2012-01-10 FCDCC Meeting Notes

We met in our new meeting room at Ridgeview Classical School
Ridgeview Classical School on the southeast corner of Lemay and Stuart (1800 S. Lemay) Enter through the southwest corner of the building. Ridgeview Classical School isn't asking us to pay for the use of the meeting room, but they have asked us to obtain liability insurance so the club is looking for liabililty insurance.

We had a few new members at the meeting tonight: Andy, Tonya, Ken, Bob and Sandy. Please welcome them to our club.

We have started a new year so it's time to pay your membership dues for 2012. We have changed the rates to $25. Please find Rich at one of the meetings and pay him.

We changed a couple club bylaws at the meeting:
1. We raised the dues from $20 to $25 per year.
2. We have created an Executive Committee to help the club resolve minor issues.
The bylaw changes were voted on by the membership and passed.

January Library Presentations
The library has asked us to repeat our introduction to photography presentation.
We will be giving the program Thursday 1/26 at 7pm at the Council Tree Library.
We will be giving the program again on Saturday 1/28 at 10am at the Harmony Library.
Topics will be: General Photography, File Manipulation, and Composition.
The presentation is scheduled for 1.5 hours total.
Please contact Bob Babbs if you would like to be a presenter or helper.

Summer Library Presentation
The library has asked us to run a summer photography contest.

Please don't just click the reply button to reply to email from the club website. Your email will be sent to Bob and Mike who probably didn't write the email. Try to reply to the author of the email. If you are sending an email from the club website please include your email address so everyone will know who to respond to.

We have a new Forum and a new Gallery on the website. Please give them a try.

The Special Interest Groups are encouraging members to take more photographs. Take a look at the SIGs and consider joining one.

The January outing will be to Bosque del Apache 1/20 - 1/23. We will be meeting at the Harmony Transportation Center on 1/20 before 5am when we are scheduled to leave. Members going on the trip met after the meeting to arrange details.

The January Coffee Outing will be 1/12 at 9am at the Full Throttle Coffeehouse, later going to the Environmental Learning Center at Drake and Zieglar to photograph the raptors.

The Macro SIG has asked a professional macro photographer to give the main presentation at the February club meeting on 2/14. The meeting will start at 6:30pm as usual, but you are encouraged to arrive at 6:15pm if you want to socialize for a bit before the meeting.

The February club outing will be 2/18 in the old room at CSU from 10am to 2pm. We will be experimenting with macro photography. Bring your cameras and tripods and small objects. The Macro SIG will setup several stations to give us all a chance to take macro pictures.

The alternate photographic topic for January will be tracks and footprints for those that aren't going to Bosque del Apache.

Dawn is planning a trip to Wray to photograph the prairie chickens near the end of March or beginning of April. You will have to get reservations for the blind if you are interested.

Continue sending your pictures to Ken Eis for the club meetings. Include a before and after editing version, and please limit yourself to 3 pairs of images per meeting.

Thanks to Andy Long for his presentation on "Wildlife Photography". Andy teaches classes and workshops and leads tours to photograph nature.

Here are a few of Andy's bird photography tips:
1. capture the moment of action
2. blinds are good for smaller birds
3. birds land and takeoff into the wind
4. use the servo-focus or continuous focus mode to track your subject
5. set your exposure to 1/1000s or less to prevent blurry birds
6. place a drop of nectar in a flower to attract hummingbirds to the right spot
7. he uses a 600mm f/5.6 for a long f/4.0 lens
8. the center focus square is the strongest, use it
9. bird calls will attract birds during mating and migration season
10. use your car as a blind
11. pick a specific bird from a group and wait for it do do something
12. East Lake in Thornton has Avocets and water birds
13. get the bird's eye in focus
14. shoot a burst of shots when photographing birds in flight
15. meter on the background for silhouettes at sunset and underexpose by 2/3 stop
16. underexpose fog photographs
17. anticipate what your subject will do
18. Sandhill cranes lean forward before they start running and take off
19. snow geese and skimmers bathe before taking off in the morning
20. don't spend too long at a nest, you might attract predators
21. share your info and tips with other photographers, they might share with you
22. Stellar's Jays can be found at the 2nd parking lot near the Alluvial Fan in RMNP
23. he uses Breeze Browser for sorting and editing pictures
24. set your exposure to 1/2000s or less if hand holding the camera