Unplanned upgrades

When I drove up to Wicklow Mountains last weekend and tried to keep my balance on a slippery rock while taking a shot, I had a flashback. A major, painful flashback...
Let's go back 1 year in time. I live in Dublin which is on the east coast of Ireland. One fine day I decided to visit my favorite place, Loop Head in county Clare. Yep, that's on the west coast, roughly 3-3.5 hours drive. I was almost there but stopped at Kilbaha to take few photos at the seafront. I set up my tripod, my Canon 450D with my favorite Sigma lens, and turned away to get a filter from the bag. In that 1 second the tripod fell over and everything landed in the sea. I quickly grabbed it but it was too late. The camera instantly died.
Ever since then my Sigma lens only needs 1 hour to kill the battery completely. It's continuously switching between Auto Focus and Manual Focus mode. I still use it, but I have to detach it all the time to save the battery.

After that incident I bought my new camera, a Canon 550D. My new ultra wide angle Canon 10-22mm lens is on its way to Ireland.
So in 1 second I lost roughly €1300.

Few months later I went up to Glendalough with Sylwia and Tom. We were taking pictures on the river bank, when I checked my phone and wanted to put it back into my pocket. Well, I missed it, and my only-few-months-old mobile fell into the river. Guess what? It died. Yep, I know, I am such a plonker. But you know what? I had insurance on my phone, so it was only a tenner to get a replacement.

Few more months later I had another scary moment... Wicklow mountains, Glenmacnass river again. I was balancing on top of a rock in the middle of the river. After taking my shot I realised where I was. The next rock seemed to be way too far and let's admit, I didn't have the courage to move. All my stuff was either in my pocket or in the bag: camera, every single lens I own, memory cards, mobile phone, GPS, wallet. I was standing on the rock for couple of minutes and nobody came to the rescue. I  took a leap of faith and stepped. Or rather jumped. I got away with it.

So, I was at Glenmacnass river last weekend having the above flashback. I am very careful these days, when I take long exposure shots or seascape photos, I always make sure that no tide, wind, seagull or anything else can risk my camera.
Instead of whining about my own stupidity I see these as "unplanned upgrades".

Though, a voice in my head keep saying "GET AN INSURANCE!"

Do you guys have any?

Do you always get the shot you want?

More and more often I know exactly what kind of shot I want, so I go out to take photos with that in my mind. Sometimes, just like this Monday, I do not get the result I am after.
I wanted to take a photo of a ring bouy with an island in the background. You could get it at Howth harbor! Unfortunately, because of the lights, the lens I have, the distracting rocks and pier, I could not get what I had imagined. And getting "something" just wasn't satisfying me.

On the other side of the pier, you can see the Howth Lighthouse, which is a nice building with flower pots hanging on the wall outside and a bright red door. It was shortly after sunset with dark clouds in the sky and strong wind. (Gosh, it was cold!)
I set up the tripod and my camera with the ultra wide angle Sigma 10-20mm lens.

I thought it was a good opportunity to take a long exposure shot with the B+W ND1000 filter. I love this filter, my best ever! It was getting darker and darker, at ISO100 and f8 and 4 minutes of shutter speed I was still getting underexposed, way too dark photos.
I tried with an ND4 filter and higher ISO, wider aperture as well, but I just wasn't happy.

So, I decided to go for a HDR image. I took one of the same building years ago, when I only had a hybrid camera which only could shot to JPG. That HDR image was processed from 3 JPGs from the very same file.
But this time I did a better job! I set up my camera (without filters), composed the image. Then changed my camera to Continuous shooting mode and bracketing of +- 2 stops. Then I walked home with 3 RAW files in my bag. Here is the result:

I have been to this place thousand times but I never realised that there was a spot, where I could see the building from a completely different angle.
I used the Canon 18-55mm kit lens @ 24mm with an ND4 filter to get this shot. At ISO100 and f9, the sutter speed was 18 seconds, thus the blurred clouds. I converted the image to mono afterwards.

On my way home I had two thoughts on my mind.
1) It is very annoying when people walk into your photo, even though you leave room for them to bypass.
2) You might not get what you wanted, but there must be another opportunity to get something nice instead.