Waikanae Estuary Project – Monday 14 October

10 Thursday Oct 2013

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Waikanae Estuary Project

At our next KCPS meeting – on Monday 14 October – we are fortunate to have two speakers to share their insights and knowledge on the Waikanae Scientific Reserve. With our club meeting rooms being located on the edge of the estuary, it has been an inspiration for many of the photographers in KCPS.

Mary McEwen, the daughter of Sir Charles Fleming (the founder of the Waikanae Scientific reserve) will speak first on the history of the estuary. This will be followed by Pat Menzies from Friends of the Waikanae Estuary, talking about current developments and conservation.

With this background knowledge, we hope members will be inspired to become involved in the KCPS Waikanae Estuary Project. This will result in images for an exhibition in the Paraparaumu Library Roderick & Gillian Deane Art Space Gallery, planned for 9 to 29 August 2014.

The objectives of the KCPS Waikanae Estuary Project are to:

  • Increase general public awareness of the Waikanae Scientific Reserve
  • Display members’ images
  • Promote KCPS to the community
  • Establish links with other community groups
  • Have group photographic activities for members

We are particularly interested in highlighting issues pertaining to the Estuary  – e.g., Pollution and Conservation.

Ideas for photographic guideline categories for the Exhibition are:

  • Landscape
  • Birds
  • Vegetation
  • Small creatures – insects, crustaceans, fish, etc.
  • People and activities
  • Conservation

We hope to see you all on Monday night.

Members Exhibition on Monday 9 September

06 Friday Sep 2013

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It’s always interesting to hear from our members about why they got “into” photography, the images they like to make, and to see some of their special work.

On Monday the members we’ll hear from are Peter Beddek APSNZ, Nicola Mazur and Helen Moore.  Just as a teaser, I’ve included one image from each below.  Come along on Monday to see and hear much more.

Harbour Sunbeams

“Harbour Sunbeams” – ©Peter Beddek

"The Blue and Beyond" - Highly Commended, Intermediate Print - ©Nicola Mazur

“The Blue and Beyond” – ©Nicola Mazur

"Dahlia Mary Evelyn" - Honours, Novice Colour Print - ©Helen Moore

“Dahlia Mary Evelyn” – ©Helen Moore

Photographic News – Sony and Adobe

05 Thursday Sep 2013

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Some interesting news items today that may be of interest to KCPS members.

Sony Clipon Cameras for Mobile Photography

Image courtesy of dpreview

Just after the meeting on Smartphone Photography rumours appeared of some new Sony “clip on” cameras, that use a mobile phone for control and display.

They have now been announced – the Sony QX10 and the Sony QX100.

DPReview’s take is worth a read, and particularly their in-depth look at the QX100. This is US$500 and uses the same sensor as the Sony RX-100II. However it only produces jpegs, and has no manual control, so seems a bit hobbled. The RX-100II – which is priced around US$750 – can connect to a mobile with wifi or NFC and transfer images, and is actually smaller, and does do RAW and manual controls.

So these are very interesting and innovative new products from Sony, but whether they will do well is another question.

Photoshop and Lightroom Creative Cloud

Controversially, Adobe recently moved to a regular subscription for their Creative Cloud Suite. This was quite expensive if all you wanted was Photoshop CC. They have just announced a new, special deal, just for photographers which sounds, on the face of it, quite attractive; especially for those who have yet to update to Lightroom 5.

It will be US$10 a month (annual commitment) for both Lightroom 5.2 (when it’s out soon) and Photoshop CC, plus some other benefits.  You have to have a licence already for Photoshop CS3 or later. See the link for more details.

I haven’t seen pricing for New Zealand (in Australian $ usually) – hopefully that would be around AU$10 a month too.

Learn All About Filters – Development Group Monday

30 Friday Aug 2013

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Peter Ellis will cover the topic of filters at the next Development Group meeting, on Monday 2 September at OBC.  He kindly provided the following background material:

FILTERS

The word “filter” covers a vast range of topics in photography.  Our September meeting will consider some of the more interesting and widely used filters.  It will start with an illustrated talk and demonstrations that will try to answer some of the questions regarding the types of filters and their uses.  The talk will be followed by a discussion session.

Filters come in all sorts of flavours, but fall into two general categories.  The first and oldest is the “real” category.  These are the filters that mostly originated in the days of film cameras that can be held in the hand and attached to your camera or enlarger.  Your digital camera will come with at least one real filter embedded inside it.  The other category is the digital filter that resides in your computer.  Hundreds of these exist in very many digital image processing packages.  This presentation will make use of the filters in Adobe Photoshop, but most of them are also available in other software products.

Some of the questions about “real” filters that will be addressed are:

  • Are filters developed for black and white film photography still useful in the digital age?
  • Why does a digital camera have an infra-red blocking filter inside it, and can this type of camera be used for taking infra-red pictures?
  • What is the difference between near infra-red and far infra-red photography?
  • How does a polarizing filter work and why do we need a circular polarizer for some types of camera?
  • What can a polarizing filter be used for?
  • What other types of “real” filter are there, and what can they be used for?

Questions about “digital” filters include:

  • What is the basic difference between a film camera image and a digital camera image?
  • What are the problems when using sharpening filters to retrieve the detail in blurred images?
  • How can digital filters be used in conjunction with layer blending modes such as those found in Photoshop?
  • Which of the lesser known and lesser used filters are really useful?
This picture of the Waikanae river was taken with a digital camera in which the red channel has been replaced with an infra-red channel by switching out the internal infra-red blocking filter. All visible light has been stopped with an external filter over the lens. The infra-red channel is then combined with the red and green visible channels (converting red to green and green to blue) to give this “false colour” picture.

This picture of the Waikanae river was taken with a digital camera in which the red channel has been replaced with an infra-red channel by switching out the internal infra-red blocking filter. All visible light has been stopped with an external filter over the lens. The infra-red channel is then combined with the red and green visible channels (converting red to green and green to blue) to give this “false colour” picture.

2013 Winter Salon Judging

28 Wednesday Aug 2013

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Our judge for the KCPS 2013 Winter Salon was Glen Howey – splendid as always in his trademark orange tee shirt. Glen did another great job on judging last Monday. He also  showed an AV of a recent photo tour to Cambodia. He’s running another one – 25 days for a very reasonable cost – starting just after Christmas. Email him at glen@glenhowey.co.nz if you are interested.

All twenty Highly Commended and Honours images can be seen in the 2013 Winter Salon Gallery which is now online.

Congratulations to those who did well in this Salon – particularly those in the Novice section who came away with a slew of Honours and HCs, including five of the six images awarded Honours, as shown below.

Report on Smartphone Photography Talk

14 Wednesday Aug 2013

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Photo Courtesy of Brian Gray (taken on his smartphone, of course)

Photo Courtesy of Brian Gray (taken on his smartphone, of course)

Judging from the very kind feedback that I’ve received, my talk on Monday night went well. 🙂

I covered the evolution of cameras on phones since 2000 (based on this website plus the history of iPhones), some of their unique aspects as compared with “regular” cameras, some examples of good quality imagery, and then I did a live demonstration of a number of applications on my iPhone 4S.

Samsung Camera

Samsung SCH-V770 from 2005

Sony QX10 attached to a Sony smartphone (leaked, rumour)

Sony QX10 attached to a Sony smartphone (leaked, rumour in 2013)

One of the early phones that we all found amusing was this Samsung SCH-V770…. a 7MP camera phone with 3x optical zoom and autofocus. This has interchangeable lenses, but I’d not sure I’d want to put it up to my ear in case of causing damage!

Then, just a day after the talk, rumours started flying of a new Sony attachable “camera lens” (that would connect via Bluetooth) and use an iPhone or other phone as its display and control.

Watch this space – innovation continues!

For those technically inclined, the live demonstration of software on my iPhone 4S was done by creating a Wifi network from my MacBook Pro, connecting to it from the iPhone, then running an app on the MacBook Pro called Reflector. I used Airplay from the iPhone to mirror its live screen display onto the MacBook Pro, and project it up onto the screen.  Worked a treat.


The Apps Demonstrated Live on my iPhone 4S

The Apps Demonstrated Live on my iPhone 4S

Panorama of the Audience, Captured Live

Panorama of the Audience, captured live while they watched it happening on the screen

Must See Exhibitions

14 Wednesday Aug 2013

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There’s a number of nearby exhibitions on now that should be of interest.

JOSEPH MICHAEL – DARK CLOUD: WHITE LIGHT

This is an exhibition of timelapse photography at Pataka Museum in Porirua, on until 13 October.  Free. Highly recommended – I saw it on Tuesday.

There’s around a dozen separate sequences shown on large screens, with music individually composed, taken in stunning locations around NZ with a rolling 24 hours of changes of weather and sky and sun and shadows.  My favourite was the Lake Marion one, showing low cloud and mist sloshing up and around and side to side in a deep valley.  Two of the sequences are in full 3D with glasses provided.  And don’t miss the 10 minute “Behind the Scenes” video where Joseph Michael goes into detail about how he created these works of art.

If you want more background and motivation to go, check out the story online from Campbell Live.

World Press Photo 2013

There’s not long now to catch the annual World Press Photo Exhibition at 42 Willis Street in Wellington – until 25 August. $5. The imagery is always amazing, although (for me) can also be a bit gruesome.

Home_01_Paul-Hansen

(C) Paul Hansen, Sweden, Dagens Nyheter.

Gregory Crewdson – In a Lonely Place

This is on at the City Gallery Wellington until 8 September. Crewdson creates elaborate scenarios either on location or sound stages, using sets, actors, and full production crews, all in search of a perfect ‘moment of grace’.  Ian Linning and Carol Molineux have both seen and recommend it.

Crewdson2

Gregory Crewdson, ‘Untitled (Sunday Roast)’, 2005, pigmented inkjet print. © Gregory Crewdson, courtesy Gagosian Gallery, New York.

Smartphone Photography – Monday 12 August

09 Friday Aug 2013

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iPhone Photo of Cameras

I’ll be talking about Smartphone Photography, or perhaps Phoneography, at the next KCPS meeting on Monday at 7:30 pm. Do we really need those bigger cameras, or point and shoots? Be prepared to debate the issue.

Don’t forget that entries for the Winter Salon are also due.  You can enter online via https://kcps.org.nz/salon-entry-form/ and then bring any prints along on Monday evening.

Wellington Interclub Print Battle 2013 at KCPS

06 Tuesday Aug 2013

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KCPS had the pleasure of hosting the annual Wellington Interclub Print Battle at KCPS last evening. The Otaihanga Boating Club was full to the brim to see Tony Bridge do an excellent job of judging one print from each of the six clubs, for each of ten categories.

A full house watches Tony Bridge judging prints in the "Movement" category.

A full house watches Tony Bridge judging prints in the “Movement” category

Congratulations to Karori Camera Club, who were the clear winners on the night, against tough competition. The final score sheet is shown below. A score of 1 for an image means it was the top rated, 2 for the second rated, etc. So the lowest total wins – Karori Camera Club getting 23. We were very happy to come second, thanks to a sprint finish with the top rating for the KCPS “Terraced” image. WPS seemed to get stuck on 4!

Wellington Interclub Print Battle Results 2013

Wellington Interclub Print Battle Results 2013

Tony also chose the best abstract print of the night, in honour of the late Stella Daniell. The print was by Ian Walker from the Hutt Camera Club. Trophy and Award presentations are shown below.

Many thanks to Tony Bridge for doing a terrific job under demanding (by some) circumstances. We had a great turnout, and it was a fun night for all, capped off by socialising over a yummy supper provided by our members.

Tony Bridge presents the Wellington Interclub Print Battle Trophy to Mark Berger, President of the Karori Camera Club.

Tony Bridge presenting the Wellington Interclub Print Battle Trophy to Mark Berger, President of the Karori Camera Club

Phit Dyer, President of the Wellington Photography Society, presenting the Stella Daniel print to Paul Whitham, President of the Hutt Camera Club (on behalf of Ian Watkins)

Phil Dyer, President of the Wellington Photography Society, presenting the Stella Daniell Award print to Paul Whitham, President of the Hutt Camera Club (who accepted it on behalf of Ian Walker, for his print in the “Skin” Category)