Noosa Photo Club Black Out Some of you will know that when we arrived for our March meeting, our club room, was in darkness. Although a valiant effort was made to find an alternative, many members returned home. We are sure normal service will be resumed next month. The Eastern Yellow Robin by Cheryl Kent Last month (February), we had two judges comment and mark our Open and Nature competition images. This has led to an interesting point regarding the different marks given for the Robin by each of the judges. Thank you to Cheryl Kent for allowing me to use her image as an example. Judge 1 said: The quality of this shot stands out, which suggests it is not a heavily cropped image. Great job getting this close in such good lighting. On top of that you have the bird doing what nature intended, rearing its young. Such a shame that out of focus twig runs right through the frame. That is the nature of nature photography, much is out of our control, but here that twig is rather devastating. I also think a little more tone in the nest would help to provide a slightly more solid base for the image to sit on. 8 Points Judge 2 said: Another image with wonderful light. The detail of the feathers and the separation from the background show the bird off perfectly. The twig in the foreground may be overlooked as
the shot is taken in the wild and not able to be gardened to remove it. 10 Points Maybe members could consider the questions raised below, which may make us think a little more deeply about the judgement and the marking of camera club images. 1. Is it feasible to overlook the twigs in the original image, which are so prominent? Once seen, you can't not see them. 2. Given the second judges comment The twig in the foreground may be overlooked as the shot is taken in the wild and not able to be gardened to remove it. Has the judgement to overlook the twigs been made as compensation for over strict Nature rules? If a judgement has to make allowance for the rules, could that not beg the question: Are the rules appropriate? 3. If the negative aspects of the image above are to be overlooked and full marks applied. What mark would then be given to the image below, (Assuming it was genuine and not Photoshopped). 11 out of 10 or maybe 12 out of 10? 4. A question also worth asking may be. How does removing the twig impact the integrity of the bird being presented and automatically make this foul play for a nature photograph. Particularly in light of strict nature rules which allow HDR images and Black and White images? What is natural about HDR and particularly Black and White? Editors personal view: Strict Nature rules seem to be applied to thousands of people who already have integrity, but they seem to be applied to combat the isolated person who doesn't. It reminds me of the Keep of the Flower Beds notice. The vast majority of us do not need any notice at all and
those that do are likely to ignore them, because they don't have that personal integrity. Agree/disagree? - Send me an Email that I can publish next month File Drop Links for April Set Subject Repeating Shapes - Closing Date 25th March April Set Subject R epeating Shapes April Open Section 5 Minute Members Spot April Ian Glew Ian would like to use his 5 minute members spot to talk about his other hobby Bonsai which he is heavily involved in. The Panorama Software making our life easier Many members will recall the great panoramas created by Andrew McGaughey like the one below called Bay of Islands Sunset. Like all images, we get the best results when we choose the right place and the right time and Andy demonstrated quite a degree of skill for doing this over the past few years. One of the problems associated with panoramas, especially if you shoot Raw images is how to manipulate each of the images that will make up the panorama and ensure that the colour balance, exposure and contrast is the same in all of the images.
One way to do this is to batch process your images using Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw, before you create the stitch. However, one of the improvements in Photoshop and Lightroom in recent years is the ability we now have to stitch a large number of raw files together using Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom and STILL have a raw image at the end of the stitch process. This makes the manipulation of the image far easier to do. In the past that stitched image would have been a jpeg and with some software it still is. Jpg's can be restricting to the editing process, particularly when you take into account the exposure variations you may have in a 180 degree pano. With Adobe Camera Raw/Lightroom, these issues are far less, or even eliminated completely with a stitched raw image. The Pt Cartwright pano above was created from 8 images shot from a Drone, but whether your shooting from 400 feet up in the air, or your feet are planted firmly on the ground, the principles and techniques of creating a pano are the same. What make life so much easier is having 8 images stitched together and still remaining a raw image. Now the image editing we need to do can be far better balanced and natural. An overall better result, even from hand held images.
The image above was created using a Canon SLR and 7 hand held shots taken in portrait format. You just need to take reasonable care to keep the camera level, but I have not found that a great problem. One tip if you are shooting a lot of pano images at the same place. Use a quick shot of your hand, or the ground as a marker to tell when one series of pano images start and another ends. Otherwise it can sometimes be tricky to tell. Speaker for April - RICK SHERWIN/ 50 YEARS OF PORTRAITS Rick Sherwin will take you on a journey from large cameras & large film to today's small cameras with many pixels. Along the way you may pick up some tips on portrait techniques that have survived through the years as well as a look at some of the possibilities that the digital era has given us.
March Competition Results Salon of Excellence Queensland 2018 Members will have been circulated details of this event recently. I was a little dismayed to see that the maximum image size is 1620 pixels wide and 1080 pixels high for the digital Projected competition. (3:2 format) This seems odd given that the maximum height allowed is 1080px which indicates that the projector being used is 16:9 aspect ratio. So why restrict the width of images to 1620 and not 1920. It would mean Noosa PC members would have to reduce their image size even lower than our club rule of 1920*1080. If you did have a 16:9 AR image you would have to make the height, just 911px It seems odd to be so restrictive with PDI image size in this day and age, especially when we are now talking more about 4k images and video. (4000px on the long side). However, the Audio Visual section is even worse. The rules state The maximum length is 7 minutes and maximum file size is 31 MB (Now upped to 50MB). This 50MB limit is very restrictive and effectively prevents an Mp4 video from being submitted. An Mp4 video would almost certainly be much larger than the 50MB limit. There is also a very good chance that a slide show at 7 minutes will be tough to keep under 50 MB. Especially if there is any animation within it or the author prefers the higher sound quality of Wav files. The size limit can also rule out fast paced shows with more images, which will be naturally larger in MB. To give an example:- Of the 4 sequences entered for our own AV competition last September. 3 out of the 4 would break the rules. The rules virtually eliminate any slide show created as an Mp4, because that will almost certainly take the file size above 50mb. The AV section seems to be reserved for AV software based EXE files only like PicturesToExe and ProShow Gold. This is why rules are the enemy of creativity. Staying under 7 minutes is one thing, but what do you do when you have a perfect music track for your sequence, but its 7:15. If ever there was a photographic medium where a degree of wiggle room was required in the rules, audio visual is it. To reduce the music length, losing either the start or the end of a full piece of music can damage the slide show appeal. Keeping the file size to 50mb is a bit close for comfort.