What You Did This Summer Photography Show-and-Tell

I hope you have had a fun summer filled with lots of photography opportunities. Our first meeting of the season will be Wednesday, August 20th at 7:00 pm in the Library Meeting Room. Hope you will bring a sampling (5 - 7 images) to share and talk about. What did you learn? What skills did you practice? Did you complete any "assignments" for each month? Can't wait to see your work. Photo Club is open to anyone who is interested in photography and growing their art and skills through discussion, practice, and sharing of ideas, experiments, and work.

I was very busy with things other than photography, but did get out for a few adventures.

I photographed my first fireworks. This is an interesting adventure as you are guessing at first were the fireworks will go off so you can aim and capture the explosions. I played with different exposure times to see how that would effect the look of the fireworks. I would like to go someplace to see more fireworks where the is some different scenery to include in the image.

I read that the best time to photograph the full moon is at dawn and dusk of the day of the full moon when you want to include scenery and not need to merge two photos to get the shot. Well, the July Super Moon was hidden by incoming clouds both at dawn and at dusk. Still had a fun experience because we were willing to look for other exciting sites. On the drive home, Toni and I noticed a field of wheat with hundreds or thousands of fireflies. We decided to stop and see what we would get. We got really lucky because the clouds moved in and lightning started off in the distance.

We will have two more Supermoons in a row. Sunday August 10th is the next full (Super) Moon. Here are the sunrise and sunset time for the coming week. http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/usa/aurora-il so you can plan your outing.

Several years ago, I brought a Plumeria stick home to plant. It is one of our favorite flowering trees in Hawaii. Each year the little stick would grow a set of leaves and as fall came, the leaves would drop and the stick would look pretty dead for the winter. Sprint would come and I would get more leaves and an almost imperceptible growth of the stick. This spring there was a big growth spurt that looked different than previous springs, I noticed that there were buds on the new growth and low and behold, the little stick began to flower. This is my portrait of my Plumeria plant. If only there was smellevision. I put up a black background, used my tripod, and natural light of the sun room. (Sorry, Steve).

At a campfire at Bridget's Dad's house, we did a little light painting. Toni can tell you more about here image at the meeting.

May 21 - Meeting Cancelled

I am cancelling Photo Club for tomorrow night. Last meeting only 4 people came. We had a nice time out to dinner, but I think we need to go with a club that meets Mid-August to the end of April.

Have a great summer!

 If we have a few outings, we will post them here, in an email, on the Library Calendar and on the Photo Club Facebook Page.

At our last activity meeting in April Steve and Cliff set up some fun play with glass balls and colored water. These are my favorites from the night.

 Kaylee: Love your socks. Thanks for putting up with me while I worked on getting this shot.

 Lucio: Even with your eyes closed, I can see your wonderful sense of humor and the light in your eyes.

Food coloring in wine glasses does really cool things.


The May assignment was/is "Do Over" Go back to the activities and assignments for the year and work on them again. Maybe you will want to combine the various things you worked on into one image. Maybe you just want to spend time on them because you were really busy and didn't get much time to play.

January: Fibonacci and Shapes
February: Peace and Love
March: Water, Water, Everywhere
April: Light and Shadows: Ansel Adams was a master at seeing light and shadow. Monet was fascinated with light and would paint the same seen over and over again throughout the day to see the way light and shadow and color changed.  Shadows can be intriguing on their own making cool designs on the ground. Look at the way day and night light play with the world.
May: Do Over

June, July, August: Take your pick. What do you want to work on this summer? The following list was my design. You are welcome to use this list or make up your own list.

Landscape and graffiti: there is so much to see in the world wherever you are. Take time to stop and see the big picture. Capture the writing on the wall.

Forced Perspective: make something look big or make something big look small. Maybe it looks like a person is holding a cloud or Bokeh lights are filling a glass. Maybe a shell looks huge or Lego people are now giants. Maybe the full moon looks really big in the sky.

Time and Space: how do you see these things? The skies the limit. Maybe you time lapse photograph the sunset. Night shots of the sky, clocks? The growth of a new plant. As with time and space, the possibilities are endless.

Up Close and Personal: get your macro on. Look at the details.

Portraits and People: This one scares me half to death. I include animals in my idea of portraits. This is also an opportunity to get to know other people. Maybe start a stranger portrait series. Really stepping outside of my comfort zone.

Windows and Doorways: not sure I need to say much on this. It could be used as a compositional style. Frame within a frame. Or it can be literal or metaphoric.

Pencils, Paper, and Everyday Things: How can you make a unique photograph from everyday objects. The goal is to see it and experiment with it until you have a photograph of the object that is unlike any other.

Look How Far You Have Come (Take an old photograph that you like, retake it. How have you change? What did you do differently?)

We will see you back at the library on August 20th for a really great show-and-tell.

April 16 Meeting Plans

We have our next meeting this Wednesday 4/16 at 7 p.m.  

 

It should be lots of fun. Cliff and Steve will work with the group on the challenges of capturing images in items made of glass.

 

Bring your camera and tripod (lighting will be furnished but an external flash might be useful.) Optimum lenses would be a short telephoto (100-200 mm), a wide angle (18-50 mm), and a set of extension tubes. If you don’t have these items, bring whatever you've got and we’ll figure out a way to make it work (plus, Steve and Cliff will have some loaner equipment for Nikon and Canon shooters.)

 

There will be a short presentation and then everyone can then try their hand at capturing these unique images.

Hope to see you all there!

April Meeting Plans

Photo Club will meet in the Library Meeting Room from 7 - 9 pm.

We will have our monthly show-and-tell at the April 2nd meeting. Bring your flash drive with your 5 -7 photos to share and discuss. The assignment for March was "Water, Water Everywhere" and our lesson for the month was photographing water drops. Bring your work to share. Are you working on a project and want to get feedback? This is a great time to share a couple of images from that project. We would love to see what you have learned this month.

At the April 16th meeting, Cliff and Steve will be presenting some hands-on projects. They will have more details to share at the April 2nd meeting.

Our exhibit space is still filled with Autumn photos. We need to either plan how we will handle the space over the year or give the space up to another group of artists who would like to display work in that space. We will spend a little time discussing this at the April 2nd meeting.

April Assignment:
Light and Shadows: Ansel Adams was a master at seeing light and shadow. Monet was fascinated with light and would paint the same seen over and over again throughout the day to see the way light and shadow and color changed.  Shadows can be intriguing on their own making cool designs on the ground. Look at the way day and night light play with the world.

Water, Water, Everywhere! Capture It If You Can

On Wednesday, March 18th, John Dickinson will work with the group on capturing colorful water drops. Bring your camera, tripod, and flashes. Her will give a short presentation and then set you all to work.

March's Assignment is: Water Water Everywhere. Capture some indoor water fun and some outdoor water fun.  Practice with the water drops that we played with in January and what we will work on next week. Get outside in your rain boots and capture the melting snow or the rain that fall. The river should be flowing pretty nicely too. Have fun. Enjoy this Lioness of a Spring start.

Shutter, Aperture, Manual, Oh, My!

At our last meeting, we had quite a discussion about the best method to capture wildlife in photography. I suspect at least a few people went home more confused than anything. This is a difficult topic as there is more than one way to capture an image. 

I have my biases on the topic, but I have developed those through learning and understanding how the various functions on my camera work. I think that for those who were lost, understanding the basics will begin to get you back on track and allow you to try out different ways to capture an image. 

I will also say that the best way to learn, when you have at least a basic understanding of all the moving parts, is to go out and shoot, shoot, shoot. Back in the days of film photography, it was said that film was cheap. This was a signal that trying many things to make sure you got the image you really wanted was smart. You did not see your results until after the film was processed and images were printed. Today, you can see what you have right away and digital space is cheap so, shoot, shoot shoot, but in between each shot, modify something so that you can see what works and what doesn't.

Definitions:

ISO/ for the old school it was the ASA: ASA was the speed of the film, today it is called ISO and it is the speed of the sensor in you camera. With film a low speed like 64 or 100 was the sharpest, least grainy of the films. The films that I used went up to ISO 1000 and over the years of films development, improvements were made to make the film at higher speeds less grainy. Many people used the high speed film to get the grain for a different artistic point of view. Today, the high ISO's can show what is called noise which looks a lot like grain. Newer cameras are getting better and better sensors which is reducing the amount of noise we see in am image at higher ISOs. 

Shutter speed: how long your shutter stays open bringing in light to expose the film. Really fast is 1/2000th, 1/1500th, or 1/1000th of a second. Slow for hand held photography is 1/60th, 1/125th of a second, and really slow can be 5, 10, 20, 30 seconds or bulb (which is actually determined by how long you press the shutter and hold it before releasing it). (You need a tripod and a remote trigger for these long exposures to work. (The lens you have will also play a part in how fast your shutter speed needs to be to keep from seeing shake (blur)). With the bog lenses like a 300 mm lens, you need to have a faster shutter speed or a tripod because the lens will move slightly in your hand.

Aperture aka the f-stop: how big that hole letting light onto your sensor is. Not all lenses are created equal and often the smallest f-stop is 3.5  or 5. The smaller the number the bigger the hole of light. This means as it gets darker, and you need more light, you can go to a smaller f-stop and increase that light. At least until you are at your smallest number. Once you hit that, you will have to change some other setting to allow more light to hit you sensor. 

Color balance: How your camera reads the light; warm 5000K or Cool 3900K. Day night, Sunlight or artificial light.

How much and what control you take of your camera happens when you select the following:

Manual (M): You are taking control of the aperture settings and the shutter speed. 

Aperture priority (Nikon it is A, and Canon it is AV): You are taking control of the aperture and letting the camera choose the shutter speed to get enough light to make sure the aperture is constant.
Shutter priority (Nikon it is S and Canon it is TV): You are taking control of the shutter speed and letting the camera choose the correct aperture to get enough light to keep the shutter speed constant.
Auto (Auto): The camera choose both the shutter speed and the aperture. I have noticed that with my camera, it generally chooses a high shutter speed and will reduce the aperture to get enough light to expose the image properly. This is not necessarily good for landscape photography. Auto also decides you ISO, and white balance goes to auto. (I almost never use this setting unless, I am taking photos for work and am in a really big hurry. 

Program (P): These are setting available on most cameras that the manufacturer has created to allow you to be in Auto, but to tell the camera what kind of auto you mean. You can set your camera to the little running person when you want to capture things that are in motion. The main thing is that you have limited control over settings on your camera. If you like letting the camera take control instead of you taking control, you may want to consider this. As John Dickinson said at our last meeting, when you can shoot in Manual (M), then you have a complete understanding of what your camera is doing and you will understand what is happening in Auto or Program mode.

Note: Auto and manual focus is a separate feature that works independently of  Manual, Aperture, and Shutter priority settings. The ISO is also controlled separately.

The bottom line is that shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and your lens all play a role in getting enough light to your sensor to give you the image that you want. It comes down to what is most important to get right in your image. If you want to take a landscape photograph and have the photograph in focus from the closest point of the image to the camera, to the farthest point, you need to make sure that your f-stop (aperture) is set high enough to make that happen. This is called depth of field; often referred to as DOF. The bigger that number is the more you will see in focus from closest to farthest. However, if you are trying to stop a speeding train or flying eagle, you need to make sure that your shutter speed is set properly to allow you to stop the action. 

Here are some links to other articles written by people in the field of photography:

Digital Photography School on Aperture vs. Shutter Priority.

Image Maven on Aperture, Shutter, and Manual Priority.

Digital Photo Secrets on Aperture, Shutter, and Manual Priority.

More from Digital Photo Secrets and why we might think Aperture Priority is more important than Shutter Priority; well, maybe depending upon what you are shooting.

I did a little experiment when we were out shooting the eagles at Lock and Dam 14. I shot some in Shutter Priority and some in Aperture Priority. It was recommended to me by two people that I st the Aperture to f5.6 as my DOF would be fine to capture an eagle from head to toe with this setting. My ISO was 500, and the shutter was 1/1500th of a second. I lowered the ISO because at f5.6 it was often shooting at 1/3000th of a second and I knew that I did not need that much speed to capture a soaring Eagle. The Shutter Priority images were set at ISO 800, shutter speed 1/2000th of a second.

This was taken in shutter priority: 1/2000th of a second, f6.7, ISO 800. No crop.

This was taken in aperture priority: 1/1500th second, 5.6, ISO 500 It was slightly cropped. 

I hope that even if you were confused at the last meeting that you will come back again. Each meeting is a new learning opportunity and after a while the discussion begins to make sense. You may even want to jump in with your own thoughts.

I also hope that this post helps to clarify a few things for you so that you can make some decisions about how you use your camera.

February full of Peace and Love

Our next meeting will be on February, 19th at 7:00 PM in the meeting room. Tom Smith will give a presentation on Wildlife photography and Tim O'Shaunacy (spelled wrong) will share some tips on photo editing. Bring some paper and a pen so you can take notes.

The assignment for the month is Peace and Love. You can look at this from several perspectives;  search for physical examples of peace and love like hearts and peace signs, show examples of peace and love in action such as people hugging, smiling, doing for others, and then there is the more esoteric like how you feel when you see something such as a beautiful sunset, a crocus coming up through the snow, or your pet sleeping in the sunlight.

In March, we will have our show-and-tell at the first meeting and then John Dickinson will give a presentation on how to photograph water drops on the cheap at the second meeting.