NB - This week's members' Challenge - the Flay Lay Challenge - is now live. Go to the Members Only page to find a link to the gallery and to the recording of the evening. Please vote for your 3 favourite images; give them 1 to 5 'stars' depending how much you like them.
It's interesting that there is often more chat among members on Zoom than at physical meetings. We are mastering the comment feature, too. Great. I hope we keep it up when we finally do get back to what used to be normal.
One problem with only seeing peoples' competition images, which is usually the case, is the false impression it can create that standards are a lot higher in everyday photography than is actually the case. I am concerned when I suggest someone might be interested in joining the club and they say "Oh, I'm not good enough".
We all take bad photos. But we improve- and so do the cameras. Most photos are record shots. That's the point . They don't have to be high quality to bring the past to life. Of the 3500+ slides I have inspected so far, the 200 or so I have actually digitised maybe include 3 that I would call good photos. But they are all memories; record shots of a bygone era, when dinosaurs stalked the Earth with East German SLRs. I wish they were better pictures, because some of the people in them are gone, too. If you have several thousand 40 year old slides lying in a cupboard, I'd say you might seriously consider flinging the lot in the bin, but if not , while you probably won't find any competition entries, you likely will have fun tramping down memory lane.
Harry will never be a professional wildlife cameraman. You can bet Gordon Buchanan wouldn't put his camera down to rescue a gosling from a swan. He'd film the one-sided struggle and sell it to the Beeb. I can understand that, but I think I like Harry's approach better. I'm always envious of that image of the short eared owl, because I was there at the same time and got nowt worth keeping. Birds on the wing are nearly as bad as bees.
This article discusses why cameras "see" aurorae better than eyes.
Michael's talk on light raised some questions. The article above is good on seeing the aurora- and explains Tony's experience. Having the patience and the time to wait for the sun to move, or the clouds to part, is a mark of the true landscape photographer. It is also a reason to do photography on your own, as the chance of more than one person having similar patience simultaneously decreases as the number of people increases.
The human eye (especially when lied to by the human brain) has a far wider dynamic range than even good cameras. The sunlit, dappled forest Michael talked about is one of the hardest scenes to photograph, without losing detail in shadow or highlight. I agree with Sally that if we must lose information, it's best done at the shadow end. We expect shadows to be dark. Underexpose and raise it in post, being careful not to overdo the shadows. The alternatives are HDR, used with a light touch, or simply bracket exposures and do a wee bit of cut and paste. That's ok in a simple case, but unlikely to work with a complex chiaroscuro of light and dark. Fun to try , but best done on a tripod.
Any better ideas to try? A good talk is one that starts discussion. I always think Michael should do soundtrack voiceovers for a living. His is one of those authoritative voices you just naturally believe. Maybe the bedside manner?