It’s a real mystery and it’s bugging the hell out of me! Last year, when I was having delusions of grandeur and thought I could recapture past glories in the veteran bike racing scene, I put away all my kit for a while. Recently when I came to blow the dust off I could only find the camera body and the kit lens. My other two lenses and filters, and a myriad of other bits and pieces had disappeared. Despite tearing the house apart I haven’t found them to this day! We are moving in a couple of weeks and I still harbour the hope that somehow they will magically appear during the move. Whilst clinging on to this forlorn hope I have resisted re-purchasing anything but the essentials again - spare batteries and SD cards, chargers, UV filter, and remote shutter release. That leaves me with just the 18-55mm kit lens - which is surprisingly good. I miss my super fast 56mm and 23mm prime lenses but since I am doing much more landscape stuff lately I tend to always be in the F5.6 to F11 range anyway for the wider depth of field. I also managed to find my tripod which I am using more and more. In my pre-covid life I would take advantage of the fact that I spent most days in the London office to wander the streets and snap a few images. Now I’m working from home I tend to go out pre-dawn and take long exposure images locally or travel to the nearest countryside locations where a steady base is essential for sharpness. It also tends to slow me down and enable me to think more about composition and the technical side of image making. I have to confess I am not so talented in the creativity department but spend hours at least trying to master the theory - it’s my engineering background I think!
I have also invested in a photo printer - the Epson XP-8600 - which is capable of fantastic print quality. Sadly I seem incapable so far of actually producing the promised quality. Once again I am delving into the technical aspects of screen calibration and printer profiling. I have already concluded that editing on a laptop and then expecting to be able to match what you see on the screen with what is actually printed on the page is a fruitless task. The easiest solution is to edit on a properly calibrated and profile matched screen like those from EIZO - but starting at around £600 for a basic model it’s a hefty Christmas present. I’ll persevere for a while to get the best out of what I’ve got I think…….
