Meeting Agenda. Meeting Agenda. March 3, 2010 Hobbyists Camera Club. Welcome Assignment Submissions

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1 Meeting Agenda March 3, Meeting Agenda Welcome Assignment Submissions A photo tip Photographing Snow Picasa3 Hands-on Next Meeting Dates Steve Simon s sample photos Tips to became a better photographer General Photography & Camera Q&A 2

2 Assignment Submissions 3 Issues with the photo assignment We had to deal with difficult conditions: Relatively low light Fast movements Distance from the pins The solution: Use fast zoom lens (f< 3.5) Use high ISO 4

3 Regular vs. Fast Lenses Nikon AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor mm f/ g IF-ED Autofocus $589 Nikon AF-S Zoom-Nikkor mm f/2.8g ED VR II $2,319 5 Best Assignment Photos 6

4 Al Gensch #3 7 Bob Sayegh #2 8

5 Dan Eckhardt #1 9 Steve Simon s Work 10

6 Tips to became a better photographer 11 Tips to became a better photographer Get passionate and focused Volume/volume/volume: the more you shoot, the better you get Work different angles when shooting a subject (get closer, shoot up/down, etc.) See the light and learn how to master it (remember the golden photo hours: 2-3 hours around sunrise and sunset) Edit your work (learn how to choose your best photos) Be honest with yourself: assess your strength and weaknesses Have an action plan: find inspiration and decide what you want to say with your photos Follow through: share your work with others 12

7 A photo tip 13 Taking a more interesting shot 14

8 Taking a more interesting shot 15 How to do it? Have most of the sun obscured by the object you want to photograph. Set your aperture to a value higher that f22 (f27 in the example). The sun burst will be automatically created if the sun is in the proper position. Experiment (I took 10 shots before the one shown). 16

9 Photographing Snow 17 Photographing Snow Snowy landscapes are among the trickiest situations to photograph with digital cameras. The exposure and white balance settings can easily be fooled by the bright lighting conditions. Some cameras offer a Snow or Winter setting, and this feature can be very helpful. It usually corrects the Auto white balance calculation of the camera and lowers the exposure value to avoid over-exposing the image. White Balance settings must be different if you are photographing snow under a cloudy sky or in bright sunshine. 18

10 Photographing Snow If the day is cloudy as often happens in winter, the white balance is easy to set. The Cloudy setting generally available on most cameras works well in this situation and produces accurate colors. If the sky is blue and the light is very bright, setting the white balance accurately is even more important. Most of the time the preset white balance modes cannot handle this situation, resulting in a strong blue cast in all your images. In this case, the best way to achieve a correct white balance is to use the Custom or Manual white balance mode. By simply pointing the camera to a clean patch of snow, a proper balance of colors can be set that will remain valid for your entire session. 19 Photographing Snow When snow is falling, use a slow shutter speed to capture the movement of the snowflakes. Use the flash to fix the movement of the snowflakes. This will improve images that could otherwise look dull or blurred. Shoot during the Golden Hours (2-3 hours around sunrise & sunset), when the sun is low on the horizon, to capture the texture and shape of the snow on what would otherwise look like a uniform field of white. Try to include a single colored subject in an otherwise monochrome snow landscape. This can produce very effective results. Avoid shooting in sepia or black-and-white as it is easy, with these settings, to loose what little contrast your image has. 20

11 Photographing Snow 21 Upcoming Meetings Wednesday, March 24, 2010 Photo Field Trip: Great Falls - Paterson, NJ Wednesday, April 7, 2010 Digital Darkroom & General Photography Thursday, April 15, 2010 Photo Field Trip: Branch Brook Park Wednesday, May 5, 2010 Digital Darkroom & General Photography 22

12 Photo Field Trip to Great Falls, Paterson Meet at 12:00n at the Fair Lawn Bowling Lanes parking lot. Car Pool to Paterson Historic District to take photos of the Great Falls (from and under the foot bridge) and the old Manufacturing sites in the district. Return to Fair Lawn at your leisure. As always, spouses and/or friend can join us in the Photo Field Trip. 23 Thanks 24