This week we welcomed back Jean Manson to the club to tell us more about her passion for wildlife conservation through the medium of photography. You can see some of Jean’s work in her gallery site and her Zoological Photographic Club page:
Last time, Jean spoke to us about the wildlife in Alaska in “A Fragile Wilderness”, where she had remarked on the sparseness of the human population. This time, we learned about her recent visits to India, where the human population is much denser but there are still national parks devoted to preserving the natural wildlife. In 1973 the Indian government initiated Project Tiger, which set up wildlife reserves to protect the endangered Bengal tiger. Due to the success of that project, India now has the largest tiger population in the world. Jean visited two of those wildlife reserves:
Jean explained how her guides would track the tigers by looking for pugmarks, scratches and tell-tale alarm calls from other animals. She explained how tigers and leopards are in competition with each other, so you tend not to see both at the same time. During her visits she had seen more leopards in Satpura and more tigers in Bandhavgarh. She showed us photographs not only of the majestic tiger and leopard, but of birds, elephants, chital deer, monkeys, giant squirrel and a very rare grey wolf. Jean brought some of the prints and display boards from her recent exhibition at the Biggar Little Festival, and we finished the evening chatting and browsing through the prints. Thank you Jean for a very entertaining and enlightening evening.
This Thursday, 4th December, we have our Black and White print competition, judged by Malcolm Lind.
It’s also time to prepare entries for the Human Portrait print competition. The hand-in date is 11th December.
This week we were pleased to welcome Stephen Ball to Musselburgh as our last speaker of the 2024/25 season to give us one of his signature talks on landscape photography: Scotland Behind the Lens. Stephen is originally from London but moved to Scotland in the 1990s. He started his career as a theatre lighting designer and technician before moving into photography, and has recently won several landscape photography awards. You can read more on his “Scotland Captured” web site.
Stephen used to use a Nikon D7100 but has recently switched to a Nikon Z7, which gives a better image quality. His standard kit consists of a tripod, a collection of kit lenses and a set of Lee filters (neutral density, graduated and polarizer). Stephen explained that he likes to get his images right in camera. He uses Adobe Lightroom only for minor adjustments, such as cropping or adjusting the colour saturation. He will occasionally adjust the highlights when there are bright lights in the scene (such as the spotlights on the Queensferry Crossing). He likes to visit places very early in the morning or late at night when there are fewer people around. When Stephen photographs a landscape, he sets his camera on a tripod and takes the time to look at the scene and think about the composition. He avoids the temptation to take a large number of quick snaps, and the tripod helps him slow down. He adjusts the exposure manually and likes to choose a low ISO (such as 64 or 100) and small aperture (such as f/16 or f/22) to get the best image quality with the maximum depth of field. If there are many focal points in a scene, he will increase the depth of field by focus stacking. Stephen avoids using a wide angle lens to capture a panorama because it distorts the edge of the scene. Instead, he builds a panorama from several overlapping shots made in portrait orientation. He has also started experimenting with shots cropped to a square format.
Besides photographing Scottish landscapes, Stephen also likes to photograph the Edinburgh Tattoo, arranged through his membership of the Beautiful Edinburgh Facebook group. He explained how he uses different camera settings for these images. He selects a higher ISO setting for these darker scenes, and normally begins the evening with an aperture around f/11 to get a good depth of field, but when it gets darker he changes to “Auto ISO” and uses wide apertures like f/4.
Stephen took us on a tour of Scotland pictured through his lens, starting with popular locations like the Crawick Multiverse, Stobo Japanese Gardens and Leaderfoot Viaduct in southern Scotland and locations closer to home such as Dalkeith Country Park, Seacliff Beach, Preston Mill, North Berwick and Bass Rock. He also showed us iconic scenes in Edinburgh, from the picturesque Dean Village to citywide views from Calton Hill. Stephen also showed us how he obtained some unusual shots of the Forth bridges in the early morning mist, and he found the platform at Dalmeny Station gives an unusual view peering down the length of the rail bridge. He then took us further afield, showing beautiful scenes from all over Scotland, including an autumn scene at Loch Dunmore, some misty shots of Loch Ard, frosty images of Rannoch Moor and mountain scenes at Buachaille Etive Mor, Glencoe and Sligachan, Isle of Skye. Many of Stephen’s images had been taken only a week or two ago, showing us what we could expect to see if we were to travel to these places right now. Stephen finished his highland shots with a recent image he had captured after a long climb to the Old Man of Storr, where the view was so breathtaking that Stephen almost forgot to take any photographs! Thank you, Stephen, for inspiring us with so many beautiful shots of Scotland.
Next week we have a our “Best Image of the Night” evening. This is a fun, informal evening where we discuss and vote for our favourite images on the night. Please bring up to 3 images, either in JPEG format on a USB stick, or as prints, or a mixture of both. Prints can be any size (as long as they are large enough to see from the room) and don’t have to be mounted, although mounted prints are fine as well. I look forward to seeing what you bring.
The club was delighted to welcome Joe Gilhooley from Loanhead, Midlothian to talk about his work. Joe’s interest in digital photography began in 2010, when he wanted to record his daughter growing up. He purchased a Canon DSLR and took the camera on family trips. He developed a liking for landscape photography but fell into the usual trap of coming home with 400 scattergun images of the same scene. He now recommends pretending you have a roll of film and only capturing the small number of images you think are worth keeping. Joe has 3 Canon DSLR camera bodies, a Sony compact camera, and a selection of 9 lenses. He always uses a tripod for landscape photography and recommends using the camera in “mirror up” mode with a remote shutter release to prevent camera shake. Joe’s love of landscape photography won him the “Scots Magazine Photographer of the Year” award in 2017 and 2019. Joe joined the Royal Photographic Society in 2020 and achieved an LRPS qualification in 2021 and is working towards the ARPS qualification. You can see more of Joe’s work on his web site:
Joe started by showing us the 10 images he had submitted to win his LRPS qualification, which included a night view of the Forth Bridges, a night view of Edinburgh from Calton Hill, star trails over the Belhaven Bridge and a clever still life which simulated colours being painted onto a bowl of fruit. Joe likes to take his landscape images during the blue hour: the hour just before sunrise or just after sunset when sky is still bright enough to give a blue background. Joe watches the weather forecast and will often drive to a location at short notice to arrive in time for the perfect conditions. Calm conditions at sunrise are ideal for capturing still reflections and morning mist. Joe took us on a journey across Scotland, showing us a wide variety of excellent images of castles, gardens, monuments, lochs, mountains and iconic viewpoints. His subjects included landscapes, cityscapes, wildlife, star trails and fireworks. In 2022, Joe successfully applied for a press contract to photograph the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which gave him the opportunity to capture some beautiful images of the event. Joe had also offered his services to several football clubs, and had obtained a press pass to capture images of key moments during their games. Joe finished by showing us some of his sports photography images. Joe uses two camera bodies for his sports photography. One body has a 400mm lens attached, which he uses to capture distant action. The other has a 70-200mm lens, which he uses when the action gets closer. He uses fast (f2.8) lenses and a very high ISO to achieve the fast shutter speeds required for sports photography. A monopod helps to support the weight of his heavy 400mm lens.
It was a fascinating evening where Joe gave us hints about good places and times to take photographs and encouraged us not to be afraid to contact organisations like sports clubs and local newspapers who may need a local photographer.
We are having our “Sense of Speed” club photoshoot this Saturday, 22nd February at 10:30am in Lewisvale Park, Musselburgh, EH21 7AR. Bring your camera to practice photographing bicycles, dogs and people moving against a background. For best results bring a lens with a large maximum aperture, such as f2.8.
This week members of Musselburgh Camera Club travelled to Beeslack Community High School to meet with members of Beeslack Penicuik Camera Club for our annual audio visual evening. Beeslack’s usual room was occupied by a Taekwondo class, so we started the evening in a small classroom.
Musselburgh started with an introduction to ICM photography in Butterdean Wood, created by Steven Beard, based on the club photoshoot from July 2024. Then, Beeslack’s presented a history of coal mining in Scotland, based on information and materials picked up from a club visit to the National Mining Museum, supplemented by club photographs and drone shots. There was a change of mood with the third presentation, when Derek Muller showed a video entitled “Birds Having Lunch” featuring some great shots of wild birds feeding. The change of mood continued when Beeslack showed another beautiful and calming creation by Brian Nicolson, featuring photographs of trees and woodland enhanced and blended with art filters from paint.NET. Musselburgh followed with a presentation compiled from photographs taken by club members on a photoshoot to the Balgone Sunflower Trail. This was followed by Beeslack’s presentation on the history of East Lothian, which used to be known as Haddingtonshire. The presentation took us on a journey through time, from the battles for dominance between the tribes of ancient Scotland and the construction of castles, to the witch trials and the impact of all this history on the modern landscape of East Lothian. Melanie Gallacher followed with a musical video in celebration of her daughter, and then Beeslack finished with an inspiring collection of long exposures of a fire dancer, set to Stravinsky’s The Firebird. And on that note we finished the evening and retired to Beeslack’s usual room for tea and biscuits. Thank you Beeslack for hosting us.
Next week (Thursday 13th) we have another flexible Members Evening. I propose that we have a session on camera skills. Please bring your camera (plus a macro lens and a flash if you have one). If you have any interesting small objects to photograph, bring those along as well. I’m especially interested in moving objects (such as a pendulum or a dancing robot), if you have any.
I am planning to demonstrate the settings on my Nikon camera. It would be good to have volunteers to cover Canon, Sony and Panasonic cameras as well.
This week we were delighted to welcome award-winning wildlife photographer Gordon Rae to Musselburgh to talk to us about “Wild at Heart – A Photographer’s Journey”. Gordon had last visited a year ago when he judged our human portrait competition and gave us a short talk on the “Birds of Iceland”. Gordon explained that he had started as a farmer in South West Scotland with an interest in landscape photography. A local magazine liked his landscape photographs and signed him up. His career in photography took off when he began photographing the local wildlife, joined Dumfries Camera Club and began giving tours for other photographers. He now gives 10 tours a year. Gordon uses a Nikon camera with a 200-400mm lens and 1.4x teleconverter. He likes to take his shots from close to the ground, which makes it easier to get a narrow depth of field. He also likes to use space in his shots to show the creatures in their environment. You can find some of Gordon’s work on his web site:
Gordon began by showing the wildlife photographed in his local area, including birds and hedgehogs in his garden. Gordon travels around his farm on a quad bike and uses it as a tool to get close to wildlife. His strategy is not to use a hide, but to keep repeating the same actions until the wild animals get used to him and realise he is not a threat. The local hares will let him get close as long as he doesn’t get off the bike. As well as great shots of hares, dippers and kingfishers, there were some unusual dark squirrels and a fantastic shot of a grumpy sparrowhawk. Gordon then took us further afield and showed some fabulous shots of ospreys, grouse and mountain hares taken in Scotland.
In the second half of the talk. Gordon described his adventures on a bear-watching trip to Silver Salmon Creek in Alaska. The journey there was an adventure in itself, with the site only accessible by a small aircraft which landed on the beach! Visitors to Silver Salmon Creek Lodge live and move within the habitat of the bears and need to be constantly on watch. Gordon described some hair-raising encounters with the bears. He witnessed a mother defending her cubs, a bear running towards him to pounce on a salmon, and a bear that came so close that other photographers had turned their cameras on him! The results were some truly breath-taking images. Gordon finished his talk by showing us photographs he captured on a trip to Churchill in Manitoba, Canada. After arriving in the autumn, he witnessed how quickly the Hudson Bay can freeze. This time polar bears were his main subject, although he also captured some images of the local foxes. The polar bears were photographed from the giant tundra vehicle, and the driver was happy to position the vehicle to capture the bears against a more interesting background. Gordon left us all inspired to improve our wildlife photography.
Next Thursday we will use our Members Evening slot to have another studio portrait session. We can practise some of the advice we learned from last week’s portrait competition. It will be similar to last year’s studio night, except this time we’ll concentrate on the lighting. Derek will bring along his studio lights, and we can move the lighting around and see how it affects the final result.
Please bring your camera on Thursday, plus a tripod and a flashgun if you want to experiment with those.
On 11th April we were delighted to have 3 international speakers who joined us from Sweden and the Netherlands.
First up was Denise van der Boom who provided a bird’s eye view using drones to capture images from the sky. Denise has a very practical reason for favouring drone photography due to mobility issues. The drones do provide a great tool for getting compositions and locations that just would not work on foot. Members might recall Eddie Telford telling us back in February than he often waded into a river to get best shots. Denise gets similar shots without getting wet by hovering her drone over the water. The legalities of drone flight were mentioned (similar to UK rules) along with a brief comparison of a few different models. The small size and low weight of the DJI mini 4 meant that it could be taken on holidays as well as providing that unusual bird’s eye view of her homeland. While the novelty of the different views afforded by drones is interesting, there is still the need for a good composition. Abstract images of tulip fields full of coloured strips of flowers to the astonishing aqueduct that confused the senses, rainbows in agricultural watering systems and fine historic buildings all benefitted from the unusual viewpoint. Denise’s work can be seen at https://www.flickr.com/photos/denisevanderboom/
Hans van der Boom followed with a great 10 tips for “Photographing flowers in soft focus” using his own shots to illustrate his points (some of which may be found at https://www.flickr.com/photos/hansvanderboom/).
Use a Macro lens or adapters
Accessorise – mat to lie on, lights, plamps, clothes pegs, crinkled tin foil and, surprisingly, dog poo bags – the packs with various colours!
Use a BIG aperture, you don’t want all of the detail of a pin sharp image.
Make use of “out of focus” areas, to simplify your image.
Know your subject – go out with certain “in season” flowers in mind. An online Flowering Calendar could give an idea about what flowers might be currently available.
Pay attention to composition and space within the image. Using a low viewpoint (using a bean bag, or even a polystyrene bean bag for weight reduction) can keep the image simpler. The space around the subject is out of focus and this minimises clutter. Less is more!
Use of Light, avoiding harsh light and dark shadows. The use of a white umbrella can be used to diffuse light
Experiment – Christmas lights (battery operated LEDs) in front of or behind the subject. Use crinkled aluminium foil or glitter boards. Use a plant mister for a few dew drops. Place anything in the out of focus areas to simplify them. Reflectors can also be useful.
Bokeh and light bubbles are easier to achieve when shooting low to high.
Post Processing – add a little brightness and saturation, combine techniques. Moderation makes the master.
Hans also suggested shooting in raw and keeping ISO low to minimise digital noise. He also suggested that double or multiple exposure could be useful. Attaching the coloured dog poo bags, or sandwich bags etc to the lens hood with a clothes peg is a good way to fill the out of focus areas. Hans suggested that folks should look at the work of Bob Daalder for some inspiration. https://www.instagram.com/bobdaalder/ https://4tinyhands.com/macro-photography-with-bob-daalder/
The evening was brought to a close by Helen Lunden, who many know from her time in Scotland and who is now a member of Mölnlycke Fotoklubb, Gothenburg, Sweden. Helen presented her work on images produced using Intentional Camera Movement (ICM). This was sparked by her attendance at a course in Dumfries and Galloway run by Morag Paterson and Ted Leeming. Helen covered the Why and How of ICM along with what equipment was needed along with examples and inspiration. The equipment used does not have to be special, in fact because the finished result is rarely pin sharp, older or less sophisticated kit can work out fine. Helen often uses an older Olympus EM10 and a mixture of lenses and ND filters.
How? Move the camera during the (long) exposure. An exposure of 1/8th of a second is often enough, and Neutral Density filters can help here. The camera is moved horizontally, vertically, spun, etc. You won’t know what you will get until the photo is taken. Multiple exposure can add to the finished result with perhaps multiple ICM images or 1 ICM image and a sharp image combined. Helen prefers to achieve the result in-camera with only subtle increase in contrast and saturation carried out afterwards. Her method is to “take lots of shots and delete what you don’t like”. While vertical movements are often used for trees and horizontal for landscapes, you can always add in other movements or shapes. An advantage of the technique is that it can work indoors or out, in pretty much any lighting conditions and even macro can be effective. People photos can provide a ghostly effect.
Helen’s recent projects include The Swedish West Coast (ghostly images), Dark & Light (quite moody) and Light & Harmony (quite fresh). It is very interesting to see things in the final images that have been introduced by the working method, the results can be striking. Helen was keen to encourage more photographers to have a go at ICM to see what they could produce. Helen Lunden’s images are on show at… https://helunhelun7.wixsite.com/helensfoto and she talked about the work of several other photographers who champion ICM images including…
An interesting international evening highlighting aspects of photography that are not often discussed at Fisherrow.
This Thursday (18th April 2024) we will be having a “Studio Lighting Fun Workshop” at the Fisherrow Centre at our usual time of 7pm. Bring your camera or phone and come along to experiment and have fun.
Our first club meeting of February 2024 was our annual digital knockout competition, where members bring in digital images on a chosen theme and vote to choose their favourites. This year’s theme was “water”, chosen at last year’s AGM.
8 members entered a total of 23 digital images with some creative interpretations of the “water” theme. There were a lot of photographs of rivers, waterfalls and beaches, some lakes with reflections, some underwater scenes and some snow scenes. There were also some impressive abstract images created from droplets and waves at the water surface. One particularly inventive image was “Water Music”, showing a water splash superimposed on some sheet music. Another simple but effective image showed the rain on the window of an Edinburgh bus at night. The images were voted off in a series of head-to-head rounds until only 3 images remained. Members then voted for their favourite to determine the final placings, and the result was:
3rd place
An image of a splashing wave in front of Arthur’s Seat (Steven Beard)
2nd place
An image of a Tough Mudder contestant emerging from water (Jennifer Davidson)
1st Place
Waves crashing over rocks at North Berwick (Joe Fowler)
Well done to Joe Fowler, who won a packet of water biscuits! Well done also to Jennifer and Steven, who’s images survived the head-to-head rounds despite some very close counts.
Next Thursday Colin Joyce will be judging our human portrait print competition. George Todd will also be collecting entries for our second set subject competition. Please send your 3 JPEGs on the subject of “contrasting textures” to George.
This week we had a “Sets of Six” evening, where members bring along images or give interesting demonstrations. I started the evening by giving a macro photography demonstration. I brought along a small (25cm x 25cm) lightbox into which I placed a “Musselburgh mussel” on a stand.
Macro photography is extreme close-up photography where the original idea is was to make the image on the camera’s sensor at least the same size as the subject itself. To achieve this you need a lens which can focus very close. A macro lens is one designed to have a close focus distance for macro photography, but if you don’t have a macro lens (or want to try macro photography at a different focal length than your macro lens) the following gadgets can also help:
Extension tubes will reduce the focal distance when fitted between your camera and lens. These are the best option because they contain no glass and won’t affect the performance of your lens. But make sure you buy ones compatible with your camera.
Close-up lenses can be screwed to the front of your lens, just like a filter. These have the advantage of being cheap and easy to fit, but because they contain glass they affect the performance of your lens.
One of the most difficult things in macro photography is getting the focus right. Macro photos tend to have a very narrow depth of field, especially if you choose a longer focal length to keep clear of your subject. One way to correct the narrow focal length is to use a narrow aperture (such as f/16 or f/22) but that leads to a longer exposure time and motion blur. Good lighting is very important in macro photography. For still subjects you can use a light box. Click here to see a review of the one I demonstrated, but there are other makes and sizes available. For moving subjects you can use a ring flash which fits on the front of the lens, which won’t cast shadows like a flash attached to the camera body. If you are lucky enough to have bright natural light available, a small reflector or diffuser can be used to soften the lighting and brighten the shadows. A gadget, such as a Wimberley Plamp, can be attached to your tripod to hold subjects like flowers that might be blown by the wind.
Another way to achieve a better depth of field in macro photography is using a focus stacking. Here is a YouTube video which explains how to do it.
Finally, I demonstrated a USB microscope, which can produce extreme macro close-ups. The depth of field for these devices is extremely narrow and they work best with two-dimensional subjects. But they can detect tiny objects invisible to the naked eye, such as dirt on the front of your lens you didn’t know was there. Here is a review: https://gadgets-reviews.com/uk/review/1388-best-usb-microscopes.html. These range from cheap to very expensive. I demonstrated a mid-range Jiusion microscope which saves HD images.
Several members then showed a selection of interesting images: Kevin Johnson showed how classic album cover art can inspire photography; Mike Clark showed some “before and after” results in underwater photography; John West showed how you can use ICM to transform an image of the interior of a cathedral; Malcolm Roberts described his visit to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition; There were also some unique views of The Kelpies. George Smith showed his first attempts at astrophotography; Elaine Gilroy showed her photographs of birds; George Todd showed a selection of holiday images; and Derek Muller showed a rig he had set up to capture water splashes. Derek also showed some of his favourite images of acorn people created by David M Bird. More of these images can be found on David’s YouTube channel:
Finally, Joe Fowler showed us how images can be improved by removing the distractions and using the clone tool to add more interest. Thank you to everyone who showed their images. It was a long but very entertaining evening.
Next week we have a digital knock-out competition. Please bring up to 3 images on the subject a “water” and then vote for your favourites.
Musselburgh Camera Club 