25th October 2017 - Mono PDI Competition 1

Our first Mono image PDI of the season will go down in the history books of Photocraft!

We had an incredible 81 images entered for judging, a new record and actually over the usual limit recommended by the SPA guidelines – which say around 70 is enough.

We contemplated our options and decided to ask our judge for the night, James Godber, what he would like to do. James took the bold decision to accept all 81 entries and so we settled in for what promised to be an interesting and possibly lengthy evening!

Our Level 1 members put forward 48 images. The standard was exceptional and James ensured that every entry was viewed, commented and scored. We saw 14 images held back and offer congratulations to Steve Hadfield for his superb “Gotham City” winning entry.

Our other Level 1 members scoring 10 were:

·         Bamburgh Castle -  Sharon Thomas

·         Lumiere - Benjamin Bull

·         Snow face sunken impression - Andrew Clarke

·         Escalator - Benjamin Bull

A special mention to Benjamin for a double 10!!

The standard of what we had seen before tea break eventually arrived certainly meant that the 33 Level 2 entries would have to stand up to even harder scrutiny. James once again made the time count and despite telling himself to speed up, it was clear he was enjoying the night and as with Level 1, he was fair in giving all entries suitable time to be assessed. 11 were held back.

Congratulation are due to David Pelling for his winning image, Agave, which got the 10+ award.

The following also gain a worthy mention for their scores of 10:

·         Homeward Bound Separate Lives - David Harford

·         Waiting for summer - Philip Richter

·         George – Graham Simms

So what did our judge have to say? From where I sat, he seemed to be most concerned about the focal length that many images were taken at. He explained that the choice of focal length is critical in ensuring that the main subject of the photograph stands out from its background. Thus, the lower the number for the aperture opening (e.g f8 and lower), the more of the background away from the main subject will be out of focus, thus stopping our eye wandering around the picture.

He also offered good insight into choosing the right image to convert to mono. We saw some on the night that were not black and white and James stressed that to make these ones stand out, there needs to be the right level of contrast, especially with images of one colour.

All in all, it was a successful evening and this writer is delighted that we now have such a confident membership, willing to put their work forward for comment. 81 entries for mono is wonderful given that it is normally the poor relation to full blown colour. If, as usual, we see a higher number for the next colour PDI, I can only suggest we all bring camp beds as it will be a long night but chances are we will look to bring the entries down to 2 per member so my last item to leave you with is to  be sure you number your entries carefully and  that your two favourites are numbered 1 and 2 so that your best work will be in the competition on the night.

Till the next time!

Once, twice, three times a (winning) lady!

So last Saturday five intrepid Photocraft members set off to represent the club at the Surrey Photographic Association's annual Individual Print and PDI competition in East Horsley.

Still smarting from last year's complete failure to print home any bling, the heat was well and truly on, with competition new boy Philip clearly not wanting to let the side down.

As usual, Mandy did her very best to send everyone home with a chronic case of diabetes, outdoing herself this year with a carrier bag full of goodies.  Just like a dealer of less legal "recreational pleasures" Mandy pressured us to eat more sweets than our doctors or dentists would have advised .. to begin with I thought she was just being generous, but her ulterior motive became much clearer as the afternoon wore on  .. but more on that shortly ..

Despite a good showing from the boys with 9 images scoring 10 or above (a good club picture typically scores 9 out of a possible 15) the afternoon undisputedly belonged to Mandy, who came away with not one, not two, but THREE medals: one best in class and two judge's choices!

Now we know why Mandy was so keen to empty that carrier bag!  A very well deserved congratulations from everyone at Photocraft for a truly brilliant performance!

***** UPDATE *****  

If you'd like to check out the winning entries, click here: http://surreypa.org.uk/?page_id=1171
And new for 2017, there is a "Judges Selection" section which features a three images from Mark  and David P: http://surreypa.org.uk/?page_id=1235

Internal Match-an-Image competition 18th October 2017

Match-a-Slide competitions were a regular feature of the club's programme in the days of film but fell out of favour with digital because of the need for two expensive projectors. Last Wednesday's competition was made possible by Epsom Camera Club kindly lending us a projector. The club is booked to participate in two Three-way Match-an-Image competitions with other clubs later in the season, so it was thought a practice run at the club would help hone our matching skills.

Mark divided members into two equal-sized teams with an even distribution of people from Level 1 and Level 2 in each to make it fair. And to involve as many members as possible, it was agreed that at least two images from everyone who submitted any would be included. As it turned out, fifteen people from each team did, which is a significant proportion of members, so a big thank you to everyone who took the trouble to take part.

Deciding whether two images 'match' or not was no easy task for our judge David Harford, especially having to deal with the loud heckling (might almost say barracking) from members of both teams trying to influence his decision. David played the part perfectly, deliberately vacillating over his choice in order to wind everybody up.

This type of competition drifts into the surreal towards the end as the choice for an attempted match diminishes. With the final pair of course, there is no choice. David appreciated this fact and relaxed his matching criteria as the contest approached the end game.

The evening was a riotous success that no one could have failed to enjoy. This was due in no small part to David's good humoured commentary throughout. He said at the end how much he had enjoyed the evening, particularly as he was able to relax and get away from the stuffy seriousness of straight competition judging. He sounded as if he meant it - so thank you David for helping make it an evening everyone will remember.

To give those who missed it a flavour of the evening, a selection from the pairs that were awarded 'matches' follows. Try to figure out what was behind the judges decision. The first of each pair was the first image projected with the 'matching' image beneath it.

The final pair - deemed a 'match'..

David, we love you!

Oops.. nearly forgot. Mark's team won by one point.

Open Print Competition #1 - 4 Oct

It was an unusual competition evening but also proof that the club will find a solution to most problems. Changes in the management of the church halls meant we didn't have access to our normal light stand for displaying the prints. Not only does this make it difficult for everyone in the hall to see the photos but also the judge!

It looked a bit desperate for a time but thanks to the resourcefulness of our secretary (Mark) and deputy chair (James), the show went on and, for the evening, the prints were displayed on a chair (the plastic kind, not James).

Visiting judge David Harford took everything in his stride and as usual gave a useful and insightful critique on all the photos presented.

Congrats to Dave Merritt "mmm ... crunchy" and Mandy Byatt "Never mind" for their stunning winning photos that stood out in Level 1 and Level 2 respectively.

mmm ... crunchy

Never mind

And yes, we have access to the club cupboard again so everything is back to normal now.

27th September 2017 - Digital Editing and Close Up Primer

It was an informative club evening tonight with two topics being covered for the benefit of all members old and new.

Philip opened the proceeding with a live demonstration and walk-through SNAPSEED. This is the free - and powerful - digital editing tool from Google. To help with our evening, Google thoughtfully released an updated version just prior to Philip's talk and from what this observer saw, it looks very much like Google has chosen to build in many of the now defunct Nik software with the new Snapseed release.

The first thing to point out is that Snapseed is only available as an app for smartphone or tablet - iOs and Android - and there do not appear to be any plans to release a desktop version for PC or Mac ( a quick search does reveal a rather complicated work around using emulators, etc. - far too complicated for me to explain here)

So the main use of Snapseed is for editing those images you have taken with your phone or tablet or alternatively, adding other photos to your phone or tablet for editing.

Philip told us that the new version now has many more options and is a more powerful editing tool. The layout has changed when compared to past versions and there is a greater choice available for more specific edits within an image. 

One of the most striking tools is the new "Expand" tool. This allows you to effectively add more to the image, i.e. make it bigger or fill in the gaps after a change of perspective.

I see that selecting part of a photo for editing is now possible and Philip provided excellent "Before" and "After" images plus a walkthrough to show us how it's done.

There are now far more presets available as filters plus a complete set of build in tutorials.

The list of Snapseed's features will be a long one but from my point of view, there are some real stand-out features:

• The editing is non destructive. So you have the chance to play with as much editing on an image as you like and then decide it's not right - you simply undo your actions or revert back to the original.
• It is possible to "stack" different edits of the image together and then flatten these, i.e. in the same style as Photoshop.
• The edited image can be save as a new or copy file and there is an option to save a version with the edits still "live". That allows you to go back to each individual edit in the future and change
• The most extraordinary new feature is what Snapseed calls "Head" mode. Philip showed us how this works and in particular its potential on portrait shots. The software can identify the head, isolate it and you are then able to move the face to look in a different direction. I am struggling to explain with words so please play with this as it can be quite dramatic.
• The "healing" and "mono" tool are also greatly enhanced.
• "Double Exposure" is another addition

The loud and clear message is that Snapseed is very easy to use and all of us are encouraged to try it and have a play. Files can be up to 20Mb and it works on raw files as well.

It is clear that Google have put a lot of effort into this update and are strengthening Snapseed's capabilities. Are they out to challenge Adobe? Knowing Google, that has to be a possibility!

Philip has kindly provided the following link to a dropbox file where he has collated all the available information so I would encourage all to take a look and enjoy.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/m2nnczip4d3r00h/Quick%20Guide%20to%20Snapseed.pdf?dl=0

After tea break, Mark gave us all some pointers and advice on the subject of close-up and macro photography. This is ahead of our own evening on the subject, coming up on 11th October.

Whilst Macro lenses are the most obvious choice, Mark made us all aware of extension tubes. These are simply rings that you add between the camera body and lens that allow you to move the front of the lens further away from the sensor in the camera. That, in turn, leads to greater magnification.

A range or extension tubes made by Kenko are Mark's choice - a set of three for under £100 - but we heard that there are cheaper ones available out there. Just make sure that whatever amount you may choose to spend, you get the right ones for your camera/lens system. Please note that we reached a consensus on the night that extension tubes do not work on telephoto/zoom lenses so keep that in mind if you think you may be interested.

Main topics covered included:

• Depth of field - the closer your lens is to the subject, the shallower it gets
• Orientation is important. The sharpest part of the subject is the part that is in focus and parallel to the lens. You can experiment for effect with this and it is good to move around when the object is too big to get into one shot.
• Keep in mind your camera settings will play a big part in getting the most pleasing outcome. Reducing the lens aperture will result in a larger depth of field and the reverse is true as well. So if you are having problems in focusing on what you want, try changing the aperture.
• As you make the aperture smaller, your exposure time will lengthen to ensure the shutter speed is correctly set. Make sure your camera is stable throughout.

Focus stacking is another option if you are looking to make the whole close-up image look sharp. He has kindly provided a link to a YouTube instructional video here:

https://youtu.be/iYA7wb2Vkz8

Mark provided an excellent insight into the ways and methods to get close up plus a look at why it can go wrong and how to improve your chances of getting it right. He ended the evening with some demonstrations via linking his camera to an iPad and showed us the impact of getting close with a 5p piece. It was a very informative talk and Mark has made his presentation available to all on our club website.

Perhaps the main message to take away is that it will take many attempts to get the shot you want so be prepared to experiment, be patient and have fun!

20 September 2017 | Andy Skillen – Walking with Bears

What a truly stunning evening – worth, in its own right, my annual membership fee! Andy is a professional nature photographer and expedition leader, who specialises in walking amongst his subjects and getting up close. When your subjects are bears, especially polar bears, that can be quite a risky business! Andy produces both reportage and fine art images that take your breath away. 

When I first saw it, I thought his amazing picture of a grizzly bear, advancing towards the camera, has been taken with a long zoom lens. But, no, Andy had been lying in the water, no more than three metres away. He believes in photographing bears at their eye level or below. Thankfully, he has an uncanny ability to read bears (this one was behaving like a typical teenage bear!) and takes the trouble to build relationship with them. Though he did admit that he’d been charged by bears twice and always relies on having a guide and being armed with a pepper spray. He’d also learned not to get separated from his photographic kit or his sandwiches in case bears took a liking to either.

This was a highly entertaining , fast moving and humorous presentation. He’d travelled to remote, super-cold locations to bring back the images. The bears didn’t always pose on schedule: he’d spent a month waiting for the first sight of bears on Baffin Island in the Arctic. This sort of nature photography called for plenty of courage and persistence – and an immense love for the bears!

Most photos of new born polar bears are taken in the Sub-Arctic. The downside of that is that you tend to get twigs in the picture, as the climate still supports some vegetation . In the quest for a photo of new born cubs just against snow, Andy had set off for Baffin Island. He described how they’d waited in vain for a whole month and hadn’t found a single bear – just their elusive footprints. Apparently, bears especially like icebergs and, when the weather got too extreme, his party had set up camp near a particularly spectacular iceberg. That was almost the end of the story and the end of Andy. He described how, getting bored, he’d wandered out of the tent to take a few snaps of the iceberg. After he’d walked around the iceberg he noticed something interesting through his viewfinder – a polar bear track that could only have been made in the last thirty seconds. Had he been in that spot slightly earlier, we might not have been listening to him last Wednesday!

His persistence paid off, however, and he was soon able to capture the first ever photos of new born bears in the High Arctic, on Baffin Island in the winter. As you would expect, these were truly amazing shots from an internationally renowned photographer.

I interviewed Andy about his photography during the refreshment break:

Andy Skillen - Walking with Bears from Phil Richtea on Vimeo.

We were so engrossed in Andy’s images and narratives that we had limited time for questions at the end. He has kindly subsequently answered a couple of key questions (which could well improve our own snow photography!):

What kit do you typically use?

2 x Canon 1dx mkii; and then all the following lenses (Canon)
600mm
200-400 mm with 1.4 extender built-in
11-24mm (night skies)
24-70 mm
70-200 mm
stand alone 1.4x for use with the 600.
That's pretty much my standard kit.

Do you use any "special" techniques when shooting in the snow e.g. to get the right balance between the bright whites and darker areas such as rock or sky (bracketing etc)

For snow, we have a number of considerations. Firstly everything is shot in raw of course, not jpg, and its a matter of working with the light rather than trying to fight it - shooting the scene you have, not the one you think you should have. Spot metering is key - you would potentially prefer to blow some detail in the snow than in the subject - and then you have to assess exposure compensation: i usually shoot anywhere between +2/3rd to +2 stops depending on the ambient light conditions. We are attempting to stop the camera making everything grey...which is its mission in life. Over-exposing is critical: but you have to assess the overall light on the day, and the level of reflectivity you are getting to ascertain how much you need to go. Bit of experience, bit of trial and error in there. Always think brighter.

PDI Competition No 1 13th September 2017

So, after being reminded ad nauseam about the required image dimensions for the new projector, it all went a bit pear-shaped anyway. I hope Level 1 contestants will accept our sincere apologies for the small slice cropped off the top and bottom of their projected images. Cropping is the most powerful tool in our armoury for adjusting composition so it was a great pity it was messed up for you.

Our projector has a higher native resolution than the laptop driving it, so the laptop screen can't display the whole of the image at full size. The projector is designed to 'mirror' the laptop so if the laptop crops bits off, so does the projector. We knew about the potential problem which should have been solved by turning off the laptop display during projection, but clearly it wasn't with DiCentra for us on the night. Thanks Chris H who managed to fix it during the tea break by changing the laptop's screen resolution.

Our judge, Darren Pullman, upbeat as always, took it all in his stride and, to his credit, used his imagination to restore parts of the images the technical issue had ungraciously cropped off. He said that in some cases he thought the crop might have actually improved the composition. Darren must have thought we looked like a bunch of amateurs (actually we are a bunch of amateurs!).

Well done everyone who entered and the generally high standard is reflected in the number of photos scoring the top mark: 6 in Level 1 and 2 in Level 2. Here they are (just click on the images to see them enlarged):

In Level 1, congratulations to Chris H for his 10+ winning entry The Intrepid Explorer .

And for his second 10, End of a hot day - taken on a mobile phone apparently!

The other entries awarded 10 in Level 1 were:

BA Tower Brighton by Joy

Wow! by Jeff H

Tewet Tarn by Sharon

and Contemplation by Kevin.

All stunning images guys and well done.

Darren was not so generous with his marking in Level 2, awarding only two 10s - perhaps he was trying to tell us something?

The overall winner was Dave S with Dungeness, a beautiful seascape.

The other 10 in this category was the astonishing White Rainbow by Rosh K.

A great evening in spite of the glitches, so onwards (and hopefully upwards) in the season to come.