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George Lepp Seminar, February 11, 2012--Part 1

3/31/2012

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George Lepp is one of the Canon Explorers of Light, obviously a great photographer and a darned good speaker. http://www.georgelepp.com/  Sadly only 4 (!) CCC members took advantage of his practically free, all day seminar on Saturday February 11. Practically free because when you paid the $19.95 registration you received a $19.95 gift certificate to Milford Camera, the sponsor. Here’s Part 1 of a summary of his talk.

George’s talk was titled “Innovative techniques for outdoor photography: snowflakes to gigascapes”. The morning was devoted to talking about the techniques, the afternoon to the applications of them.

First let me start with his ‘bottom line’ advice—actually 2 bits of advice: Don’t limit your vision to what your gear gives you, don’t be a purist; use a computer to achieve your vision. And secondly, You must be knowledgeable of what you can do to process images, what you are capable of doing in the computer, BEFORE you go out to shoot, otherwise you are missing half your possibilities because you need to shoot specifically for the types of techniques you will use.

Techniques:

1. Panoramas—6 types. How many of you knew there were that many?!

The Composite panorama is the one we’re all familiar with; 2 or more shots, overlapping and combined into one long scene. Advantage over just cropping a single wide angle shot is that you can achieve much more detail for better, larger enlargement.

The Combination panorama as he described it is a series of HDR shots which are then combined as you would for a composite. You’re taking at least 3 times as many shots: 3 for each HDR times 2 or more to cover the entire scene you wish to capture. In addition, many of his were double decker panos, that is, 2 rows. Imagine the file size!

He also mentioned Aerial panoramas. Taken from a plane, he took a shot every 5 seconds and combined them.

Macro and Close-up panoramas. His advice: move the object not the camera. He takes a grid of shots to combine in a 3x3 or 3x4 image combination. The result is much more detail than you can achieve in a single shot, especially for enlargements. His prints measure in feet not inches!

Next was creating panoramas using the Giga Pan, which is a robotic device made for different sizes of cameras from P&S to DSLRs. You program it to take the necessary number of shots [sometimes hundreds!] for what they describe as ‘gigapixel’ sized panoramic images. http://www.gigapan.org/cms/shop/store  Who has that much file space!?!

Lastly he covered Action Sequence panoramas. These are a different take on blending images. He uses the motor drive to take a rapid series of shots of a subject in action. You might use only every other one and some Photoshop magic to combine them. His example, 8 stills of a baboon crossing a stream all shown in one image.

Next up: 2. Additional Lighting

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Workshops, meet-ups, field trips, photo ops...

3/25/2012

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Many thanks to those members who have stepped up to organize some outings. Fred and Nick are to be commended for their willingness to be instructors on the planned trip to NYC. Photo walks in New Haven are still in the planning stage with thanks going out to Christine and Maura--details to come. The New London Motorcycle Club has invited us to shoot events at the season kick-off "Blessing of the BIkes" at Ocean Beach St. Park, April 22. We held a photo shoot at their club house in October and had a great time. This requires signing up in advance please. A group is planning a photo walk at the Conn College Arboretum--probably in late April. The Madison Cares/Habitat for Humanity folks have requested we cover their event May 12 again this year. Participants will get an ID to identify them as "official photographers" for the event. Activities chair, Archie has been in contact with the Robin Hood Festival for special photo access for the club May 27th. More on these activities will be announced in due time.

If you have an idea for a photo shoot/photo walk/meet-up, get some of the basic info together re: date and time that are good for you. We'll get the word out to the other members. 

Even when there is no designated workshop leader there are usually a few experienced shooters at these events. I hope these folks will offer help to the members who are just getting started. And beginners; don't expect to be led by the hand for everything. Do some homework especially getting familiar with your camera by studying the manual. If you've paid attention at the mini-workshops after meetings you should be getting familiar with some of the terminology and camera functions as well as what they can do for you creatively. If something is unclear, don't be afraid to ask.
We want to share our knowledge but we cannot be a formal photography class. 


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First Post!

3/16/2012

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Welcome to the CCC blog on our newly designed web site. Rob has added the blog page so that I can post all those little reminders and tidbits of info that I usually send via email. 
In this post I just want to remind everyone of the club project, a photo essay. REMEMBER?! An exact submission deadline hasn't been set but the viewing will take place at our May 16th meeting. I KNOW you are all focused on selecting images for the joint competition coming up April 4th as well as planning what to frame for the exhibit at Gladeview in May. Phew! Sounds overwhelming. But as you are looking through your images maybe you have a photo essay there and didn't realize it. If you like to shoot a particular subject or place, that could be the basis of your essay. If you need new material, one photo shoot can provide all you need to tell us a story so you still have time to go out and collect the shots for an essay. 
Tip: Never let a week go by without making at least one image!
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    Maryann Flick

    President, Coastal Camera Club

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