Long time, no see.
It's been over 4 years and almost 30k pageviews of being here at dA. I've been mostly lurking though; watching more and more people and faving their work, but not submitting anything of mine. That may be because I got discouraged from photographing by this disheartening feeling that I can't create anything great and original. Sure, there are many pics I'm proud of [my 2008/2009 urban exploration ones], but the creative vein had generally flown away. Add dying batteries and you can have a long break . Recently, I bought some new battery packs, because I wanted to give my camera some workout... took it for a spin and realised that the shutter is dead as I get an Err99 after every exposure. What the heck, it was an old 10D rated for 50k shots, its startup time was two seconds, the sensor noise was noticeable at ISO400 and really bad at 800/1600... Time to invest in a new box. I ordered a second-hand but almost brand new [merely 1300 actuations!] 40D with a battery grip. It'll arrive on Wednesday... talk about anticipation . I'll have to stick with old lenses for some time though; a 28-80 zoom for reportage shots that need AF, and four Pentacon primes for architecture, urban exploration, portraits or object photography. Heck, I wish I could afford a 17-40L or one of those wide-angle M42 primes, very useful for urban exploration