My first DSLR camera was a Nikon D7000, a crop sensor entry-level camera with capabilities in line with my newness to photography. I bought three cheap zoom lenses with different focal lengths, trying to cover the distance to all possible subjects I might want to photograph. One advantage to crop sensors is how the crop factor affects the focal range of lenses. The D7000 with my longest lens at 70 to 300 mm, zoomed in to its limit, was the equivalent of 450 mm. That brings a mildly distant subject quite close.
Issues like aperture, ISO, and shutter speed stayed outside my knowledge for a long time. That resulted in lots of bad photos; blurry, out of focus, under or over exposed. On this particular morning I wanted to photograph geese and ducks, usually plentiful out on the beaver ponds; so I put my longest lens on my camera. I had occasionally noticed herons but never got a chance to photograph one up-close. Usually I would see them in and around some tall trees on the other side of the beaver ponds. Back then, there were only a few heron nests in those trees; now there are probably a dozen.
I had taken several shots of geese and ducks paddling around right in front of me, not noticing the heron to my left, below the beaver dam, standing in the water. Then I saw it, backlit by the morning sun, washing itself. With no thought of camera settings, I pointed my camera and started shooting. I was so excited I had not even noticed what it did as I sprayed and prayed until my buffer filled up.
The heron got startled and flew away. I tried to get a shot of that too, but my buffer was full; nothing happened.
Back home, sitting at my computer, I saw that most of my shots on that day were poorly executed, too dark, not enough natural light for my camera settings and the long focal length. Then I pulled up one of the photos of the heron, out of focus but otherwise lit well, because of the morning sun shining directly on the subject. Most of the shots were like that.
Then I saw this one.
Wow!
Although it wasn't sharp like a pro would get, I captured something that I had not seen before, nor since: a backlit heron slinging water droplets in the morning sun, droplets elongated by my too-slow shutter speed, all frozen in air, and captured right as the heron's head stopped the slinging motion, letting the heron's head and body be fairly sharp.
Just luck! Just there at the right time, with cheap gear, with incorrect camera settings that created a shot I will never get again.
Most mornings are fairly unproductive, except for the pleasure of a morning's walk in the park. But I always believe there is a chance that some combination of luck, skill, and circumstance might create another once-in-a-lifetime photo.