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Category: An occasional newsletter

Film types

Posted on 23rd June 20173rd July 2017 by ArdfertCC

The first films were made of silver-halide layers which were only sensitive to blue light then along came Orthochromatic Films where the sensitivity was extended to green and yellow, and finally to Panchromatic Film which is also sensitive to red and is the most common type of Black and White film available today. Early film emulsion was carried on a Nitrocellulose strip which was highly flammable and led to many fatalities, the Dromcollogher fire of 1926 was one very tragic incident, Nitrocellulose was quickly changed to cellulose acetate a much safer material.

Orthochromatic  Films (ortho for short):

Are not sensitive to red, which can be a problem in many photographic situations except when photographing foliage. One advantage with  Orthochromatic film is that it can be processed by inspection under a red safelight, which means you can also load it into developing tanks etc., under the same safelight. Orthochromatic films can be either of high contrast or continuous tones and their resolving power is often higher than regular Panchromatic films. But continuous tone Ortho films are usually more expensive than Panchromatic films, the alternative is to use filters with Panchromatic film.

Panchromatic Film (or Pan for short):

Nearly all current black and white films are Panchromatic as it is sensitive to all wavelengths except Infrared, you can modify the effects of Panchromatic film by adding a filter discussed in other notes.

Infrared Film:

Designed specifically to be sensitive to one or more of the infrared wavelengths, most lenses designed for film have a little red R next to the infinity setting as you have to adjust their focusing point for the shorter wavelength.

Black & White Reversal Film:

For making B & W slides, you can buy this film and develop it yourself or with the appropriate developer you can turn a standard B & W film into a reversal one if you wish.

Lith Film :

A type of Orthographic film made mostly for high contrast and continuous tone results, usually used in industrial processes e.g. for copying it can be used for other purposes such as Cyanotype, Vandyke, Kallitype etc and enlarged negatives, it can home developed with the appropriate chemicals.

Colour Negative Film:

Used for making prints, it is basically a three layer emulsion recording light in the complimentary colours of the three colour Red, Green and Blue wavelengths which are again reversed in the printing process, originally each layer had to be developed separately but this complicated process was solved by Agfa in 1936 and a single chemical developer  process known as C41 is now used along with fixers etc. for both industrial and home development.

Colour Reversal Film:

Used for making transparencies, it scans better than colour negative film but does not have its dynamic range, ISO speeds are also generally lower, it can be home processed using the three bath E6 process.

Posted in An occasional newsletter

A software note

Posted on 12th May 201717th May 2017 by ArdfertCC

As many members know Google’s Nik Collection of software editing programs is now a
Free download for both Windows and Mac systems, go to Google Nik Collection, it works as a
plugin add-on to Aperture, Lightroom, Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, the snag is that it
now only works with certain older versions of these programs so read the small print at the
bottom of the page which tells what it actually works with.
This was a very expensive and highly desirable suite of programs when first launched
costing over €300 for the full collection of seven modules, when bought by Google it’s price
dropped to around €120 and its now free, its possible that Google would need to carry out some
software development to allow it to work with the latest Adobe products and they don’t consider
it worth while to do so.
That’s fine but what they don’t tell you is that the collection will also work as a standalone
program, definitely on a Mac and probably also on Windows. The modules were designed as
plug-ins so they relied on the host program to carry out functions like cropping and printing so
you will need to start off in your usual editing software to crop when necessary, edit it in one of the Nik modules and return it to your editing program to print, a bit awkward but usually worth
it. The collections most popular module is Silver Efx Pro, perhaps the best black and white
conversion and editing program yet designed.

C. Dennehy

https://www.google.com/nikcollection/

 

Posted in An occasional newsletter, photo editing, software

Titles Talk

Posted on 20th April 201717th May 2017 by ArdfertCC

And they really do, submitting a competition entry as “DSC1234.jpeg” or “Untitled.jpeg” is not going to grab the attention of either the audience or the judges. On the other hand adding an adjective so it becomes say “Untitled Portrait” increases interest
enormously. Reserve the title “No Comment” for a subject that is so graphic that no words of explanation would ever be appropriate.
In competitions and Exhibitions your photo will be seen by many so a title needs to be punchy but short and simple, appropriate for the subject and not open to misinterpretation where it could be misconstrued or cause offence, so think carefully about your title.

Posted in An occasional newsletter

An Occasional Newsletter ISSUE 2

Posted on 12th April 201717th May 2017 by ArdfertCC

Introduction

Welcome to Our Second Newsletter bringing you both current news, news of events  to come and thoughts on some aspects of photography.

Club Meeting On the 6th April

Ian Willey gave an impressive account of his trip to the Galápagos Islands in 2013. His introduction covered the creation of these 21 volcanic islands which erupted from the ocean floor over a period of millions of years some 900Km off the coast of Ecuador. The
islands were discovered by chance in 1535, not all are inhabited but those that are support individual life forms unique to each island which formed the basis of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” which caused uproar when it was first published in 1859. Ian’s photographs showed a wide variety of both land and sea creatures, the bright plumage of most of the birds was fascinating as was the way in which tortoises had modified their shells from one island to the next. A most enjoyable evening and many thanks to Ian.

Club Outing to Fermoyle Thursday 20th April

There will be an outing to Fermoyle this coming Thursday, weather permitting of  course, those wishing to take part should arrange to be at Fermoyle by 19.30 to maximise  daylight. If the weather is poor there will be a presentation by Paul Keeling in the Abbey Tavern at 20.00 hours as usual.

The New (But Old) Competition Rules

As we now have a Club Constitution and a Committee it was thought that, like all other Photography Clubs, we had better formalise and publish a set of rules governing our Club Photo Competitions. Basically they are the same as those unwritten rules we have been using for years but with some added clarifications, like what exactly is the difference between Black and White and Monochrome, to whom the entries should be sent and by what time etc. The Committee has decided that having those members with less experience in Photography compete with more experienced members for the same prize (if any) is unfair, so the current thinking is to split a competition into two groups. We are still undecided as to how we will arrange this so nobody feels they are in the wrong group.

Posted in An occasional newsletter

Correcting Those Mistakes

Posted on 7th April 201717th May 2017 by ArdfertCC
Quite often when taking photos the exposure does not turn out the way you expected, parts of the image are too bright or too dark, sometimes you might need to cutout some of the image to make the subject pop out at you. In the days of film these things were taken care of in the enlarging stage, today we use software. There are many commercial software packages available which will allow you to correct the image, each manufacturer claiming that their offering is better than the others, and of course they all cost money. Some clubs have standardised on a particular program and expect their
members to use it, we will not do that, so what to do, well why spend money when you don’t have to. There are a number of FREE Open Source Programs that will allow you to carry out all the basic adjustments you need such as LightZone from the lightzoneproject.org this is a proven programs that will run successfully on computers using the Linux, Windows or Mac OSX operating systems so no matter what computer you have they will work for you. Commencing in September we have decided to provide, for those members who wish to know how to correct images, a series of approximately 30 minute long tutorials using LightZone as it is absolutely FREE, is a very small package which will not take up much space on your hard drive and is straightforward to use. Most Post Processing software is pretty similar so once you have conquered LightZone you will be in a better position tojudge whether or not you need more advanced software. Most Post Processing software is pretty similar so once you have conquered LightZone you will be in a better position to judge whether or not you need more advanced software or software that you feel more comfortable with. LightZone is completely non destructive, the original image remains intact, the editing changes you make are stored in a sidecar file attached to the original, so no worries about loosing your image or going back to the original if you wish. LightZone allows you to crop, adjust the exposure, sharpen, tone, apply a number of filters and convert the image into Black and White and export the final image in a number of formats. What it won’t do is allow you to apply effects, make triptychs or repair an old damaged photo, for those sort of things you need a different type of program such as Gimp, which is also FREE and which we will try and look at later in the year. There are many tutorials on YouTube for both programs.
Posted in An occasional newsletter, photo editingLeave a Comment on Correcting Those Mistakes

Images by Ian Willey

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Black and white conversion

One of the best black and white conversion tools is available for free more...
Get your pictures ready!
Get your pictures ready for our exibition in September we are determined not to be rushing last minute this year
Back in September
The club activities will be back in swing in September we will be having a day trip to Skellig during the Summer.
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