Quinebaug Valley Photography Club

Bob Fedder of Southeastern Camera Club presented, with knowledge and humor, a detailed macro program complete with powerpoint lecture, a display of suggested lenses and accessories that can be used with macro photography, and completed the evening with hands on trial and error.  We had calla lilies and day lilies to work with under lighting provided by Bob.  Other club members also brought floral arrangements for everyone to work with.

Some basic macro facts:

• When using your macro lens remember the larger the magnification, the less depth of field (DOF) you will have.

• By increasing your f stop you  increase your DOF BUT each increase in f stop  doubles your shutter speed requirement.

• Use a tripod, cable release and mirror lock up to achieve sharpness.  Another helpful tool is a focusing rail which allows you to move the camera up to 12″ forward and back without moving the tripod.  Focusing rails come in various styles and price ranges.

• Increase external light by using reflectors, lamps, ringlight

• Macro lenses have a short minimum focusing distance meaning the distance from the front of the lens to the subject.   For example a 50mm macro lens focuses 1.6 inches from the subject, a 105mm lens 4.7 inches and a 180mm lens 9.1.  So you can see that the higher mm lens allows you to be further from your subject.

• You can multiply the focal length by adding a teleconverter.  This allows you to also increase your distance from the subject and the reproduction ratio.  However,  you lose 2 f stops of light.

These are just some of the highlights of Thursday night’s program.  Any club member may request to borrow the powerpoint presentation for review.  Contact:  Lois Latraverse

The evening ended a little past 9:15.

Quick Addition: See Dang Photo for some awesome macro images. Tom is a good friend, a superb photographer and has forgotten more stuff than most of us will ever learn. He has a good forum where friendly people answer all questions. (Edit: Karen Leaf)

Reproduction Ration=focal length of lens ∕ amount of extension

September 20th, 2009 | Category: Minutes | Leave a comment

TIPS:

1) With image open in Photoshop, at the top of your screen, go to “image”. Click to open the drop down box, slide down to “resize”. Slide over and click on ” image size”.

2) A box opens. At the bottom of the drop down box there are 3 check boxes, “scale styles, constrain proportions and resample image”. Make sure all 3 are checked. Then look where it says “resolution”. If that number is 300, change it to 72. Then look at the upper portion of the drop down box, under Pixel Dimensions, to see what the dimensions are. If your image is horizontal make sure the width is 1024 or lower. If you have a vertical image, make sure the number is 768 or lower. To change those numbers highlight the number with your mouse then type in the desired number.

3) If your image resolution is 72 when you open the size box, change the pixel dimensions to 1024 for a horizontal image or 768 for the vertical image.

4) Notice that the original inch size of the image does not change. If you see a change in the inch size…something was done wrong. Do not save when you close the image. Reopen and try again.

5) IMPORTANT: DO NOT ‘SAVE’!! Use SAVE AS to a different folder! If you just save, you will be over writing your original photo! Make a separate folder (QVPC for instance) and save all submissions in this folder!!!

September 8th, 2009 | Category: Tips | Leave a comment

Our first competition of the 2009-2010 season went very well.  Jim Dionne of Meriden was our judge and he used his tremendous knowledge and years of judging experience to offer excellent critiques with helpful hints to improve our photography. Winners have been posted to the website…click on the tab above for 2009-2010 competition winners to see who received the points for the evening.  Winning images will be added soon.

Discussion at the meeting prior to the competition included:

1) Distribution of professionally created and printed posters to publicize our club. Members are seeking places to hang the posters in their respective towns.  Our thanks to Karen Leaf for the poster design.

2) Distribution of business cards advertising the club, meeting times and dates, website and email address.

3) Discussion on Woodstock Fair moon shot field trip for Sept 4th….meeting at 6:15 in the parking lot directly across from the main entrance to the Fair.

4) Decided to enter NECCC color print competition.  Deadline for submission of entries is Oct 28th.  We will enter both Nature and Open.  We had a good start for the open category with the winners of September’s prints.

5) Would all nature shooters look through your archives for images that have not been entered in any NECCC competition.  We need 4 images from 4 makers.

6) We will be scheduling a selection night for this competition in late September.  More details to follow.

7) Karen and Lois are putting in time to make the website useful to members as well as new folks checking us out.  Please be patient as we are not experts and we are trying to work with the software as best we can.  Format may not be pleasing but hopefully the content will be helpful!

Coming in future months (we hope) are columns of interest written by members.  Perhaps a computer lesson, Photoshop technique, HDR (High Dynamic Range), a favorite local place to travel for shooting, etc.  We would like to make this website work for members and become a place to visit frequently.  We can’t do it without your participation.

9) If you want to write something for the web please do and then email it to info@quinebaugvalleyphoto.com.  We welcome your suggestions.

Lois Latraverse, President

September 4th, 2009 | Category: Minutes | Leave a comment

All skill levels are welcome to attend and learn the ins and outs of macro photography.  We are excited to have our friend and fellow camera club enthusiast, Robert Fedder of Southeastern Camera Club presenting a short power point program.  Bring your camera and tripod and be prepared to have some fun while learning valuable techniques to improve your close up photography.  Setups will be provided but if you have one of your own that you would like to photograph….bring it along!

September 2nd, 2009 | Category: Programs | Leave a comment

The first meeting of the 2009 season is September 3rd….next week!  There are some rule changes taking place so make sure to read your September Newsletter (now linked on the web).  Your officers met after the July BBQ to refine the details….more refinement will come in the next couple of months.

Our program chairs have been working hard to provide interesting events during the coming year.  They welcome your feedback in the form of constructive suggestions and/or your appreciation for a job well done.  And, needless to say, we hope you will participate in as many competitions, programs and field trips as your schedule will allow.  The success of any club is measured by the support of its members!

August 26th, 2009 | Category: Minutes | Leave a comment