This week we had the first of the “our member’s present” nights. This is a slightly different format to previous home grown evenings, where we had a tutorial presentation – in this case the first of a series of presentations by our chairman Andy Hyde – for the first part of the evening and then a set of 4 member’s mini’s presentations by other members in part 2. This is the first time we’ve tried this format and it seemed to work really well.
As Andy said in the introduction to the presentation, at the last AGM we asked our members what they wanted to learn about and those requests have been turned in to a series of tutorials.
Off-Camera Flash by Andy Hyde
During the tutorial presentation Andy spoke about the history of flash, and then described how to synchronise your camera and flash when the flash not on the camera.
As part of the presentation we discussed how “simple” manual flashes work by simply receiving an instruction to “fire now”, which Andy illustrated by talking about the PC socket found on many cameras, and then moved on to comparing this to the Hot Shoe seen on almost every camera nowadays.
The presentation then moved on to discuss “automatic” flashes where the power of the flash can be varied. This then led to an in-depth question and answer session and a review of specific products including a studio , a simple manual flash and dedicated flashes and radio triggers.
Although this was a technical presentation with a lot to take in, many members joined in the discussions, asking a range of different questions which lead to a very informative session.
The next presentation in the series is An introduction to Studio lighting which will cover placing of lights, controlling the power and light modifiers.
If you’d like to see Andy’s presentation in detail, you can download the Power-point slides here off-camera-flash.
Camera Axe by Dave Cheesman
In the second part of the evening Dave Cheesman spoke about a device called a Camera Axe, which is device that can be used to trigger a number of outputs (for example a external flash or the camera itself) in response to a number of inputs.
Dave explained how the Camera Axe came as a kit of parts which he assembled, then built into his shooting rig.
This allows the photographer to precisely time their exposure to capture a fleeting event such as water drop landing or a balloon popping.
The Selfie Mystery solved by Tony Maynard-Smith
Many of you will remember the Selphie Assignment and Tony’s mystery photo where we couldn’t explain the double image of the woman in white seen below.
Tony explained how he investigated this shot in different ways to find the explanation, which showed the unexpected effect of one particular camera setting.
Moonlight Landscapes by Greg Covington
For a little light entertainment, Greg showed a series of images he took at night showing a set of Scotish views taken by moonlight.
Local landscapes by Dave Martin
Dave Martin rounded off the evening with a number of his beautiful landscape shots from the local area. Within his presentation Dave explained when and where the shots had been taken and some of the post processing he used to get the best from each image.
