Blog archive - January 2009
29 January, by Bill Chadband. (Meeting and event reports)
Digiscoping – Tuesday 27 January
Paul Hackett, a local man from Offerton, presented this talk on Photography through a telescope. Paul gave a comprehensive overview of the subject - what it was; what gear is needed; and the sort of results to be expected. It became clear that the Digiscope system took over where the long focal length zoom lens of the SLR left off. Equivalent focal lengths in the range 1800 to 5000mm were quoted as typical.
Paul quoted Laurence Poh as the “father” of Digiscoping. Apparently Laurence purchased a Nikon 950 digital camera in 1999. As an avid birdwatcher he used telescopes (so called “spotting scopes”) to observe birds from a distance. He soon made an adapter to fix his 950 camera to the telescope and digiscoping was born.
The digiscope is thus valuable to bird-watchers who want to get and record a view of this relatively small creature from a distance – occasionally 100 yards or so. Paul interspersed his images of birds with comments on his equipment. He emphasised that the right equipment is important. There are lots of digiscope adapters available to help one connect the items together. Depending on camera and scope you either use a universal adapter which doesn't connect the camera to the scope, but rather aligns the two ( ideally suited to cameras with external zoom lenses) or use the standard adapter which physically connects the scope to your camera (ie screws into the camera). This latter type of adapter is suited to cameras with internal zoom lenses or cameras which can have filters attached to their lenses.
The camera ideally has flexible shooting and focus modes (Program, Aperture Priority or Manual) since using cameras in full auto mode generally produces disappointing results. The camera should also have, say, a 3x optical zoom to eliminate vignetting (the black circle surrounding your image that the camera picks up from the scope eyepiece). A sturdy tripod to keep the system stable is a must plus a good tripod head to help locate the subject matter. A remote shutter release cable for the camera helps to minimize camera shake. Paul found the screen on digital cameras not helpful in focussing images, preferring a good eyepiece for focussing. He had used the tiny Contax SL300T to good effect. It was a 3.3 Mpixel camera, small and lightweight and easy to set up, with an internal x3 zoom. He had also used the Nikon 950, 990 and 4500 cameras. These all had swivel bodies so that the screen could be oriented independently of the lens.
He had been consulted by Zeiss on the requirements for a good digiscope and out of this had come a digiscope system with video camera for under £1000. The latest version was the Zeiss Photoscope 85T*FL about to be launched with a focal length range 600mm to 1800mm. This system enables the simultaneous viewing and capture of faraway and small objects. The magnification is in the range x15 to x45.
In his vote of thanks Gordon Robson noted Paul’s obvious enthusiasm as both a “twitcher” and a “digiscoper”. We had been impressed by Paul’s professional presentation and by the range of equipment he had brought to back it up. A round of spontaneous clapping from the audience backed up these remarks.
28 January, by Bill Chadband. (Committee reports)
Committee Meeting 14 January 09
It was reported that the Shuttle had been upgraded to Lightroom 2 and Pictures2Exe 5. Membership Sec Tony Rosevere reported that paid membership was slightly down on last year's numbers.
The forthcoming Annual Exhibition was a major topic, 201 Prints and 75 slides had been taken to Judge John Smith on Sunday 11th Jan. Our 18 stands typically take 8 of 20x16 inch mounts so that 144 such prints can be mounted. But some are a smaller size so that about 150 prints are likely to be put up. The other prints will be photographed and projected via the digital projector. Adverts will appear in Poynton Post, Inside Poynton, and Stockport Diary but we will be relying on members to advertise the exhibition (particularly the Friday Musical evening) in their locality. Bill Chadband or Jill Hargeaves will be able to provide A4 sized posters. Jill has also agreed to organise the serving of the refreshments and may welcome offers of help.
We will be able to put up the prints on Wednesday (11th) morning starting at 9.30am, when all offers to turn up and help mount the display will be gratefully received. Hilary Turnbull is in charge of the raffle, but donations of prizes can be given to Hilary or to Bill Chadband. Since the raffle makes an important contribution to the overall costs of the Exhibition, Bill hopes that a good number of members will respond with suitable prizes. The charges to all (including our members!) on the three nights are £2.50; £2.50; and £6.00 (but £5 if tickets bought in advance). However special 3-night tickets of £7 are available. Joyce Robson holds the tickets, but MATES DIY, Park Lane, Poynton also have the £5 advance tickets for sale for the Friday.
Tony Redford reported that 27 and 30 clubs have indicated they may be taking part on the Wednesday and Thursday evenings, so both events will be great evenings. A Sunday lunch on the 17th February following the Exhibition now replaces our Annual Christmas meal. The venue has been confirmed as the Tarantella Restaurant, Park Lane, Poynton. It was agreed that we would not spend time giving out all the Annual Exhibition Trophies on the Wednesday before the Competition, but rather invite John Smith to present most of them at the Club when he visits.
28 January.
New link to a member's website
There is a link to David Billington's website in our links page. |
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26 January, by Bill Chadband. (Meeting and event reports)
Exhibition Success – Geoff Robinson
On Tuesday 20th January 2009 Geoff Robinson showed us the great range of his images which have been successful in national and international competitions. The images varied widely in content, though some were well known to club members having been successful in our own club competitions. The Road Rage concept had done well (with Road Rage 1 and 2) Character Portraits had equally flourished. Geoff’s opening image was The Guardian, and Geoff explained how he had to persuade the man to stop smiling and look fierce. Other characters included the Boatman, and the Civil War Man (captured, I believe at Tatton Park!) He always asked the object of his attention if there was any objection to being photographed – though in many situations it was clear that they had dressed up with this purpose in mind.
Locations varied from Crich, Ironbridge, Rudyard Lake or Dudley in this country to Venice, Bruges , Barcelona, Rome and all the other places the NCPS has visited over the years. Many of the images were basically straight shots tweaked a little in Photoshop, though Geoff admitted to adding in the odd mannequin if he thought the image was lacking without one. And there were a variety of Montage pictures in which background Rust played an important role. He had found the Lakes Mining Museum a good place to capture Rust. One needed the right basic shape but the rust came in many glorious colours. In a sequence of old (but flying) planes Geoff liked the fact that one could see the pilot. Brian Bower, in the audience nodded approvingly! And the live Red Kite made its obligatory appearance. Some of his misty Rudyard boat images clearly emulated the artist Turner.
With all of his images Geoff was happy to explain his methods of obtaining the final result – the use of Gaussian blur to emphasize motion and the various blending modes to use in the Collage images. He has always been keen on Portraits and the various ways of getting a desired result.
In his vote of thanks President Roger Dye noted that we had seen some stunning images; that Geoff’s willingness to explain his methods had been rewarding; that no-one could be surprised at Geoff’s Competition successes; and that he hoped to persuade him to continue his theme next session.
26 January, by Bill Chadband & Roger Dye. (Meeting and event reports)
Christmas Special – 16th December
Past President, Tony Redford, had been unable to present his Christmas special in 2007, so he was invited to do so in 2008.
His proposed approach was to have a first half of A-V’s which would be of particular interest to NCPS, and follow that up with something seasonal after our refreshment break.
Included in his first-half sequences were wonderful reminders of the recent club trips to Berlin, Budapest and Rome with a variety of stunning images set to some appropriate music. Such AV’s have proved winning combination for Tony in the past earning him a high reputation with both Photographic Clubs and Tour operators. The travelogue sequences were interspersed with a number of short, snappy and often humorous items which filled the first part of the evening admirably.
The social aspect of the evening went as well as ever. Jill Hargreaves had thoughtfully provided tablecloths, serviettes and paper plates and an amazing variety of eats and drinks appeared and mostly disappeared again at the mid-session break
After the break we were invited to take part in a number of light-hearted quizzes which Tony had prepared using Power-point. These mainly involved spotting fellow club-members – either caught in uncompromising situations, disguised with Father Christmas beards, or snapped in their glory days many years ago (50yrs + in some cases!) The evening was rounded-off in great style with Tony’s infamous Christmas Card sequence which never fails to send an audience home with a smile on its face. The evening really had been a “Christmas Special” and Roger thanked Tony for a quality, and most entertaining, production. He also expressed the gratitude of all those present to the catering corps who had provided, voluntarily, such a lovely selection of Christmas goodies.
24 January.
Correction: Report on the Southport "Who are the champions?" Competition
The winning image was from Wigan 10, not St Helens.
23 January.
Correction: Influences and Inspiration
Revision of the first paragraph, pointing out Brian's roles with the RPS:
The President introduced Brian Bower FRPS, our speaker on Tuesday 13th January, as an ex-President of the Club (twice), an ex-President of the RPS (and two terms as their Treasurer), author of numerous magazine articles and books on photography, a photographer since the mid 1950's, and a Leica Man.
22 January.
New gallery uploaded
There is a new gallery "Who are the champions?", our entry in the recent Southport interclub competition, in our galleries page. |
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21 January, by Joyce Streets. (Interclub competition results)
Report on the Southport "Who are the champions?" Competition
This took place on Monday 19 January 2009 - 1st external competition of the new year. 9 Members made the journey over to Southport on quite a miserable evening.
9 clubs entered the competition with each club providing 11 digital images from 11 different authors. The Judge Rod Wheelan had viewed them previously.
The Southport competition is very different from others in that it is scored using football jargon ie 1st round is the YOUTH TEAM, 2nd round is 2nd DIVISION and so on until it reaches PREMIER LEAGUE. All in all there are 9 rounds, and then an overall winner. Each round sees 11 images knocked out.
North Cheshire had an image knocked out in each round until the 8th round when the remaining 4 were k.o’d.
Wigan 10 went on to win the competition (which is no surprise) An image from St Helens club was overal winner. North Cheshire came a very respectable 4th.
Special mention to new member Paula Martin whose image Hippopotamus was one of the 4 knocked out in the 8th round.
We hope members interest in these external competitions will continue enabling us to show other clubs how good we are!
18 January, by Barry Pearson. (Notices and news)
This website has been upgraded
This upgrade adds 3 new pages giving extra capability and information, and adds extra buttons (see above) to each page to provide easier navigation to new and existing pages. It also provides easier and more consistent access to historical news articles back to March 1999.
"News / Blog" page (blog = web log)
The title of that page says it all: "Blog . . . keeping you informed of club news & website updates". The idea is:
The Blog says what happened in the last month. The Diary says what will happen in the next month.
The Blog itself, and the Blog archive linked to from the Blog, should be self-explanatory. The Blog might typically be the first page that regular viewers of the website look at. I suggest that regular viewers look at the Blog and the Diary at least once per week during the season, and at least once per month out of season.
It is the Blog archive that now links to the familiar categories of "Notices and news", "Meeting and event reports", "Committee reports", "Members' competition results", "Interclub competition results", and "Awards and acceptances".
"A to Z & Search" page
This A to Z page lists topics, and so can cater for viewer requirements that don't map easily onto whole pages.
This will probably become increasingly important as buttons take on "higher level" meanings. For example, the page that was originally referenced from a "Subscriptions" button is now referenced from a "Join us" button, and subscription information is just part of the content. So the "A-Z & Search" page now provides a direct reference to that subscription information.
This page will evolve in the light of experience. (For example, every time someone asks "where the [expletive deleted] is information about XYZ?").
"Competitions" page
This page originated from queries directed at me and others over the last year and a half. Competitions are always a major part of our activities. Nearly all the information and resources that members require to enter competitions and view results is on the website somewhere, but it is a bit fragmented. This page provides a sort of "one stop shop", primarily for members entering our internal competitions, but also providing references for other clubs entering our inter-club competitions.
This page isn't intended to duplicate information elsewhere, but instead to link to it in a coherent way. It is still evolving to make it more effective before the start of the next season. It will also be the first place to look if/when rules change in future.
Extra buttons
The creation of the above new pages forced a re-analysis of what buttons we need on each page. We have various types of viewer, from members to prospective members to visitors, and so on. Each type has different requirements which need to be catered for. The analysis took into account research into the way people navigate websites, and surveys of what types of buttons, and with what names, other websites use.
One or two of the pages referenced from these buttons need more content over the coming months.
Access to historical news articles
News articles have been regularly published on this website since it was created in 2000, and there are even copies of Focus dating back to March 1999. These articles, (in the case of Focus, the individual articles within each Focus), can now be accessed via the familiar categories of "Notices and news", "Meeting and event reports", "Committee reports", "Members' competition results", "Interclub competition results", and "Awards and acceptances".
The Blog archive is intended to be a "master index" to all the news ever published on the website, right up to this particular notice itself. For someone like me who joined the society in 2004, some of those earlier articles are fascinating!
18 January, by Bill Chadband. (Meeting and event reports)
Influences and Inspiration
The President introduced Brian Bower FRPS, our speaker on Tuesday 13th January, as an ex-President of the Club, an ex Treasurer, author of numerous Magazine articles and Books on Photography, a photographer since the mid 1950’s and a Leica Man.
Brian proposed to make the evening a little different to the normal one; explaining the inspiration and influences over the years on his photography. He didn’t intend to talk about PhotoShop, or any of the other paraphernalia of Digital photography, but he did refer to Ansel Adams and Henri Cartier-Bresson Early photographers who greatly influenced photography. Adams was a musician and a photographer , noted for his landscapes and his “Zone system” for correct exposures.
Cartier-Bresson was a master of candid photography or “Street Photography and an early adapter of the 35mm format.
As a lad Brian hankered after a Rolleiflex medium format camera, and after his Army service acquired a new one. With a direct vision rangefinder camera Brian felt you could always see the image – the camera effectively putting a frame around the selected part. Inspiration comes from everywhere; magazines, art exhibitions and other photographers. But impressionist artists have always engaged Brian. He showed us numerous examples of artists work, from Monet and Renoir to Constable and Lowry. We saw the artist’s works and then photographic attempts by Brian to similarly capture the mood and feeling in Photography, both artists and photographer concerned to capture the effects of Light.
After the interval Brian spoke more about his cameras, passing one around. Photography was primarily for one’s own enjoyment, though a little competition amongst friends helped heighten and spur the process. Such competition had encouraged him along the route of ARPS and FRPS (which he got for an AV sequence).
Brian concluded with an AV show of his recent trip to America with Dorothy and Tony Redford,
Tony proposed the Vote of Thanks. They had both been colleagues at the Club for many years. More than that they had both originated from Swinton and had attended the same school though not at the same time. Members had counted 28 times that Brian had mentioned Leica. Commenting upon the friendly competitive element to photography Tony recalled the time in America when he had crept from his bed to capture a Sunrise, only to discover that Brian had done likewise, both in secret. He was pleased that they had managed to drag Brian into the digital age, though Brian protested that his new Leica Digital Camera had been the main force. As ever, Brian had produced a well planned thought-provoking presentation which we had all enjoyed.
16 January, by Barry Pearson. (Notices and news)
Even experts get colour spaces wrong!
An official photograph of Barack Obama, by Pete Souza, has been released. It is the first time that an official presidential portrait was taken with a digital camera.
It is a JPEG with an embedded colour profile - good. For Adobe RGB - aaaaarrrggh!
In a colour-managed application it will look right. All Adobe applications are colour-managed.
In a non-managed application, it will look relatively subdued / desaturated. Most browsers, and many other (cheaper) applications, including Pictures-to-EXE, are not colour managed. Have a look at the full-size version of the image: on the left is what it looks like in a non-managed application, while on the right is what is should look like.
In order to confirm this for the sake of members, I am requesting that NCPS arranges and pays for a trip by me to meet Barack Obama. (I am a fan!) I also suggest that we invite Pete Souza to our Digital Workshops - I am willing to repeat my talk on colour spaces. Perhaps he should use my "Colour Management suggestions" from our Download Area.
Thanks to John Nack of Adobe for revealing this problem.
Technical information: Canon EOS 5D Mark II on January 13th, 2009 at 5:38 pm with no flash, using a 105mm lens stopped to f/10 at a 1/125 exposure, with an ISO of 100.
(I believe that because this is an official photograph it is OK to use it here).
12 January, by Bill Chadband. (Meeting and event reports)
Selective Contrast Enhancement
On January 6th 2009 Jon Allanson gave the first digital presentation of the new year on Contrast enhancement and the use of the High Pass Filter. A short extract from an old video and Peter Henry Emerson indicated that the subject is almost as old as photography itself. But with the advent of Digital photography and PhotoShop the foreground (or background) of an image can be selectively enhanced to improve the impact of an image, and the High Pass Filter gives a route to selectively sharpen elements of an image.
The Layer Mask was the basis of Jon’s Contrast enhancement. Control J was a quick way of producing a Background Copy and he used the Magnetic Lasso tool to do a quick selection. A new Adjustment Layer could call on Levels, Curves, Hue/Saturation, etc to modify the selected area. The aim in most of these adjustments was to enhance the Contrast between areas. Using a de-saturated image, and the Multiply option Jon could (by means of the Brush tool ) selectively rub out the effects of a masked layer. Using the Inverse option during Selections greatly increased the number of options open to him. Jon demonstrated how he easily removed eg troublesome rope strings which spoiled an image.
Jon made brief reference to the File>Automate>Merge to HDR facility in PhotoShop CS2 (and CS3 ) Saving images as RAW files gave a greater dynamic range (say 12 or more bits), than the 8 bits (256 levels) of a JPEG image. One could produce say three JPEG images from the RAW file with EV values say -2, 0, and +2, and then combine the images using the HDR facility to produce an image in which the darkest and the lightest elements are all visible within an improved tonal range image.
Jon is fond of the High Pass filter as a way of selectively sharpening images. The High Pass filter retains edge details to a radius that you independently set. It suppresses the rest of the image with a neutral grey overlay. With the background copy layer selected you change the layer mode to overlay; then choose the High Pass Filter.
You can preview the results as you try different settings.
Barry Pearson proposed the vote of thanks. The talk had been on several levels, the first being the Contrast Control. We had seen some unusual use of standard tools, and there was much scope for experiment. He would now have to practice some of these techniques. He thought everyone would have learned from the talk.
Postscript: Jon has provided a tutorial in PDF format covering much of the material on the Downloads page.
12 January. (Awards and acceptances)
1st GERMAN SOUTHERN 2009
The First German Southern Open, approved by PSA, comprised four salons: the 8th Internationale Fotoausstellung Ludwigshafen; the 1st Sendelbach Open; the 1st Bavarian Open; and the 1st Wuerttemberg Open. The two sections were Nature and Wildlife.
AwardsMartin Currie: Honorable Mention in 8th Internationale Fotoausstellung Ludwigshafen for Swannery.
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Alan Saunders: Honorable Mention in 1st Bavarian Open for Wild Grey Seal and Fighting Ruff. Honorable Mention in 1st Sendelbach Open for Fighting Ruff. |
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AcceptancesMartin Currie: Swannery (3), |
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Alan Saunders: Wild Red Kite In Flight (4), |
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8 January.
New download available
- "Selective Contrast Enhancement and other Photoshop Tips" (PDF tutorial by Jon Allanson)
- Also available on the Downloads page.
7 January, by Tony Redford. (Notices and news)
Prints for the Southport Open by 13th January
As announced at the last meeting on Tuesday 6th January, Dorothy Redford is looking after our Southport Open entry again. If any member wishes to submit prints, please pass them to us next Tuesday (13th) or before.
The plan is to hand-deliver them to Southport’s rep. in order to save postage, and Harry Besnard from Bramhall has kindly agreed to collect and return them to us at the end of the exhibition.
Full information at:
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