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FJKF
April, 2006
Issue 6
HILLS CAMERA CLUB AT CASTLE HILL RSL
Special Interest
Articles:
Print of the Month
Phil Brown’s Printing Article
Member Profile Steve Wiessner
Individual Highlights:
Club News 2
Competitions 3
Printing Article 4
Q. & A. Page 8
M/Profile 9
I/of the Month 10
Online Forum 11
Point Scores 12
Info 13
Contact Us 14
President’s Report
Welcome to our new members. I wish you enjoyment of the camera club experience with an exchange of ideas and great photographic experiences. What great meetings we have had in the past month. On the first meeting we had the talk by John Swainston giving us a time line of photography and the direction he sees it going in the future. His ideas on saving files and some of his images. The discussion on low light photography and white balance at the digital forum on the 21
st.
The white, black and gray card showed well how cameras adjust the light to make the average universal grey, and how to adjust your settings to achieve the results you want. Steve Wiessner noted how well our club had done at some external competitions. At the Taralga Rodeo competition we achieved eight of the nine awards most notable Tony Spence and Keith Gillard. Bob Cook took out overall champion in Monochrome Castle Hill Show with Jennifer Scarf, Paul Waite and Steve Wiessner, taking out major awards. Seconds, thirds and highly commended were taken out by other members of the club. Nikolai Belousov taking out a Passion for Pixels competition, an online comp with many entries, a great achievement. The Passion for Pixels site is well worth a look with forums, news articles and equipment evaluations to name a few. http://www.passionforpixels.com Lets hope we do well in Top Shot. There were some unusual entries for the “Rear Quarter’ competition, some that were difficult to define and left our judge almost speechless on a couple of occasions. It turned out to be a night with lots of laughter at some of the entries. A good time was had by all. Phil Brown has written a great article in this newsletter Printing – Some Basics. Most of us just want to take photographs and print them out without having to spend hours trying to get the print to be as we see it on the screen. This article is extremely well written so it is easy to understand. When I come back from China I will certainly be running through all the checks and try to improve my consistency. The outing on Saturday was a success with 15 people going along for the afternoon and evening, from the gallery taking photos past the Opera House and around the Quay and across to Milson’s Point where a lively dinner ended the night. A reminder that the Top Shot entries will be shown at the PICA Trade Show, April 28
th, 29
th
& 30th. Camera Clubs are asked to attend on the Saturday and Sunday only as the Friday is restricted to trade only. If you book beforehand on the web then it is free. Don’t forget the special deals offered by our supporters, listed on the back page. Have fun with your photography enjoying the company of like minded people while you do it. Margaret Fagg President
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CLUB NEWSCLUB NEWSCLUB NEWSCLUB NEWS Next Meeting
11th April: Lecture called ‘Composition for Photography’ Learn about the dos and don’ts of composition for photography.
18th April: Digital Meeting: - Action Photography, a chance to discuss light and movement.
25th April: NO MEETING DUE TO PUBLIC HOLIDAY
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Other News Online forum gossip see page 11.
New Members HCC welcomes all the newcomers to the club and looks forward to their involvement.
Rodger Buckley Matthew Day Barbara Glover Neil Chandler Andy Kowalewski Simon Koenig Julie Smith Yearly Project (AMENDMENT) The projects have to be handed in at the meeting on the 14
th November, not the 28
th. The judge, Len Brown will be attending
the meeting on the 14th and he will be taking the projects home with him. Alia
Digital Meeting - Every 3rd Tuesday of the month is the digital forum. Held at the Castle Hill RSL at 8pm.
(New) Questions and Answers page in the Newsletter (Trial Only) see page 8.
Newsletter This newsletter is for all club members to use and if you would like to contribute in any way just send me an email - Irena Hayes- [email protected]. If you have any articles or places to see and visit, Photoshop tips, trips away, they’re all welcome.
City Outing 1st April Our outing on the 1
st of April was great
fun, starting off at the Exhibition gallery and then people made their way to the Opera House. After spending time there we headed for our walk across the bridge. We took photos of the sun setting behind the bridge and did night city shots as well. Then well into the night, some of us were getting cold and hungry and we decided to end the night with a nice dinner at a Chinese restaurant, who put up a delicious banquet for us. A good time was had by all. A big Thank You to James for organizing this outing.
More pictures on page 8.
Smiley James at the outing
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COMPETITIONS AND EXHIBITIONS
ANZANG Nature and Landscape Photographer of the Year 2006
Closing date 1st May, 2006. Details and Entry form: www.anzangnature.com (Lots of Prizes to be won).
Warragul 34th National Photographic Exhibition in 2006
Entries Close 5th May, 2006 (lots of cash prizes) Entry forms will be available at the club.
Western Districts (NSW) 19th National 2006
Entries Close 2nd June, 2006 Entry forms will be available at the club.
Tasmanian National Circuit 2006
Closing Date 23rd June, 2006 Entry forms will be available at the club.
Up Close and Spineless.
Entries close 26th June, 2006. More information can be found on our Website under News.
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Federation of Camera Clubs - TOPSHOT 2006
Exhibition dates 28th-30
th April 2006 Venue: Exhibition Centre Darling Harbour
Time ‘N’ Tide
The 2004/2005 Canon AIPP Advertising Photographer of the Year, Urs Buhlman, will have his photography featured in an exhibition at the Upstairs Gallery at the Bather’s Pavillion, 4 The Esplanade, Balmoral Beach, Sydney.
30 images from his private seascape, landscape and still-life collections.
(On display till mid April, open daily and admission is free). For more information visit: www.ursbuhlman.com.
Archibald, Wynne & Sulman Prizes and the Photographic Portrait Prize
2006 Photographic Portrait Prize
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Lower Level 2. Art Gallery Road, The Domain, Sydney
25th March – 28
th May 2006, Price $8.00 More info www.artgaller.nsw.gov.au
Head On – Alternative portraits
Australian Photographers Gallery
143 Beattie St, Balmain
Exhibition dates: 23rd March – 16
th April 2006. Opening hours Thurs.- Sun. 12-5pm.
Point Light
Deborah Sweeney – Urban Expressive
50 Reservoir St, Surry Hills 16th March – 30
th April.
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FJKF Printing – Some Basics
Printing your photographs has never been easier but never have there been so many options and choices and ways to get it wrong, either. Whether you use a digital camera or scan in your slides or negatives and whether you print at home or take your digital files to a lab for processing, there are some technical issues that are worth understanding in order to get the best possible results. There are four main ways that your digital image will end up on paper:
1. Chemical Process 2. Inkjet Printing 3. Dye Sublimation Printing 4. Laser Printing
Most home printing is done with Inkjet Printers or is sent to Labs for printing (which may result in Chemical Process of Dye Sublimation or Inkjet depending on the lab). Laser printing is best for business graphics or making contact sheets or quick prints, not photo-quality prints. Most people printing at home on Inkjet printers have problems from time to time, and it’s useful to have a few basic checks and processes to provide consistently good results. The intricacies of advanced printing make a topic of themselves, so this article focuses on the basics with which everyone from beginner to pro should be familiar. No doubt it will raise as many questions as it answers, but hopefully this will promote some discussion at the club nights and on the club web forums or in email back to me so I know what to cover in the next newsletter.
What to do when you’re having problems A colleague of mine has a favourite saying whenever someone contacts him for support. Regardless of the problem, he always says “Do a nozzle check – even if the printer is on fire and demons are flying out of it, run a nozzle check first!” Well, he’s right. All inkjet printers will have a function that allows you to produce a test pattern to see if the printer is working correctly. These test patterns typically fire all of the nozzles on the printer and you can see if there are any that are failing to print. If they are, and if your printer has a cleaning function, then you should use it until the nozzle check runs clear. If your printer is not firing from all nozzles then you won’t get good results. Your prints could be the wrong colour or have lines (known as “banding”) through them. You may also get washed out or fuzzy prints.
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Sometimes it is necessary to align the print head, but this is usually not needed unless you have just changed it (as happens when you change inks in some models). Still, if you are having problems then checking the alignment is a good idea. It may seem like a basic thing, but most professional printing houses will check nozzles and alignments daily at least. It’s certainly cheaper to use a tiny amount of ink to run a test pattern than to waste a page worth on a bad print. The other issues to consider are the ink and the paper that you are using. All manufacturers make their own inks and papers and the combination of ink, paper and printer are designed to work together. This doesn’t mean that you can’t use 3rd party inks or papers at all. What it does mean is that you may need to adjust driver settings to get the 3rd party combinations working correctly. Sometimes, you may never get the results you want. Some brands of paper, for example, just don’t work well with certain brands of printers and some models use different types of inks that are only suitable on specific paper types. Generally, if have problems that you can’t seem to resolve, go back to using a known combination of original inks and papers and test the printer. If it works correctly with original consumables then you know it’s the 3rd party combination that’s causing the problems. If, on the other hand, it’s still problematic with the original products then you can rule out the 3rd party materials as the fault. At the end of the day, you really do get what you pay for. The high quality 3rd party product will be much closer in price to the original consumables than the cheap copies. If you want your prints to look good and to last and not damage your printer, stick with high quality consumables whether they are original or 3rd party and bear in mind that the use of 3rd party consumables may have warranty implications. I’ve checked all that and things still aren’t great Well, if your printer is working correctly but the results are still poor, then it might be time to check some of the driver and program settings. It’s a great idea, when you’re having problems, to set everything back to default – even uninstalling and reinstalling the printer and software is a good idea to get everything back to default. Default settings are very often the best for most printing – it’s not really the case that lots of changes and tweaks will get the best out of the printer. Those changes are available for unusual printing requirements or to create specific effects and results. A common trap is to print the image at too low or too high DPI setting. DPI means “dots per inch” and refers to the resolution of the image. It’s actually the wrong term but it is in common usage now so I’ll continue to misnomer here. What you actually have in a digital image is PPI or “pixels per inch”. The difference is that one image pixel might be made up of 1, 2, 3 or more dots by the printer. This is why printers have resolutions in the many thousands (5760x1440) for example. In order to create a certain colour that is in the digital image, the printer will need to lay down a number of different dots so that it matches the colour.
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In knowing that our printers need lots of dots to make up each pixel, it becomes obvious that having as many DPI as our printers seem to be rated isn’t going to help! Generally speaking,around 300dpi is effective. This is plenty of data for the printer to create a photographic result. The human eye can’t resolve 300dpi, so it will appear as solid images and colours rather than lots of dots. You can print with much lower resolutions with some printers. It gets quite technical, but I frequently print at 180dpi or even 120dpi. I would suggest that you try to stick in a range of 200-300dpi, though, for consistently good results. Having got your image into the 200-300dpi range, you should set the driver to print at the highest quality possible. Often you’ll be able to use lower settings and get good results, but start with the best and experiment from there. Contrary to popular belief, you do not use a substantially higher amount of ink at higher resolutions / quality settings compared to the lower settings (unless you get down to draft level). There’s usually no more than 5% difference. Make sure that your printer driver settings match the paper type that you are using and if you wantthe best results, look to turn off any high speed or similar modes. Your prints will take a lot longer at the highest quality levels, but really what’s 2 minutes extra for a really good result? Make sure that the paper loaded is clean and that you haven’t touched the surface that you will print to. Grease and oil and dirt from your fingers and hands will be detrimental to ink being applied to the paper. It doesn’t look like my monitor… In most cases, the reason your print doesn’t look like the image on your monitor is because your monitor is wrong. Assuming you’ve done all the nozzle checks and cleans and set your driver correctly and using an image of the right resolution, then the printer will almost certainly faithfully reproduce the digital image. Most monitors, though, are simply set to “what looks good” when you look at the image for your computer desktop. It needs to be calibrated if you want to use it to judge what your final print will look like and you need to use colour-aware software such as Photoshop to really manage the colour-workflow. Again, colour workflow is a topic by itself (indeed, entire books have been written on the subject) and is for a more advanced discussion. Having said that, you can be taught to use a professional colour managed workflow in about 20 minutes so don’t be afraid to ask. There are many ways to calibrate your monitor and, like most things, you get what you pay for. That said, even a very basic adjustment that relies on you making choices of “what looks best” with programs like Adobe Gamma are vastly superior to having no calibration at all.
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So did Phil actually say anything useful? Well, I hope so. Here’s a summary:
1. Keep your printer nozzles clear and clean and aligned 2. You will use less ink doing nozzle check patterns than wasting bad prints 3. Use high quality consumables (paper and ink)
4. Make sure your image is usually in the 200-300dpi range
5. Use the best quality settings on your printer and in the printer driver
6. Match the paper type you are using to the driver settings
7. Start with all the other settings at default
8. Handle your paper with care and avoid touching the surface
9. Calibrate your monitor if possible
10. If you’re still having problems, bring some samples along to a club meeting and ask for
help If this has been of some help then please let Irena (our illustrious editor!) or myself know. If there are specific things that you would like discussed then again please tell us. One of the difficulties in writing these sorts of articles is in targeting what is wanted and doing it in just a few pages and in knowing just how specific people want the articles to be. Feedback will mean better and better articles for you. Happy shooting and printing! Phil Brown
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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Q: When is it the best time to use Evaluative, Partial and Center Weighted metering? A: Evaluative (Matrix) Metering Standard metering mode for most cameras. General-purpose metering mode effective for most subjects. The camera detects the subject’s position, overall brightness, background brightness, etc., and takes all of these into account to determine the correct exposure. Good for most scenes. Partial Metering (similar to Spot) Meters a small area at the viewfinder center. Effective when scene has bright and dark areas such as backlit scenes. Most common use of partial metering might be a portrait of someone who is backlit. You would then meter off their face. Center weighted Average Metering Metering is weighted at the viewfinder center and averaged over the entire scene with emphasis placed on the center area. Use this when the main subject occupies the center of the scene. Spot Metering Usually found on professional cameras. Meters a smaller area than the partial metering at the viewfinder center and used for pinpoint metering. Can be used for subjects that require precise measurement, such as close-up macro or moon photography. Spot metering covers about 1% to 3.5% of the image area. (Typically 3.5%). Partial covers about 9.5% metering. If you have any questions that you would like answered in the newsletter, please email me at: [email protected]
Pam and James on the Bridge
Pam taking her city shot
If anyone has some nice photos that they would like to share with everyone before they win an award, please send them to the editor for inclusion in the May edition.
City Outing Photos
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Member Profile –
STEVE WIESSNER
How and why did you start in photography?
I joined a Probus Club and they started up a rather basic Camera Club. I’d bought a digital camera a year or so previously and found that the further I got into it the more I enjoyed photography.
Do you remember your first camera?
Struggling here. Was there such as 110 film? Kodak equivalent of today’s point and shoot, fifty years ago.
Do you use film/digital or both?
Only digital.
What type of photography do you find the hardest to
take?
Landscape. After seeing what some in the club can do and then giving it a go I found lots of problems.
What photos do you like to take the best?
Anything, the harder the better. Love the challenge.
Whose photos in the Camera Club do you admire the
most?
Couldn’t single one person out. There are a large number of really excellent photographers. Lots of different styles and signatures. Lots of people just blow me away with their images. I’m impressed even more when I go away and try to emulate a feel they have achieved and fail miserably.
What are your thoughts on today’s Judges?
I like the judges who really speak their mind and rip it into you if they don’t like the image. You don’t have to agree but at least you end up with feedback. It beats ‘nice’.
.
What advice would you give to a new beginner in
photography?
Don’t be influenced by anybody. The master painters were just that because they developed a unique style in most cases. You’ve got to have passion. If you haven’t got a burning passion for photography then look around for an interest where you have.
Do you follow any sport or team or have a hobby?
Love tennis, play a bit of lawn bowls, gardening and mahjong. Follow Formula 1.
What has been your favourite holiday and travels?
I’m not keen on travel. It’s just not me.
Name one thing we don’t know about you?
I won multiple National radio control model competitions and had a reasonable amount of success in motor sport.
Where do you see the Camera Club heading?
The sky is the limit. I think that digital will bring in a whole new bunch of people. The Hills club has a tremendous base with a very large number of topnotch people who are putting a lot in. As long as those people stay and keep their enthusiasm the club can’t fail.
Any Comments:
An expensive camera and big lens doesn’t make a good image. The photographer makes the image. Secondly, stop the film vs. digital debate. It doesn’t matter how you get the image. If you prefer one medium, then use it.
‘I’m new and already a winner’
Taken at the end of year dinner by
Keith Gillard
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PRINT OF THE MONTH –
CHARLES MIFSUD
Title: Four of a Kind
I got the idea to create an image lit by the ambience of an old lamp. It was all set up at home with a particular curtain as a backdrop. The ambient light of the lamp on the curtain created the mood of the image. It took a lot of mucking around before I came up with a suitable composition (cost 9 dollars for a pack of cigarettes for props).
The camera was set up on a tripod and a remote release was used. The exposure was taken from the lamp itself as I did not want to burn the floral detail, I then used a torch to reflect light off a sheet of foil on to foreground of the image. It took about four hours one night to complete the shot. Regards Charlie
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ONLINE FORUM - GOSSIP
ONLINE FORUM (HUMOUR)
Temperature problems
I almost messed up the other day when I was downloading images off my card before I had brought it up to the
correct temperature. About 7 images came out extremely underexposed but thankfully, after I caught the error, I
was able to take the card out and bring it up to temperature and the rest were fine.
Panic Attack
Do you ever get the occasional panic attack when you notice a package of inkjet paper open with the room lights
on?
I miss film
I miss film so much that I always turn off the lights before I change my CF card.
Steve Wiessner
Three funny posts Steve, you've been sniffing too many monitor fumes or maybe sitting too close to all of those
chargers for your camera batteries.
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Regards
Robert
Cinderella is sick and tired of being a maid and decides to try wedding photography instead. She gets her first
wedding, takes the shots and gives them to the processor. Goes back the next day very excited, only to find the
shots aren't ready yet....server says
"don't worry Cinderella, one day your prints will come"
--------------------
Regards
Robert
A professional photographer was at a dinner party with a friend and his wife. While looking at some of the
photographers photos the wife said: Such wonderful pictures, you must have a very good camera." Well later that
evening after dinner the photographer said to the woman "The dinner was excellent, you must have some very good
pots"
James
Taking my son to school this morning (BTW, true story) and we were having a conversation about why people can't
remember things like other people can. I was having problems remembering a characters name in a movie. His
reply was “Some people have a bigger MEMORY CARD”.
We all laughed. He was right.
Irene
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FJKF RESULTS FOR MARCH POINT SCORE
COMPETITION
A Grade Slides A Grade Mono Prints
Jonathon Ferns 37 Alia Naughton 30
Robert Hoehne 31 Anthony Spence 24
Briar Jensen 13 Stephen Wiessner 18
Alia Naughton 13 Nikolai Belousov 17
Bob Cook 10
A Grade Colour Prints A Grade Mini Prints
Stephen Wiessner 34 Bob Cook 27
Anthony Spence 32 Alia Naughton 14
Keith Gillard 24 Anthony Spence 12
Charles Mifsud 24 Jonathon Ferns 8
Robert Brear 14 Briar Jensen 5
B Grade Slides B Grade Mono Prints
Allan de Saxe 34 Elizabeth Goff 19
Bob Flegg 30 Margaret Fagg 14
Bob Palmer 14
Jennifer Scarf 14
Christene Cook 12
B Grade Colour Prints B Grade Mini Prints
Andrew Treloar 38 Ron Quester 35
Nikolai Belousov 31 Andrew Treloar 34
Elizabeth Goff 30 Darryl Lane 22
Valerie Fenbow 28 Valerie Fenbow 18
Alison Blair 24 Jennifer Scarf 18
March certainly continued the strong support for the Point Score Competition. There were 47 members entered with a total of 177 entries. Again there were some very pleasing new member entries. Keep up the good work! When I think back to the entries on display there certainly were some great photos. Congratulations to (I never do any good) Charlie Mifsud for a very popular Image of the Month.
So, at present, the top place getters in each category and grade are:
GREAT to see so many members submit entry forms that are typed. That way we don’t have to spend time deciphering the (sometimes) doctors-script handwriting that we see on forms. We are considering a special mention in the newsletter for the worst hand written entry. A TIP: If you use the downloaded form from the club web site this is a good way to use it.
• Type your name into the top
of the form and enter your grading into each box provided for slides, mono prints, colour prints and mini prints.
• NOW SAVE THE FORM as it is and use it as a starting template to fill in your entry form each month.
• Then all you need to do is add the date, and your entry details and print it.
• Then you should now save it as e.g. “Entry form 28 Feb”.
• If you update this form with your results after the judging and save it again you will then build up a complete record of all of your entries and the results they achieved.
A reminder, only financial members can enter the competition. If you’re a member who has not yet paid this year’s subscription you had better do it VERY soon. Anyhow, enough from me, Bob Cook For the Competition Committee
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"Ever wondered at the speed of your memory card compared to other brands? OR Looking to buy more memory and want to know, which are the fastest cards for your camera? Then go to this link http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007 Here you will find a comparison of the read and write speed memory cards versus cameras. On the main page, select the camera type from the drop down box at the top and then browse the cards listed."
Regards,
Bob CookBob CookBob CookBob Cook
INFO They come from the Compact Flash Association web site http://www.compactflash.org/
Digital Camera Media Safe In Both Carry-On And Checked Baggage Recent tests found no evidence of X-ray scanner damage to digital camera media cards or to the images they hold. The tests of scanner models currently in use in the U.S. transportation industry were jointly conducted by the International Imaging Industry Association (I3A), the leading global association for the imaging industry; SanDisk Corporation, a manufacturer of digital media cards; and the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA). See 12/15/04 press release and International Imaging Industry Association (I3A) website
Recovering Deleted Files from CompactFlash Cards In general, when using CompactFlash cards, deleted files can be recovered. Also, files on cards that have been re-formatted or the card's file system has been corrupted may be recovered. There are a number of applications to recover files. After the deletion of files, writing new files or re-formatting the CompactFlash cards may cause some of the old files to be unrecoverable. What this means to CompactFlash card users: 1) Photo files as well as other types of files that have been deleted accidentally may be recovered from CompactFlash cards. 2) Confidential information contained in deleted files or on formatted CompactFlash cards may be recovered from CompactFlash cards that are given or sold to other persons.
CompactFlash® User Alert
By default, Windows XP will format any CompactFlash card having a capacity greater than 32MB with the
FAT32 format. Most digital cameras use the FAT (FAT16 & FAT12) format and can not operate with a FAT32
formatted card. Either format your CompactFlash card in your camera or select FAT file system to format your
CompactFlash card with a Windows XP PC.
Regards,
Bob CookBob CookBob CookBob Cook
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CONTACT USCONTACT USCONTACT USCONTACT US
President Margaret Fagg
Vice President Bob Palmer
Secretary Mal Hobson
Treasurer Bob Flegg
Web Master Robert Hoehne
Program Coordinator
Ron Quester [email protected]
Competition Coordinator Bob Cook
Publicity Coordinator
James Watkins [email protected]
Newsletter Editor
Irena Hayes [email protected]
THE HILLS RSL PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY INC.
ATRIUM CASTLE HILL RSL, LEVEL 6 77 CASTLE STREET CASTLE HILL
P.O. BOX 25, CASTLE HILL, NSW 1765 WEB: www.hillscameraclub.org.au E-MAIL: [email protected]
CONTRIBUTIONS
Contributions to this Newsletter are most welcome. The deadline for the May Edition is last week in April.
Articles are preferred in Microsoft word or plain text format. Send your contributions to the editor via email or printed copy
Images as JPG.
SPECIAL DEALS FOR MEMBERS
This year we have two supporters who will be providing special rates to Camera Club members on certain items throughout the year. They are:
John from Cotswold Gallery Unit 15/ 8 Gladstone Rd Castle Hill 2154 (02) 9894 5036.
Chris from Kodak Camera Centre, Shop 269 Castle Towers (Next to Dymocks) (02) 9894 5006.
Club members have to show their membership cards.
More details can be found on our website under News, for specials in mattboards, picture frames, and various memory cards.
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Battery specials Most of our cameras need them and if you shoot digital you may need a spare in your pack for the days shooting. As a special deal for Hills Camera Club members I am able to get batteries for practically any camera at extremely good prices. DSLR batteries, laptop batteries, standard cells, UPS, camcorder, you name it. Please contact me at [email protected] for a quote.
