Prints, prints and more prints

In the mail today I received a packet about an inch thick, and a tube about 40 cm long. Contained within were 380 (theoretically - I haven't counted) 6x4 prints and one A3 "poster" print. All but one of which were from my recent holiday. Why so many you ask? Well.

I remember when I used to shoot a lot of film that I always bemoaned the fact that a digital process encouraged the taking of thousands of pictures but the printing of none. In order to prevent the same phenomenon overtaking me, I invested in a decent photo printer within a couple of weeks of getting my first digital camera, and for a while the two were technological soulmates; any time I took a lot of pictures at least a couple would be printed in spectacular glossy colour on expensive A4 paper. I then moved house a couple of times, my life moved on in many ways and I found myself among those people with a huge archive of digital files but very few actual recent prints. I then discovered Photobox.

If I remember correctly I first discovered Photobox when looking for a route via which to print something larger than my printer could cope with. I don't think I went straight in with the 40x30 inch giant print, but that may have been my second or third order once I was confident of the quality. Since then it's mainly been when printing large volumes of shots that I've turned to they of the green splat logo. After my wedding and honeymoon I sent them about 500 shots and within a day they were printed and dispatched. There's something really exciting even now about waiting for your prints to arrive. Even though there's no longer the wondering what you're going to get, it's still nice to have some physical prints to flip through, maybe put one on your desk and a few on the wall. The A3 one is destined for framing if only I can find a wall with space for it.

As to why so many, I'm going to have to go with why not? I took 1500 shots on holiday of some amazing places and great experiences. I flicked through those and those 380 called out to me. At those volumes prints cost about 7p each, so my 380 + 1 cost me £38, and I should have plenty of options should I wish to fill an album.

If you're fed up of looking at photos on your phone or iPad, perhaps it's time to go back to a simpler time just for a few days , order some prints, and fill an album. Just maybe your grandchildren will thank you for it.

Mini Hint #281 - Protection Filters

With any interchangeable lens camera your first accessory purchase should be a protective filter for the lens. These are optically neutral (or close enough) and are mainly there as a sacrificial surface to take the scratches that you really don't want on the front element of your lens. Look for a Hoya multi-coated (HMC) UV filter (colourless and will supposedly cut down on atmospheric haze) or Skylight filter (slightly pink to reduce the blue effect of distant scenery), put it on your lens, and leave it there until you either break it, or inevitably get dust behind it and have to remove it to clean it.

Some people will say that every extra layer of glass reduces the optical quality. This is technically true, and I certainly wouldn't put a £5* filter on a £400 lens, but unless you're a professional and can afford to take the risk (in which case you wouldn't be reading this) then adding a decent bit of Hoya glass between lens and subject isn't materially going to hurt anyone.

* prices of filters depend on quality and thread diameter. Some tiny filters for lenses on things like the Nikon 1 or similar may actually cost only £10-15 or so so be led by brand in that case. Hoya HMC beats Hoya, which beats Hama. Cokin screw-in filters are probably somewhere in the upper middle range. It's rare for me to see anything that's not one of those four, but Canon etc do also make their own filters. I only have one of those :-)