Week 4: Star Trails.
This week we’ll have a look at Star Trail photography. I’ll talk about the different ways of doing it and the options you have depending on what settings your camera has. Then we’ll head to an appropriate place on campus if the weather forecast stays clear and have a go at some star trails.
There are some things that would be good to try and bring to make star trails easier:
- A camera(!)
- A tripod
- A hair bobble
- Strong rubber bands
- Something small to hold down the shutter button on your camera (about the size of the button)
- 2.5mm headphones (if you have a canon DSLR and if you have the headphones.
I’ll try and bring some of these things too, and I’ll also be bringing two DSLRs and 2 tripods.
I’ll also start off the Goenka (India) Project that I mentioned the other week, and explain how that’s going to work and what our themes/categories are.
We’ll be meeting in Cavendish LT in the Faraday Building at 6pm on Monday the 7th February.
Hope to see you there!
The Exec.
Week 3: HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photography!
Photographers of mine eye,
I’d like you to reach behind your shoulder right now, and pat yourself on the back. By opening this e-mail, you’ve made me very proud. Now, I want you to wave and smile at the next person who walks in the room. Good work. You just made their day.
Now that the good deeds are done, let’s get down to business!
At this week’s exciting meeting (6pm in FURNESS LT1) we’ll be looking at High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. The link below has a good definition of HDR photography and some examples to whet your appetite..
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/03/10/35-fantastic-hdr-pictures/
The evening will be split into firstly how to obtain the photos that make good HDR and then I’ll demonstrate the post processing involved to achieve the end result! Come prepared and bring your laptops if you want to follow with me. It’s quite easy and I’ll make sure I don’t rush through anything! We shall use Photomatix software as it is dedicated for HDR and is therefore alot simpler and effective than photoshop (in my opinion anyway). The link below contains the software for windows and mac and the photos I shall use for the demo. You can get it off me on the night as well if there’s a problem downloading.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/aaeqq9
Ok that’s everything! Hope you can make it! I’ll leave you with this shameless plug to my own HDR photos 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonathankinnear/sets/72157622710130038/
Jonny
P.S. If anyone has a problem downloading from sendspace there is another link, here: http://photography.lusu.co.uk/files/2011/01/HDR-tutorial.zip
Week 2: Cloning and Election/Project Info.
This week (Monday 24th at 6pm) we’ll be meeting in Furness LT1 and I’ll be going quickly through some information on our upcoming exec elections and the project with the Indian university in Goenka.
After that I thought I’d go through a couple of editing bits like panoramas and ‘cloning’ people (which Veronica did a bit of in our taster session). Then I thought we’d head down to Fylde Coffeeshop/common room to try and take some photos which you can make your own clones with later.
If you don’t know what I mean by cloning, see some of Ben Robins’ clone pictures:
It’s generally best to have a tripod for making clones as you need the background to stay the same, so if anyone wants to have a go during the meeting then bring tripods. I’ll be bringing a couple of spare ones but that won’t be enough for everyone.
Hope to see you there.
The Exec.
Links for GIMP and Autostitch programs.
GIMP
Autostitch
Week 1 and Term 2 Information.
There won’t be a meeting this week (Week 1) unfortunately, but I just thought I’d send out a message about a couple of things that are going on this term.
Firstly PhotoSoc is taking part in a project with Lancaster’s twinned university in Goenka, India and their photography society out there. We’re trying to bring the two universities closer together and to play our part in that there’s going to be an installation of pictures (both here and in Goenka) on campus. This will essentially consist of PhotoSoc members’ photos blown up to a large size and put in a permanent installation. We are looking at putting this in Furness courtyard and possibly nearby too. The project will run with a bunch of different themes and there will be some rules as to what pictures can be used for it, but I’ll try and go into more detail on that in Week 2.
Sorry about that wall of text.
On another note, Term 2 is the term in which PhotoSoc holds elections for next years Exec Team. We’ll be holding those elections in Week 9 so start thinking about whether you want to be in the exec next year now . The positions that should be available to run for will be:
President.
Vice President.
Secretary.
Treasurer.
Safety Officer.
Social Secretary.
Publicity Officer.
Internet/Communications Officer.
Darkroom Officer.
I’ll talk more about both of these things in the coming meetings and explain what’ll be happening with them.
The Exec.
Competition Results!
Monday Week 10 (13th December, 2010)
Frankland Coll LB1, Faraday Building
Hi.
Our next meeting on Monday (13th December at 6pm) will be the voting for and results of the Disposable Camera competition. If you haven’t already got your submissions in (and most of you haven’t) then get them in today! If they aren’t submitted before the end of the day then there’s the possibility that they won’t be counted, as I still have to collect all the photos together for the voting of the winners.
We’ll be meeting in Frankland Coll LB1 again as thats a fairly easy room to sit in and see the screen.
It’ll also be a bit of a general, social meeting, so bring food and drink as you want. We’ll bring a bit to drink but I doubt it’ll be enough for everyone so feel free to bring your own.
Hope to see you there.
The Exec.
DIY Lights.
Monday Week 9 (6th December, 2010)
Frankland Coll LB1, Faraday Building
Hi.
In our next meeting (Monday 6th December at 6pm) we will be meeting in Frankland Coll LB in the Faraday Building (the same room we ended up in last week). We’ll playing around with DIY lighting, using some home made snoots, diffusers, light boxes, softboxes, and filters.
Bring your cameras and any flashes/flashguns that you might have. It would also be good if any of you have ‘real’ lighting equipment like diffusers and softboxes to bring those too. Also, if any of you feel like making any of these before the meeting, feel free to bring any creations with you (google “diy photography lighting” or something similar).
On to the process for submitting pictures to the competition (although I’ll try to explain this at the start of the meeting as well). We’ll be submitting pictures to the PhotoSoc facebook group. Go here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=32206924480&v=photos&ref=ts and click “add group photos”. In order for us to know which photos are for the competition, please caption/comment them underneath with “Disposable Camera Competition” (or at least something obvious) or they won’t be counted.
If you don’t have/don’t like facebook, then email your entry to ku.ca.retsacnalnull@spul with your name and some indication that it’s for the competition.
Hope to see you at the meeting.
The Exec.
Bokeh
Monday Week 8 (Nov 29, 2010)
Cavendish LT, Faraday Building
We will be looking at bokeh and how you can alter the shape of it. Bokeh is the generally circular blur you get in photos when there are out-of-focus lights in the background. For a better explanation, have a look at the Wikipedia article and photos on Flickr.
Alex Wilson will be giving a tutorial on bokeh and how to alter the shape with some DIY ‘filters’ and then hopefully everyone will get some time to play about with them and try and create some interesting shapes.
As well as bringing cameras on Monday it would be helpful if everyone could bring things from this list that they might have:
- a fast aperture lens (around f/1.8 or lower)
- pencil
- ruler
- compass
- scissors
- craft knife
- any pin point light sources (e.g. fairy lights or fiber optic lights)
Shooting Robert King Documentary
Monday, Week 7
6pm at Furness LT1
This week we’re screening a documentary film about the war photographer and photojournalist Robert King. It’s one of my favourite documentaries, is extremely well reviewed and won many awards but I warn you, it can be heavy going at times. Those with a particularly sensitive disposition might want to think twice about coming. Saying that I think most of you will be interested, it’s very much a human story about the photographer and what happens to him rather than a cold, technical account of the photographs.
Also we will be handing out disposable cameras and coupons for discounted development in town for the disposable camera competition (we’ll talk about this more at the meeting).
Finally I want to draw your attention to the Christmas meal that the lovely Ellen has been organising, if you want to come (it’s on Sunday the 12th of December in town) you’ll need to bring £5 to this coming meeting.
Night Time Photography
Monday, Week Six (Nov 15, 2010)
6pm outside the Ruskin Library
We’ll be outside trying our hand at night time based photography. Partly because I think we’d all like to get out of the lecture theatres for a bit and partly because night time photography can produce some cool results. Night time can be good for light, bokeh, long exposures, creepy photos, star trails, and so on. Hopefully we can try and get some of these kinds of photo, even though we’re not likely to get them all (especially star trails).
Although the weather forecast is clear at the moment, if it does turn out to be horrible or we all get too cold, then we’ll head inside to a lecture theatre, Fylde Common Room/Cafe, or just head to a bar/JCR and have a spontaneous social.
Projects and Ideas
Monday, Week 5 (Nov 8, 2010)
Frankland LB1, Faraday Building
For next week’s meeting we will be having short look at different projects and ideas you can do as photographers, as it can be easy to get stuck in a rut and feel like you’re taking the same pictures over and over.
We’ll be looking at different projects that people do and different themes or ideas that you could use for your photography as well as some of the resulting photos from different people’s projects.
We’ll be in Frankland LB1 (to try and avoid the overly warm Furness LT1) which is a flat lecture theatre type room in the Faraday building. To get to it, go in through the main entrance to the building and once up the first set of stairs turn around and you will see another set of stairs. Frankland LB1 is at the top of those stairs.