Dead batteries. This is perhaps the most common problem instructors report about a session. Participants either didn't show up with a fresh battery or their battery failed during the safari. It should be noted that everything has a shelf life and all electronic products have a failure rate. At some point your battery will fail. If it dies a slow death, then an observant photographer might notice before it's too late. However, if you use your camera infrequently then you may not notice until the next time you are out shooting and it unexpectedly fails. So always, always carry an extra battery.

Another problem is a full memory card. With the advent of the 128gb memory card, many users don't feel the need to backup their images onto a computer until it's too late. They forget and forget and then the card is full and they are out taking photos with no backup. Another problem is forgetting to delete the photos after uploading them to a computer. It should be noted that memory cards also fail. Some will fail after the first use, others will fail after several years of use. So always carry an extra memory card with you just in case one fails or you run out of memory.

Occasionally an instructor will see a dead or dying LCD display. LCDs like all things, will go bad at some point and it's more common to see this problem in older cameras. It would seem that the manufacturing standards are such that this is truly an uncommon problem. Unfortunately there is nothing you can do about it other than to replace the camera or to send it in for repair.

Even more rare is a broken lens. Broken lenses are usually the fault of the user rather than a manufacturing problem. More often than not it is because the user has inadvertently introduced sand or other dirt into the lens and/or dropped it.