Camera Club

Last night was another good night at the camera club with a good roll up and a judge, who is new to us, to evaluate and comment on our competition entries.  The judge did not waffle on as some do and so, after she had finished with the print entries, we all had more time to intermingle and discuss our photography over a cup of coffee before vewing and hearing the comments on the digitally projected images.

I was happy with the results for my two entries in the Colour Print Section.  A photo taken of our Portraiture Workshop during a demonstration by the presenter focusing her camera on the model before capturing her shot gained a Merit (our highest award).  You may view this photo in my blog posted 15 March, 2011.

And one I took during last years trip to Roma in Queensland for the Australian Photographic Society Convention (APSCON) gained a credit.  APSCON is held every year and is an opportunity to meet people interested in photography from all around Australia (and even overseas) and to hear experienced photographers, both amateur and professional, give talks on all things photographic.

One everning, three of us took the opportunity to drive out of town to capture a sunset.  We were assured of clouds as there had been a lot of rain before our arrival and and they had flooding shortly after we left so the weather patterns were conducive to photographing sunsets.

As Shot in RAW file format exposed for the highlights

Canon 40D, Shot at 1/8+sec@f/11, Sigma 18-200mm lens focal length 21mm, ISO 400, No flash, Tripod.

Rather than take a number of frames and blend them in software to achieve what I had envisioned when I pressed the shutter button, I made another version of the original file to give detail in the foreground and pasted the two selections together.

Original RAW file adjusted for the foreground

Blended image with crops from first and second files

Once I replaced the foreground in the original image I then tidied up the scene and adjusted the contrast to really bring out the detail in the sky.  Files created from the original RAW file were 16bit TIFF.

Final result

Shooting in RAWallowed me to work in 16bit colour space which I could not have done with a JPEG format.  I like the final result with the muddy road leading off into the storms brewing on the horizon.  With the events which occured in Queensland earlier this year the photo takes on added impact for me.