Nelson Camera Club 2020 Newsletter # 2

                         
 Date: Monday 9th March 

Time:  7.30pm  Please arrive early 
 Presenation: Competition Image Preparation

Date: Saturday 14th March 

Meet: Upstairs Netball Rooms, Saxton Fields
Time:  7.30pm  Please arrive early 
Hands on Camera:   "Pep Ventosa Technique" - Caroline Foster
Bring your camera and laptop all fully charged. Details see below

NCC Competion 1 "Open" closes, Copyart 2 "Vintage" Closes

Entry Form Competition 1     Entry Form CopyArt "Vintage"       

    

Meet at the Greenmeadows Centre to get your hands on the very latest releases of Fujifilm cameras and lenses. At 6.00pm head out with X-Photographer Craig Robertson to nearby Aniseed Valley and find out how he uses the features of mirrorless cameras to capture texture and fleeting moments of light in his landscape images. (Note you will need transport to the valley)

Please note this clashes with our Camera Club Meeting but unable to change our meeting night. Some may still preferr to attend this session and then head to club for 7.30 start! The Fujifilm team hopefully will attend our club after 8.30pm to demo cameras. 

Marlborough-Nelson-Motueka Challenge

Saturday 14th  March from 9.30am
 St John Hall, 15 Courtney Street, Motueka
1st left, , after the round about

The annual interclub club challenge between Marlborough, Nelson and Motueka is being hosted by Motueka this year. Entries of six digitals and six prints per club have been submitted to Judges .

This is fun day out, opportunity to socialise, photographic challenge and opportunity to learn something new. All welcome to attend, bring your camera, laptop, shared lunch

The timetable for the day is as follows:

9.30am – 10am:       Morning Tea (supplied by the Motueka Camera Club)

10.30am – 12           Small Groups Challenge:-   scavenger hunt.

12.30:                       Preparation of  Activity Sets  (Please bring  laptops)            

12.30 -1.30pm:        Shared lunch

1.30pm -2.30pm:     Show Activity Sets

2.30pm:                   Judges Jane and Neil Smith will present their results 

                                 Afternoon Tea

4pm:                        Conclusion       
 

The Monday 23^rd March meeting will be a Hands-on-Cameras AND a Hands-on-Laptops session!
 
We’ll look at what the Pep Ventosa technique is and then we’ll have a go at producing our own PV’s.  Don’t expect to produce brilliant images – you probably won’t.  The goal of the session is to build your understanding and confidence about the PV PROCESS so that you can create your true masterpieces at home.
 
What to bring:

• Camera with a medium to wide lens eg 24mm.  If you haven’t got one, any lens will do.  You could even use your phone.  We’ll avoid using flash.
• A SUBJECT -  a bouquet of flowers in a vase, a teddy bear, a toy truck, another club member, bring something
• Lighting may not be brilliant so some form of continuous (but easily mobile) lighting might be useful if you have anything?
• Laptop with FULL battery (we’ll be limited for sockets to keep everyone powered up)
• Card reader/means of downloading your images to your laptop
• SOFTWARE on your laptop that allows you to work with LAYERS. 
  • If you don’t have such software on your laptop you could use PIXLR (https://pixlr.com/x/)  This is FREE and works very well for what we’re going to do.  To use it however, you must be online……it doesn’t work offline.  If you do choose to use it you will therefore also need to hook your laptop up to your phone’s data.
  • Another FREE alternative is StylePix. You can download a version straight to a pen drive and use it from there or download it direct to your laptop.

Register
 

​This course will be run by Jean Willis.  It is a basic level introduction to Photoshop and Elements software (using CS6 and  Elements 7).
Free to paid up members of Nelson Camera Club

My Photography for 2020

Format "Pecha Kucha"

Pecha Kucha is a storytelling format where a presenter shows 20 slides for 20 seconds of commentary each, that is a total of 7 mins. 

Maximum time allocated, 10 mins only. It is about "more show less tell"

Please prepare your slide show,and see Irene Buchan to book your date. 
Irene will also be tapping on your shoulder for your participation!!

 

Photo Editing Tools

I had a discussion with a friend over dinner on different Photo Editing packages. I asked Eric to write it up for our newsletter as there are some interesting alternative photo editing tools available

Eric's Take
 Firstly Lightroom is great, Photoshop takes some expertise and a lot more time in my opinion to learn that makes the trade-off in time vs use marginal unless you are using it a lot.

There are arguably better ways by combining LR with other products. I have a friend who is a Leica Master and he put me on to these and showed me how each has its own advantages and by mixing and matching LR with which ever of these works can be an easier outcome. A plus is that both the Topaz modules and Luminar Flex allow you to edit from LR in the same way as Nik and ON1 do under the Develop/Photo Menu.

https://topazlabs.com/

As I mentioned Topaz has a number of modules that can help. They do specials of bundled modules. I bought one which included Gigapixel AI, JPEG to RAW AI, Mask AI, DeNoise AI, Sharpen AI, Adjust AI. I have not had any good results out of Gigapixel yet.  JPEG TO RAW actually produces a .DNG output or TIF/TIFF (user defined) and uses AI to get the results. You can work with the DNG output in LR. Bridge or Photoshop in the same way as a RAW photo. I really like DeNoise AI as it deals with noise, Chroma issues and can do sharpening as well and I may be so bold as to say better than LR. So far I have found this very good and simple like me. I have tried Mask AI and like that too. I have only played with Adjust AI and never used Sharpen AI as DeNoise works well. Like all of these products there are good and average outputs depending on the shot and what you might select in terms of adjustments. There are plenty of how to's on You Tube and Topaz does webinairs from time to time where they do offer discounts on their products. To sum all of that up I would not buy a bundle again and if I was recommending any of them - DeNoise, JPEG to RAW and Mask are probably the prime ones for me..

  https://skylum.com/luminar

These guys produce Luminar 4 which is similar to ON1 .  I am still learning it. I do have ON1 but have not mastered it yet and have decided not take the latest upgrades.

  https://photolemur.com/

 Skylum produce Photolemur as well. Essentially what you do is just drag and drop your JPEG file and it uses AI to "fix"any issues. Again a bit hit and miss in some ways but it does produce some nice outcomes when the base JPEG is good. I use it as a fun way of seeing what a photo could become when I am not over happy with the shot out of the camera.

https://www.photopills.com/

This is both an internet product and a phone app available through the Google (Android) and Apple stores. Its a planning tool that works very well. They also produce a range of how/to and educational material. Once you have it loaded on your phone you can use it/plan anywhere in the world. 

 

Buying Guide for Photo Editing Monitors 2020
Link Here