Resume of the Photography Group meeting held on 17th April 2019

By Dave Hardy

Eight members of the group attended the meeting.

John Snell welcomed new group member Anne Madden to the meeting.

Photographic Exhibition The exhibition planned for the end of May has been cancelled as there are insufficient promises of images for it to be successful. A popular idea was that the group could show a selection of pictures taken by group members at a couple of U3A general meetings during the year. Pictures taken for the monthly challenges could be used. Gray Garnett commented that she had a number of pictures which she thought were not very good were transformed by Dave Reynolds and she was extremely grateful for his time and help. In other words, donā€™t be shy. A bit of editing can work wonders!

Outings

Calpe Good Friday. There were thoughts about going to see the Good Friday parade at 2000 hrs in Calpe, However the weather forecast for the weekend is very wet and windy, so no firm arrangements have been made.

Sculpture Garden Albir. It was proposed that the group visit the Sculpture Garden in Albir. Please see the link https://www.klein-schreuder.com The garden is open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays from 1000 ā€“ 1400 hrs, price 5ā‚¬. However group visits can be made at other times with prior arrangement. If there is sufficient interest I will try to arrange a visit on Wednesday 22nd May. If there are insufficient numbers, we will go on Saturday 18th May. Please email me soonest if you would like to go on  22nd May.

Jane Morley subscribes to https://www.365project.org . It is a photography website where users do their best to upload one image a day as part of their project. Please have a look at the site which gives all the information on what it does and how it works. Iā€™ve signed up, user name js46, but have yet to upload any images. I suggest that if you think it might work for you, please sign up and we can compare notes at the next meeting. They also have monthly ā€œChallengesā€.

Instructional videos. Three short videos were shown which explain different camera auto focus modes.

Part 1  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKi-5u_VwSM

Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqMTaPE7wFg

Part 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJuYXOw06P8

These 3 minute videos give a good general overview of what different autofocus modes should do. However, I recommend that you also search for a tutorial for your own camera. For example I have a Lumix FZ330 bridge camera which has 5 different auto focus modes ā€“ very scary. I googled ā€œFZ330 auto focus modes tutorialā€ and immediately up came a very useful 25 minute video doing just that. So now itā€™s just a bit less scary!

Several members responded to the Challenge ā€œStreet Lightingā€. Thank you. Tom Birch had several taken images in Moraira, and Dave Hardy shared some excellent night scenes of Polop.

Next challenge. Dave hardy suggested that we should incorporate what we learned in the tutorial videos in our monthly challenge ā€“ an excellent idea! New member Ann Madden drew the next challenge from the hat, which is ā€œAspects of Coastsā€. So in addition to taking the pictures, if you have different auto focus modes, try to take images which use each of the auto focus modes on your camera. If you donā€™t have a choice, just let the camera decide!

Sharing of images between group members. The group does not currently have a system or use a platform where members can share images within the group. John said he will investigate possibilities. If some members already use a platform which can be used to share images within a small group, and think that it would also be suitable for our group, please let John and/or Tom know.

Next meeting. The next meeting will be on Wednesday 15th May at 1030 at the Martillo Bar.