Hi everyone!

With the start of spring, days are longer and warmer and therefore all of us who like outdoor photography have no excuse to stay at home. This is in fact the ideal time to go places such as Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, Kananaskis Country, Banff and other provincial and national parks because there are not too many tourists nor hikers. It will soon be the time to photograph crocuses, water falls, elk and other natural wonders of spring time. Also, as spring unfolds, I want to share with you my points of view in regards to the endless dilemma: the Digital Category.

The following are my points of view, which I will bring for discussion at the next executive meeting. I also would like everyone's opinion. Please remember that all members of the club have a say, feel free to bring your opinion to the next club meeting.

Points of View:

The digital category should be a category of its own with novice, intermediate, advanced; as well as theme and open sub-categories. The maker of the image is free to enter his/her print in this category or in the traditional category.

If an image has been entered in the traditional category and it shows too obvious digital manipulations, judges will recommend moving to and re-judging the image in the digital category. Because we rotate judges in every meeting, this is subjective judging. However if someone has an idea how to accurately determine what should be entered in digital category please let us know.

See you on April 7!

José

Club meeting, March 3 2004

Guest Speaker

John Bargman is a keen amateur photographer, outdoor enthusiast and bird watcher. He started his photography as a teenager in East Africa where he also developed a keen interest in natural history. John has been a member of photography clubs since 1980 in Houston, Texas; he was a member of the Foothills Camera Club executive during the 1980's and has over the last few years become active in the club again, after spending the 1990's concentrating on his career. John has remained involved in bird watching and has participated in many bird counts - he currently has a life list of over 1300 different types of birds identified.

At our March 3 2004 meeting, John presented a multimedia display of his excellent bird photography. For his presentation, he used a pair of dissolve slide projectors with recorded synchronized music and narration.

To start, he showed (slides of) the gear he uses and some of the techniques he has learned. One surprising tidbit was his admission that many good bird images can be taken from the driver's seat of a car. Many people could hunker in a blind for a week with nothing more to show for their patience than a case of hypothermia; John obviously knows birds well enough to know where to drive his car and when to be there! And yes, he's paid his dues in blinds too!

John displayed images from local bird hangouts, and went progressively further afield to images he has taken from Australia and Lord Howe Island in the Pacific Ocean. John's images were all current, too; none was older than 4 years.

Thank you for sharing an evening and your accomplishments with us, John!

Calgary Photographic Society
Contact Information

Contact information for the 2004 executive:

Note - all e-mail addresses in this newsletter have been modified to prevent automated harvesting. To use them, you must replace at with @.

Club meeting, March 3 2004
Print Competition Results
Theme: "Decay"

Definition of Decay: "Rot - lose quality or strength". Source: Oxford English Dictionary.

Judges for the print competition this month were John Bargman (our guest lecturer for the evening), Brian Henson, and Neil Koven. The reserve judge was Jeff Perkins.

(Apologies from the scribe for missed information above)

Competition Notes.

One print displayed for judging at the March meeting invoked significant discussion regarding "what constitutes a digital print".

It was acknowledged that the Calgary Photographic Society has yet to take a formal stance on the matter. One opinion - shared by a number of members - is that:

"digitally-printed photographs should be allowed to compete with optical/chemical-prints providing that no image manipulation techniques were used which could not be accomplished in a traditional darkroom."

By contrast then, the "digital" competition category for prints currently appears to be intended for demonstrating manipulations which cannot be accomplished using traditional techniques. To this end, competitors are encouraged to bring "before" pictures in addition to the "after" images to show what techniques they used.

Please keep in mind that the aforementioned are opinions and nothing more. At some point in the future, the Calgary Photographic Society will likely have to take a firm stance regarding digital techniques.

First Time in Print!

The image was published in issue #16 of (UK-based) Digital Photographer magazine, pages 20 and 21. Marcelo used his 6Mp Canon EOS 10D for the image. The printed image showed no sign that the image was taken digitally - the quality was excellent.

Marcelo took the picture September 2003, during a trip to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The landmark Cristo Redentor statue atop Corcovado Mountain is in the background, and one of the Sugarloaf mountain gondolas is on the right side.

Marcelo can be reached at: photographer at coolportolio.com. Marcelo has a website at: http://www.coolportfolio.com.

Congratulations, Marcelo!

Web Crawl

http://www.dovebeyondcompare.ca/
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World Wide Pinhole Day!
Contributed by Jack Dyck

The last Sunday in April each year (this year, it's April 25) has been named World Wide Pinhole Day. This is a day when people around the world are encouraged to make images with pinhole cameras, and to submit them to the website below for display:

Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day: http://www.pinholeday.org

It doesn't take much digging on the web to find pinhole photography details, plans, exposure guides, and completed cameras for sale. Here is one resource:

The Pinhole News: http://www.pinhole.com

Among other things these websites have is a description of how to use a spare body cap to convert an SLR into an "SPR" camera - a cheap and quick conversion!

Don't Shoot! (Digitally...)

By Jack Dyck

• I can buy media for my camera just about anywhere - gas stations, food stores, aboard a ship, you name it. Often it's available 24 hours a day. Oh yeah, one unit of my media stores over 4Gb of data, for about the same cost as a burnable DVD (processing excluded).
• I change the characteristics of my image sensor any time I like. And I do so for zero incremental cost if I wait until the media is filled. I can change my image sensor from high sensitivity to high saturation to wide dynamic range to infrared.
• I don't need a battery charger for my camera. In fact, it runs fine without any batteries at all! And I don't need a laptop computer when I travel.
• My entire collection of lenses is useful at a focal length factor of "times 1.0"! I have a 28mm lens that actually behaves like a 28mm lens!
• I have a stop-down preview feature, and a hot shoe which I use with any brand of studio or portable flash.
• My camera cost about $200 new. That was almost 30 years ago. I can still buy an identical replacement unit - used. The price? Still about $200!
• Lastly, I'm treated to an exotic aroma every time I change media! Hey, I like the smell of film! Don't you think those digital shooters would look kind of unbalanced sniffing Compact Flash cards?

Soapbox mode: OFF

Upcoming Competition Themes:

The club executive will be presenting the upcoming year's themes at the April 7 2004 meeting.

Meeting Notice

The next meeting is April 7 2004. It will be held at 7:30pm at the University of Calgary, in the Kinesiology building. Our normal room is KN133; if there are availability problems, the alternate room used is typically KN129.

Our guest speaker at the April meeting will be Todd Korol.

Todd has been a full-time photographer for the last 20 years, shooting sports, landscapes, and portraits. He has done work for Macleans, Sports Illustrated, Canadian Geographic, National Geographic, Mens' Journal, Time, and Readers' Digest.

Todd acquires images both on film and digitally.

This concludes the April newsletter.

If anyone has ideas for guest speakers for future meetings, please contact Harry Mah at mahharry at netscape.net.

If members have material for the newsletter - announcements, news, exhibitions, awards, soapbox articles, wanted/for sale, etc - please forward by e-mail to cps_news at telus.net. Please use the same e-address to advise if your contact information changes!

See you at the April 7 meeting, and bring your "Action" theme prints for judging!

Jack Dyck - newsletter editor.

Calgary Photographic Society Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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Updated April 4, 2004 w.b.