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Lone orchid in Scanniclift Copse
Spent a happy 4 hours moseying round Scanniclift Copse yesterday. Quite hard to pull a satisfying image out of the lushness, wildness, clutter. Sort of had a hunch that I wasn’t getting focusing quite right. I love the vibrance of this picture put it is spoiled by not having the pieces of wood pin sharp. In fact they are slightly less sharp than the tree trunk behind which misses the purpose of the picture. What I was seeing at the time was the orchid framed by the bits of rotten trunk. Now I see that the pieces of wood look like a pair of hares and that shoudl have been the focus. It looks very different printed out. My printer has rendered the blues of the bluebells much closer to the purple of the orchid. I took a lot of variants but it was quite tricky as my tripod and I were perched on a steep slope that was fragile and cumbly. Really need to go back in a week’s time when things are in fuller bloom – the flowers were only out in patches and in another week or two it will be a sea of colour. Hopefully by then my nice long lens will be repaired and back. Delighted to get the cheque through today from the insurers – very prompt thankyou!
Bluebells and log in Scanniclift Copse
This was the other one I liked best – the simplicity of it - and it has printed up well.
I also found this rather wonderfully grumpy face in the rocks.
Scanniclift rock face
Obvious really. It boils down to the quality of the original image when it comes to high quality printing. I suppose most of what I’ve been doing so far has remained on screen which is far more forgiving. When I started this project 18 months ago a key target was getting more stuff out and printed. It’s taken me until now to get the printing sufficiently reliable (choosing a printer, choosing paper, learning some colour management, getting ICC profiles, buying frames, troubleshooting then replacing printer, starting again with a new printer …), and that’s the stage where failings in the actual photos start being the only thing left to blame! I have 6 printed and framed so far. Have also discovered, very disappointingly, that I’ve lost some decent digital files from a few years ago despite my rigorous backing up efforts. There was a whole series of bluebells and ramson in Scanniclift Copse that I can’t find anywhere. The odd thing is that I had some photographically printed up and usually that means several duplicates in different places. Here’s the best of my 2008 ones, but I left it several days beyond the peak of the bluebells. I love woodlands and take a lot of photos in them. They are very cluttered places and it takes some searching to find a simple composition, lead in lines, a good focal point etc. I think the ingredients that help this one are the trio of trees, the V-shape badger-paths leading in from the foreground, and the soft late sunshine.
Scanniclift Copse
A week later and HP still not re-collected the old printer, nor refunded the money into my account. Saqi at HP tells me it could take up to 14 working days for the money to arrive (=31st December) and they will advise what to do with the printer after that. In the meantime it’s okay to take it out of its ginormous box so at least it’s not cluttering up the place. £100 worth of inks sold on ebay. Maybe a printer to follow. Meanwhile spending time getting acquainted with the Canon. Discovering that pictures which look good on screen don’t necessarily print up well. Sometimes for reasons I still don’t understand. Managed to print a lovely version of this photo from the steep hanging woods above Fingle Bridge. Sharp detail, good colours etc.
Woods above Fingle Bridge
But this photo – which on screen I like just as well – simply isn’t printing up okay. The main problem is the grass and moss blur into a fudgy fluffy mess. I guess it is down to lack of focus or movement blur, but that doesn’t really account for the lack of quality.
Woods near Merrivale
Obviously there are hardly any pixels in these versions compared to the original (shot with RAW) that I’m printing from. I will have another look in daylight tomorrow and see if I can get to the bottom of it.
Spent an hour or so putting my new Canon Pixma pro 9500 through its paces. Discovered it will print A3+ borderless if I select Matte Photo Paper instead of Other Fine Art paper (for my Fotospeed Natural Soft Textured). Takes a lot longer to print a page than the HP, but lovely lush quality coming out. A bit of trouble with a red colour cast on one of the ICC profiles supplied by Fotospeed, but I’ve emailed them the problem and see if that can be improved. It’s only 3 months since I really started concentrating on getting to grips with the printing, so what’s a few more days between friends. Suspect I shall end up practically giving away my HP inks on ebay. It’s reassuring to see a few “watchers” clocking up but nobody is making any bids! I’m a newbie to ebay, but the one item I bid on a few months back rocketed in price just in the last hour. So fingers crossed. Did all my Christmas cards over the weekend. Had planned to do a sophisticated design and print them up nicely, but ended up roughing up a card from a photo I took several years ago and printing on the photocopier as that was reliable and quick. Still, I suppose anything with snow and garnished with a bit of red will do. With a bit of luck I won’t be tearing my hair out over misbehaving printers in the runup to Christmas next year. And if it snows this winter I’ll be sure to be out there taking photos to make into a truly impressive Christmas card for 2009!
Christmas card
Dispatched my HP photosmart B9180 by DHL on Monday, and went back to HP with my proof of carriage, proof of purchase, bank details, etc. Then on Thursday lunchtime a box the size of a fridge is delivered by DHL. Buried deep within it is my old printer! Phoned HP and my customer services friend Saqi was completely nonplussed. By close of play Friday I still have no reply from them and the “fridge” is still filling up half a room. Originally told the money should be in my account in 4 working days, and now it’s been extended to 14 working days. Hmm. Bit of a worry. Two expensive printers in the hand and a rather empty bank balance. Just hope my spare inks sell well on ebay.
Very annoyingly just wrote a post and promptly lost it. Whereditgo?!
Suffice to summarise that finally lost confidence in HP’s ability and/or willingness to sort the problem so asked for my money back. 14 days inside the 1 year warranty deadline. Collected by DHL today and with a bit of luck might see my money back by the end of the week. Ordered a Cannon Pixma 9500 to replace it.
In the meantime not taking many photos despite fantastic morning skies and mists, hoar frosts etc. But did find a wonderful rusting barn at Leign Farm, so here’s a few rusty pictures. Not all in sharp focus unfortunately and suffering a bit of motion blur. But I loved the patterns and colours.
