Royal Photographic Society Digital Imaging Group News

DIG News - August 2019

‘Groningen Museum’ by Janet Haines ARPS Winner of the DIG monthly competition for July

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DIG ANNUAL PI COMP

August 2019

This years DIG Members Projected Image Competition is open for submissions from August 1st. Click on the ad to go to the web page for full information and to submit your images.

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August 2019

DIG MONTHLY ONLINE COMPETITION Thank you to all those who voted for my image this month and embarrassingly made it the July Monthly Comp winner.

I love the Groningen Museum, here in the Netherlands, both for the great variety of works they display but also for the lively, colourful building. Having recently had a workshop with Martin Addison on ‘Creative in Camera’ I decided that I would try to embrace ICM – intentional camera movement.

I consider myself a novice at this, but practice makes perfect. What settings – how much movement? The former I can tell you (from the RAW file) was ISO 1600, 1/8 secs and f5.6. The movement bit is anyones guess….. but not too much. Having selected my shooting position to get the angle on the stairs and doorways I waited for members of the public to be nicely spaced – then I start up high in the composition and as I start the downwards movement of the camera I hit the button. This was one of 5 in this shooting position, so it gives you an idea of how it really is trial and error.

Post processing I had to clone out a fire exit sign and some offending lights, but that was about it. Finished.

Congratulations to the two other members with their 2nd and 3rd placed images.

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2nd placed was Paul Bather ARPS with ‘Paper Shapes’

3rd placed was Lynda Mudle-Smith ARPS with ‘Multiple Astrantias’ 4

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AN OVERSEAS MEMBER This month we are featuring a DIG member who lives in Payrignac, France.

Here’s hoping that Brexit won’t spoil his chosen lifestyle and Gerry can continue to live happily, enjoying his retirement.

Gerry Phillipson LRPS Annie Leibovitz’s wish, “that all of nature’s magnificence, the emotion of the land, the living energy of place could be photographed,” defines what drives my photography.

I’ve been taking photographs since an aunt gave me a Kodak camera for my 11th birthday. I still have those first prints of family and friends. My main interest was natural history and I won prizes at school for nature diaries illustrated with my own photographs. Later, I concentrated on capturing birds in flight (1) and I’ve always photographed the landscape (2). As a student in London I discovered street photography and candid portraiture (3). Here the tired lady is lying on a stone slab, part of the Holocaust memorial in Berlin.

Greylag 5

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My LRPS submission covered a variety of these genres to show a range of techniques but it’s now time for me to specialise and take my work to the next level. I’m drawn towards documentary and fine art street photography, a series of photographs that tell a story (4 & 5), these from a series showing how France celebrated winning the football World Cup. The Iranian photographer, Attar Abbas, sets the standard for me, “My pictures are always part of a series, an essay. Each picture should be good enough to stand on its own but its value is a part of something larger.

The Langdale Pikes across Loughrigg For myself, photography is a distinctive way of both seeing and making contact with our wonderful but troubled world. It is philosophy in images.

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August 2019

Pilgrim

The Dream

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France celebrates the World Cup

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MEMBER DISTINCTIONS This month we congratulate the following members for achieving their Distinctions.

Elizabeth Blake LRPS Deborah Hammond LRPS Alastair Purcell LRPS Francis Sandbach LRPS

Brandon Chard Chard Chichester

WELCOME to our new members this month…

Lesley Peatfield LRPS Paul Davidson Debbie Christie Brian Titchiner Sue Davies. ARPS Guy Gibbons Sylvie Domergue Airo Shibuya

York Auckland, NZ Eastbourne South Ockendon Chalfont St Peter Wimbledon Madagascar Tokyo, Japan

Don’t forget new members that we have a Facebook closed user group for members only. It is always good to engage with fellow members that way. Our latest FB member is from Madagascar.…..

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GOOD PICTURE If, like me, you consider that the Imaging Science Special Interest Group is somehow ‘beyond me’ perhaps it is time we reconsidered that opinion as from what I am learning we are likely missing out on a very good meeting – Good Picture.

For the past two months we have been advertising their December meeting in DIG News so it seemed appropriate to look more deeply at what we might be missing. Firstly let us hear from the ISG Chair, Alan Hodgson and then a comment from a DIG member, Deborah Loth, who has attended their meetings in the past.

Alan Hodgson ASIS FRPS The Imaging Science Group Good Picture event – having fun with Photography

I have a long standing connection with this SIG event, going back around 12 years. Here is a personal journey and a personal theme “Even Good Pictures should be fun” with a selection of images from my presentations.

2007 – big lens; small sensors Playing with a 1200 mm f/6 carbon fibre telescope weighing in at 6kg. The images made their way into The Journal in September 2008, The presentation finished with a promise to build a digital camera from a monochrome surveillance camera board. This got delivered at Good Picture in 2013 as an infra-red video camera.

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2007 sensor and lens 2009 and 2011 – inkjet printing We took a break from image capture to spend some time on the development path of inkjet printers, using some microscope images of print.

2009 ink jet 2010 and 2013– my first infra-red cameras To celebrate my 40th year as a photographer I converted an old compact into an IR camera to shoot some monochrome work.

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Photosmart The second one was held together by blu-tac but took some interesting images.

The images from these made their way into The Journal too but in February 2009.

2010 blu tac camera 2012 – sky photography I love to shoot partially lit skies. In 2012 we did aurora photography with people, motion, planets and stars. The images made their way into The Journal October 2012 as an advert for Good Picture.

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2012 aurora 2013 – building IR cameras again Fulfilling a promise at Good Picture 2007 we made an IR video camera from the monochrome camera board.

2013 camera on tripod

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2014 – constellation photography Back to night skies again with a tour of Japan, Australia, Iceland, France and Bollington night skies. This is Kamikochi, Japan and this one will reappear in the 2019 event.

2014 Milky Way through Sagittarius This went in The Journal November 2017.

2016 – testing digital cameras with analogue pinholes Camera testing this year. Magnified images of illuminated pinholes can tell you a lot about a camera. Also look quite interesting.

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2018 – smartphones and DSLRs compared A current project – comparing smartphones and DSLRs. Both of these have identical apertures and pixel count. Guess which wins…

One of the other images went into The Journal Voicebox column June 2018 2019 – More DIY cameras, DSLRs, smartphones & blutac The Journal Voicebox column June 2019 had a preview image. I will leave you guessing…….

Alan requested that we acknowledge the support he has had from various colleagues over the years and would especially like to thank Peter G Crosby and Sue Wilson, microscopist.

…and now the view of a DIG Member who has attended the Good Picture meetings…..

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I am neither scientist nor engineer, which is the main reason why I attend the Imaging Science Group's Good Picture Symposium whenever I can. I don't usually read science or engineering magazines or journals or publications of any sort, but I am nonetheless curious about light, lenses, optics, digital sensors and the whole business of

Deborah Loth photographic and digital imaging above and beyond what I think I need to know to pursue my passion for photography.

These symposia provide a point of view which is otherwise absent from my life.

Each presents six to eight expert speakers who address a huge variety of subjects loosely related to a single theme. Each year, as I look at the programme, a few talks will attract my attention because they touch on topics which already interest me - astrophotography, smartphone photography, measuring camera or lens performance, colour management, chasing the aurora borealis, artificial intelligence, alternative technologies (pinhole, etc.) and others will be topics I have not thought about much, if at all - forensic photography and image analysis, vascular optics, 3D scanning, insect vision, hyperspectral and radar imaging, scientific photography. Inevitably some of the speakers are better than others.

Inevitably I can't wrap my head around everything. But I've learned a lot from these symposia, and really enjoyed chasing down hitherto unimagined rabbit holes.

Overall they have greatly improved my understanding of digital imaging software and devices, and my appreciation of experimentation.

Deborah Loth LRPS

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DIGIT ARCHIVE This month we asked Alan Cross LRPS to review a back copy or article of DIGIT. To link to this issue of DIGIT and other back copies you need to be logged in to My RPS and then navigate to The Full DIGIT archive HERE There is so much interesting material to look back on in the DIGIT archive, it’s difficult to choose just one article to review. But I rather enjoyed reading again this piece in DIGIT No 45 Spring 2010 by Dr Gwynn Robinson FRPS, entitled ‘Starting Out - Keeping Up’.

Gwynn Robinson.

In it, he starts by saying: “The fundamentals of photography, art, and good literature do not seem to change but the methods and processes that are used to create such work do change along with our ‘present’

tastes. Gwynn Robinson considers how such changes affect our photography and the opportunities we have to be creative.”

His article is a commentary on all the things that matter to us as photographers, and much of it is as relevant today as it was almost 10 years 16

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ago. Yes, 10 years in a lifetime is ‘not a lot’, but much has changed in photography, and in particular, digital imaging, in just that short time.

I can best comment on his excellent article by citing a few quotes from it: “I have heard that many people overlook opportunities to produce the best possible quality in their images because they do not understand how to use the applications on their computers. Are the new advancements the problem?

No. They are the solution. The problem lies in a lack of understanding. So what to do? There is a solution but it is a bit painful at first ... get out there and play with your computer, its applications, and your images.”

Forget the fashion just look at the style.

What to do before it’s too late.

“A skill is not just the ability to struggle through. It starts with competency.

Competency is the mastery of the fundamentally essential elements for your art. Skill is an extension of this as it is the ability to weald your competency with ease to achieve your vision to the highest quality attainable” “Photography is a journey .... You will have to travel your own path of learning and discovery, gaining your own set of skills that will enable you to innovate and to take photography to a new level. You have to have the courage to step 17

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onto that speeding path and keep going. You have to have the determination (and time) to work hard at developing your skills to new and higher levels.

Along this journey you will also develop your own photographic style – way of seeing, capturing, developing, presenting your work.”

“A final bonus: because technology is constantly changing and improving we can look forward to a lifetime of newness, enjoyment and increased ability.”

All in all, a good read - and he’s illustrated some of his points with witty images too!

If that article whets your appetite for Gwynn’s way of thinking, there’s another article by him in DIGIT No 58 (2013), entitled ‘The Wrong Thinking, the Right Thinking’.

I was the instigator of the DIGIT archive project (gratefully supported by Tony Healy and others), so I certainly hope that digging into it will provide members with some insights into the world’s ‘digital journey’ over the past 20-odd years, and perhaps a chance to reflect on our own contributions to it, and our enjoyment of it.

We can all make it together – by Gwynn Robinson

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KEN PAYNE TUTORIALS

August 2019

Greetings Members - I did a video like this three years ago but the subject was much more demanding and HeliconFocus won hands down. This time the subject matter is very simple and again HeliconFocus beats Photoshop yet again. Check it out.

Run time 20mins.

click on the image to take you to the relevant tutorial video on You Tube

Ken has kindly made us 3 special videos about how to prepare your images and upload them to the DIG PI Comp. These can all be found on the PI Comp page HERE

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HAVE YOUR SAY IN SHAPING THE FUTURE OF THE RPS

Determining the future direction of the RPS is the solemn responsibility of its Board of Trustees, but it is you, the members, who elect those Trustees every other year. Casting your vote in the election of Trustees, which takes place this summer, is how YOU can shape the future of the Society.

Membership voting is now open online and will close shortly before the Society AGM on Saturday 28 September. Go www.mi-vote.com/rps/ - have your RPS membership number to hand. There are two red boxes down the bottom of the page, one for the AGM papers and via the other you can find out who the Trustee candidates are. Each candidate has a statement, which we encourage you to read thoroughly, and then caste your vote for the Trustee candidates you feel best represent your views. If you feel you would be more comfortable using a postal vote, you can. Please read the information on www.rps.org/agm .

This is likely to be a decisive time for the RPS, with critical decisions having to be taken over the next couple of years, how it should be organised and what the role of its members should be. We urge you to decide for yourself which candidates most support the values and outcome you would like to see for your Society. It is no good in 12 months time grumbling about the decisions the Trustees are making if you don’t bother to vote now. Only if every member votes can we put in place a Trustee Board that truly reflects the wishes and opinions of the majority of members.

Make it happen - YOUR VOTE COUNTS.

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DIG CENTRES

August 2019

All DIG Centre meetings are open to everyone. Each puts on a minimum of 4 meetings p.a., offering varied and inspiring content. All welcome to every DIG meeting; members and nonMembers alike.

DIG Eastern Centre

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DIG N W Centre

DIG South East Centre

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August 2019

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DIG Southern Centre

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August 2019

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DIG Thames Valley

DIG Western Centre

By clicking on any of the Ads it will take you to the RPS Events pages where more information can be found about the meetings.

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SIG LINK Visual Art

Landscape Group

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A&H

By clicking on any of the Ads it will take you to the RPS Events pages where more information can be found about the meetings.

DIG NEWS STATISTICS Last month, with the help of HQ staff and our web content manager being able to access stats from ISSUU, we decided to monitor how many DIG members read DIG News. One reason was the time and effort it takes to put this together each month – ‘is it worth it?’ was the question in mind. We are also trying to look at the committee members workloads and how the work I currently do can be re-distributed when I stand down as DIG Chair in February 2020. What we discovered from the stats made some interesting reading, so we thought we would share this with you….

June DIG News was ‘read’ 1222 times (we cannot tell if some of this was duplicate access) There were 316 clicks where you linked out to other information.

69% of you access via a desktop, 6% via tablet and 25% via mobile.

76% of you go direct from the email that gets sent out, to Issuu.

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All that is convincing enough to tell us you like DIG News, you read DIG News and you use the links we provide to other material/tutorials etc. So we need to keep publishing DIG News and to find the manpower to compile it after I leave.

Regards

Janet

Janet Haines ARPS DIG Chair digchair@rps.org

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