Perfect Photos Every Time

20140128-131340.jpgCJ Chilvers, who previously went by the moniker A Lesser Photographer, is an advocate for simplicity in photography. He believes there is no need for the gear phobia and pixel-peeping mania that abounds but that we can make great photos with the simplest of point-and-shoot cameras, or even with our camera phones. That we have seen a number of well-received camera phone images presented at our meetings backs this up.

In this blog post he presents a short five minute video of a talk he gave and also links to another article that the talk was based on. I found it enlightening to both watch the video and read the article. You’ll find them here.

5 Tips for Better Long Exposure Landscape Photography

David Cleland presents five tips taken from his eBooks. The first one is a good reminder to me; I tend to dive right in, set up my tripod and start shooting. He suggests instead, spending some time considering the scene before even getting your camera out.

Read the article
Get 43% off the price of David’s ebook bundle until 16 January 2014

Reasons to Shoot High ISO Images

Perhaps you, like myself, had bad experiences with poor quality from higher ISO images as delivered by earlier generations of digital cameras. Does this still make you cling to ISO 100 or 200 unless there is absolutely no alternative? If so you are probably not getting the best from your newer camera. In this article James Maher gives the reasons why you should now be embracing the use of higher ISO settings.

Read the article

The Arcanum

Arcanum-blueThe Arcanum is brought to us by Trey Ratcliff of Stuck in Customs and Stuck on Earth fame. It uses the traditional master and apprentice approach to learning creative arts, but adds a twist. No longer do a master and his apprentices have to be together in the same place; The Arcanum uses technology to facilitate interaction between a master and his apprentices wherever they may be on the globe. Visit The Arcanum and view the video preview then read the rest if you’re interested. Once you’ve viewed the video you might have some questions, like Do I need Google Glass? or How much does it cost for me as an Apprentice?, and you can find answers to these and other questions in the Frequently Asked Questions.

Display Calibration

In the 2014 edition of his Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows, Scott Hanselman points out that Windows 8 and 8.1 include a number of utilities that third-party ones you needed previously. One of these is a display calibration utility.

So if you use Windows 8 or 8.1, don’t have a Spyder or other hardware calibration tool, but still want to get your monitor calibrated as well as you can, follow these instructions from Scott.

Display Calibration – Another app I once had to install, now built-in. Type calibrate from Start, and get all your monitors’ colors correct and clear. Crucial for those who work on the web or in PhotoShop.

Solving for X: Algebra of the Fujifilm X-System

Some of us attended the Fujifilm photo walk in November to try out the new X-M1 camera. A few, myself included went on to buy into the Fujifilm X-System. The rest of you may be wondering what the fuss is all about and this article from John W. Griggs’ blog gives a good overview of the Fujifilm X-System and should help you decide whether you want to stick with your DSLR system or switch to mirrorless; and if so, whether the X-System is the one for you. If you want to know more, or just missed the last photo walk, JJ is arranging another one for us in March.

Read the article

How mirrorless cameras are creeping upon the DSLR territory

20131225-095147.jpgThe author is clearly a fan of mirrorless cameras, beginning the article with

Everytime someone says that a DSLR is the only way to get the best image quality, somewhere, a Kitten dies. Stop with the misinformed lies people! READ ON!

Having recently purchased a FUJIFILM X-E1 I’m impressed by the image quality I’m getting from it, considerably better than I get from my Canon 30D DSLR. Though to be fair, the 30D is seven year old technology and I have better quality lenses for the X-E1. But what isn’t explained by differences in image quality is how much more fun I’m having with the mirrorless camera. I really don’t miss the extra bulk of my DSLR.

How mirrorless cameras are creeping upon the DSLR territory

Track your camera gear

LensTag is a new web site that offers a way to register ownership of your cameras, lenses and other photo gear that has a serial number. If your gear is stolen you can indicate this and when buying used gear you can look up the serials to see if someone else has registered it stolen. This sounds like a great idea and you might want to make use of it. Besides the web site there are also apps for your iOS or Android device, letting you access the registry wherever you may be.

Freeman Patterson: Embracing Creation

embracing_creationNettie sent me this link she received from Colla Swart, asking if it could be played at a club meeting. But as a radio interview it wouldn’t fit into a club meeting very well; I thought it best to post the link here so those that are interested can listen to the interview.

Freeman Patterson is a Canadian photographer known to many of our club members who have attended the workshops he has offered here in South Africa in the Kammieskroon area. Several members have also travelled to Canada to attend his workshops there.

The link below opens a player that will play the interview discussing Freeman’s new book and gallery exhibition. Although the page has CBC Television above the player, this is a radio interview and the visual in the player as it plays is simply a portrait of the radio show host.

Listen to the interview