Much of a muchness

I was checking out Sam Haskin’s wonderful blog ,which I usually read for inspiration and to marvel at his skill, but the latest post is in praise of my lovely new Pentax K10D. Buying an expensive piece of kit is always going to be a stressful decision. Researching reviews, asking advice, waiting for the latest version until finally taking the plunge only to find there was something better or newer or at a better price on the market all the time, is both time consuming and frustrating. So it is good to get an expert’s opinion which vindicates my decision! (Although I must confess my choice was largely guided by my other photographic guru, L, who recommended the K10D to me ages ago).

So, having finally bought my new camera and having been persuaded not to use it’s automatic setting – however tempting that might be, and after many lessons, much research and reading of blogs, books and instruction manuals, (one of my favourites is http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/– highly recommended) I have come to the not-so-startling conclusion that the only way to improve is to get out and take photographs. My next discovery though – is that that is almost the easy bit. What happens to the RAW images afterwards is every bit as critical and after watching L processing shots in Photoshop recently, I realised that alongside learning to use my camera, I need to learn Photoshop, pronto, too.

Oh, and how to catalogue and save my images efficiently. I have just noticed that I have seemingly lost a whole batch of images I took on a recent trip to Mallorca. Having downloaded them and supposedly imported them into iView Media Pro, I must have forgotten to save them as they have vanished, which is very annoying as I have also deleted them off my camera, so they are gone for good. Luckily, I have a few photographs I took with my snappy Casio which merely reinforce how much better the shots taken with my Pentax might have been. Not a great loss to mankind maybe but I think there might have been a gem or two in there. Is this the photographer’s equivalent of ‘the one that got away’?