It’s been a while, yes I know. The past few months has been quite a busy period. Actually I’m lying – that’s not true. There were a few things happening here and there, and then there was the whole Merdeka (Independence) celebration recently, for which I was involved in... not in any way whatsoever.

Which leaves me with only one possible excuse – the Pentax K10D. In other words, photography.

Some of you who’ve known me for a long time know that I’ve always been into photography in a serious amateur-ish way. I used to lug around my Dad’s Nikon SLR F301 and two lenses around, taking precious and carefully thought-out snapshots of everyday things. Precious because as a student, I only had so much to spend on films and developing.

So after a long hiatus, I finally managed to get hold of a good, serious amateur DSLR a few months back in the form of Pentax, admittedly a make I’m totally unfamiliar with.

(post continue below...)

Hiatus...

There’s a thought, that I have on the state of photography for the masses in the past decade or so. I remember, what seems like a long time ago when photography used to be very much part of everyday life, when practically everyone has a camera of some sort and regular trips to the photo shops is a very normal thing to do. For every event and every outing there were loads of photos to share around. There was always an enterprising soul who would take the photos, catalogue and index it, and then have the whole thing put up on a public board (such as in schools/offices) or an album or two will be passed around where all the sleeves with photos in them have been stapled shut. You can then fill up an order form for photos you want and the same enterprising fella would then develop them and get some money in return.

Remember those days?

And I realised that some time in the last decade or so this practice slowly dwindled, and in many places is gone altogether. You’d go and visit friends or relatives and they no longer put 17 family albums on the table for your perusal. And give honest comments on Some still do I suppose. But even for those, most of the photos tend to be old and as much as I love them oldies, I can’t help but think – what’s happened?

Transition period

That’s what happened. The transition between analogue and digital cameras. The past decade has seen digital camera emerging in the market, slowly taking the place of analogue cameras, and along with the practice of developing photos and sharing albums.

Obviously it couldn’t just happen overnight. For example, digital SLRs have become affordable to amateurs only recently. And only in the past couple of years that we began to see acceptance by professionals, and even that is not complete yet.

Granted, today's point and shoot have come a long way and they're perfectly fine for your day to day casual photography. And you might ask what's an SLR good for? Well, the picture of Singapore National Museum below shows you why. It was taken hand-held, no tripod or any bracing whatsoever, and of course, no flash to spoil the lighting as it was.

And then there’s the issue about printing. Most people I know still go to photo shops with their thumbdrive-full of JPEGs to have them printed, and only to bring home a thumbdrive filled to the brim with viruses and worms. Of course, with a bunch of printed photos too. I’ve done a few photo-quality prints myself, on my two-year-old HP photo printer. While the result has been good, the process and the complexity has been much less than satisfactory. It still too arcane a process, requiring loads of trial and error printing and of course, wasted photo papers. Not to mention the expensive ink!

Anyway, enough of the rants. “ So, what are the solutions?”, you may ask. Well, that's for part two, and possible three...