Summer Programme
What We do during those Summer Months!
June 16th saw the first Summer programme evening at Mudford church. How to take images for HDR, time exposures and how to turn on / connect up a flashgun were all covered. By half-eight we were in Derek's garden learning how to set manual shutter and aperture to get a rather dim exposure of the overall scene before connecting a flashgun to light up flowers in the foreground. Plus how one adapter on camera and another on the flash can be joined together with a coiled flash lead to give an effect similar to sunlight with you in charge of the angle of lighting (this is especially useful for plants in the shade - and if it's not in the shade, how to hold up a blanket or similar to cast a shadow).
Check this Gallery for a selection of images taken on the night. 
June 23rd Saw 15 club members which is a good sign that you're curious about how your digital camera works in manual mode, especially in conjunction with a flashgun. Eric and Katrina’s garden in Goldcroft is always a delight to photograph and last night saw several more converts to the technique of using a flash instead of a tripod. to capture some of their lovely plants. Electronic flash works at between 1/1000th of a second and 10,000 of a second and is fast enough to stop the shakiest of hands ruining a picture, or prevent blurring of images due to the wind blowing flowers about. Tripods are okay, but they are heavy, clumbersome, awkward in tight spaces, time consuming to set up, and the wind is still able to spoil a good subject.
Check this Gallery for a selection of images taken on the night.
June 30th saw a change of direction to taking images with some basic studio lighting at Keith’s. A small glass swan became the subject matter and instead of the studio lights it was decided to use reflected daylight via a mirror along with a gold Lasolite reflector opposite the mirror to bounce back a warm glow. The light reflecting through the cut glass facets gave some colourful beams.
Check this Gallery for a selection of images taken on the night.
July 7th and we were again experimenting with off camera flash. A variety of home made bounce devices were on show which all worked to varying degrees. An enormous variety of colourful plants in Jo’s Garden helped to spread everyone out. A fair wind blew blooms around enough to present problems for those using a tripod. However, those of us who have figured out how the flash works fared slightly better as the flash tends to freeze petals with a tendancy to wriggle. Meanwhile, a tiny few with coiled lead connections and milk carton flash bouncers experimented further and were rewarded with some extremely interesting images. Richard brought along his projector and laptop so we could view some our results from previous summer evenings. There was standing room only as the evening was rounded off with a couple of AV’s.
Check this Gallery for a selection of images taken on the night.
July 17th 12 members had an intense evening of floodlighting! Kelv provided some lovely cut lily’s as the subject matter which were placed in front of a blue backdrop and illuminated by 2 studio lights placed at different angles. In addition some more homemade flash bounce devices were in operation, one made from “Funky Foam”. Once we had exhausted the photographic opportunities of the flowers and the club members, keith’s cat decided to take the limelight and strike a pose in the floodlights.
Check this Gallery for a selection of images taken on the night.
July 21st With four lighting set-ups spread over three rooms at Mark's house it was incredibly rewarding to see so many flashes firing off and hear the clickity clack of camera shutters. From smoky trails against a black background or multiple exposures using a Mini-Maglight, to security floodlighting on a bunch of flowers and a bottle of beer and glass lit with two floodlights against a white board we fired off several thousand images between us. We discovered backlighting and toplighting,, flash, flood and torchlight, and for those who stayed until the very end a beautiful sky provided a backdrop for outdoor portraits with balanced flash and Keith acting as lead model.
Check this Gallery for a selection of images taken on the night.
July 28th We were given the opportunity to capture images of Koi Carp at Steph and Colin's. For those that arrived early there were opportunities to capture images with these magnificent specimens near the waters surface. The fish soon decided to move to deeper water (5ft so I am told) so Colin with some skillful handling of the net coaxed a fish into a large tub part submerged in the pond. This provided the photographic opportunity for some close up images of our captive subject. With the aid of a card reader we were able to see the results on a laptop and it was decided that Kelv had captured the best image of the night.
Check this Gallery for a selection of images taken on the night.
August 4th 24 members of YCC were at Stoford. The members split into three main groups, those who wanted a chat indoors, a chat outdoors, and those with a yearning to explore the intricacies of about flash by exploring the garden’s beautiful possibilities. An enormous Hollyhock along with several smaller but similar species provided some of the best photos for me with both camera and flash set to manual. I just love the dark sky as a backdrop plus strong side-lighting or even back-lighting either of which can easily be captured via slow shutter speeds and high aperture plus a flashgun on coiled lead.
Check this Gallery for a selection of images taken on the night.
August 11th was a real cracker, well, three young crackers actually. David’s grandkids and their friend proved to be a trio of extremely popular portraits with a whole gang of keen prospective people photographers trying out Simon’s Kenro radio trigger, his Interfit 300 studio lighting kit and pukka background stands / cloth covering. In addition to the portrait session there were 3 different Still life set-up's to challenge us and the garden offered further photographic opportunities.
Check this Gallery for a selection of images taken on the night.
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