Since matthew started it...

Ok, two questions.....what has been the dumbest question asked to you?...like "are you taking a picture?" Answer: no I am taking laser measurements for an extra terrestial landing field.....here is your "stupid " sign.

the other one...what is the dumbest thing you have ever done?

In my case after spending about 15 min trying to focus on a flower I asked my friend....hey Paul why cant I focus on anything? I see everything dark I cant beleive the bellows draw is so great as to make it all dark!....he looks at my camera....looks at me with pity in his eyes and said..." if you remove the film holder is easier to focus"...


Ok...one more.....what is the dumbest thing you have ever seen done?

In my case while unemployed I went to work at a friends camera shop....so two students came in to buy paper for their photo class....after I gave them the pack they proceded to open it to share the paper.....so I said...ah....you are not supposed to do that, you have ruined the paper...they said....we thought it was only enlarger light......

hehe!

Can't remember the dumbest question I've been asked. Read a few on photo.net though! Actually, my 3.5 yo has just started asking 'why' to absolutely everything.. I can see it's going to drive me nuts!

I 'expose' prints thru the enlargers red filter occasionly

what has been the dumbest question asked to you?

Probably "don't you think you are an elitist luddite for not embracing digital photography?" -something along that line!

what is the dumbest thing you have ever done?

A few years ago, I had just purchased my Leica M6 from a shop in Wellington New Zealand. It was a gorgeous day and since I had never had such an awesome camera, I was in a rush to get out there and do some shooting. I was slightly confused by the whole bottom loading of the film, but was sure that I knew what I was doing so didn't waste any time reading silly instuctions. I had a great day of shooting, must have walked 10 or more kilometers all over wellington. Then it happened,,, I went to rewind my film, and I thought, that's strage it sure is easy to rewind. I then realised I didn't load it properly! I lost my first roll of film ever due to human error! So here I am with my flashy new camera and I got nothing! I've since learned two things- 1. excitement = a huge drop in my IQ and 2: make sure the rewind wheel is turning when I advance the frame.

what is the dumbest thing you have ever seen done?

A guy walking around Wellington all day taking imaginary photographs...

I have worked in a camera shop for over 15 years and we started keeping track of some of the more stupid questions.Here are a few of our favorites.
#1 Can you change film underwater?
#2 Can you use a Polaroid Land Camera at the beach?
#3Could you please sell me that telephoto Ektachrome I saw on TV ?
#4What does Occupied Japan mean? I thought Japan was always occupied by someone,didn't you?
#5 How much flash would I need to bounce it off the moon?
#6Can I use ISO film and ASA film in the same camera?
#7Can you program my digital camera to leave the leader sticking out?
#8 I had a lady bring me a VHS tape for processing.So I put it on the shelf in the back of the store and called her 2 days later and said it was ready.She was thrilled,it seems the place she had been taking it to was taking 2 weeks to process it. No ,I didn't charge her.
#9 I developed a roll of film for a young man and when he started looking through them large crocodile tears were rolling down his cheeks. I asked what was wrong and he said he was positive that he had pictures of a UFO
and now no one would believe him. Imagine that?
#10 What is the best film for capturing ghosts?

Thanks for reading my list.

Second list of stupid questions.
#11 A lady asked me if I could print a negative for her backwards.Upon furthur review it seems her son was standing behind a tree and she figured if you turned the negative around ,he would be there.
#12 An elderly lady came in with a Polaroid picture of her barn. She asked me to reprint the picture for her,but she wanted me to make sure that her husband who was inside the barn would magically appear outside the barn wearing his favorite hat.
#13 A woman came in all excited carrying a roll of film. She had dropped the roll of film and was worried she had knocked the images out of focus.
I assured her that I would use Kodak's Focusing Solution to bring back the images.
#14 A gentleman brought in his first roll of processed film and his new Nikon camera for me to look at. His pictures were completely blank except for frame lines. Upon inspection of the Nikon, I found there was no shutter in the camera. I asked him about this and he told me he had taken an x-acto knife and carefully cut away the protective cover(shutter curtain).
# 15 Why don't I get the negatives back from you, just the slides?
#16 A nice lady brought me her Pentax K1000 manual 35mm camera and asked me whether the mirror was supposed to stay up or down during the exposure.She determined it needed to be down so she super-glued it down. She then forced the wind lever thinking it might have been a little stiff.
#17 I had an Army Captain bring me a 110 camera and 6 rolls of crushed 35mm film still in their boxes. After questioning him,he explained the 110 camera said AUTO-LOAD on the side of it. He was trying to push boxed 35mm rolls of film into a 110 camera.
Thanks Jim

Well I loved #14 and I can't belive #17. Are there really people that dumb? As for the studends opening a box of paper to share. I heard that story when I was in school. There's must be more than 2. ;-)

That reminds me. I also worked in a 1 hour lab once. I came in to my shift and the guy working said, "you're not gonna believe this one." I said, what? He said a woman came into the shop to pick up her film but he couldn't find it. He asked if she was sure she had the right lab and she said, "I got one of them disposable cameras from the grocery, when I was done using it I threw it in trash can outside the store, now where are my prints?". He explained to her that the 'disposable' cameras need to be dropped off in the store for processing....

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#10 &nbsp;What is the best film for capturing ghosts?

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Ektaplasmchrome

I was in Rachel, NV about 10 years ago, and went to the Little A' Le' Inn for a mid-morning coffee & piece of pie and started looking at the photos of "extra terrestrial" thingys that people sent to the restaurant.

One of the photos was a Polaroid of an empty field. A note describing the photo said that the person could see a flying saucer in the field, but the photo didn't show it - which was positive proof that what he saw was a real flying saucer....Okay .... a photo of nothing proves that something was there. Hmmmmmm......