What is the most expensive photographic item that you've lost?

[Nicholas Lindan]

... the US Postal Service paid me for the insurance amount. So where did that lens go?

If it turned up somewhere in the postal system it would have been destroyed. If it somehow eventually got delivered I imagine it showed up on ebay.

 

[nosmok]

I lost a 6x9 Super Ikonta in totally mysterious circumstances-- one day it was there, several days later when I was going to send it away as a gift, gone! vanished into thin air. Never figured out what happened to it.

 

[Laurent]

I once lost/forgot the small bag in which I kept all my Rolleiflex's accessories (8 filters, 3 roleinar, tabletop tripod with Rolleifix, some film, Sekonic L208 meter) in the bus in Utrecht some time ago.

When I realized the loss I was quite worried. The next day I asked a colleague to help (I don't speak Dutch) by calling the "lost & found" department of the bus company... and recovered my precious bag !

 

[gone]

I haven't lost any gear, but have misplaced practically everything I own at one time or another, especially my glasses. Guess that doesn't count. When you live in big cities or travel a lot, you start to pay a lot more attention to this sort of thing.

BART used to get a lot of my stuff that was left on their seats in S.F., nowadays when I travel it's by train. Plenty of opportunities to lose all sorts of stuff there because you can get off at layovers, move around to different cars, etc. You learn to put everything in 1 bag, makes things much easier.

 

[ColdEye]

A Billingham 335 with 8 toyo 4x5 holders, a pretty nice loupe and a nikkor SW 120/8. Lost it at Mt Laguna here in San Diego. No idea how it got lost, we were at a pretty secluded spot, nowhere near cliffs, and there were 3 of us taking pictures in the area. I just set it down not TOO far from me, came back 30mins later and its gone. Tried searching but nothing. I like to believe Big Foot is enjoying his newfound LF hobby.

 

[Huss]

I once lost/forgot the small bag in which I kept all my Rolleiflex's accessories (8 filters, 3 roleinar, tabletop tripod with Rolleifix, some film, Sekonic L208 meter) in the bus in Utrecht some time ago.

When I realized the loss I was quite worried. The next day I asked a colleague to help (I don't speak Dutch) by calling the "lost & found" department of the bus company... and recovered my precious bag !

Haaay, was my Zeiss viewfinder in there?

 

[Huss]

A Billingham 335 with 8 toyo 4x5 holders, a pretty nice loupe and a nikkor SW 120/8. Lost it at Mt Laguna here in San Diego. No idea how it got lost, we were at a pretty secluded spot, nowhere near cliffs, and there were 3 of us taking pictures in the area. I just set it down not TOO far from me, came back 30mins later and its gone. Tried searching but nothing. I like to believe Big Foot is enjoying his newfound LF hobby.

Everything I've heard about BigFoot suggests he shoots 110.

 

[DREW WILEY]

my mind.... That's the most essential article of photographic gear, and the easiest to lose. And look at the cost of a college degree involved. I'd call that expensive, especially since I forgot everything I learned.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Leica 35mm Summicron f/2.

Found it over ten years later in the bottom of a box filled with old stuff. Half broken, unusable. Never new how it got there and what happened to it. Had to sell it, cheap.

 

[Timmyjoe]

I had a Canadian Post delivery person "lose" a Leica M2 that was used by the US Army in Vietnam. I was highly pissed off. Took me almost two months from here in the States to track down who the driver was. Once I found them, and contacted their local Canada Post hub, suddenly they were able to find the camera and send it back to me.

Best,
-Tim

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I lost my first wife. She left me. It was very expensive.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I haven't lost any gear, but have misplaced practically everything I own at one time or another, especially my glasses. Guess that doesn't count. When you live in big cities or travel a lot, you start to pay a lot more attention to this sort of thing.

BART used to get a lot of my stuff that was left on their seats in S.F., nowadays when I travel it's by train. Plenty of opportunities to lose all sorts of stuff there because you can get off at layovers, move around to different cars, etc. You learn to put everything in 1 bag, makes things much easier.

NYC subways are just as bad. I lost my Nikon F Photomic T with two lenses in it around 1970 five years after buying it in Japan when I was in the USAF. It was too expensive to replace in the USA so I bought a Nikkormat FT3 which I still have.

 

[mrosenlof]

Mostly I've only lost little things, lenscaps, the front/top parts of never-ready cases (no loss really), cable releases. There are misplaced filters hiding in probably a few places around the house. I have not yet done a thorough search, but I am missing the negs from the photos I took at the hospital in the first couple of hours after my daughter was born in 1993. They're probably somewhere in the house. Probably.

 

[Rick A]

My Mamiya 6 and the Sekonic L-398 meter that was clipped to it vanished from my house. I tore the house , my truck, and my car to shreds searching for it to no avail. I remember putting it where I always do when I unloaded film from it, a specific spot on a shelf in my DR, I replaced the meter, but not the Mamiya 6.

 

[Donald Qualls]

I don't recall actually "losing" anything more consequential than a lens cap. I've traded or sold some stuff and then went back years later looking for it, until I recalled what I did, but that's not "lost"...

 

[AZD]

When I was 16 my grandfather gave me his old Zeiss Ikoflex Favorit TLR, complete with original box, instructions, case, and lens cover, the cool art deco clear plastic one. He told me most people would have lost it by now.

I lost it immediately.

 

[Arthurwg]

I gave my girlfriend a $1500 digital camera. She left it in a taxi cab. Does that count?

 

[Huss]

I gave my girlfriend a $1500 digital camera. She left it in a taxi cab. Does that count?

So she took off with your iphone?

 

[BradS]

When I went away to college, I left all my negatives and all of the prints that I had made up to that point in my parents' house. They moved twice in the six years while I was away doing my undergrad and somehow, somewhere along the way, all of my early work was lost except for a few prints I had tucked away in my high school year book.

 

[Huss]

When I went away to college, I left all my negatives and all of the prints that I had made up to that point in my parents' house. They moved twice in the six years while I was away doing my undergrad and somehow, somewhere along the way, all of my early work was lost except for a few prints I had tucked away in my high school year book.

Oh man! I'd love to revisit the old negatives from when I was a kid.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I gave my girlfriend a $1500 digital camera. She left it in a taxi cab. Does that count?

You should have...never mind.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

I used gold toner for the first time, then poured it down the drain at the end of the printing session instead of keeping it. Not the end of the world, but it still stung a bit.

 

[Pieter12]

A few months ago I lost a ridiculously expensive Leica lens hood. Was changing lenses on the fly. thought I had stashed it in a pocket or my bag, but it wasn't there when I went to look.

 

[Sirius Glass]

My Nikon 20mm to 35mm AF zoom lens which is has an all metal body, not plastic, has gone missing. It is hiding some place around here [hopefully] just giggling. I have turned my place upside down several times now.

 

[Arthurwg]

So she took off with your iphone?

I've since bought her another, a Fuji. But she doesn't like it.