Working At Night

We were staying in a hotel in Lucerne, on the fourth floor. Just after sunset I looked out of the window, and the light was beautiful. There were also dramatic cloud formations, which always provide good photo opportunities.  I took my tripod and camera and took a couple of photos. They were busy working on the road, so there was earthmoving equipment on site and red danger lights, which created a nice mood.

Back home when I downloaded the photos they were nice, but not as vivid as I recalled the colours to be. I decided to play around with this picture using HDR, and the photo then really came alive. I used Lightroom to crop and adjust the lighting. I created -2EV, 0EV and +2EV copies of the photo and then exported them to Photomatix to do the HDR magic.  I played around in Photomatix to get the right settings, and now I have a photo that matches my recollection of that scene.

Gerry Steyn

XMas Lights

While travelling through Switzerland, I was very fortunate to be at the right place at the right time. We were in the city of Bern, and I was waiting for Anli to join me as she was at a business meeting. We arranged to meet at the square in front of the Bundeshaus, i.e. the Parliament building, at 20h00.

While I was waiting the sun was setting, and I walked around, set up my tripod and took some photos. After a while, a crowd started gathering. I asked around, and a local lady explained to me that a show was about to start and that I should stay as it was very spectacular. I waited for a while and the show started. It was all in German, so I understood nothing, but the music and light show made up for that.

The Bundeshaus is a very old building with lots of character and textures. They used massive projectors to illuminate the building, and a story was projected onto the building. I took over 200 photos, and each one is different. The lighting changed often, with soldiers running around the building, the building filling up with water, you could see the water level rising in the windows, and then the building flooding. Many effects were created on the building, freezing over, on fire, painted in bright blue and red colour, it was just amazing! Everything done with projectors covering the whole building, in vivid detail! I just kept on taking photos, I have many excellent photos from that shoot. Minimal processing was done to the photos and I only had to remove a portion of a crane which was doing work behind the building.

Sometimes we do need lots of luck to get the right photos!

Gerry Steyn

Since you don’t want to leave me alone.

 

Centurion Camera Club CCC Club Night February 2014: Chante

Chante

On the 5^th of Dec 2013 I arranged with Chante and a friend of hers to take some photos. Because I do not have lighting equipment or a studio to shoot indoors we were forced to shoot outside. However my models viewed this as a casual shoot and were not prepared to start early to get the advantage of “good” light. By 01:27:20 PM we were on the roof of Menlyn (at drive-in) as they wanted photos of themselves in the old cars. Obviously at this stage the light was everything but perfect. Luckily some clouds would pass every now and then. We would run out and shoot a few shots before the sun is back. While waiting for the clouds to come we would hide under the “ Afdak” at the back of the drive-in. during one of these waits, motivated by boredom more than anything else I told them that since they are in the shade maybe I should try and take some pictures. I took quite a couple of pictures (I always take to many and then hate myself for having to go through all of them). When I looked at the pictures (See original below)I realised that even after cropping  I did not like the background  since it had lines and blemishes on it.

Original

I spend I couple of hour trying to remove the blemishes using the clone tool, brushes and any other tool I could think of. Finally I gave up and started the devious task of “selecting” the model in order to cut or copy her to a new layer as I realised that I will have to create a complete new background. The fact that she has dark hair helped as I have tried doing the same to blond models and it was not very successful as the outer edges of the hair would fade and give a unnatural photo.

New layer model only

Next I played and experimented with different colour backgrounds and by I stroke of luck I saw that brown below

Brown

Worked well when adding a gradient overlay.

 

Gradient overlay

To be honest it was more luck than skill.

Johan Bester

Platycorynus dejeani solo

 

Gerda en ek het vroeg oggend ±8:24 op 30 Desember 2013 in die veld gestap stap naby Swartruggens met die doel om veld blomme af te neem toe ons op hierdie kewertjie afkom.

Hierdie klein kewer is besonders mooi en baie seldsaam vir ons hier in Gauteng.

Dit kom in 'n baie smal strook van noord Natal, Swaziland, die bekende ou Transvaal al om sy rand in die ooste van die Kruger wildtuin, Limpopo rivier, weste kant van Noord Wes en effens afwaarts tot aan die die Botswana grens naby Gabarone. Dus die warmer dele van die land en hulle is baie lief vir die wilde melkbos (Asclepias fructicosa).

Die melkbos kewer word ±11mm lank en sy kleure verander soos wat die lig op hom val, vandaar sy naam dejeani. Sy kleure wissel van donker pers, rooi, diep pienk, oranje, donker groen, geel en donker bou, afhangende van die lig se invalshoek. In die middel van die dag is hulle nie so kleurvol nie. Hulle klou ook nie regtig vas aan die blare nie en die geringste beweging laat hulle afval en dan neem dit baie lank voordat hulle weer op 'n blaar is. Wanneer jy hom op 'n blaar wil help, rol hy eenvoudig af!

Omdat ek nie van oordrewe prosesseering hou nie, is daar baie min aan hierdie foto gedoen.

Ek gebruik Corel AfrerShot Pro vir my aanvanklike verwerking en daarna Corel PaintShop Pro 16 vir my finale verwerking. Die skerpte, kontras en swart is effens opgestoot en die beligting aangepas om reg te vertoon op my IPS skerm.

Die verstellings was as volg:

Kamera	Pentax K-30 (hy is kleiner as my Pentax K-5 en ligter om te dra)
Lens	Pentax 50mm Makro
Lens Opening	F11
Sluiterspoed	1/125 s
ISO	320
Ligsensor	Center-weighted-average
Program	Manual
Witbalans	Manual

My sukses verhouding was nie goed nie, ±1/15 want hulle beweeg konstant en velddiepte is amper nul plus hulle val maklik van die blaar af. Verder het die wind sterk gewaai en ek het die kamera met een hand vasgehou en die struik se takkie met die ander hand en die twee hande teen die kamera gesteun vir stabiliteit.

Jan H Potgieter

PSSA Monthly Newsletter

Hi Everyone

Once again thank you for reading and then distributing this email to all the members in your club.  There is lots of information in mymonthly newsletter on our PSSA Website.  There is news regarding the Honours Judging, the National Congress 2014, a great PSSA National Salon as well as news on the January issue of our Image magazine.

Please note and make sure that all our members are aware of the fact that the Wildlife Convention in the Kruger National Park (31 August till 6 September 2014) is in fact our Annual National Congress combined with an International Convention.  This will not only cover Wildlife photography, other aspects of photography will also be covered. Click here to view the program.  Attached please find a Wildlife Convention Flyer.  Please use it to promote the coming Congress/Convention.

OUR WINNERS FOR JANUARY ‘14

Club Winning Picture of the Month for Junior and Senior were:

• Junior:  Daryl Visser from Beachcomber CC with “Common Housefly Macro”.
• Senior:  James Harris van Hoeveld Fotografieklub met “Warrior”.

The judges were Neels Beyers (Cape Town PS), Lee Slabber (Fish Hoek PS) and Edward Arnold (VPS).

Website Picture of the Month was won by Louise de Lange from Swartland KK with “Crop sprayer”.   The judge for this month’s Website Picture was Charles Kok from Krugersdorp CC.   

All members are invited to enter this monthly competition with any of their favourite images. 

These three winning images are displayed on the front page of the PSSA website for this month. Thank you to our judges.

Attached please find the Score Sheet for the Club Winning Images as well as the International Wildlife Convention Flyer.

Kind regards

Petro Bosman
PSSA Public Relations Officer

HELP!–Jan Potgieter

Hier is ook 'n bietjie info oor die Meriete Sertifikaat wat ek hierdie maand gekry het in natuur.

Afdeling  : Natuur
Titel        : Help!

Die foto moes ek eenvoudig neem. My kleinseun van 2 jaar het met die wurm in sy hand na my gekom en gesê: Oupa Neem!  Ons het hom gou in 'n bottel gesit en 'n geskikte plek gekry waar die tuin redelik eengalig groen is vir die agtergrond. ons het 'n stokkie gekry en dit maak staan, die kamera op 'n driepoot en 'n flits vir invul lig aan die linkerkant en reflektof aan die regterkant met die laat middag son net besig om ons in skadu te plaas.

Die werklike naam vir hierdie harige wurm is: Rhodogastria Amasis

Die kamera verstellings was as volg:

Kamera	Pentax K-5
Lens	Pentax 100mm Makro ±15 jaar oud
Lensopening	f11
Sluiterspoed	1/90sek
ISO	280
Lig sensor	Center-weighted-average
Program	Manual
Witbalans	5000K

Die eerste paar fotos het ek sonder die wurm geneem on my kamera verstelling reg te kry en toe begin die sport! Ons sit die harige brandwurm op die stok en hy begin kruip teen 'n groot spoed. Wanneer hy op die end van die stok kom begin hy met sy voorlyf 'n sirkel beweging soos 'n vliegtuig se prop totdat hy van die stok afval. Dit neem so 'n totaal van 5sekondes. Die velddiepte is totaal ontoereikend vir sy mannawales en ek moes 'n oomblik kies waar ek die knoppe druk en hoop daar is iets in fokus.

Ons het groot pret gehad om elke keer hom te kry en weer terug op die stok te kry. Daar het ons geleer wanneer is/word hy 'n brandwurm!

Die grootste uitdaging is seker om geduldig te wees en weer en weer te probeer totdat jy 'n aanvaarbare foto het.

My sukses verhouding was ±1/20 en toe word die lig te swak.

Daar is min verwerking gedoen en het die volgende verstellings gemaak met Corel AfterShot Pro:

• Skerpte +25%
• Saturation 0%
• Contrast +10%
• Noise 0%
• Black +10%
• Vibrance +10% algemeen.

Jan Potgieter

Christmas Wishes from CCC