Landing On Your Feet - Landing On Your Head

No that is not just an excuse to use another Etihad MC airplane picture. It describes what has been going on all month. The sensation will probably be familiar to a lot of photographers.

During this time I have had the printer go seriously bad overnight...black ink not printing...and seen it condemned by the repair agents as a dead head. This involved a quote for $ 1100 repair. I reluctantly decided to decline this and to take it home to save up for a new one. When I hooked it up at home just to see if it could be coaxed to print red or blue ink I was interested to see that it was back to printing perfect blacks. I've since completed a dozen and a half wildly colourful A3+ prints for an exhibition. And all this on just the quote fee and a cup of coffee.

Next, I found that the main house computer had quit dead. A grey sad screen and forlorn question mark were all that was left of the hard drive. The Apple people were sympathetic and made $ 2000 sympathetic noises. Not surprising then that I listened carefully to an authorised repair shop when they told me that it could be re-drived ( re-driven...? ) for a modest sum. And with more memory than before. From the depths to the heights.

Finally, the sure fire backup computer that was to take over when the main one failed....failed. It is being repaired at the same time for a modest fee by the same shop.

In the meantime I have canvassed the opinions of very experienced digital photographers about the next move and will follow their advice. It is good to have consultants who do the business but are not in the business of giving you the business. If they were, I'd give them my business...

Note to the curious - the printer is an Epson, the computers are iMac and Macbook Pro. This post is being typed on a Macbook pro lent to me by the IT department at the shop. Nice device, but a lot newer and not equipped with my normal editing programs - the images may be a little jumpy.

Were we always as dependent upon the careful meshing of the cogs in the analog photography days? Possibly - if you burned out an enlarger bulb on Sunday night you were not going to get any more printing done until Monday. And running out of dev/stop/fix/paper/film/water/clothespegs/patience was always a possibility. Summer heat did no good for a darkroom worker, much as it does no good for the average computer. But I cannot remember a single month when 3 major systems went ker-phut all at once.

I've checked all the mirrors in the house and they are all intact. And the neighbours are all alive, so it can't be that. I'm going to look under the car for traces of blood and black cat hair...

Time To Upgrade With Datacolor

The first time a horse kicks you in the shin you notice it. If it goes on long enough you get used to it and dodge as best you can and then just tend to limp about. But the thing still rankles - and eventually you tire of the sport - generally before the gee does. At this point some citizens haul out a large betsey and old Dobbin is consigned to the glue factory.

So it is with electronic gear. The first glitch is frightening and causes concern but after you discover that you can "cure" it by turning the thing off and on again or banging the side of he box, you tend to just carry on and let it happen.

So it was with my old Datacolor Spyder 2 Express program in the iMac and Macbook Pro. It worked fine for 5 years and then occasionally it would hang up at the last part of the calibrations sequence - the screen would go sort of pinkish and I would have to run it again to get it to go straight through. One day the second run did not cure it and I needed a third one...kick, kick, kick...

Out with the electronic roscoe. Removed the Spyder 2 Express and installed a Spyder 4 Express in its place. All has become better. The new program works efficiently and already recognises what it must do without having to be repeatedly told.

One can only assume that there is a finite life to software, as there is to horses.

Wham Bam, No Thank You, M'am...

So I arrive at work and put my satchel onto a wheelie bin, preparatory to taking in all the emptied bins from the curb-side. As I work there is this almighty crash, and when I look around, the satchel has fallen onto the concrete driveway.

Anglo Saxon, Anglo Saxon, Yiddish, Anglo Saxon, Western Canada....

Having relieved my soul for a few minutes I hauled it up here to the editorial desk and opened the thing. It has some internal padding and the editorial camera and computer seem to have survived the impact fine. The editorial Nokia phone is dead. The editorial apple was not squashed, so all in all it seems to have been a light blow.

My complements to the makers of Macbook Pro, Fuji X-10 and apples. Also my admiration for the Crumpler people for a fine satchel - it is the Boston Heist, if you want to go buy one.

What if it had been an expensive professional camera that hit the deck?
They do, you know - we can introduce you to a man who dropped on off Bluff Knoll, and another man who dropped one in a volcano. You might meet the chap who crossed a river and opened his backpack in the middle and....

Disasters happen. If they happen to your old camera we can fix it - that's what we have a repair department for. If it cannot be repaired we have a sales department and sympathetic faces.

What if it is a new camera...the manufacturers honour warranties that cover internal failures and material flaws for one to two years - and as we source our cameras from the proper Australian distributors, there are no problems getting the warranty repairs. But they aren't liable for you dropping it off Bluff Knoll or a council rubbish bin....

Here is where the Mack Warranty system comes in shining. When you buy new cameras and lenses from us you can buy extended warranty coverage from us with Mack. They have pure extension policies and also what they call " Diamond" policies.

Essentially, the " Diamond" covers repair or replacement for whatever specified period that includes ALL forms of disaster. Drop, boil, bake, douse, ignite....The only thing they will not reimburse you for is theft - you have to keep your cameras and lenses safe from other humans.

I wonder if there is a warranty for computers? Or mobile phones? Or apples?