Patron: Graham Dainty

Office Bearers:

President: Ian Smith

Vice President: David Tose

Past President: Stephanie Forrester

Secretary: Liz Collett Treasurer: Debbie Main Committee Members: Rosemary McGeachie, Barbara Lee, Les Ladbrook, Val Wardell, Cheryl McMath

Projected Image Secretary: Stephanie Forrester

Print Secretaries: Ian Smith, Cheryl McMath

Newsletter Editor: Rosemary McGeachie r.mcgeachie@xtra.co.nz

Facebook/Webpage: Les Ladbrook

Southland Photographic Society http://www.southlandphotographicsociety.com

May 2018

Southern Exposure

Meetings held at Age Concern Rooms in Forth Street, Invercargill at 7.30pm on the first & third Thursday of each month.

Results: PJ (1) PI Results: Open (2) C Grade Image analysis Hints & Tips

Results Open (2) A&B Grades Images & Report from National Convention His request approved, the CNN News photographer quickly used a cell phone to call the local airport to charter a flight. He was told a twin-engine plane would be waiting for him at the airport. Arriving at the airfield, he spotted a plane warming up outside a hanger. He jumped in with his bag, slammed the door shut, and shouted, 'Let's go'. The pilot taxied out, swung the plane into the wind and took off. Once in the air, the photographer instructed the pilot, 'Fly over the valley and make low passes so I can take pictures of the fires on the hillsides.' 'Why?' asked the pilot. 'Because I'm a photographer for CNN', he responded, 'and I need to get some close-up shots.' The pilot was strangely silent for a moment, finally he stammered, 'So, what you're telling me, is . . . You're NOT my flight instructor?'

Supper Duty

3 May: Alison Evans, Annie Carmichael

17 May: Sr Maria, Anita Hayman

3 May

17 May

5 April

19 April

The evening started with NHx(1) results, with some great comments from the Judge. Something for all of us there!

Then we had a splendid presentation by David Watson on his Portfolio. We’d like to see more of that.

This was followed by the Print results of PJ(1) - unfortunately the Judge’s comments arrived too late for the PI results to be compiled before the Meeting - a disappointment for many.

And finally, Peter Aalders gave a short presentation with some insights into Photo Stacking.

Mystery Box Photography – organised by Dave & Les

With sudden showers of heavy rain occurring, and many members in Dunedin for the Southern Regional Convention, 19 club members seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves photographing the objects from the Mystery Box night.

While people started taking images at a general distance, it didn’t take long before everyone was right into it, getting in close and looking at specific aspects of the whole subject.

From my point of view a great success and we look forward to the images that will be sent to Rosemary to compile a slideshow.

Les Ladbrook (many thanks - Les)

‘Well,’ snarled the tough old Navy boss to the bewildered sailor, ‘I suppose after you get discharged from the Navy, you'll just be waiting for me to die so you can come and pee on my grave.’ ‘Not me, Sir!’ the sailor replied. ‘Once I get out of the Navy, I'm never going to stand in a queue again!’

Photoshoot - 29 April in Queen’s Park

When: 2pm

Where: Feldwick Gates

For Whom: All most welcome!

2

7 Tips to Help You Capture the Perfect Landscape Photo Landscape photography is one of the most popular genres of photography and it’s easy to understand why. After all, every single person at some point in their life has probably looked at a landscape photograph of an epic scene with dramatic clouds and beautiful light and just thought, ‘Wow!’ But as easy as it may seem, capturing stunning landscape images isn’t straightforward. Here are seven tips to help you capture the perfect landscape photo.

1. Find Your Perfect Spot The first thing you need to do is decide what you are actually going to photograph. Is it a beautiful valley from lookout point? Or is it a historic castle perched on top of a cliff? You also need to factor in the direction of the light and how that will affect your view. Ideally you want to end up with an exact spot of where you would like to photograph and which direction you are intending to look. The good news is that in today’s digital world there are tons of options to help you find out this information from the likes of Google maps, and apps like Photographer’s Ephemeris or PhotoPills.

2. L ight i s Everything It’s no secret that most landscape photographers would recommend photographing in the early morning and late afternoon/evening. This is when you will get a low golden soft light from the sun that produces long shadows but that doesn’t mean you can’t

photograph at any other time. The most important thing is understanding, and trying to organize your shoot for the best time that you possibly can. 3. Compose Your Shot Perfect ly One of the best things about landscape photography is that you often have plenty of time to prepare and compose your shot. When you feel you are ready, compose the shot and take a few test photos while you wait for the perfect light. Think about the scene in front of you. Should you show more of the foreground? If so, is there a point of interest to capture the viewer’s eyes? Or are there interesting mountains or sky, in which case you need to show more of the background?

4. Use a Tripod For landscape photography a tripod is essential. If you want to capture the best possible photo, in the best possible light, you will have to use a tripod. The alternative usually means having to raise your ISO, which in turn means excessive noise in your photos that can affect the overall image sharpness. 5. Use Graduated ND f i l ter One of the big challenges of landscape photography, especially in low light conditions is the difference in the light areas (the sky) and your dark areas (the foreground). To compensate for this difference in exposure settings needed, you can either use a technique called ‘exposure stacking’. That means taking multiple shots at different exposure levels and then merging them into one photo in post-processing (using layer blending or HDR techniques). 6. Experiment With Shutter Speed For example, set a really slow shutter speed of 30 seconds and if there is some wind you will see some amazing cloud movement streaks in the sky. Or if you are by the coast set a fast shutter speed

to capture the waves crashing into the rocks. Play around with the settings until you have something that looks amazing and captures the scene perfectly.

7. Post -Product ion Usually, the final step in any good landscape photo is some post-processing. This always seems to be a contentious issue as some photographers prefer to keep post-processing to a minimum and some like to really boost the image. Whatever your preference and way of working are, it comes down to personal opinion. But there are a few things that you should look at as a minimum.

For example, making sure your images are straight, clear of dust spots, and correcting the white balance should be a must. You may also want to tweak the crop of the photo if it needs it. Beyond that, ensuring a good contrast and boosting the saturation will help your landscape image jump out.

Generally speaking, every photo will benefit from some level of post-production. Some will need more and some less.

Adapted from: Kav Dadfar- digital-photography-school.com

Mrs Murphy said: I don’t tink me husband has been faithful to me’. ‘Why’s that?’ said Mrs O’Toole. ‘Me last child don’t look anything like him’. Shaun and Molly sat up all night, on their honeymoon, waiting for their conjugal relations to arrive. In the 60's, people took acid to make the world look weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it look normal.

3

Natural History (1) Projected Images A Grade Rosemary McGeachie ‘Black-backed Gull (Dominican) Larus dominicanus’ - Accepted ‘White-faced Heron (Ardea novaehollandiae)’ - Accepted Chris Watson ‘New Zealand fur seal’- Honours ‘Variable oystercatcher chick’ - Merit B Grade Peter Aalders ‘Blue-Tongue-Lizard’ - Accepted ‘Goanna’ - Accepted Les Ladbrook ‘Stick Insect (Clitarchus hookeri)’ - Accepted ‘Variable oystercatcher’ - Honours Barbara Lee ‘Juvenile fantail’ - Accepted ‘Southern black-backed gull’ - Merit Dot Mullay ‘Damselfly Ischnura senegalensis’ - Accepted ‘Green frog Litoria aurea’ - Accepted Mark Phillips ‘Bush Lawyer (Rubus Micranthobatus) in flower on Hebe ‘ - Merit ‘Clouded monitor lizard (Varanus nebulous)’ - Merit Sarah Stirrup ‘Morepork (Ruru) study’ - Accepted ‘Red-billed gull (Larus novaehollandiae)’- Accepted

Val Wardell ‘Black Swan (Cygnus atratus) landing’ - Accepted Dayle Wright ‘Cycloctenus fugax’ - Accepted ‘Galerina potagonica’ - Honours C Grade Richard Adams ‘Gentiana bellidifolia growing through a Hebe’ - Accepted Margaret Kalweit ‘Damselfly’ - Merit ‘Wood Pigeon’ - Accepted Tania Mackie ‘Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae’ - Accepted Gillian Maclean ‘Eurasian Blackbird - (Turdus merula Linnaeus)’ - Accepted ‘Tui -(Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae)’ - Accepted Phil McCartney ‘Nestor notabilis’ - Accepted ‘Paguroidea sp.’ - Accepted Mark Stevens ‘Kea’ - Accepted ‘Skylark’ - Merit Sandra Stevens ‘Great Crested Grebe’ - Accepted Anna Stewart ‘Honey Bee’ - Accepted Shane Todd ‘Onopordum acanthium’ - Accepted ‘Piwakawaka’ - Accepted Rob Wardell ‘Kookaburra 1’ - Merit ‘Kookaburra2’ - Accepted

Prints A Grade Rosemary McGeachie ‘Red-billed Gulll (Larus novaehollandiae)’ - Accepted ‘Spotted Shag (Strictocarbo punctatus) ‘ - Honours Chris Watson ‘Banded dotterel’ - Merit ‘Black-billed gulls’ - Accepted Dayle Wright ‘Cycloctenus fugax’ - Accepted ‘Thalassarche bulleri’ - Merit B Grade Peter Aalders ‘Ghost-Crab’ - Accepted ‘Wasp -meat cutter-’ - Merit Cheryl McMath ‘Bellbird Anthornis melanura’ - Accepted ‘Sparrow Passer domesticus’ - Accepted Sr Maria ‘Salvin's Albatross Thalassarche salvini’ - Merit ‘Juvenile Tui Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae’ - Accepted Dot Mullay ‘Fantail Rhipidura fuliginosa’ - Merit ‘Silvereye Zosterops lateralis’ - Honours Mark Phillips ‘Macaque (M. f. fascicularis)’ - Accepted ‘Milky Stork (Mycteria cinerea)’ - Accepted C Grade Margaret Kalweit ‘Blue Damselflies’ - Accepted ‘Silver Eye’ - Honours

Continued on Page 3

Results

4

Continued from Page 3

Sandra Stevens ‘Great Crested Grebe’ - Accepted ‘White-faced Heron’ - Accepted Anna Stewart ‘Tui’ - Merit Shane Todd ‘ Pava cristatus’ - Accepted

Photojournalism (1) Projected Images Richard Adams ‘Teretonga A Grade Final Lap’ - Accepted ‘Teretonga Junior Race’ - Merit Annie Carmichael ‘Close Shave for Ol' Blue Eyes’ - Accepted ‘Gizza Kiss!!’ - Accepted David Clearwater ‘Milesi flies at Teretonga’ - Honours Allan Collett ‘Harvest time’ - Accepted Liz Collett ‘Full of air’ - Accepted Sharon Cooper ‘A&P Showjumper’ - Merit Keri Kahotea Not Happening Today’ - Merit Margaret Kalweit ‘End in sight’ - Accepted Les Ladbrook ‘The Entertainers’ - Accepted ‘The Entertainers Helper’ - Accepted Barbara Lee ‘Oblivious to the risk’ - Accepted Rosalie Lindsay ‘Pedal Power’ - Accepted Phil McCartney ‘wellington point - Accepted Rosemary McGeachie ‘Hanging on!’ - Accepted ‘One to go!’ - Merit Dot Mullay ‘The sky's the limit.’ - Merit ‘Powering down the home straight.’ - Honours Ian Smith ‘Flying High’ - Merit ‘Head Down, Tail Up– Honours Sandra Stevens ‘Hard at work Crutching’ - Accepted Anna Stewart ‘Negotiating the Bar’ - Accepted ‘Burning Bus’ - Accepted Shane Todd ‘Post race maintenance’ - Accepted ‘Hat trick coming up’ - Honours Rob Wardell ‘Girls Dance 1’ - Accepted

Chris Watson ‘This is gonna hurt!’ - Accepted ‘Smashed em bro’ - Merit

Prints Rosemary McGeachie ‘Hitching a ride with Il Nonno in Florence’ - Merit ‘Nearly there!’ - Honours Shane Todd ‘Old school shearing’ - Accepted ‘Heeeeave!’ - Merit Chris Watson ‘Pushing Hard’ - Accepted ‘They still made it too!’ - Accepted Dayle Wright ‘Haere ra ehoa’ - Accepted ‘Dying for a drink’ - Accepted An old priest got sick of everyone in his parish confessing adultery. During one Sunday's sermon he told them, ‘If one more person confesses to adultery, I'll quit!’ Since everyone liked him, they decided to use a code word ‘fallen.’ From then on, anyone who had committed adultery said they had ‘fallen.’ This satisfied the old priest and the parishioners, and everything was fine for years, until finally the old priest passed away at the ripe old age of 93. Shortly after the new young priest settled in, he paid a call on the Mayor. The priest was quite concerned, ‘You have to do something about the footpaths in this town, Mayor. You can't believe how many people come into the confessional talking about having fallen!’ The Mayor started to laugh, realising that no one had explained their code word to the new priest. But before the mayor could explain, the priest shook his finger at the mayor and said, ‘I don't know why you're laughing, your wife told me that she fell three times last week!’ Three priests were in a railroad station on their way home to Pittsburgh. Behind the ticket counter was a very sexy, shapely, well endowed woman wearing a very tight, skimpy sweater. She made the three priests very nervous, so they drew straws to determine who would get the tickets. The first priest approached the window. ‘Young lady, I would like three pickets to titsburg.’ He completely lost his composure and fled. The second priest goes to the window. ‘Young lady, I would like three tickets to Pittsburgh and I would like the change in nipples and dimes.’ Mortified, he too fled. The third priest moves to the window. ‘Young lady, I would like three tickets to Pittsburgh and I would like the change in nickels and dimes, and, if you insist on dressing like that, when you get to the pearly gates, St. Finger's going to shake his Peter at you.’ Haunted French pancakes give me the crepes. Gardening Rule: When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.

A THOUGHTFUL SCOTTISH HUSBAND? Did you hear about the thoughtful Scotsman who was heading out for a pint at the pub? He turned to his wee wife before leaving and said,'Margaret - put your hat and coat on lassie..' She replied, ' Awe Jock that's awfy nice - are you taking me to the pub wi you?' 'Nae', Jock replied, 'I'm switching the central heating off while I'm oot.' The teacher asked the class to use the word 'fascinate' in a sentence. Molly put up her hand and said, 'My family went to my granddad's farm, and we all saw his pet sheep. It was fascinating.' The teacher said, 'That was good, but I wanted you to use the word 'fascinate, not fascinating'. Sally raised her hand. She said, 'My family went to see Rock City and I was 'fascinated.' The teacher said, 'Well, that was good too Sally, but I wanted you to use the word 'fascinate.' Little Johnny raised his hand. The teacher hesitated because she had been burned by little Johnny before. She finally decided there was no way he could damage the word 'fascinate', so she called on him. Johnny said, 'My aunt Gina has a sweater with ten buttons, but her tits are so big she can only fasten eight.' The teacher sat down and cried. A man was riding his Harley along a California beach when suddenly the sky cleared above his head and, in a booming voice, the Lord said, 'Because you have tried to be faithful to me in all ways, I will grant you one wish.' The biker pulled over and said, 'Build a bridge to Hawaii so I can ride over anytime I want.' The Lord said, 'Your request is materialistic. Think of the enormous challenges for that kind of undertaking; the supports required reaching the bottom of the Pacific and the concrete and steel it would take! It will nearly exhaust several natural resources. I can do it, but it is hard for me to justify your desire for worldly things. Take a little more time and think of something that could possibly help mankind.' The biker thought about it for a long time. Finally, he said, 'Lord, I wish that I and all men could understand women; I want to know how she feels inside, what she's thinking when she gives me the silent treatment, why she cries, what she means when she says nothing's wrong, why she snaps and complains when I try to help, and how I can make a woman truly happy.' The Lord replied, 'You want two lanes or four lanes on that bridge?' The Board of a big company with flagging financial results and rising internal costs decided it was time for a shakeup and hired a new CEO with a reputation as a hard task-master who demanded 100% from all his employees. The new boss was determined to rid the company of all slackers, and on a tour of the facilities, he noticed a guy just leaning against a wall. The room was full of workers, all apparently hard at work, but he wanted to let them know that he meant business, so he asked the guy, ‘How much money do you make a week?’ A little surprised, the young man looked at him and said, ‘I make $400 a week. Why?’ The CEO said, ‘Wait right here.’ He walked back to his office, came back in two minutes, and handed the guy $1,600 in cash and said, ‘Here's four weeks' pay. Now GET OUT and don't come back.’ Feeling pretty good about himself, the CEO looked around the room and asked, ‘Does anyone want to tell me what that goof-ball did here?’ From across the room a voice said, ‘He was the Pizza delivery guy from Domino's.’ A dentist and a manicurist married. They fought tooth and nail.

5

A Beginner’s Guide to Focus Stacking

How do you shoot with the best aperture and shutter speed combination, and get sharp images from front to back of an image? A technique that can help resolve this problem is called focus stacking. Here’s some helpful info about this technique.

What You Need

A tripod.

A DSLR camera, capable of shooting in manual mode. It is possible to use a point and shoot camera, but it must have manual mode and manual focus capabilities.

Depth of Field iPhone app (helpful but not required).

Photoshop or another focus stacking software.

With focus stacking, images are captured with different focus points, and later combined in Photoshop, to create an image with more DOF than would be possible with a single exposure. Landscape and macro photography are two genres of photography that benefit most from using this procedure. Be warned – calm winds and reasonably stationary objects are a must!

Landscape

There are two basic scenarios when shooting landscapes that may benefit from focus stacking. The first is when the subject is a close foreground object, with an interesting background, both desirable aspects to be in sharp focus. The second is when using a telephoto lens (which typically has

a shallow depth of field) and the subject covers multiple distances that may be brought into sharper focus. Steps for Shooting Landscapes for Focus Stacking

1. Place the camera on a sturdy tripod – a must!

2. Frame the subject and compose the shot.

3. Determine exposure for the scene, and set the camera to manual mode, to ensure that the exposure is constant for every image.

4. Set the camera to Live View and aim the focus point on the nearest object desired to be in focus. Use the camera’s zoom (+ button, not zoom on the lens) to preview the focus through Live View. Then switch to manual focus and use the focus ring to fine tune for sharpness if necessary.

5.Take the first exposure. 6. Without moving the camera or

adjusting any settings, move the focus point to an object mid-way in the image and refocus.

7. Take the second exposure. 8. Again, without changing

anything, refocus on an object at the farthest point of the intended image.

9. Take the third exposure. To capture landscapes, three images are generally all that is necessary to create sharp focus stacking images, but it’s completely fine to take extra images to make sure that the entire scenee is covered. A rule of thumb would be to add more images for longer focal lengths. Be aware that extra images will take longer to process in post-production. If available, check the DOF with a Smartphone app, in order to figure out how many images will be necessary, to get every aspect of the photo in focus. Macro Photography Macro photography can benefit from focus stacking more than any other type of photography, because a macro lens has an extremely shallow depth of field. 1. Place the camera on a sturdy

tripod – a must! 2. Frame the subject and compose

the shot. 3. Determine the exposure for the

subject, and set the camera to manual mode to ensure that the exposure remains constant for each and every image.

4. Set the camera to Live View and aim the focus point on the nearest object desired to be in focus. Use the camera’s zoom (+ button, not zoom on the lens) to preview the focus through Live View. Then switch to manual focus and use the focus

ring to fine tune for sharpness if necessary.

5.Take the first exposure. 6. Without moving the camera or

adjusting any settings, move the focus point to a distance slightly farther away from the lens. Remember that DOF in macro will be measured in fractions of an inch, instead of feet, as in landscape photography.

7. Repeat step 6 as many times as needed to cover every aspect of the subject’s DOF. This could range from as few as six images to 30+ images. Make sure the entire subject is covered or the results may be unusable. If available, check the DOF with the iPhone app (www.setmycamera.com), in order to figure out how many images will be necessary to get every aspect of the photo in focus.

Summary It is nearly every photographer’s intention to capture the sharpest images possible, and focus stacking can be another tool to help you achieve this goal. The trick to this whole process is to take enough focused images, to create a final photo that is in focus from foreground to background. The results can be amazing once you get the hang of it! Give it a try. Adapted from: Bruce Wunderlich - digital

-photography-school.com

A 78 yr old Chief asks his wife ‘Do you feel sad when you see me running after young girls?’ Wife replied, ‘No not at all, even dogs chase cars and they can't drive.’

‘I lost my virginity very late. When it

finally happened, I wasn’t so much deflowered as deadheaded.’ There were two peanuts walking down a dark alley, one was assaulted. He was a good man. He never smoked, drank, had no affairs. When he died, the insurance company refused the claim.

6

Respect

Within our club and the wider community there is a huge amount going on besides just individuals taking photos with their cameras. There are club activities and programmes, workshops and conferences, master classes, photography travel tours, websites, editing programmes and many, many other things happening which encompass everything to do with the art of photography.

Image competitions form a very important part of our on-going club programme and we can be very single minded when it comes to entering competitions. It occurs to me from time to time that we become so engrossed in our images that we forget to acknowledge those people who selflessly give of their time and talents to judge those images. Why do some of us aspire to be judges? I often wonder about that. It can be a very thankless and lonely task, but at the same time judges are just as vital as the people that enter their images. One cannot survive without the other.

In the world of photography and more specifically here within our local camera club we express ourselves in lots of different ways as we go about learning and involving ourselves in photographically related activities. Everyone no matter at what stage they are with their photography have a style, whether they know it or not, the reason being is that what they photograph and share with others are images that represent an extension of their personality, likes and dislikes. Each person’s image is very personal and it is the main reason why we can

easily be very defensive whenever our images are under the spotlight for whatever reason be it in a competition or just in general conversation.

It is a good thing that there are so many directions you can go with photography and this attracts many people from many different backgrounds and interests. It can be quite difficult sorting out what really interests you. Is it natural history or is it photojournalism or is something else. We all consciously and subconsciously gravitate in certain directions depending on what appeals and the sort of person we are. These choices are very personal and very valid and understanding not just your choices and preferences, but others particularly within the club is something that is good to work on.

Just because we may not understand the style that another person is pursuing in their photography does not lessen its validity. For instance, we have a number of people in our club who get inspiration out of the art of producing and perfecting the technique of unfocused images and on a regular basis many very inspirational images are produced. It is not conventional photography, but it is, in my opinion, most certainly valid. As photographers we are not going to be good at or attracted to all genres of photography, but let’s not forget that if we show disrespect to a particular form of photography we also show disrespect to those who images they are.

Ian Smith - President

All desirable things in life are either illegal, banned, expensive or married to someone else!

Open Print PSNZ Bronze Medal Stephanie Forrester LPSNZ ‘Footprints in the Sand’ Acceptances Annie Carmichael LPSNZ ‘An Enigma Wrapped in a Mystery’ Chris Duggan APSNZ ‘Tunnel Art’ Barbara Lee APSNZ ‘Digitised’ ‘In the Crowd’ ‘I Remember When’ Ian Smith ‘Left to Weather’ ‘WEA Building Invercargill’ Roger Wandless FPSNZ ‘Gold Prospectors Crib, Central Otago’ David Watson ‘What’s Behind the Green Door’ Nature Print PSNZ Gold Medal Roger Wandless ‘Nesting Antarctic Petrel’ Acceptances Roger Wandless FPSNZ ‘Furs Seals on Sea Ice’ Open Projected Image Acceptances Chris Duggan APSNZ ‘Mothers Nightmare’ Barbara Lee APSNZ ‘Sharing a Joke’ ‘You Will Behave’ Rosalie Lindsay ‘A Work in Progress’ ‘Love is Blind’ Ian Smith ‘ILT Stadium Invercargill’ Roger Wandless FPSNZ ‘Admiring the View and Capturing it’ ‘20 Teens Style’ Nature Projected Image Acceptances Barbara Lee APSNZ ‘South Island Fantail’ ‘NZ Bellbird in Coprosma’ Roger Wandless FPSNZ ‘Curville Mountains and Chinstrap Colony’ ‘Iceberg and Sea Ice, Antarctica’ CONGRATULATIONS AND WELL DONE - WE SALUTE YOU ALL ON YOUR SUCCESSES.

PSNZ Canon National Exhibition of Photography 2018 - SPS Successes