2008 NEWSLETTERS January 2008 NO MEETING Due to the timing of New Year's and our scheduled meeting being the first Tuesday of the month, there will be no January meeting. See you for our February meeting and have a Happy New Year. First of all, we want to say that we hope everyone had a great holiday season so far and express our desire that you all have a wonderful 2008. This coming year will be a very special one for the Urban Wildlife Photo Club as we celebrate 20 years in existence. We are planning a special activity in October so be sure to keep reading the newsletter as details are finalized. We are also planning some changes and improvements to the website and to the monthly meetings that we hope you will enjoy.
Monthly Critique Images, new and exciting stuff!
We are adding a special feature to the monthly image review part of the meeting as well as modifying the “submission” format. The added part is a monthly theme. We would like each member who wants to, to submit one image that matches the monthly theme. We have set themes for February (SNOW) and March (ANIMALS IN WINTER). If this is as much fun as we think it will be, we’ll work on themes for the following months. Theme images will not be a competition in keeping with our long standing non competitive policy. They will be for fun.
During the past two years, the number of digital images coming in every month for our critique has been growing. No surprise there as the digital revolution in photography is real! This has added a bit of a logistical problem to running our meetings. With 35mm slides we just put out the tray and everyone loaded their slides. Now we need to transfer those images from CD or USB drive to a laptop and then do a bit of organizing. We’d like to ask everyone to try to email their images to us before the meeting to save a lot of time and effort.
We have created a special email address for monthly images: uwpcimages@comcast.net
Please try to submit images according to the following:
1) Limit the size to less than 500kB per image. (see the November 2007 newsletter for details on how to do this) 2) Submit only jpeg images 3) Name them with your name and a brief title (e.g. bob dean tree in snow.jpg) 4) Send them a week before the meeting. Due to my real job and business travel I need time to download and make sure they are available for the meeting. 5) Send your theme image in a separate email from your critique images. 6) Use critique images and theme image as the email title 7) Limit your total submission to 4 shots.
Really Cool Website addition
We are adding a Q&A page to the website. We will probably call it something boring like Question and Answer. It will allow members to submit email questions on photography (advice on personal matters is out of our league!). We will investigate the question and post a response on the website. We have a draft version there now so check it out and start submitting those questions!
Member Profiles
We have a new Member Profile on the website! Take a look and “get to know” Pat Gautier! Also please consider adding your profile as well. It’s easy, just go to the Member Profiles page and click on the “bio form” link.
Dues and other mundane administrative topics
As you are all aware (?) we manage our dues from March to March of each year. This has worked well for 19 years and we’ll probably keep it that way. The dues for 2008 will remain at $15 for individuals and families that receive the newsletter by email. These dues cover the costs we incur each year to maintain the website, pay our corporate fees and our membership in the Museum that allows us the use of the facility. We changed the dues structure a while back for those who continue to receive the newsletter by U S mail to $20 dollars but frankly the additional five dollars no longer covers the cost of copying and the ever increasing postage rates. These dues for 2008 will go up to $24 dollars. We’d encourage anyone currently receiving the newsletter by “snail mail” to change to email if you can. It ensures that you get it within minutes of my writing it and puts you on a list for other emails about club activities and opportunities that will only be sent via email. We currently send out over 50 email newsletters vs. less than 12 snail mail versions.
February 2008
Program
Our February program will feature Glenn Randall. Glenn will be presenting a program on Landscape photography. With spring right around the corner and winter scenes available now, this is a very timely topic.
Monthly Critique Images The theme for February is WINTER! March will be ANIMALS IN WINTER. Please submit up to four images, 1 for the theme and 3 for normal critique. Also, please remember to size the images to less than 500kB and send them before the meeting ( a week is good, not later than the Sunday before) to uwpcimages@comcast.net so we can include them in the monthly program. If you need help on the sizing process, go to the page on our website on “digital submission specs”.
Survey
At our February meeting we will distribute a survey form asking some questions about how the club is doing and soliciting suggestions for improvements. Please take the time to fill it out!
Dues The dues for 2008 will remain at $15 for the newsletter by email. These dues for 2008 will go up to $24 dollars for each person or family that wants hardcopy newsletters. Our annual dues cover March to March. Those people who have joined since November 1, 2007 are covered until March 2009.
Website news
We have added a Q&A page to the website and some new images. If you haven’t been there for a while, it’s worth a look!
Fine Art in Ft Collins Renovation of The Center for Fine Art Photography's new facility is almost complete. The target date for opening is Friday, February 1. 400 North College, Old Town Fort Collins, Colorado
Photo Permits for Public Lands?
The U. S. Government is once again reviewing photography on public lands. NANPA is staying involved and has summarized the situation concerning our right to take photos on our public lands. We have posted the latest summary on the website. Watch this carefully and contact your representatives if you feel you want your voice to be heard.
March
2008 Program
Our March program will feature Dave Showalter and he will talk about: “The process of publishing a book”. This will be a new, and we feel very interesting, subject for our program.
Monthly Critique Images: March’s theme images will be ANIMALS IN WINTER. Please submit up to four images, 1 for the theme and 3 for normal critique. Also, please remember to size the images to less than 500kB and send them before the meeting ( a week is good, not later than the Sunday before) to uwpcimages@comcast.net so we can include them in the monthly program. If you need help on the sizing process, go to the page on our website on “digital submission specs”.
Survey Results
Here is a highlight of the survey results and some steps we’re taking.
Dues The dues for 2008 will remain at $15 for the newsletter by email. These dues for 2008 will go up to $24 dollars for each person or family that wants hardcopy newsletters. Our annual dues cover March to March. Those people who have joined since November 1, 2007 are covered until March 2009.
Website news
We have added a new page to the website called CALENDAR, EVENTS, CONTESTS. We are looking for someone to help research material for this added feature. If you could spend a couple of hours a month doing that, PLEASE let us know. No computer skills required!
April
2008 Program Our April 1st (no fooling) meeting program will feature Jay Clawson. Jay will be talking about the very interesting and relevant topic of Sharpening in camera and with Photoshop.
Monthly Critique Images: April’s theme image is “APRIL SHOWERS”, so submit images with some relationship to late winter or spring precipitation! Please submit up to four images, 1 for the theme and 3 for normal critique. Also, please remember to size the images to less than 500kB and send them before the meeting (a week is good, not later than the Sunday before) to uwpcimages@comcast.net so we can include them in the monthly program. If you need help on the sizing process, go to the page on our website on “digital submission specs”.
Field Trips
We now have our field trip schedule posted on the website. Look on the CALENDAR, EVENTS, CONTESTS page. The April field trip is on the 19th to Bel Mar Park to photograph waterfowl.
Dues We are doing really well on dues this year, a large number of members have renewed early and on time, THANKS! If you have not renewed please send your check soon. If you aren’t sure, drop me an email and I’ll respond as soon as I can.
The dues for 2008 will remain at $15 for the newsletter by email. These dues for 2008 will go up to $24 dollars for each person or family that wants hardcopy newsletters. Our annual dues cover March to March. Those people who have joined since November 1, 2007 are covered until March 2009.
Website news
We have added a new page to the website called CALENDAR, EVENTS, and CONTESTS. We are still looking for someone to help research material for this added feature. If you could spend a couple of hours a month doing that, PLEASE let us know. No computer skills required!
Digital Corner: How do digital sensors work?
Most of us have made the shift from film to digital over the past years. When we were shooting film a number of us also experienced the sights and smells of the darkroom and so we had a pretty good idea of how film worked. Light interacted with photosensitive chemicals in the film emulsion and during the developing process other chemicals stabilized the transformed images on a negative or transparency. Digital technology is not all that much different. As I have stated many times before in this column and well as in my classes, the only difference between film and digital image making is the medium on which image is captured. Let’s talk digital!
In the digital sensor world, photosensitive has a different meaning that in the film world. Digital sensors are electronic parts (integrated circuits or IC’s) that have a physical structure that allows incoming light to generate electric signals. By the way IC’s are typically referred to as chips in the industry, so I’ll be mixing terms. These signals are conducted away from the sensor site (the picture element or pixel) by very tiny wires that are part of the IC. The wires take the signal to amplifiers (on the same chip). The amplifiers boost the very tiny signal to a level that can be manipulated and digitized by yet more circuits. The output of the digitizing circuit is a light level, period. This is because the individual sensor sites on a digital sensor are monochromatic; they only see light in terms of intensity not color. So why are all digital cameras only black and white?
The clever design engineers who develop sensor technology also have a pretty good understanding of the human eye and how we perceive color. This is actually a carryover from the color film technology where the designers used color sensitive layers in the emulsion.
The basic sensor is a grid pattern of structures that convert light energy (photons) into electrical energy (electrons) in a way that is not all that different from solar cells. The ability to add color to the image is done by filtering the light before it strikes the sensor. Our old friends red, green and blue (RGB) are at work here. The light is filtered to allow those colors to strike specific sensors and when final signal is digitized into a light intensity level, the tiny little computer chip in the camera can correlate that intensity to a color, and thus adds color to the data file for that sensor site. If you were to magnify the filter structure on a camera, you would find about 25% of the sites detect red, 25% blue and 50% green. This ratio was established to allow the sensor to more closely match the response of the human eye and thus make further “post processing” easier.
After all of the sites have been scanned for light intensity and the camera settings have been added, the data is ready to be stored as a RAW image. As a side thought, a 10 megapixels sensor has about 10 million sites, imagine how fast that little computer is working if you can should about 8 images a second.
A request!
If you enjoy the digital technology articles we have been publishing and have a specific request for a topic please let me know. All of the newsletter articles on digital technology are posted in the “Digital Corner” part of the website. If there is a topic you want discussed that is not there already, I’m open to doing the research. In fact I need of topics because I’ve pretty much exhausted the ones that interest me!
May 6, 2008 Meeting
Our May meeting program will feature Craig Lewis presenting: Who Needs Photoshop Now That We Have Lightroom?
Monthly Critique Images May’s theme image is “Lines in Nature”, so submit images with some relationship to lines! Please submit up to four images, 1 for the theme and 3 for normal critique. Also, please remember to size the images to less than 500kB and send them before the meeting (a week is good, not later than the Sunday before) to uwpcimages@comcast.net so we can include them in the monthly program. If you need help on the sizing process, go to the page on our website on “digital submission specs”. The theme for June will be “birds”.
Field Trips
We now have our field trip schedule posted on the website. Look on the CALENDAR, EVENTS, CONTESTS page. Or next field trip is on May 17 to Walden Ponds in Boulder for yellow-headed blackbirds and other resident birds.
Dues We are doing really well on dues this year, a large number of members have renewed early and on time, THANKS! If you have not renewed please send you check soon. If you aren’t sure, drop me an email and I’ll respond as soon as I can.
The dues for 2008 will remain at $15 for the newsletter by email. These dues for 2008 will go up to $24 dollars for each person or family that wants hardcopy newsletters. Our annual dues cover March to March. Those people who have joined since November 1, 2007 are covered until March 2009.
An editorial
Recently I was able to drive through the parts of southern Colorado that have been in the news. These are the areas that will/could be impacted by the government’s proposed expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Area that is part of Ft Carson. Officially the UWPC can’t get involved in political activities because of the way we are incorporated, but I wanted to provide our members with some information and references. Those who feel strongly about the issue, or don’t know much about it, can get more information and perhaps get involved on whichever side they feel is right.
In addition to reading a lot of the information available, we were able to talk to a few of the people who live in the proposed expansion area. Most of these folks have lived their entire lives there and many have families going back to homestead times in the 1800’s. To say the least they are emotional about this situation.
If you are inclined, please take a look at the following website, http://www.pinoncanyon.com/ and do a Google search on “pinon canyon”. What you will find will astound you.
June 2008 Meeting Program
Our June meeting program will feature Terry Grosz - Author and former game warden who will speak about his book "Wildlife Wars".
Monthly Critique Images: June’s theme image is “Birds”, so submit your favorite bird image! Please submit up to four images, 1 for the theme and 3 for normal critique. Also, please remember to size the images to less than 500kB and send them before the meeting (a week is good, not later than the Sunday before) to uwpcimages@comcast.net so we can include them in the monthly program. If you need help on the sizing process, go to the page on our website on “digital submission specs”.
Field Trips
We now have our field trip schedule posted on the website. Look on the CALENDAR, EVENTS, CONTESTS page. The June field trip is on the June 7-8 to North Park. If you are planning to participate please e-mail Pat Gautier [Gautier.Patrick@geoeye.com] so we can finalize arrangements.
Digital Corner: Digital Negatives
When we moved to digital SLR’s we were confronted with the dilemma of which format to use for recording our images. There was JPEG and RAW or a combination of both. Many of us shoot just RAW and use post processing software to import and view the RAW images. We then export other file formats, like JPEG or TIF! Now we have yet another format to consider - digital negative which shows up in our computer as a .dng file.
Why has the digital negative come to be? The main reason is that every camera maker has developed their own RAW file format. A Nikon RAW file is different from a Canon RAW file and both are different from any other camera maker’s RAW format. Combine that with the distinct possibility that as we move forward, even within a brand, RAW formats will change. As time goes on and more features are introduced on cameras, the companies will drop support for older formats. Camera manufacturers do supply software with the products that allow us to view and do some manipulation of the captured RAW files but most photographers use the standard software tools like Photoshop and Lightroom. These programs are very capable of reading individual RAW files from all of the different cameras---today! What about tomorrow? When Photoshop CS12 comes out in 2015 (I’m being a little facetious here) will it still support today’s RAW images? Probably not, especially if the camera companies have dropped support for that particular format. Adobe will only provide internal software for supported formats; they can’t afford to maintain software with obsolete versions.
What are the options? First of all, you can stop shooting RAW and do only JPEG. That will limit you as RAW has many advantages over JPEG. That’s a topic for another column. Alternatively you can use one of the software tools you have to save your images as .dng (Digital Negative) files. Adobe products all provide that capability as do several other tools.
The whole premise behind digital negatives is that it’s an open standard developed by Adobe that allows image files to be saved with all of the data that is captured by RAW. The key difference is that while all RAW formats are proprietary to individual camera companies, digital negative is a public (open) format. Open formats allow software developers full access to the information. As new camera RAW formats come out, software products will be able to read the new format and create the .dng files right away. The only requirement is that the RAW formats comply with the digital negative format requirements. I can’t imagine any camera manufacturer not doing that. It would be such a competitive disadvantage that the products would not sell well at all.
So, is it time to panic and spend the next 3 weeks converting all of your RAW files to .dng? No, not really but you may want to consider altering your workflow to include copies of your images in .dng. You can then periodically convert your best images as time permits. It’s only when you upgrade your image processing software that you may eventually have a problem.
A request!
If you enjoy the digital technology articles we have been publishing and have a specific request for a topic please let me know. All of the newsletter articles on digital technology are posted in the “Digital Corner” part of the website. If there is a topic you want discussed that is not there already, I’m open to doing the research. In fact I’m in need of topics because I’ve pretty much exhausted the ones that interest me!
Conservation notes
Check out where Wendy Shattil and Bob Rozinski were last week.
http://www.pinedaleroundup.com/V2_news_articles.php?heading=0&page=&story_id=660
July’s Monthly Theme - Wildlife babies, so keep an eye out for the young critters
July 2008 Meeting Program
Our July meeting program will feature will feature our members! The theme is shutter segment. Please submit or bring 5-6 images that show parts of something wild. Please email them to uwpcimages@comcast.net in jpeg format and < 500kB.
Monthly Critique Images: Wildlife babies, it’s a member night all the way.
Field Trips
We now have our field trip schedule posted on the website. Look on the CALENDAR, EVENTS, CONTESTS page. The July field trip is on July 12 - Mount Evans for mountain goats - early birds can do sunrise at the bristlecone pine forest If you are planning to participate please e-mail Pat Gautier [Gautier.Patrick@geoeye.com] so we can finalize arrangements.
DOW Insider
As we mentioned at the June meeting, Colorado Division of Wildlife has an email list called DOW Insider. It comes out regularly and has lots of interesting stuff. Check it out at http://wildlife.state.co.us/NewsMedia/DOWInsider
Concerned about the state of the Environment?
There are a lot of organizations involved in efforts to preserve our environment. If you’d like to explore some of the more effective ones we suggest you check out The National Resources Defense Council (http://www.nrdc.org) and sign up for their BioGems newsletter. Another good one is the Nature Conservancy. Their website is http://www.nature.org. No matter your feeling about what’s happening to our planet, these organizations can provide you with information, the most effective tool of all.
A request!
If you enjoy the digital technology articles we have been publishing and have a specific request for a topic please let me know. All of the newsletter articles on digital technology are posted in the “Digital Corner” part of the website. If there is a topic you want discussed that is not there already, I’m open to doing the research. In fact I’m still in need of topics because I’ve pretty much exhausted the ones that interest me!
September 2, 2008 20th Anniversary Dinner Info
Here are the details on our big anniversary party:
White Fence Farm 6263 W. Jewell Ave. Lakewood, CO 80232 Available Dinner entree’s are:
All Dinners include: Baked Potato, Kidney Bean Salad, Pickled Beets, Cottage Cheese, Cole Slaw, and Corn Fritters, Coffee, Tea or Soft Drink. Tax & Tip are Included! Cocktails, wine, etc. will be extra and can be paid for individually by members and guests. UWPC will provide dessert
Please send your dinner entrée request and payment to Bob Dean (Checks payable to UWPC please).
UWPC
Payment must be received by September 19th. Please don’t wait until then! We will have a limitation on seating and I want to make sure current members and their guests are accommodated before we open it to former members, so please get back to me with a request and a check as soon as you can!
September Program Our September 2nd meeting program will feature Vicki Childs from the Colorado Division of Wildlife presenting a program on the Division’s Watchable Wildlife Project
Monthly Critique Images: September’s theme image is “Wildlife Action”, so submit your favorite image of animals doing stuff! Please submit up to four images, 1 for the theme and 3 for normal critique. Also, please remember to size the images to less than 500kB and send them before the meeting (a week is good, not later than the Sunday before) to uwpcimages@comcast.net so we can include them in the monthly program. If you need help on the sizing process, go to the page on our website on “digital submission specs”.
Field Trips We now have our field trip schedule posted on the website. Look on the CALENDAR, EVENTS, CONTESTS page. The next field is September 27 to Kenosha Pass for fall color. If you are planning to participate please e-mail Pat Gautier [Gautier.Patrick@geoeye.com] so we can finalize arrangements.
Digital Corner: Digital Sensors and Lens Performance
Digital SLRs come in two flavors of sensors, APS and full frame. The full frame behaves just like the 35mm film cameras. In other words the image from a normal lens is projected onto the film so that what the lens “sees is what is on the sensor. The APS size sensors have a crop factor and thus show a magnification ranging from 1.3x to nearly 1.7x. We discussed this is a previous digital corner so if you what a refresher, wander over to our website and review “Sensor Size and Magnification”
This is a real advantage for wildlife in that we get the extra focal length without losing the light like you would with a teleconverter. We pay the penalty with wide angle however.
There is another, more subtle advantage to this smaller size. The lens still projects the image on the sensor as if it was a 35mm film plane. That means that those parts of the image which would normally be around the edge of the 24mm by 36mm rectangle are not recorded by the sensor pixels. That, in turn, means that those problems we used to see with lenses (especially inexpensive lenses) are gone. The soft focus, distortion and vignetting are off of the recording surface.
Practically, this means that you can open up your lens to a larger aperture without seeing the edge problems that full frame or film would see. Your lens’ “sweet spot” just got better in that what you used shoot at say f/8 to reduce distortion, you may now be able to go down to f/5.6 or even f/4.
Check out your camera system and see how much improvement you can get!
A request!
If you enjoy the digital technology articles we have been publishing and have a specific request for a topic please let me know. All of the newsletter articles on digital technology are posted in the “Digital Corner” part of the website. If there is a topic you want discussed that is not there already, I’m open to doing the research. In fact I’m in need of topics because I’ve pretty much exhausted the ones that interest me!
October Program Our October 7th meeting program will be nostalgia time! We’re preparing a selection of images that look at the history of our club. For the “old timers” this should bring back memories and for our newer members, you get an insight into our roots. We’ll still plan time for critique so go ahead and send in or bring your images. We don’t have a monthly theme so bring what you’d like.
Monthly Critique Images: Please submit up to 3 images, for normal critique. Also, please remember to size the images to less than 500kB and send them before the meeting (a week is good, not later than the Sunday before) to uwpcimages@comcast.net so we can include them in the monthly program. If you need help on the sizing process, go to the page on our website on “digital submission specs”.
Field Trips We now have our field trip schedule posted on the website. Look on the CALENDAR, EVENTS, CONTESTS page. The next field is December 13th to Estes Park for big horn sheep. If you are planning to participate please e-mail Pat Gautier [Gautier.Patrick@geoeye.com] so we can finalize arrangements.
A request!
If you enjoy the digital technology articles we have been publishing and have a specific request for a topic please let me know. All of the newsletter articles on digital technology are posted in the “Digital Corner” part of the website. If there is a topic you want discussed that is not there already, I’m open to doing the research. In fact I’m in need of topics because I’ve pretty much exhausted the ones that interest me!
Another request!
Over the years we have had several different series of feature articles in our newsletter. Digital corner is the most recent. We’ve had The Wild Scene, Colorado Counties and a few other ones. We’re very interested in suggestions for a new series or two. They could alternate with the Digital Corner. Along with ideas (here it comes!), we need volunteers to write them. If we get two ideas, plus the Digital Corner, any one person or team would need to write 3-4 articles per year!. Please see Bob and let’s see if we can get something going.
Urban
Wildlife Photo Club
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