Bishop's Stortford Camera Club

Retrieving Lost or Stolen Electronic Equipment

Andrew Macpherson — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:11:34 +0000

Westcott who make lighting equipment just passed on a great tip from Michael Zhang writing on PetaPixel to create some dummy files on your memory card to spell out a message with the file names, and also to create a jpg file that you can load onto the card after it is formatted with your contact details, so that someone just scrolling through the pictures can easily see who owns the equipment. Follow the link above for the original article.

Here’s how it might look:

File listing with a message

On a related note please think about your phone: it’s good practice to lock it when it’s in your pocket, both to prevent “pocket calls” (if your name begins with “A” you get lots) and to make it difficult for thieves to use. This does mean that it’s pretty difficult to identify whose phone it is if it gets handed in though. if you make a “screen saver” image with appropriate contact information (emergancy contact for if you are in an accident, normal contact etc) for the lock screen, you will be helping whoever it is handed to to get it back to you. Remember to position the information so that it is not covered by the phone’s own unlock controls and messages

Example Screensaver File for my lock screen

Finally please remember to have an entry in your phone for “ICE” which is In Case of Emergency — someone who should be contacted if you are found unwell.

Painting With Light

David Woods — Wed, 16 May 2012 10:54:51 +0000

Another great evening in the summer season, early indications were that the session would be rained off , but the weather was kind. No rain but very cold as we met at the agreed location and waited for darkness to descend.

Brian held a short tutorial on light painting before we started shooting and then the fun commenced. A very simple process that with a few props and walkabouts produced some very interesting images.

Keep an eye on the diary for what’s coming next.

The image below shows the procession of club members returning to their cars for warmth at about 22:15.

Light Painters Procession

Club Outing to Bodelwyddan

Andrew Macpherson — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:26:47 +0000

Bodelwyddan Castle Hotel

We’re just back from a splendid weekend in Wales, at (Warner) Bodelwyddan Castle Hotel over the long weekend. The hotel had plenty to do for those who didn’t want to run around with cameras all day, swimming, shooting, archery, organised entertainments, spa and gym, and the main party had lots to do in the fantastic scenery.

On Saturday we had arranged with the hotel to take a bus tour, and the driver did his best, but was hampered by lack of parking spaces at many of the spots we would have liked to photograph, I would suggest mini-busses are more sensible for the photography party. He did find us a splendid lay-by from which to photograph the Memai Straights bridges, and took us round Caernarfon Castle, but it was plain there was too much clutter to get a good visit.

We then went on into Snowdonia, and visited the Slate mining museum, and the lovely nearby flooded quarry, and then back via Swallow Falls and down the Conway Valley

Conway Castle from across the estuary.

On Sunday the party split up, some to revisit places we hadn’t been able to see properly from the bus, some to Llandudno where there was a Victorian Fair, and old cars and busses, and where they took a ride up Great Orm’s Head. Others ventured through to Portmerion which is one of those places that looks over-saturated even before the image comes into the digital darkroom.
The photos accompanying this article were picked out by members at a post trip get-together on Tuesday evening.

Larry’s Cheap Shots Giveaway

Andrew Macpherson — Wed, 09 May 2012 13:19:39 +0000

Larry Becker, author of the Cheap Shots blog linked on the right of this page, has some commercial flash modifiers for speed lights to give away, Flash Benders, grids, Gels. Please go to his site to find the details, and how to enter.

There’s lots of other good stuff there too for photographers on a budget

Summer Programme — Light Trails

Andrew Macpherson — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:22:44 +0000

Lights on the M11

A great start to the summer season, early indications were that the session would be rained off, and some members congregated at the pub with that expectation. This didn’t last long, and Brian soon haled everyone forth. In the end more than 10 members arrived at the Goose Lane bridge over the M11 near Little Hallingbury to make some light trails as the daylight faded.

Everyone came equipped with tripods and either timed or cable releases. To start with the majority of the traffic was northbound, but the flows ebbed and surged both ways.

After an hour we gave up and repaired for refreshment back to the Three Horseshoes at Spellbrook — the social hub for many of the events for this seasonal programme.

Next up, the away weekend, and we might compare notes on Tuesday, keep an eye on the diary for what’s coming next

The Making of The Swan – Creative Colour Task 2010

David Woods — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 14:41:41 +0000

Well this post all started at the end of the quiz night when Nigel Otter asked me how I processed The Swan in last years Colour Task – now called The Photo Task.

The objective of this post is to introduce some creative uses of Photoshop CS5 using elements from:

Scanning Objects, Images taken and Constructing elements within Photoshop CS5.

It will also introduce various uses of Layer Blend Modes, Layer Opacities, Distortions and Layer Masks to you.

The final image looked like this, after many hours of trial and error. My notes can be found here: The Making of The Swan.

The Swan

St Mary’s Master Class and Exhibition

David Woods — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:47:04 +0000

Over the past 2 months the Club’s Committee have been assisting St Marys Church, Elsenham, Essex to set up a Master Class on photographing Ancient Buildings and using Photoshop CS5. David Woods and Andrew Macpherson have been representing The Club. To date course notes have been written and 13 photoshop lessons set up detailing using Photoshop Cs5. The course content can be seen here.

The workshop and exhibition dates are as follows:

Workshop 12th May at St Mary’s Church, Elsenham. Starting at 10:00 – 10:30. AM Photoshop Presentation and history of church. PM Photographing the Church. Assistance will be available from members of Bishop’s Stortford Camera Club when taking your images if required.

Exhibition: 23rd June and 24th June at St Mary’s Church Elsenham, Essex. Judging will take place on the 23rd June and the presentation of prizes will take place on 24th June

The hand in date for the Exhibition is Friday 22nd June, A maximum of 3 prints per entrant. Maximum Size of prints A4, Minimum Size 5″ x 7″.

Why not take part in this event ?

Further details can be obtained from and course places booked by contacting St Mary’s Church Fabric Fund Committee directly via the following links:

David Hill via email or by Telephone: 01279 01279 812 397 or 07867 530 888.

Robin Barker via email only

It would be useful if you could also bring the following with you on the 12th May:

Your camera with its instruction manual

Tripod (If you own one)

Detachable Camera Flash

The following equipment will be available on the 12th May:

Light weight tripod

Projector Fund Quiz Night

Andrew Macpherson — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:21:00 +0000

Emma introducing Fund Raiser Quiz

Didn’t she do well? Emma moved heaven, earth, parents and child to arrange a really great Quiz to raise funds for the Digital Projetor fund.

Special Thanks too to Emma’s Mum for her efforts with the supper.

The projector fund has gained another £417.08, bringing the total so far to £671 and a good night was had by all 50+ attendees.

Questions to confuse	Raffle prizes behind Geoff	Quiz master
Chairman Jim zooms through raffle		Emma presents Prizes to winners

Useful Tools For Photography

David Woods — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 11:25:37 +0000

The following are web links for certain tools I have very useful over the past years. Why not take a look…

Jiffy Exposure Calculator

Exposure Wheel

Sunset/Sunrise Calculator

Summer Programme

David Woods — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:34:38 +0000

The NEW Club Summer Programme has now been published and issued to members via email. If you have not received an email with details the Summer Programme can be down loaded from the following link.

Summer timetable

Many thanks to Brian Johnson taking the plunge and arranging the attached which is varying in content and we all hope opens new avenues of photography to us all.

If you have any queries on the Summer Programme please feel free to contact Brian or any Committee Member.

Please be advised that some of these activities take place on public roads and Brian has suggested to the Club Committee that a High Visibility Vest be worn for your own safety.

These can be purchased for under £5.00 from Halfords, Screwfix and many other outlets locally.

Whilst not wearing one does not exclude you from the activity, The Club Committee feels that your own safety must be a first priority and recommend one to you. (They also have many uses…. )

Maps to locations on Programme will be published below:

The map showing the location of the meet for Motorway Trails on the 01/05/2012, Goose Lane can be downloaded here

A bevy of results from the past few days

Andrew Macpherson — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 21:52:04 +0000

Some new competition results

St Ives Interprint Competition

David Woods — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 21:56:01 +0000

This competition takes place on Saturday 25/02/2012 at St Ives.

Directions to the Event can be found here

Poster detailing event here SIPC Interprint 2012 Poster

Details of the club entry:

Club	Panel Sequence	Print Name	Author
Bishops Stortford Camera Club	1	Millennium Bridge	David Woods
Bishops Stortford Camera Club	2	Pygmy Falcon	Kevin Scott
Bishops Stortford Camera Club	3	More Than Just Bronze	Tony Watts
Bishops Stortford Camera Club	4	Early Morning on The Isis	Barbara Egerton
Bishops Stortford Camera Club	5	Lioness and Cubs	Kevin Scott
Bishops Stortford Camera Club	6	Old Town Amsterdam	Andrew Macpherson
Bishops Stortford Camera Club	7	St James The Great	David Woods
Bishops Stortford Camera Club	8	Passion Flower	Tony Watts

Please vist the Gallery Page to see images.

Projector Fund Quiz Night

Emma Evans — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:30:07 +0000

Open to non members

Saturday 24th March 2012
7pm – 7.30 Start

Tickets £8.00 per head (to include Ploughmans Supper)

Pay Bar
Tables min of 4, max 8 people

Please contact Emma: 01279 506 890 for more information

Tickets will be available to purchase from Emma from Tuesday 28th February.

Lecture change for Tuesday 24th

Andrew Macpherson — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:17:28 +0000

David Steel has had to pull out from his keenly anticipated portraiture lecture, due to the death of his Mother-in-Law. We extend our sympathies to him and his family.

Instead, at very short notice, on Tuesday we will have a talk from Stefanie Reichelt on Scientific imaging, and the iPhone Hipsta Project, and she will be bringing some prints and photo-books along as additional illustration of her materiel.

It’s really great she can step in to help us out like this and I hope you will all come along so she knows it is worthwhile. I’m sure we’ll find it so.

Powerful Low Cost Photo Finishing from @NikSoftware

Andrew Macpherson — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:31:18 +0000

I’ve been a fan of the iPad App “Snapseed” almost from day 1. It brings much of Nik Software’s goodness to one’s mobile device, and it’s certainly my app of choice for a quick adjustment when out and about, in many ways it covers a lot of the same ground that Lightroom or Aperture can handle on the Laptop.

SnapSeed on my iPad

It is of course limited — one picture at a time, and some tools one routinely uses (spot healing for instance) are not covered, but it is incredibly good at what it does.

The Mac version is now available from the App Store for £14, and the PC version is on it’s way. If your software arsenal extends to iPhoto, possibly Photoshop Elements and not much else, this is a good low cost next step, and is definitely a good suggestion to offer friends who don’t have the inclination to learn the more complex editing tools.

Snapseed Web Site.

Free Photography eBooks

Andrew Macpherson — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:46:37 +0000

The PhotoFidelity Blog has a page listing a collection of Photography eBooks available for free download. Most are better describes as essays, but if one gets only one thing from each, that’s still a bonus.

Find the page here

Start the year well

Andrew Macpherson — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 11:43:19 +0000

For those members who also use Flickr as a photo hosting site, you might be up for a little challenge.

The New Year Sunrise Photo

The challenge may simply be waking up at 7:50 to be out for 08:00.

… Later: This was what I took — rather a blue morning

East meets West

Peter Chastney Theme Trophy Evening.

Administrator — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 18:09:55 +0000

On Tuesday we all found out how hard it is to judge photographs, even within the structure of a worksheet with judging classes to work from. Janet had carefully prepared sheets on which we could mark the entries in 3 categories

3 marks for photographic technical merit
3 marks for presentation
3 marks for how well the theme came across

each marker also had 1 point they could arbitrarily assign to the entry they considered to be best. The entries were all anonomised with just an identifying letter, to allow unbiased judging. It is of course not possible to completely hide the author within the club, as some photographers have an easily recognised style or subject.

Last week it looked like we were not going to have sufficient entries, but one or two unexpected entries were submitted, and along with the entries from committee members who felt obliged to help make up the numbers we had a creditable field of 14.

Suddenly we all discovered why some judges have such a narrow range of marks, and why one sometimes hears the phrase “looking for a reason to mark down”

Everyone’s score sheet was collected and collated and the results were tight, with the top 5 places being:

Letter	Place	Score	Name
O	1st	157	Andrew Macpherson
F	2nd=	155	David Woods
H	2nd=	155	Audrey Smith
A	3rd	144	Miriam Coe
M	4th	142	Janet Hosford
L	5th	141	Brian Johnson

Tall Ships -- Winning entry

Well done everyone for taking part, I hope we all learned something to take away.

Free camera bag filled with goodies #TTPIAB

Andrew Macpherson — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:18:33 +0000

Think Tank Photo who make rather good camera bags, are doing an advent accumulator with their “In a Bag” promotion.

It’s free to enter, so probably worth following the link and filling in the entry form to get a chance to win. I quite fancy the bag itself, but there are already a whole lot of really worthwhile goodies added, and a daily chance at one of their superior shoulder bags

Good luck!

Millenium Reptiles Photo Opportunity

Andrew Macpherson — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 10:21:26 +0000

Tarantula

Well that was quite an evening! In the event Jo brought her show animals round, rather than stock from the shop. Jo’s beasties have been introduced to public events like this, so were not going to be freaked by a barrage of strobe lights and a mass of people.

This was not their first photographic outing either — Jo told us that the tarantula had provided vital modesty in a competition winning shot when she took them to visit another photo group, for a “girl’s only” session.

We certainly learned a lot about exotic creatures, their fragility, speed and habits. We also learned that curare (the Amazonian Nerve toxin) is not actually generated by the frog but rather concentrated from the insects it consumes.

Photographically it is challenging to get good shots. The subjects were relatively small, so close-up rings, or close focus lenses were the order of the day. To this add flash, or the problem of very high ISO with truly weird ambient light, randomly distorted by different coloured focus-assist beams from cameras…

In the first period, Jo was handling her pets, and the issues were trying to get off camera lighting, and the relative brightness of her hands relative to the camouflaged animals, which simply had to be toned down in post. In the second period the animals were posed on a table-top, which was much easier. Altogether a fascinating evening.

Click on any of the photos below to open a slideshow

Tarantula 2	Mantis	Snake
Lizard		Baby snake
Tree Frog	Baby snake	Tarantula 2

Bishop's Stortford Camera Club

Retrieving Lost or Stolen Electronic Equipment

Related Posts

Painting With Light

Club Outing to Bodelwyddan

Related Posts

Larry’s Cheap Shots Giveaway

Summer Programme — Light Trails

The Making of The Swan – Creative Colour Task 2010

St Mary’s Master Class and Exhibition

Projector Fund Quiz Night

Useful Tools For Photography

Summer Programme

A bevy of results from the past few days

Related Posts

St Ives Interprint Competition

Related Posts

Projector Fund Quiz Night

Lecture change for Tuesday 24th

Powerful Low Cost Photo Finishing from @NikSoftware

Free Photography eBooks

Start the year well

Peter Chastney Theme Trophy Evening.

Related Posts

Free camera bag filled with goodies #TTPIAB

Millenium Reptiles Photo Opportunity

Related Posts