Ask an expert Evening, Tuesday 1st November

HI Folks,

Ask an expert Evening, Tuesday 1^st November

Last night was the ‘ask an expert’ evening in which members could ask questions and seek advice on various camera and software topics. The evening ran in a similar fashion to the ‘Interactive and informal review of member’s images’ evening held on the 18^th October with several tables set up with laptops and experts on hand to give advice.

One table had some of our club’s judges available for any critique help on images where members needed advice.

Other tables gave advice on the use of various software.

Members could also seek camera advice from other members that were familiar with that camera. Here the Nikon camera settings are being discussed by fellow members Nick and Luke

I recently obtained the free version of NIK software and had been using it but needed advice on the sharpening tool. Aussie Alan had previously given a software course on it last season so I headed for his table.

Alan was able to give me advice on the sharpening tool but I don’t think the free version that I have contains all the options available on his NIK version.

Sheron produced three photo images that she needed advice on as to how they could be  improved using light room software.

It was quite interesting listening to Alan and watching the changes he suggested. Two of the images were taken of the canal and one suggestion was to  highlight parts of the trees in the background and then adding a vignette.

The canal boats moored on two pictures were taken at different angles. From a side angle, one picture clearly showed three boats moored but the other image take head on had the same boats in a straight line. In the latter image the boats at the rear were mostly hidden and not easy for a judge to work out what they were said Alan.

Alan explained that a judge will be looking to talk about an image for about 90 seconds and to tell a story as to what they see in the image and it is worth considering that all the important parts in the picture are visible to avoid the judge struggling to understand what is going on in the picture.

Another image of a bridge was shown in a variety of different ways on the software and careful consideration should be given as to which would be the better image to use before working on the finer details.

A question was asked about the difference between a RAW and JPEG file, Alan explained that JPEG files are created using calculations preset by the manufacturer of each camera and the calculations varies between each one. The camera itself has the RAW data but after it calculates it into JPEG the camera then throws away the rest of the data leaving less for use in the post processing and therefore JPEG files’s are unlikely to produce the better results

Coffee was available all evening

Anyway, I could only let you know what was happening at our table but I’m sure the other tables were equally interesting but again thank you to all the people passing on information during the evening

Next week is

CACC Rosebowl Competition 2016-17 Round 1 @ Imagez