How low can one sink?

Who remembers my little gripe about the camera’s LCD and how deceptive it can be.
Deceptive nothing. Downright bloody lying is more like it!

Well, the saga continues.

This Tuesday just gone (yesterday that would be in fact) mate and I scoot out on yet another little photo sesh, this time heading for the location we’d originally intended as our destination last week but somehow ended up going in the opposite direction completely. Now there’s a surprise.

Anyway, off down to the river we take ourselves. Not the stretch I normally amble along, but west of the town bridge instead.

And whaddya know? Bloody LCD is, I suspect, lying to me again.

In fairness it has to be said that normally I rely much more upon the histogram for exposure info, but I still like to check the image itself for general appearance and stuff.

And they all look totally washed out. But this time, instead of just rolling with it and hoping for the best, I waste the next half-dozen shots or so tinkering with various settings. Just as well I’m shooting digital and not film. But then, were I shooting film I wouldn’t be having this issue, would I?
The histogram’s telling me one thing, the damned image is telling me another.

What to believe? Oh bugger. Perhaps there’s a fault with the camera. After all, I have knocked out a fair few shots on it. Maybe it needs an oil change or something. Or whatever it is they do to them.

So I begin to get that horrible sinking feeling one experiences on first discovering that, maybe, all is not quite right with one’s world.

I’m also a little concerned that I may have been heard muttering something along the lines of “There’s nothing else for it. I’m gonna have to read the manual.”
Oh, how low can one sink?

So mournfully firing off a few more shots, ever so gradually a little “thing” begins to niggle at the back of my brain. A suspicion. No. A hint of a suspicion.
Which, as we progressed on our way, with me clicking here and there, begins to crystallise into something rather more cogent.

A thought of something I may conceivably have done a few weeks back, when it was really bright and sunny.

No. Surely not. I wouldn’t have, would I? And surely I wouldn’t forget if I had… would I?

Hmm.

Time for a discrete check of certain menu settings methinks. Discrete cos mate’s loitering nearby damn sneaky sod that he is, ready and eager to pounce on any merest trace of the senility he’s convinced has possessed me.

Oops. Damn! Bugger! Sure enough, there’s the evidence before my very eyes… LCD brightness set to… er… +2! Now I wonder how that happened?

Ho hum.

Well at least all’s right again with my world… for the time being at least.

Oh… on another matter entirely…

Seems there’s two basic types of user on Flickr. Those who like cats. And those who don’t. Well, maybe that’s putting it a bit strongly. Let’s just say those who don’t care for them quite as much.
This can be further refined into those who’re constantly uploading pics of “pretty kitty” onto Flickr, and those who’re constantly berating those who are constantly uploading pics of “pretty kitty” onto Flickr.

Needless to say, I fall into the category of those who don’t care overmuch for them.

Nevertheless, seems its fairly obligatory (in the sense of being an unwritten rule that’s unthinkingly endorsed in its observance) to have at least one cat shot in one’s photostream.

Well, I’ve finally done it! Here ya go. Here’s my obligatory kitty pic for Flickr…

Heh heh.