The Group met at 10:15 a.m. on 8^th July with the theme ‘Frame Within a Frame’.

Only 4 people attended as Rosemary Crumplin had a hospital appointment accompanied by John Clark. With such a small (and even) number, it was inevitable that two photographs received two votes each.

It was decided that both were declared overall best picture. These were Pam Liberson’s ‘St Peter’s Church, Stockbridge’ and Anjie Sargeant’s ‘Tunnel between Hotel Simplon and Hotel Grand Dino, Lake Maggiore’. Both were taken under difficult light conditions.

St. Peter’s Church, Stockbridge – Pam Liberson

Tunnel between Hotel Simplon and Hotel Grand Dino, Lake Maggiore

August’s theme is ‘New/Old Architecture’.

John Hawke stated that he had been asked to talk about aspects of taking wildlife pictures by the Andover U3A Photography Group. The Anton Group asked for a repeat performance! The précis of the talk was as follows:-

Get the right kit – tripod/monopod/ bean bag/filters – take spare batteries!

Familiarise yourself with all that the camera can do:

Use natural/standard settings – not vivid

Shoot RAW + JPEG if you are going to post edit

Use Auto ISO – establish upper limit when noise is too high

Aperture Priority/Shutter Speed Priority

Back button AF

Continuous AF for panning shots

When to use Spot focus/Small area focus (centre-weighted)/Whole area

Burst shooting and Bracketing

Face/Bird Eye recognition – use with caution

Lenses:

Best aperture settings – 2 stops up from widest

Best shutter speed settings – stop shake, freeze action, ‘slow’ for motion

Not just telephoto (25m to infinity setting) – macro lens as normal lens

Leave plenty of room for cropping/composition

Light conditions and effects on exposure and colours

Take advantage of attracting sites – puddles/food/flowers

Study wildlife behaviour – small birds/raptors/predators/interactions

Do not over edit (keep as ‘natural’ as possible) – crop for composition. Use of high contrast as emphasis.

A slide show illustrated some of the above along with some slides depicting simple and effective composition tricks.

The Group met at 10:15 a.m. on 17^th June with the theme ‘Landscapes’ (originally Bleak Landscapes).

5 people attended as Anjie Sargeant was sunning herself in Lake Maggiore.

Overall best picture was John Hawke’s ‘Ghent Industrial Outskirts’ which featured scrap metal and coal heaps – very bleak!

Mike Liberson reported a problem with a malfunctioning SD Card and he had lost some of his best pictures. John Hawke stated that he had a program that recovered files from SD Cards/Hard Disk Drives and offered his services if Mike could supply the card.

John Hawke opened a Digital Camera (July 2024) magazine page that described the Exposure Triangle inter-relationship between Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO with great clarity. He also showed a short video of a 15^th Century horse-driven automated laundry he recorded at the Netherlands Open-Air Museum (visited last April) – as an example of last month’s theme, ‘Technology’.

Unfortunately Rosemary Crumplin has not recovered from an, as yet, unknown illness and will be absent during the July and August meetings. Anjie Sargeant has volunteered to host in the interim. The Group is now reduced to four – we need new members!

The Group met at 10:15 a.m. on 14^th May with the theme ‘Technology’.

5 people attended as John Clark had not completed his paper round! Most were back to rude health.

Overall best picture was Pam Liberson’s ‘Mobile Home Dashboard’ which featured a Satnav and rear camera (amongst other automobile technology.

The June theme is ‘Landscapes’. John Hawke encouraged members to discuss options for the theme. Members confirmed the broadness of the theme By including city landscapes. Most of the discussion centred on composition tips and tricks including ‘Rule of Thirds’, adding depth of field to a two-dimensional image, and using available light to enhance features such as clouds and shadows.

 

In response to Pam Liberson’s problems with a malfunctioning 5 years old Windows PC, John Hawke advised to do two things.

1. Go into File Explorer and highlight the C Drive – right click to get the drop down menu – highlight ‘Properties’ to see how much space is left. If space is almost used up, he advised to download as much as possible to her external hard disk drive.  Once completed, recheck ‘Properties’!
2. Reset Windows using the option ‘Retain files and programs’. For the necessary steps to do this he advised to Google for ‘Reset Windows’ where there will be several ‘idiot guides’ that will give a step by step guide.