DiscussionEnd of year thread: best photo moment of 2025 (and worst)

Not necessarily your best photo, just the moment. And because we're all friends here, the worst one too.

Mine: best was back in July, a pair of Carolina wrens raising a second brood in an old boot I'd left on the porch, right outside the kitchen window. I watched the whole thing up to fledging day with the 180-600 resting on the windowsill and a coffee in my other hand. Worst: set up for the Christmas Bird Count at 6am in the snow and realized I'd forgotten to charge either battery. Either! Counted birds with my eyes like it was 1950.

Your turn!

Best: fog lifting off the Vale of Edale in October, already went on about that in Showcase. Also, if I'm allowed two, starting this place and seeing it go from six of us to whatever it is now. Worst: dropping a dark slide (the actual kind) into a bog on Bleaklow while changing film in the wind. Yes, I'm aware. Yes, I've heard every joke.

Best: a family of Harris's hawks hunting together in the saguaros in April. Five birds working as a team, flushing a jackrabbit from one side while the others waited on the arms of the cactus. I've watched that a dozen times over the years and never been in the right spot until this spring, and I had the right lens on for once.

Worst: a rattlesnake under my tripod at Sabino Canyon, discovered when I went to collapse it. We came to an understanding. He kept the tripod spot. - Walt

Kathy_R said:

And because we're all friends here, the worst one too.

Best: shot my best mates wedding as a guest with the 35 Art and they framed one of my candids above everything the pro gave them. Felt slightly bad for the pro. Only slightly. Worst: my bank statement after Black Friday. Honestly

Best: a fog inversion over Swaledale in November, ten minutes long. Worst: being on the wrong side of the valley for it.

Best: first weekend with the A7 V, my son scored and I have the whole sequence sharp, from the shot to the ball in the net to him running to his friends. 30 frames, all usable. My wife has one of them as her phone background. Worst: same match, I forgot to format the card and it was full at half time. I deleted old frames on the camera in the rain like a beginner.

best: first roll developed at home with no streaks. worst: the 4 rolls before that

Best: Cradle Mountain in March, completely clear for the one morning we had, Dove Lake like glass and the peak with that little bit of cloud sitting on top like it was posed. Got there at 5:30 and had it to myself for about forty minutes. Worst: watching my lens cap go over the side of the Bruny Island ferry about two days later, along with my dignity

best: shot a band in a basement at iso 25600 and the denoised file ended up on their album cover. worst: the band

noisyshadows said:

worst: the band

Ha! I won't ask.

Best: Morskie Oko in November with first snow on the peaks and the lake completely still, first trip with the Z6 III. I waited one hour for the wind to stop and it stopped exactly at sunrise. Worst: the 400 people on the same path at 6 in the morning, and the man who stood in front of my tripod for ten minutes to make a video call.

Best: a jumping spider (Phidippus audax, obviously) waving its pedipalps at my lens like it was saying hello. Juveniles do this thing where they bob up and down when they're deciding whether you're a threat, and this one did it for a full minute while I shot about 200 frames. Three are sharp. One of them is my favorite photo I've ever taken (sorry, I know, it's another spider).

Worst: also a spider, in my bedroom, at 2am, not photographed (I'm a fraud). It was a big house spider and I put a glass over it and went to sleep on the couch, which is not the behavior of someone who calls herself a bug photographer.

Best: the big aurora in November that made it all the way down to Colorado. I'd been watching the forecasts for two days and drove up to a pull-off north of Walden after work. 14mm at f/1.4, 2 seconds, ISO 1600, and the pillars were moving fast enough that anything longer smeared them. You could see the red by eye, which I have never had at this latitude and probably won't again for years.

Worst: driving four hours to Bortle 2 at the Great Sand Dunes for a night that clouded over at midnight, exactly when the core cleared the ridge. Slept in the car, drove home.

Best: an old boy fishing off Cromer pier at sunset, the Helios swirl doing exactly what I wanted for once, wrapping round him like a frame. He asked what the old lens was and told me he had the same one on a Zenit in 1978. Worst: the other 300 frames where it did exactly what I didn't.

Best: buying my first real camera!!! Worst: realizing how much I don't know lol. Happy new year everyone!

best, kingfisher at Rutland landing on the post right in front of the hide, R7 at 1/3200, nailed it, fish in the beak and everything, the bloke next to me missed it because he was on his phone. worst, everything I shot in the 3 weeks after trying to do it again. happy new year all

Great thread everyone, thank you. Rattlesnake under the tripod wins worst of the year, sorry Walt. Happy new year!