arriving at the ruins and a short hike from the parking area I set up my equipment. When taking a lightmeter reading I discovered one of the lenses of my eyeglasses was missing. I searched the trail, the car and my camera bag with no luck and hoped to find some drugstore reading glasses in Sedona. On the way back I noticed something glistening in the sun on the road where I had originally stopped to photograph and it was the lost lens. A true story! Thirty some-odd miles round trip and I found a 2inch by 1inch piece of glass on a dirt road. There is always hope you will recover your lens,

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

Toffle · Apr 18, 2017

jeffreyg said:
Sometimes you get lucky and find lost objects. Some years ago while on a trip to Sedona i was driving to photograph an Anasazi ruin... There is always hope you will recover your lens,

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

Pretty much off-topic here, and of little help in finding your lens, but several years ago my wife and I were visiting in the Sedona area and decided to hike Doe Mountain. (Not a difficult hike, but my wife was recovering from a serious car accident and still had significant hardware in both legs, so she was quite proud to be able to make the modest climb.) When we reached the top, she rested on a rock while I explored the top of the mesa. When I returned, she was positively beaming, and had quite the story to tell me. It seems that as she was resting, she happened to notice that the diamond was missing from her ring. She's quite philosophical about things, and though she was disappointed, she also figured that if she was to lose something like that, she couldn't think of a more beautiful place for it to happen. (nearly losing your life in a car wreck makes you appreciate life differently, I suppose) Well, as she was sitting there, she saw a little sparkle from the rocks not four feet away. After all the hiking and climbing we had done that day, she had lost her diamond within feet of where she stopped to rest!

When we got back to our hotel, Dora told her story to the desk clerk, who replied, "Of course you found your diamond!", and showed us a map of the various fortuitous vortexes that help fuel Sedona's tourism industry.

Your lens may be nearer than you think.

Wallendo · Apr 18, 2017

I hate losing equipment. It doesn't bother me as much if it is broken, because at least I know what happened. Most of the things I have lost have had help, usually a helpful person at my house who placed the item in a safe place, but neglected to tell me. For those items I have personally lost, it is usually because I put something in a coat or pants pocket and forgot about it.

Vonder · Apr 18, 2017

My wife "lost" our taxes last week. Apparently one of the kids moved them from the coffee table, so she thought. We looked high and low. Then on a lark, I checked behind the couch. Would've been the first place I looked, and her and the kids were all "looking" around the coffee table and couch. Yep. There it was. Just because someone says they looked someplace doesn't mean they did an adequate job.

The real fun is discovering things you never knew you had lost.

Vaughn · Apr 18, 2017

Or finding something you forgot you ever had!

Crap! I lost a lens

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