…that was.

It’s been golden week here in Japan. Three bank holidays close together encourages the country to take things easier for an extended period. Not a golden week weather wise in my neck of the woods. One solid day of warmth and sunshine broke up the remaining cool and showery ones. I entered the period with two goals: leave this site alone for the duration; and get a digital SLR. The former was achieved without issue. The latter was achieved via the outlay of the cost of four ‘AA’ batteries and gentle mirror and sensor dusting.

I jumped into the digital SLR adventure early. Around 2003 I purchased my one and only digital SLR: a Pentax *istD. It clicked its shutter more than 5000 times until film lured me back. I stored the *istD safely along with some prime lenses. After a near 20 year retirement, a re-reading of the manual and insertion of batteries, I fired off a few test shots. All worked well save issues with level photos (at the moment I assume that’s a me problem and not a camera one).

Here’s an early shot for your enjoyment:

It’s been a long, long time since I have walked the pavements solely looking for interesting photographic opportunities. My local neighbourhood did not and will not disappoint in that respect. There is always something that catches my eye even walking the same route for the umpteenth time. The *istD is an old camera in the digital scheme of things. That’s just fine with me. I have four compact flash cards each of 512MB in capacity. Yep! MB and not GB. I’m shooting 6 megapixel photos so each of those cards gives me about 34 photo opportunities - nearly a roll of 35mm film’s worth. More than enough. I don’t want to be sat in front of the computer for extended periods processing scores and scores of photos. Those days are behind me.

Software I used of yore is surprisingly still around. Shooting RAW, back in the day, I used CaptureOne software to do my RAW conversions. My Photoshop application of choice (then and now) is Picture Window Pro and now incorporates RAW conversion out of the box. So one less piece of bloatware required. I cannot remember the photo management software I used. Before reaching the end of that previous sentence I remembered it, stopped typing, went to search and it’s still going: iMatch. Let’s see if my license key request yields anything from such a long break of use. In lieu of iMatch, I have moulded XnView MP to the needs of my simple workflow. If I need more than XnView provides, my workflow expands with both a time cost and an iMatch license cost.

Update: The kind people at iMatch sent me the necessary. I can download the thirteen year old version 3 my key is valid for. Some fun awaits trying to get that to work methinks.

I have no idea what has changed in the digital SLR world since the early 2000s. I have some catching up to do if and when the motivation strikes. The cameras seem to be bigger, heavier and able to do everything. However, it’s heartening to find that crap in still results in crap out irrespective of what tricks a camera can do. Spend more time getting one shot right and the knock on effect is less time trying to fix everything in software. Twenty years ago I limited my ‘manipulations’ to RAW conversion, cropping, level/curve/dodge/burn play and a tad bit of sharpening. If the need to remove branches, arms, heads, cars etc. ad nauseum arises then perhaps the photo was not there in the first place. I escaped from digital early too. I could see where it would lead: post-manipulation winning above perfect moments captured in camera. As soon as digital SLRs were able to take multiple shots a la motor wind, then the average photographer through simple probability could capture great shots - especially of moving objects. Where’s the skill in that?