1 Sept 2017

FOCUS

Newsletter of the Mayslake Nature Study and Photography Club

Hosted by the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County www.naturecameraclub.com

Up Coming Programs

September 4 - No Meeting (Holiday)

September 18 - Competition

October 2 – No Meeting

October 16 – Nachusa Grasslands by Dee Hudson

**October 16th**

The Nature Conservancy at Nachusa Grasslands

by Dee Hudson Dee will discuss the ongoing preservation and conservation work at Nachusa and some of the rare and unique plants and animals that live there. With a minimal of 150 plant species in each restoration, there is an abundance of photographic opportunities.

Where can you go in the preserve for great shots?

Where are the best places to look for the bison?

What are some tips for visiting the prairie?

When are the best times during the season to visit Nachusa and capture some great shots?

Nachusa is a special place. Dee will tell you about the best photo opportunities and answer any of your questions.

Dee will also share a little about The Nature Conservancy and some of the other great places that the organization preserves in Illinois.

2 Sept 2017

Welcome Returning Member, John Fan!

More about Dee Hudson and Nachusa

Grasslands

In the early 1800’s Illinois was covered in 22 million acres of prairie, giving the state its nickname “The Prairie State.” However today, only a tenth of 1% original prairie remains intact, making this one of the most rare and endangered ecosystems in the world.

Dee Hudson first became acquainted with Nachusa as she visited the preserve to complete a photography class project on prairie restoration. The opportunities for photography and conservation could not be more exciting, so now five years later, Dee became a part-time staff member and a land steward at Nachusa Grasslands.

Mayslake Peabody Estate January Exhibit

Mayslake Peabody Estate has an exhibit slot open for Mayslake Hall for January/February 2018 that corresponds with a First Folio show, so there will be lots of foot traffic. They have space for a minimum of 25 framed photos up to 65 photos. If you are interested, advise Fred Drury, Fred@marklandimaging.com. Several MNSPC members have already indicated they are interested. More information will follow in the next Focus but the preliminary information is:

Drop-Off: Monday, January 8, 6-9 p.m.

Exhibit Hanging: Tuesday, January 9, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Exhibit: Wednesday, January 10 – Sunday, February 25

Art Pick Up: Monday, February 26, 6-9 p.m.

Reception: Wednesday, January 10 or Thursday, February

3 Sept 2017

First Competition of the Year – Monday, September 18th

Our next meeting will be a Club competition. Even if you are not submitting images, please attend as this is a great opportunity to view images of your fellow members. Also, the critique portion of the evening includes discussion of photo techniques. The Mayslake Board has decided to have critiques on each image entered into the competition. The three judges will rotate giving critiques, with only one judge commenting on an image. For those of you submitting images, digital entries must be submitted to the competition mailbox competition@mlnpc.com by Sunday, September 10th. Please see the article in this newsletter about the sizing of digital images for competition. Print entries can be submitted on the night of the competition or can be dropped off at the Mayslake business office any time before the competition date. Mounting boards for print images are on sale at the regular club meetings. The forms for each competition image, digital and print, are submitted on the night of the competition. If you cannot attend the competition, please send them with a friend on that night. Normally, forms will not be able to be emailed ahead of time. For digital images, if you cannot make the meeting please email your forms to Ron (ronald.szymczak@sbcglobal.net) before the meeting. Please hand in prints and paperwork in by 6:45 pm so that committee members can get everything organized and be ready to go at 7 pm. There are no changes to the any of the forms for the 2017 - 2018 competition year. The Competition Guidelines have been updated as of 8-22-17. The forms and Competition Guidelines are posted on the Club website http://www.mlnpc.com/competition-rules/. If you have a question about whether an image meets the guidelines, it is best to ask before you submit. You can send a copy of the image to Ron Szymczak (ronald.szymczak@sbcglobal.net) for guidance. If you have not submitted images in competition before, you should submit your images in Class B, as Class B and C are currently combined. Class standings are the same as last year unless you have been already notified of a class change. If you have a question about your class standing, please email Ron. Submitting images in competition is a way to determine how your photography is viewed by others - in this case a panel composed of one member and two outside judges. During the critiques, you will learn what the judges saw as strong points in an image and also hear their suggestions on techniques to enhance the image. Remember, the best ways to improve your photographic skills are:

- Take classes from experts

- Shoot - shoot - shoot

- Take advantage of opportunities to get feedback on your technique, such as participating in Club competition. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to email Ron Szymczak at

ronald.szymczak@sbcglobal.net. If you would like to help with check-in on competition night and are

available to come about 6:30 p.m., please contact Ron.

See you on September 18

4 Sept 2017

Upcoming Outings

October: Upper Peninsula

Several club members will be going on a fall outing to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula October 1-5. Please join us. Contact Steve Ornberg for more information

steveornberg@yahoo.com (The regular October club meeting will be moved to the second Monday in October due to this outing).

September: Outing to Lyman Woods in Downers Grove When: Saturday, Sept 9th Time: 8 am Where: Lyman Woods Forest Preserve, Downers Grove Purpose: to photograph flowers, wildlife, insects and landscape Who: new and experienced members

Have you ever wondered what an outing with Mayslake photo club is like? This will be a great chance to find out without driving long distances and to meet the members in a very casual setting. We will have several members who can guide new members on photography from Macro, landscape to how to find a subject to photograph. If you need help with settings and exposures I am sure that members are more than happy to guide you.

After a couple of hours of photographing, we will be heading to breakfast at Gail’s Carriage Café just down the street.

Please let Noriko Buckles at nbucklesphoto@gmail.com know that you would like to attend.

Lyman Woods has ample parking, but they would like to know in advance how many people to expect. Also, the interpretive center will open at 9 am and they have clean facilities that you will be able to use.

Barn Light Painting at Night

Steve Ornberg and Noriko Buckles are planning a night photo shoot (to be confirmed yet by barn owner) at a barn near DeKalb. The timing of the photo shoot coincides with a New Moon to give us as much darkness as we can get. We will attempt to light paint the barn and capture star points, if possible. Stay tuned to MNSPC Yahoo Groups for more details.

5 Sept 2017

MNSPC Adventures

We are starting a new column

in the Focus, called MNSPC

Adventures. This column will

highlight the photo trips from

some of our intrepid members

so you can not only see

where they have been and

what they have been doing,

but maybe peak your interest

in visiting some of these

areas. If you would like to

contribute to this column in

future Focus editions please

email Sheila Newenham at

drsnewenham@gmail.com

with a couple of paragraphs

about your trip and a photo or

two.

Solar Eclipse by John Peggau

My wife, son, and I were very excited to hear about the solar eclipse August 21, 2017. Because we are avid astrophysics enthusiasts and I am a “new”“photographer”, we immediately set out to make hotel reservations. We knew that we did not want to miss this potentially unprecedented astronomical event! We secured a room in St. Louis, because Carbondale was full, around November 2016. As things became more evident, regarding weather and totality, we found that we needed to drive toward Carbondale on the morning of the eclipse. We left early from our St. Louis hotel and decided to stop in Murphrysboro, Illinois, where totality was 2 minutes 38.2 seconds. What a phenomenal experience! As we arrived in a small park, little known to people not from the area, we were greeted by around 100 other people. We had a perfect location, some protection from the sun early on, and open viewing for the eclipse, washrooms, and Walmart for food and beverages. The mood was electric! People were throwing Frisbees and playing music until a few minutes before the beginning of the eclipse. Then all eyes, with protective lenses of course, went skyward! What a show! By the time of totality, we were all struck by the 360° sunset! It is the first time I recall seeing such a beautiful sunset, the rays were still reflecting from around the earth but 360° on the horizon! I took a number of shots and kinda got the “Diamond ring” after the totality. I highly recommend scheduling your trip in seven years, when the totality coincidentally crosses through the Carbondale area again!

6 Sept 2017

The Great American Eclipse and Route 66 by Noriko Buckles

Traveling on Rte 66 has always been a passion of mine and when I saw

that the Eclipse of 2017 was going right over part of Rte 66 in Missouri,

I just had to be there. I went to Saint Clair, Missouri an hour west of St.

Louis, and set up my camera at an Elk’s Lodge. My set up was very

simple, Nikon D 810 with Nikkor 28-300 mm lens on a simple tripod with

a Promaster remote trigger system for the shutter to minimize the

vibration. I used a solar filter from when my son did a sun spot science

fair experiment some years ago. It looks like a mirror on both sides and

fits over the lens.

The day was clear with some clouds, hot and humid. I did a couple of

test shots and focused using the live view. Once I knew that the focus

was where I wanted it to be I used electrical tape to keep it from

slipping. The Eclipse started at 11:48 am. It seemed like many people

did not notice that the eclipse’s first phase had started and were still

walking around. At various points people would come up and ask me

questions about how to photograph with their point and shoot, or ask

me about what settings they should use but always my answer was,

“unless you have a solar filter it can fry your sensor but at totality you

can try to photograph the sun”.

I should have photographed every 10 min or so until totality but instead

I photographed when I noticed a significant difference from time before.

About half way through to the totality the whole area looked like I was

looking through sunglasses. As the moon covered the sun more and

more, it became darker and darker. At 1:05 pm I could feel the dramatic

temperature drop, it felt 10 degrees cooler. At 1:08 pm all at once it was

like twilight. I almost forgot to take photographs as it was surreal, then

when I did, I realized that nothing was showing up on the back…

What???? Then the fumbling began... huh, what’s going on?, then I

realized that I still had the solar filter on. As soon as I took the filter off,

I was back in business. Totality started at 1:15 pm and ended at 1:18

pm. At first everyone was very quiet, no cars went by on Rte 66, bird

and animal noises ceased, like every living thing had stopped breathing.

Then I started hearing people clapping, screaming, howling, in elation of

the moment. We had totality for 2 minutes and 41 seconds. I took

many photographs but forgot to change the aperture to F22 so I really

did not get the diamond ring affect. All in all the photograph of the

totality was a success.

Many people started leaving as soon as the sun was out of the totality

but I stayed until 2:44pm to photograph the final phase, by then the

clouds had moved in and it was getting harder to photograph. I heard

that 1 million people came to Missouri to experience the eclipse. I

believe it as I was stuck on I-44 for many hours trying to get out of town.

7 Sept 2017

Special Date for October

Meeting!

We will meet Monday,

October 16th. There is no

meeting on Monday, October

2nd

Exhibits Fred Drury

The ‘National & State Parks’ show is up and will run through October 21. Be

sure to take a look next time you’re at the Mayslake Estate.

If you have any suggestions for next year’s exhibit themes or for additional

exhibit locations, or of suggestions which would encourage increased member participation, please drop me an email at: fred@marklandimaging.com or give

me a call at 630 665 6598.

8 Sept 2017

Sizing Digital Images for Competition For our competitions, we use special software that displays the images and records scoring. This software has limitations on image size. For this reason, the Club has provided guidelines for sizing which are included as part of the overall Competition Guidelines. For competition, the software limit on image height is 768 pixels. The limit on image width is 1024 pixels. Your image cannot exceed either of these sizes. If it does exceed either the height or width limits, the display on the projection screen will cut off either the top and bottom or the sides of the image. Should this happen, the image will be removed from the competition and not judged. The image can be resized and submitted in a later competition. To avoid this situation, please be sure to check sizing before your image is submitted. Both Windows and Apple have applications that show image sizing. Most photo editing software has methods to resize images. Our Competition Guidelines, posted on the website, provide information on how to do sizing in Photoshop and Lightroom as these are the two most common photo editing applications. Both of these applications provide sizing in pixels. Other applications may provide sizing as “small,” “medium” or “large.” This sizing may not be accurate enough to meet the competition sizing guidelines. If you use this method, check the overall image size in pixels and determine if it will meet the guidelines. You can post a question on the Mayslake Yahoo group to see if any members have experience with the editing software you are using. One common mistake is using the option to size an image based on the “longest side” or “shortest side.” This sizing option may not work as it only adjusts the size of one parameter to the display guideline limit (height or width). This is especially problematic if your image is close to square or if it is panoramic. For example, you have cropped an image to 2300 pixels high by 2800 pixels wide. If you size the image to1024 pixels on the longest side, the width will meet the 1024 pixels display guideline for width but the height will be become 840 pixels which exceeds the display limit of 768 pixels. When displayed, the top and bottom of the image would be cut off. Don’t be discouraged if this seems complicated at first. Once you have your competition workflow in place, it will be much easier. If you are using Photoshop or Lightroom, the guidelines on the website will help you. If you don’t have Photoshop or Lightroom, check with the Mayslake Yahoo group for help.