Photography club

I'm really interested in this but have no idea what you guys are about. I've been into phhotography for a long time. I'd really be interested if you knew of a place to develop black and white personally in Munich. I don't know how to deveop color (which I prefer to shoot in) yet but I'd like to learn. I have the Cannon AE-2 and EF-1. I also have a digtal camera but it's just an olympus stylus, I use it for convenience. Do the rest of you use digital cameras or are the still some 35 mm film (or slides) users out there?

Well, I'm sorry, but I have some other ideas why this thing went belly-up. They don't include not wanting to go out and taking pictures, because on the photo-outings we did plan and those we actually carried out, few people came along. This was not talking about pictures, this was going out and taking them.

We were looking into having a portrait session, on a weekend, long and thorough with lot's of things going on. Even bringing in equipment, and most importantly having a lot of people (photographers as models), so you never run out of subjects, and you have fun. As a pilot we had a meeting just before it, just taking pictures of one another outside, to get a go at it and sort of as a prep for the bigger meeting. 3 people made it. When we were trying to put together a date for the larger portrait meeting, there was not one date that suited more than 4 or 5 people together. Which makes renting equipment kind of expensive. That's when we decided to try out a smaller-scale outing, which unfortunately had a smaller-scale turnout.

Then there was the web site thing. A matter of wanting to help, but having communication problems when there were issues involving use of that webspace for something related to the photo club. Is this also about not wanting to talk too much about pictures? I'm not so sure. For example, the wedding shots. I still have a ready-made web page with all the pics I wanted to show, but nowhere to upload them. And even if I did upload them, picking out one-by one 250 photos that I wanted to show, at the present state of affairsthey would not be in the format I want them to be displayed (not nice to go through 250 pics without reasonable navigation abilities). Besides, the site is dead. The last outing mentioned there is from November (at least 2 happened since), and the last pictures posted, and comments made on other pictures, are my own from months ago.

Another example, the Chirstkindlmarkt shoot. There were people on there, we took pictures, we drank Gluehwein, but what do I do with the stuff I took? We talked about it in one of our meetings, but what if I want to do more with them? Isn't this the whole point of having a club? To share? Do stuff with people who share interest in the same kind of things?

Now, I'm sure a lot of people would want to use this sort of platform, the photo club, to do the things they would like. At least, a lot of people declare that. Unfortunately, outside of one or two exceptions, nobody has ever tried to pick up the glove, so to speak. Not by suggesting new ideas, and not by accepting ideas suggested by other members, which is arguably at least as important.

So, I'm kind of dried out. I would love to have this thing succeed and create a nice place to do what we initially wanted to do (share our knowledge and passion of this photography thingy), but unfortunately, the way things are going, I just can't see that happening. So if anyone thinks there are better ways to do this, please, go ahead. We can start with Thomas' mail from a few days back. I'm sorry to sound so off and pessimistic, but unfortunately that's what I am regarding the state of this project.

I hope things will work out anyways.

Genie, (and others)

I am with you on many of the points you mentioned. In my opinion, the REAL problem was simply motivation and dedication. How many meetings have we postponed/cancelled or simply forgotten because people simply “had other plans� or “could not make it�. I mean, if we really want to get down to that level, I personally think that if you want to be part of something, you should be able to make time for it and lots of people were just taking the photo club not seriously enough to make time for it. Now at the end of the day, I think that's it s probably because we did not offer what people expected or maybe not provided the right platform. When I posted this message, I was only talking for myself because to be honest, I consider the photo club dead as it was, simply because it did not work the way it was. You can think about it and say “ok, screw it, am gonna give up and do my own stuff� but I decided to take the best part of it which would be to get together with people to actually take photos, because this is what I enjoy. It does not have to be a club or whatever because like you, I am tired of simply always making plans that nobody ever follows. For example, you mentioned Thomas´ email which was a great idea, but to me it was simply very symptomatic of the photo club: Thomas was going to be “very busy� next month and would only be available in May…

I don't know about you guys, but I am really into photography, which means that I am almost every day with my camera and I take pictures also almost every day. If some people are still interested to share this passion, then it's great, we can get together and take pictures. There is a whole world out there just waiting for us. If nobody wants to, well, that's also ok with me, it's not gonna stop me. What I don't want to do is to always have to drag a group of people who claim they are interested but cannot make time for their passion. But well, that's just me and those were my 2 cents worth of thought.

DK

well, organizing a club is not easy, and while i understand the frustration, i hope there are no hard feelings. i personally am traveling quite a bit, but would still love to get together now and then for photos, even if there is no organized club...

and on a slightly different, but related, topic, my lil workhorse canon powershot took a fall after many beers at a football match (and the U.S. team lost, just to add salt to the wound). I am going to try and have the lil' guy repaired, unless it just makes more sense to replace it...

Does anyone have any suggestions for a camera repair shop???

I guess this is a good excuse to spend more time with the ol' film SLR.

cheers!

What about not having a club, but instead a "community"? For example, have a theme for the month and maybe have a central place to upload photos. Then everyone independently rates/comments on other people's photos. That way, you don't have the drag of planning meetings, and people can come and go as they please.

Of course, someone will have to spearhead where to upload the photos, etc... But just thought I'd throw that idea out.

Good idea kks, but to take that a little further, why not just let people host their own pictures, either on personal websites or with something like "photobucket" (Free picture hosting).
Then have a Photo Thread on here which is the central point for showing pictures and discussion.

The community can then do their own things, either singularly or in their own smaller groups and report back to TT.

You never know, this may be more manageable, at least initially and there's no immediate or ongoing commitment to worry about.

WH

Sounds good, kks & Whiskeyhammer.

I'm kinda interested in this photography club, but I'm one of those people who would often have other things on or not be able to make many meetings, so I wouldn't be able to commit to anything. I'd be much more interested in being able to follow what you all get up to on line.

I wouldn't mind attending a couple of meetings purely just for fun/curiousity though.

What exactly do you do at the meetings anyway?? I thought that might become clearer after you'd had a few but I never saw any further information.

As I'm a newbie to photography I would be sucking up information rather than having much to offer, but is it possible for those of you who meet to post what you discuss or any interesting ideas that come up?

That way if others do have anything new or inspiring to contribute to the current theme/idea/whatever they can join in at short notice?

I suppose you could even plan and outline what will happen at each meeting here first and then find out who is interested in advance. Saves you having only a couple of people show up.

Hi Mel,

don´t worry, no hard feeling at all I guess that we all tried at different times to take the initiative and it just did not work out. I am not blaming anyobdy or saying that we were bad at doing it, it´s just a statement that i draw today.

I like the ideas that were mentionned here about the community and photo sharing/critic. We still have a domain and some web space and it would be easy to transform it into a plateform for anybody to upload their photos. But i think that a single spot is easier to manage, instead of having people pulling their pics from everywhere. And I don´t know if Editor Bob would be too happy if we use this forum to generate traffic and volume because of pictures sharing But you never know...

At the same time, I stil like the meeting concept because it has a more personal approach, but maybe that´s just me, so I would like to keep it from time to time.

A few things are possible and am glad to hear your feedback.

DK

I would be interested in a photo club, but just photo criticism wouldn't hold enough interest. I'm more interested in sharing technical knowledge, and specific workshops type of thing, e.g. post-production lectures in photoshop, lessons on filters, lens, etc. All with specific meeting agendas. Probably that falls more in the domain of Volkshochschule though, not a simple photo club.

So, what do folks think of creating a group on Flickr? I just looked into it, and we can make it a "Public, invitation only" group. The cool thing about this is:

1. It's free! You'll have to have a yahoo account, but big deal, that's free too.
2. It's not using TT resources
3. It also has a "discussion" feature in which people and ask and answer questions
4. We can use tags to group things into projects. I haven't played with this feature much, but I'm sure we can find a way. For example, April themes can be "Plants", and everyone would tag their photos with "April 2006 Project Plants" or something like that.
5. Don't have to organize meetings, we can discuss future themes on TT.

What do people think of that? I know it's not quite as social as a meeting, in fact, it's the exact opposite, but at least it will give some people inspiration and motivation or at the very least, some distraction while working.

OK, looking further into it, the downside is that there is a 20MB upload cap a MONTH per person, maybe that's a good thing, it will make it so that we don't have to troll through/critique a billion pictures???

Hi all,

I have a flickr account - not much up on the site yet, just a couple of photos...

But i find it quite easy to use and as kks said - maybe it's not that bad to have a limit on the no. of photos you can upload. for the others to see, i mean.

so i'm up for it. my two cents.

cheers,
pinky

I like the idea of putting the photos up on DK's server, then doing the discussion online here. Has the potential to get Joe Public TT'er involved, and requires minimal effort. If someone offers to do a seminar etc. at some point, or there is an option for an outing, then great - increased exposure means that we have more chance of getting enough people along to make it worth it.

In the meantime, Saturn have a (cheap - 150E) Sigma macro lense that I'd like some opinions of...

It's a 70-300mm F4-5.6 DG MACRO
http://www.sigma-photo.com/lenses/lenses_a...304&navigator=3

I'm a bit worried that the minimum focussing distance is ~1m - hardly a macro I would have said. The nikkor option is in the 500E range though...

So everybody uses Digital? Anyone out there still into 35mm, manual everything phototgraphy?

yeah - me. still using 35mm analog. one day i'll switch to digital (when i can afford a proper digital SRL)- but right now my nikon produces such great quality pictures, it's hard to beat it with a normal digital camera.

After using a very trusted old Olympus OM10 for something like 27 years, I finally replaced it with a Nikon (35mm Film) F80 two years ago.
I have been delighted with the Nikon although it did take some getting used to. This is still my main camera although for auction listings I use a little Fuji digital toy thingy.

A Nikon D200 is high on my shopping list of "wants" but at the moment getting hold of one is almost impossible, or at least impossible at a reasonable price. They are currently selling on Ebay at around €200 OVER list price.

WH

following on what kks said, I decided to give flickr a try. I signed up, uploaded my first picture, created a group and posted my first comment. As Pinky said, it was very easy and fast.

so...I suggest you give it a try if you are interested in this project: Toytown photo community on flickr

I am not very familiar with flickr yet so there are a couple of things I need to figure out first, like how to make the pictures from the group pool viewable by non member (at the moment, it seems that you first have to sign in to see the pics within the group). If anybody knows, I am intersted in hearing the answer!

So basically, here are the things you need to do:

- sign up for a flickr account (it´s easy and free!). if you have a yahoo account, you can even use this to sign in.
- look out for the group called "Toytown photo community" and join the group. i made it at the moment an "open" community so that everybody with a flickr account can join (so that i don´t have to send multiple invitation). but that can be changed.
- upload your pictures and share them in the group pool
- share your ideas or any info on your pics
- give constructive critics or feedback
- you can use the thread to give tips or info about post-processing for example
- etc...

I think it´s worth giving it a try. I would still like to get together with some people though for some photo shooting at some point

I´d be glad to hear your feedback.

Cheers!

DK

hey deekay - like your photo.

i just added two photos to the group to test it out. it's pretty easy.

this could easily work as a Toytown photo exchange platform.

everyone just needs to have a flickr account/yahoo id.

is there also a 20MB a month limit for a group pool?

cheers,
pinky

Hey guys, good to see you are using Flickr - I've been a member for a while - it gets very addictive.

I have posted an answer to DeeKay's question over in the new photo pool.

Look forward to seeing some pics from you guys.

Sorry folks,
I know that I can sometimes be slow to 'catch on', but why do we need to sign up to yet another forum and then upload pictures to that forum just to view them.

I already have my photography nicely hosted on the web and I would have thought we had a perfectly good platform here in TT to view and discuss them.

WH

WH, because using TT as a platform to display and discuss pictures would create extra traffic on the TT server and we don´t have the possibility here to comment or organize the pics around themes. it would quickly get pretty difficult to naviate and organize on pics on the TT platform.

Using flickr and the group funcittion allows you to have your own website, your own pics and to share only with the community here the one that can be of photographic interest for the members of the community.

I still have my own website, but if we go doing common themes and topics, we can foster creativity and share our experience.

This should not become only a place to display, but also to discuss and exchange. that´s why it would be great to see people giving some details about their own pics (what they had in mind, how they did it, what technique, what post processing, etc) and also hopefully to see comments and feedback so that we can all improve and learn.

Has anybody got any experience of the B&W mode some digital SLRs have? How does it compare to normal chemical B&W? Can you used the same exposure techniques?

I think it's easier to shoot in colour and then do the adaption to BW in photoshop/gimp... but that's just my experience. It allows you to choose what colour's intensity you're going to translate into the BW, which often produces nicer results than allowing the camera's default setting to do it.

Maybe, just doesn't sound right as you tend to look at a scene differently when shooting B&W. Did you shoot monochrome in the pre-digital days? Would really like to hear from those who did it the old fashion why before going digital.

I did shoot b&w with film (as I used to process b&w as well) with a good old Canon AE-1. Today I have completely transitionned to digital with a D-SLR but I find that there is actually no difference in shooting digital or film. The support has changed (pixels instead of silver) but the technique, the composition and the eye required for b&w are the same. when i look at a scene and I know that this will come b&w, I will apply the same technique as with film. The only difference is that I will have to remember that once i get on my computer and process it. Ben is right here. it´s much easier to shoot in colors now with digital and then come up with monochrome. it also means that you can allow yourself more "mistake" because you can always tune in on a computer, but with a SLR, digital or film, the b&w eye is still the same in my opinion.

@Deekay - Thanks for the info. I hope to participate in the club once I have bought myself a digital SLR, my old SLR is back in the UK and I probably won't bother bringing it here.

@Exile - you can still participate by adding critiques!

Hey photo fans,

So, what´s up? come on, don´t be shy. Come and share your best shot with us. Come and discuss pictures, give comments and get some tips maybe about photography. Just check out the Toytown photo community on flickr. Get yourself a free flickr account or use your existing yahoo account and start uploading, sharing and having fun. There is already some cool stuff over there! It´s an open community so please help me make it a successful one!

DK

[img]http://digitalday.smugmug.com/photos/62645308-O.jpg[/img]

Come enter the photo community!

My own pictures may be found under my personal website as listed on my TT membership info (Whisky-Emporium).

Enjoy!
WH

@winegirl

Yes I still shoot with my Canon A2 with B&W and slide(very useful when using the Daylab). I also use various Polaroid cameras mostly along the SX-70 line.

Edit: I tried out the flikr recommendation very nice site. I uploaded one photo to test it out. Signed in under perdido71

perdido, i found your picture, but if you want to take part in the Toytown photo community, you also have to share the photo with the "group pool" (flickr function). thanks for participating!

Hi folks, I put some photos in the flikr community - hope you like them! I'll have a few more up there in a while.

Hi Everybody,

another try at getting some life into the photo community: there is a flickr user meeting on Saturday to go and shoot the flea Market at Theresienwiese. A thread was started here and that´s where you will find the details.

It would be great to see some people there! Don´t forget your cameras!

DK

Stick 'em up!

This is a thread hijack.

I wanted to post this somewhere, and the Photography Club seemed the most appropriate place. Just a brilliant photo cut out of a newspaper: