Jon Allanson's session - Tuesday 12 May 2009
Even though many members were on the annual outing abroad, Jon had a good-sized audience for this session that covered the two topics below:
Getting the best out of your digital SLR
This session was rather like an informal digital workshop, serving to introduce some important features of modern (and older!) SLRs. Jon suggests experimenting with the camera to become familiar with the various settings, rather than rely on automation throughout. Jon gave an example of the studio session of 21 April, where it was important to control the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO sensitivity.
Different cameras have different details, but discussion with the audience showed that some of the important controls were standard, especially when shooting raw.
Interestingly, most of the audience normally shot raw, with just a few normally shooting JPEGs. At least 2 of the audience convert their raw images to Adobe's DNG format. There is never a consensus about which raw processors to use, and this session was no exception. People variously used Lightroom, ACR, (Adobe Camera Raw as a plugin to Photoshop), or software supplied by their camera manufacturer, and there are many other products available. Factors include workflow, image quality with default settings, and price.
A demonstration of print mounting
Jon brought along his mounting kit, built up and used over years. He described the principles of both surface mounting and window mounting. The latter is particularly useful to reduce the risk of print damage, apart from being an attractive way of displaying prints.
It makes life much easier if the cutter slides along a rule and the rule cannot slip against the base. Jon has constructed his own system to achieving this, but ready-to-go systems are available at a price.
Postscript - the print mounting system I use
I use a Longridge Duo Midi system, and have done for about three and a half years. This is fairly expensive, and the system contains a few items that I don't use, but it makes accurate window mounting simple and routine. I would not want to revert to any lesser system. It includes a vertical cutter for cutting boards into two, as well as the beveled cutter. Both cutters slide along the rule, which cannot slip against the base, and stops are provided to enable the cut to be the right length.
I have a spreadsheet that I feed with the image size, approximate board size, overlap/underlap amount, and offset amount, that tells me where to draw the lines on the back. I can cut to within about 1 millimetre of the intended position, although I normally allow 1.5 millimetres. I don't rely on accurately cut, or even exactly rectangular, board. I could evolve this spreadsheet for others to use, and make it available, if there is a real demand for it.