October Outing

Outings Update

September outings were to
Lumsdale Waterfalls (near Matlock)
Barrow Hill Roundhouse

Keep and eye on your e-mails and listen to announcements for details of future outings.

Lens For Sale

Keith Naylor has the following for sale

Canon MP-E 65mm f2.8 Super Macro Lens

This lens is unique as it offers magnifications of 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1 and 5:1

New this lens costs £800, Keith is looking for offers OVER £400.

If you are interested please contact Chris Jesinger for Keith's details, also check the below link for details of the lens.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/lenses/mp-e-65.shtml

Big Changes afoot at Adobe

If you are a currently an Adobe Photoshop user then you maybe in for a shock, as on the 6th May 2013 Adobe announced that they no longer plan to sell retail versions of this software and all future editions will be available by cloud based subscriptions only. You won’t be able to purchase boxed editions of Photoshop together with a DVD and you will not be able to update your existing versions without a subscription. This seems partly induced to reduce piracy but be left in no doubt at the end of the day renting your software from Adobe will cost considerably more. This will probably have some effect on most club members at some time in the future.

I’ve provided some information and voiced my opinion on my blog here, and I’d be very interested to see what club members think of this move by Adobe.

Club Outing April 20th

A relatively small group of us met for coffee at the café in Edensor village (on the Chatsworth estate) before moving on to Chatsworth Gardens. The weather was excellent, perhaps the first truly spring like day so far this year. Naturalised daffodils in the gardens provided an excellent show and good photographic subjects. We were pleased to have with us new member, Garry Owen who I hope got something out of the day. This was also the first time Eileen Murray accompanied us on a weekend outing and hopefully it will not be the last. We plan monthly days out through the Summer and members will be kept informed of the arrangements.

Birches by Chris Jesinger

 





The group outside Café at Edensor

 

Daffodils by Chris Jesinger

 

Lightroom 5 Beta Released

Exiting new tools in Lightroom 5 Beta

This cames as quite a surprise to me, but on Monday (15th April 2013) Adobe released a free public beta version of Lightroom 5 for download and testing by their user base. It's only just over 15 months since Lightroom 4 beta was released, and 13 months since the official launch of Lightroom 4, so with that in mind we should anticipate a final version of Lightroom 5 in just a few months time.
Lightroom 5 beta has some really exciting new tools, which Adobe describes with the following:

• Advanced Healing Brush – Easily remove objects and fix defects—even those with irregular shapes such as threads or lint—with a single brush stroke. Take precise control over what's being removed as you make unwanted objects just disappear.
• Upright – Straighten tilted images with a single click. Upright analyzes images and detects skewed horizontal or vertical lines. You choose one of four correction methods, and Upright can even straighten images where the horizon is hidden.
• Radial Gradient – Lead your viewer's eye through your images with more flexibility and control. The radial gradient tool lets you create off-center vignette effects, or multiple vignette areas within a single image.
• Offline editing with Smart Previews – Easily work with images without bringing your entire library with you. Just generate smaller stand-in files called Smart Previews. Make adjustments or metadata additions to Smart Previews and your changes will be automatically applied to the full-size originals later.
• Video slideshow sharing – Easily share your work in elegant video slideshows. Combine still images, video clips, and music in creative HD videos that can be viewed on almost any computer or device.
• Improved photo book creation – Create beautiful photo books from your images. Lightroom includes a variety of easy-to-use book templates, and now you can edit them to create a customized look. Upload your book for printing with just a few clicks.

My Favourite New Features

Top of the list has got to be the Advance Healing Brush, which now almost puts Lightroom on a par with Photoshop and is something Lightroom users have being crying out for since version 1. The restriction of just circular spot healing is gone and you can now paint an area to be healed or cloned. Your round-tripping to Photoshop may even become a thing of the past from now on. They have also added a Visual spots mode which makes it so much easier to identify any dust spots now.

Closely followed is the Radial Gradient Tool, which really aught to be renamed as it is far more than just a gradient tool. This now provides Lightroom with a tool more akin to the very popular U-point control point technology used by Nik Software. Once caveat though, it really should have the area inside the selection (the inverse selection) as the default mode not the outside area; watch the video below and you'll see what I mean.

Lastly they have added a couple of features that were omitted from the first version of the Book Module that appeared in Lightroom 4. You can now edit and save your own User Layouts, and finally you can now add Page Numbers. With the latter the book module has suddenly become so much more useful and we can, at long last, create proper books. All we need now are Chapters, Index pages and Contents, then the Book Module would be an absolute winner.

Download Your Copy

You can download the beta version fro the Adobe website here and use it for free until the on June 30, 2013 when product expires. You have to have a registered user account with Adobe. Do remember it is a beta version so not the final version and intended for testing and feedback purposes so most probably not bug free. Do by all means join the Lightroom 5 Discussion Group to assist Adobe and to voice your own opinions on the new features too. Your contributions can help shape the final release version.

Lightroom 5 Beta New Feature Videos

There are already a host of videos to be found online but here are my favourites on some of the new features contained within Lightroom 5 beta:

Top 5 New Features

Advance Healing Brush

Upright Feature

Book Module Additions and Refinements

Using the Radial Filter Tool

I hope you all enjoy trying it out.
 

MONTHLY COMPETITION FINAL RESULTS

CLUB MONTHLY COMPETITION 2012 - 2013
CUMULATIVE & FINAL RESULTS ROUNDS 1-4
Digital (Advanced) Winner Marcel Walker
Digital (Club) Winner Peter Joyce
Colour Prints (Advanced) Winner Peter Farthing
Colour Prints (Club) Winner Paul Booker
Mono Prints (Advanced) Winner Peter Farthing
Mono Prints (Club) Winner Anne Millen

Left click to enlarge image

 

CLUB OUTING TO CASTLETON, FEB 2013

Last Saturday (Feb 2nd) a group of us visited Castleton and Cavedale.

Start point was the Pool Cafe in Hathersage for brunch before moving on to Castleton Village.

Rather than all attempt the somewhat strenuous climb into Cavedale we split up and met later in the 3 Roofs Cafe.

We later moved on to Stanage Edge with the intention of getting some sunset panoramas but the clouds did rather get in the way.

Images - Chris J










Thanks to those who came along, hopefully everyone had a good day out and managed to get some images.

Our next outing is planned for February 23rd (note - changed from 16th).

CLUB OUTING, DECEMBER 8TH 2012

This was the first of our newly introduced weekend outings into the Derbyshire Peak District. Eleven members took part and we met at the Old Hassop Station cafe before driving to the Magpie Mine (near Sheldon). The weather was fine and sunny if cold and the low winter sunshine made for easy, if not dramatic, photographic conditions. Walking was, in places, difficult because of ice but no-one finished up in A&E which is a relief. We returned to the cafe for a warm drink and chat. This first try at organising a weekend outing seemed to go well so we hope to continue with something similar perhaps each month. I will look for suitable locations and hope to organise another session in the first half of January, members will be kept informed. Thanks to everyone who attended and suggestions will be welcome.

Thanks to Pete Farthing for taking the below group shot in front of the mine buildings - (note the assortment of silly hats making us all look alike, except Dave Bunting who perhaps dropped his down a mineshaft).

On another note, John Rogers has asked me to let members know he has a Trinitron CRT Monitor that he is happy to give to anyone who wants it. Full details are available from John or myself.

Doug Chinnery Peak District Workshop

Several members accompanied Doug Chinnery on a Peak District Workshop, Saturday November 10th.

The group met at the Pool Cafe in Hathersage (see photo) for a pre-excursion brunch and then drove to the Surprise View carpark before venturing into Bole Hill Quarry.

The weather was wonderful, a crisp, sunny Autumn day which lit the silver birches to perfection. We were, sadly, a little late in the year for the best of the Autumn colour but the weather conditions more than compensated.

After Bole Hill we repaired once more to the Pool Cafe for re-fuelling and the group (minus self and wife) then drove to Stanedge for the sunset which, I am sure, was excellent.

Sincere thanks to Doug who, if members are interested, will I am sure be happy to arrange more workshops in the future.

Pre Workshop Brunch (photo by a friendly waitress)

  





Bole Hill Birches (photo Chris J)

Essential Development - 20 Great Techniques for Lightroom 4

New Book from Craft & Vision

There is a new eBook offering from Craft & Vision entitled Essential Development - 20 Great Techniques for Lightroom 4. It's also by a new author to the Craft & Vision stable, Seán McCormack, who many may recognise from the Adobe Lightroom forums and for his regular Lightroom Blog at Pixeq. Seán has been involved with Lightroom since the early beta versions where his forum activity of attracted the attention of Adobe. He was subsequently invited to become a Lightroom beta tester and has been involved with all Lightroom editions since. Thus he has a well established pedigree as an authority on Lightroom.

I've been an avid Lightroom user since those early beta versions too, having migrated from the original Rawshooter program by Pixmatic (where Adobe acquired the original Raw processing software). In that respect I'm no novice and would probably consider myself an advanced user, so I did wonder whether I'd have much to gain from yet another Lightroom tips booklet. Well, as you'll find out I was quite pleasantly surprised.

Read More >>

BLOG

Club members can contribute posts and use the blog to upload images, comments etc.

To do so you will need an invitation from our webmaster, Kev Woodcock so, if you wish to participate, please get back to me and I will pass your details to Kev.

However do please note the following:

The blog is moderated and any content considered to be unsuitable or offensive will be removed

You may advertise items for sale but only photographic or computer related equipment is accepted.

FORTHCOMING TUTORIAL/PRACTICAL EVENINGS

TUES 22nd November:- Photoshop Q&A: Alternative approaches to image processing: Handling and processing RAW files.

TUES 10th January:- Macro/Close Up: Filters and Long Exposures: Camera Techniques.

TUES 14th February:- Adobe Lightroom.

TUES 13th March:- Strobist Techniques: Studio Flash Basics.

April - Date TBA:- Audio Visual Techniques using Pro Show Gold and Pictures To Exe

ALSO

STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY SESSION with advice on using studio flash.
This session will be held at Rother Valley Optics, Kiveton Park and will give participants the opportunity to use state of the art Bowens studio equipment in a controlled environment.
A professional model will be provided so this is an opportunity to get some high quality images for your portfolio. As we have to hire both studio and model there will be a charge for this session.

Camera RAW Problem

I attended the beginners/technique night on Tuesday and was very impressed by Kevin's demo of Camera Raw, so I thought I'd try it myself.
According to Adobe CR 5.6 is compatible with the Fuji S6500 so I took some pics in raw and JPG and tried processing them.
No matter how I tried the results from Camera Raw were poor, unsharp grainy and noisy and not a patch on the jpegs the camera itself produced, and nowhere near as good as what the free utility S7raw produced.
Has any non-Nikon/Canon user tried Camera Raw and if so what were your findings?

Cheers

Alan

Useful Resources

As the new season is upon us and we have had two evenings already... I thought I would track down some useful information that could be put on the blog that our members could benefit from. These are listed under a new section called "Useful Resources" Already there are three links in there for some quite good tutorials on Photoshop and one for the Lightroom users of the membership.

Whilst for some of the more experienced users some of the tutorials may be quite standard, I hope that this list will be of use to some. Smart Objects in Photoshop for example is very useful and is a tool that I am using more and more.

If you know of any more tutorials that you feel would be worth sharing, drop me a mail at kevin@coral-design.com and I will add them on there.

See you on Wednesday

Kev

Blog Advice

After due consideration and not wishing to appear officious or negative the committee wish to remind members that this facility is intended as a forum to discuss anything pertinent to photography and the means to upload images for discussion or comment. It is not intended to be a free advertising site for whatever items you may wish to dispose of.

However exceptions can and will be made for anything which is relevant to the hobby including photographic and computer equipment. Any advertisment deemed to be outside these parameters may be removed so if in doubt please request permission from the webmaster or a committee member.

Website Update

Hi All

I have just done a mod to the website to make it a bit more swish, I have taken a view from some members too who asked for it to be widened, this has gone up by 200px.

The member gallery has been updated with all the images provided by Chris, this contains all the images he received last season as competition entries.

The programme is now uploaded and is available for download as a pdf, there is a link to adobe.com for those who don't have adobe acrobat reader.

The links page has also been updated.

Thanks

Kev

Charity of Choice

Hi All

At the Open Day we are planning to have a Photoshoot, it was suggested at our last meeting that we charge a fee of £1 for people to have their photograph taken. We thought about donating this to Charity and wanted to try and get a feel for the memberships chosen Charity. Names in the frame so far

Help for Heroes

Macmillan Nurses

Bassetlaw Hospice

Update: Disabled Photographers Society added

Please feel free to suggest more....

I will take a vote at the first meeting and announce the results that night.

Thanks

Kev

RAF Cosford - a great day out

Following my disappointment with Doncaster Air Museum I'm pleased to be able to say that RAF Cosford has redressed the balance. It's free to get in (although you do have to pay for parking), the exhibits are all top quality, and subject to the usual constrictions you really can get some decent photos.
It's near Telford which is also handy for the Ironbridge gorge and all the museums in the locality, including the Victorian village currently appearing on TV in the Victorian Pharmacy series, the Wrekin and Wenlock Edge.

Take a look at http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/cosford/

Here's a view of the Cold War Exhibition building which houses among others examples of all 3 V-bombers and a Trabant!


I'll let you use your imagination as to what's happening here:


And this is a Victor which I've always thought was a really evil-looking aeroplane:


And the Vulcan which is just awesome.

Royal International Air Tattoo RAF Fairford 17th July 2010

Hi Everyone

Following on from the Waddington Airshow post, I thought I would share the results from what turned out to be a fantastic few days with mixed weather, thankfully the weather for airshow itself turned out ok , I will post a video later to show how bad it was for arrivals the day before!!!!

A very spirited display by the RAF Typhoon

More Typhoon...

Chris, my Mum and I went to the Airshow this year, unfortunately Stuart was unable to make it. We stayed at the Totterdownhill Campsite in the caravan, the weather was extreme to say the least, high winds, lashing rain everyday except airshow day. We were there Wednesday through Sunday and had a great time. The Campsite offers one of the best views of an airshow I have ever seen, it actually looks down across the airfield and is bang in the centre of the display area for the aircraft.

We saw some aircraft not normally seen in the UK including the latest US aircraft the F22 Raptor, this display was astonishing, nearly every surface on the plane moves as well as the jet nozzles to keep the plane in the air, it can turn in the opposite direction in almost its own length whilst airborne. The latest troop carrier and C130 Hercules replacement was also displayed, the A400M Airbus.

Business end of the RNAF F16

We had an American C17 display who flew so low over the Campsite we actually felt the draft from it, someone on the airfield recently commented on how low it looked from their perspective and thought it was going to crash. Sadly on that note, an American C17 was lost earlier this week in Alaska whilst practicing for a display, all four crew were lost. Going to show that whilst this hobby is entertaining it certainly has its own dangers attached, the crash could quite easily have been at Fairford. My thoughts are with the lost C17 Crew and their colleagues and families, some of whom were watching the practice.

American C17 on extreme low flyby over the campsite

Anyway with that somber thought, it is with pride that I show my results from the weekend. Ray earlier in the year termed our's and other countries pilots / aircrew as the true professionals, a comment that I wholeheartedly agree with.

On with the show.....

The wonderful Red Arrows

The F22 Raptor

The Belgian F16, love this shot, you can see the dials in the cockpit...

Spitfire, part of the Typhoon and Spitfire Synchro Pair

RNAF F16 Display

Belgian F16 again

Royal New Zealand 757

Airbus A400M

RAF Tornado GR4 Ground Attack Aircraft on a run at over 500mph over the campsite

Red Arrows again...

The F22 Raptor accidentally taken into the Sun

The F22 Raptor on a fast turn over the campsite

The F22 Raptor, yes the sky was that grey...

The mighty, yet technically flawed and poorly managed Vulcan

The French Display Team

All these shots were taken using a Canon 450d with the Sigma 50-500mm (non IS) lens and were hand held. There is no doubt that the Sigma is up there with the bigger players in the game, some of the detail that this lens has managed to resolve at the speeds the aircraft are flying at is amazing. The second picture down is testament to this. Feel free to click on the images for a larger view, following a recommendation from Keith, I have copyrighted them for other visitors to our blog, I have no issues with anyone from the society seeing unbroken images if they wish.

Image theft is becoming a real problem lately across the internet, these are all lowered res too.

Thanks for looking, comments and crit always welcomed

Kev

Photographic oblivion

Help! Photographic oblivion stares me in the face!
Following wednesday June 30th when Stuart and I scoured Worksop (nsuccessfully) for suitable pictures for the My Worksop competition I went on holiday to the UK's first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty - the Gower (well that's what it says in the tourist leaflets) and the weather was c**p so naff all came out of that. Should have gorn to Port Talbot
So my salvation rests with Ray - what have you got organised for this Wednesday?

Wednesday june 23 : more pyrotechnics

My new secretary started work this morning and will be creating my blog entries from now on!

Perhaps we should be looking round Worksop this evening to get some pictures for the competition?

Well actually we walked up what was the old Kiiveton pit tip. From the top we saw this in the far distance:
Which I reckon is this tower next to the A630 going out of Rotherham towards the M1 J35

Anyway, continuing our weekly theme of (no smoke without) fire:

Not as spectacular as last week's but a fire nontheless.

And to finish off, a post-solstice sunset

Wednesday 16th June

Ray said he and Stuart were looking at a row of bodies - could it have been these?

OK, so having grabbed your attention, what's on for tomorrow night? Weather forecast is sunny for Worksop, sunny periods for Sheffield and Doncaster.


And now a word from our sponsor ....

As it turned out someone provided the entertainment by setting fire to a local chemical storage facility. The Bill wouldn't let us get too close but even from a distance it was quite spectacular.

Coningsby Outing

Well the weather held out for us and apart from a slight breeze which kept blowing the stove out, the day remained warm. There was a great turn out and a good time was had by all.

Here are a few of my efforts from the day, not many of them turned out very well, I had quite a few where the image just wasn't sharp, having said that it was my first day out with the new camera and I expect I will need to get used to it as it is so different from my 20D.

On with the show...

The Mighty Hunter, an amazing aircraft, given its age, the rate of climb on this was phenomenal

The Sentinel

The Typhoon

The Dakota

The Blades