February is shaping up to be a good month for the club. Several members will be joining me for a winter excursion to Chincoteague and Assateague Islands on February 6-8. We will be staying at the Best Western Hotel (formerly the Driftwood Inn). Although the temperatures may be a bit nippy, it is a great time of year to photograph the snow geese and migratory birds. After a fully day of photography, club members usually meet at one of the seafood restaurants for some fine dining and conversation. You still have time to make plans to join us! For those of you who hate the cold, I will probably head back to Assateague in May for some spring plumage and nesting photographs.

Ken Conger had to reschedule his visit to the club, so our next meeting will be a gadget and education night. Members can bring in cameras, lenses, and gadgets they have to enhance their photography. There will be computer calibration and Photoshop demonstrations. This will be an excellent opportunity for less experienced photographers to pick up some interesting tips and pointers and for seasoned photographers to see what some of these gadgets can do to upgrade your skill levels.

February is also a good time for bird and early flower photography. It is the month when crocuses begin to bloom, raptors begin to nest, and days grow longer. February can also provide us with some snow for some good winter photographs. I know that I long for those long warm days of spring and look forward to the opportunities that nature will provide for some really outstanding photographs.

So start to clean up your gear and prepare for the warmer days of spring time. They will surely be arriving in short order. I will be scheduling some Saturday day trips for those of you who want to get out to photograph some of nature’s wonders. I particularly enjoy photographing birds and other critters as well as the arrival of spring flowers and newly emerging leaves. I will announce these trips by email and hope that you will plan to attend some nature walks with me. If you have a suggestion for a local trip, contact me and I will plan to schedule it in.

Enjoy February, it will go by quickly.

-greg-

Many times we are faced with a situation where parts or our image is either over or under exposed. This is a function of the image sensor’s sensitivity to small changes to light. Have you noticed that the f-stops and speeds on your digital camera are set to 1/3 stops compared to full stops on a film camera? This is because the “latitude” (sensitivity) of the CMOS or CCD sensor is three times more sensitive to changes in light than film.

This may seem like a good thing, however it’s also the reason that a beach scene may have your main subject in proper exposure but the sky or sand is over exposed. Not to worry, there is a way around it. Read on….

The High Dynamic Range process allows you to combine several images taken at different speeds. There are two ways to achieve a HDR photo.

The first way, which I believe is the best way, is to take 5 shots of the same subject by bracketing the shutter speed (not the aperture) in this order: properly exposed, 2/3 stops under, 1/3 stop under, 1/3 over and 2/3 over. Many DSLRs have a bracketing feature that will do this automatically. Be sure that you use a tripod or something that will keep your camera still. You will also need a subject that does not move. The reason for this is that you will be combining them later on and any changes in your subject will appear blurred.

Now that you have five shots of the same subject, shot with a range of shutter speeds, you will notice that some are over exposed and some are under exposed. This is what you want.

Next, get some type of HDR software, Photomatix Pro, is one I suggest. You can pick it up as a stand alone or a plug into Photoshop CS, about $79 (worth every penny). If you have Photoshop CS3 or later, the HDR plug in is already there.

The HDR software will allow you to load the series of shots that you bracketed beginning with the most underexposed to the most overexposed. Then let the magic of the software do the rest.

Oh, the second way. If you already have a RAW photo that you have not bracketed, you can re-expose it by changing the exposure settings in your camera RAW software and saving each image as a new file. What you will be left with is a combination of all the photos and a final image that you will be proud of!

Now, how does all this work? Well it’s quite a simple explanation, but it will require you to understand the highlight histogram. If you look at the image’s histogram of the underexposed images, you will see that the bars are more shifted to the left. Conversely you will notice that the overexposed images have bars shifted to the right. You should see the properly exposed image with bars somewhere between. HDR software uses a mathematical algorithm that calculates the best of all the photos loaded and then compresses the range of exposures so that they all better fit inside the limits of an over and underexposed image. In layman’s term it’s magic.

For example of some HDR images, refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging

A little change in plans for our February meeting. Ken Conger had to re-schedule for April so we will be holding our "Gadget Night" instead (by popular demand).

Bring your questions, cameras, lenses, lighting, flashes, software on a laptop, or what ever you want. This will give us the opportunity to share tips and tricks on how everyone else uses their gear.

The room will be divided into areas such as:

• Cameras (film and digital) and lenses
• Lighting and flashes
• Software and workflow
• Tools of the trade (Tripods, bags, light meters, monitor calibrators, etc)

I think we can all learn from each other, and this will give us an opportunity to do so.

If you're not sure what you can bring, then bring everything!

I will be demonstrating one of the following:

• How you can set up your own money making website for free!
• Set up a portable studio for under $1,000.

Hope to see you all there!

Peter Kapasakis

The Camera Club of Richmond invites prospective members to attend our meetings which are held the second Wednesday of each month at 7:30 p.m. at the Science Museum of Virginia.

Annual dues are $25 a person, $40 a couple. See our website for additional information.

The club’s website is: www.CameraClubOfRichmond.com

Club Officer Contact information is available on the web: www.cameraclubofrichmond.com/officers.html

Please send submissions for future newsletters to the Publications Director.
We want to know what you are doing!

Our club is a member of the Photographic Society of America. Visit PSA online at:
www.psa-photo.org

For a membership application, see Carole Hagaman, our club’s PSA representative.

The first ArtPerk Straight Shot Newsletter of 2009

Joseph Rossbach Photography Instruction

Contact: Tom Graves at tgravesz3@yahoo.com