Bird Club Photographic Meeting

Another successful meeting over with many topics covered including:

• ISO - 'don't be afraid of the dark'
• Auto-ISO - 2 members ahead of the game and already using!
• Blurred image or grainy image? You choose
• Cleaning up digital noise - Neat Image©
• How to get that perfect background - thanks Paul
• How the judge judged the BC competition

We ran out of time before we'd covered all the topics on the agenda so next time we'll be getting to grips with the camera settings and going outside to practice on birds in flight, depth of field and anything else you'd like to cover. 

See you next time.

Jackdaw taken with a Canon 7D Mark II on ISO 6400

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We’ve been holding meetings at the usual venue for coming up to 2 years and thanks to Robin, the next date is Saturday 18^th March where we’ll be looking at camera settings.

The aim of the meeting is to help you get the best out of your digital photography, but is it for you? Here’s a questionnaire to see if you’d benefit from coming along.

How often do you change the settings on your camera?

1)    Frequently, whenever you’re in the field and depending on conditions

2)    Occasionally, but not very often

3)    Almost never, you let the camera decide what’s right

How often do you shoot in RAW

1)    Every time

2)    Not sure, tried it once but didn’t like it

3)    No way! Have you seen the temperature out there?

You shoot a hundred photos and they’re blurred or under/over-exposed. Do you:

1)    Blame yourself & read the manual to see what went wrong

2)    Blame the light conditions, winter’s never a good time of year for photography

3)    Check out cameras & lens prices on Wex/eBay/MPB etc.

Everyone seems to be getting better shots than you, do you:

1)    Compare your shots, check the exif data and change your settings

2)    Resign yourself to the fact that they’re better photographers than you

3)    Tell yourself they’ve got better equipment

How often do you up your ISO?

1)    Whenever conditions dictate

2)    Only if the light isn’t good, but rarely above 400

3)    What’s ISO?

You’re disappointed that your shots didn’t do that well in the competition. Do you?

1)    Congratulate the winners and ask for tips

2)    Shrug your shoulders and try to take similar images for next year’s entry

3)    Blame the judge and sell all your equipment on eBay

How did you do? I’m sure you have a good idea but if you add up the totals e.g. if you answered question 2) for all of them then that’s 6 x 2 = 12 points. Your score:

6 – 7; Well done, the meeting starts at 10.30, be early as you’ll be running it!

8 – 10; Impressive. Come along, we’d love your input

11 – 18; The meeting is made for you, please come along, we'd love to see you

Below: Great Spotted Woodpecker. ISO1600, f6.3, 1/200 tripod mounted. Cropped, no noise reduction.