Slow D o w n . . . . . .

Or maybe I should retitle this - "Don't Be a Joe Brown". Let me explain.

Early this afternoon, I was at the Woburn Boys and Girls Club shooting an event. I was there for about an hour, happily shooting away at 1250 ISO, manual settings, and 1/250th f 2.8. I shot about 100 frames, thanked the event organziers, and departed.
I put the camera in the car, and I went for coffee. After hanging at Dunks with a friend for a while (he is a D2X shooter and we always talk photography), I went home.
As I pulled in the driveway, the Town of Arlington Massachusetts strikes a second alarm for a structure fire on Thorndike St. So, since I had nothing to do, and I now have cool GPS unit which allows me to go anywhere, I figured I would spark this fire. Now I also know that if the fire goes to 3 alarms, Winchester goes from covering the station - directly to the fire.
So here is the "Dont Be A Joe Brown" part: I get to the fire, find a great parking spot, and there are 2 buildings on fire, HEAVY FIRE, HEAVY SMOKE, NOW A THIRD ALARM. Yes, I am in photographic heaven.
I get there, and there is fire leaping from the roof. And a jake on a ladder trying to control it. GREAT PHOTOS! Wanna see one? OK Here ya go:

Pretty easy to see the problem huh? Yup you guessed it - I never changed the settings on the camera. So this photo was taken at 1/250th at F2.8 at ISO 1250.
Now I know what you are all thinking right now (besides the "what an F'in idiot comments I can hear), why didn't I chimp the photos and realize immediately that I had screwed up? Well, I don't have an answer for that. Nothing, nada, zip. I took someting like 25 frames of the jakes putting out the fire, nice over all stuff, a couple of closeups of the guy on the stick and what do I have for my efforts? Nothing, nada, zip. Indeed, "Dont be a Joe Brown".
For the record, after realizing my erroneous ways, I changed all of the settings and came out with some nice photos, including this one of my old friend Arlington MA fire deputy chief Robert Jefferson:

So all was not completely lost, but remember my mantra for today

Chimping is GOOD !