Category Archives: Meetings

Drone Flying and Photography Tutorial – 17/05/2016

Drone Tutorial ZLlewellyn-1-Edit

Getting your camera into unusual positions and getting new angles is often touted as being the mark of a good photographer, something we endeavour to do all the time.

Taking this to new heights (pardon the pun!), we had a tutorial on Drone Flying and Photography recently from ECCG member, James Brady, who put his dji Phantom 3 through its paces.

Drone Tutorial DBarry-1 Beginning with some classroom work, James outlined the features of the drone and controller, discussed flying the drone including the regulations now in place governing their use and using the drone for photography and videography. Then with all questions suitably answered, we went outside to a nearby park for a practical demonstration.

Drone Tutorial FOShea-3-Edit The experience was mesmerising! This little package, weighing a little over 1Kg is packed with enough smarts to practically fly on its own with minimal input from the pilot. James demonstrated the start up procedure and flew the drone expertly around the park while a live video feed streamed back to the display on the controller, immediately revealing a view of the town rarely seen. The images were breathtaking and solid as a rock even in the blustery and overcast conditions that prevailed.

The specs of the onboard camera are:
Sensor 1/2.3” Effective pixels:12 M
Lens FOV (Field Of View) 94° 20 mm (35 mm format equivalent) f/2.8
ISO Range
100-3200 (video)
100-1600 (photo)
Shutter Speed 8s -1/8000s
Image Max Size 4000 x 3000
Still Photography Modes
Single Shot
Burst Shooting: 3/5/7 shots
Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB): 3/5
Bracketed Frames at 0.7EV Bias
Time-lapse

Midleton County Council Office

Video Recording Modes
2.7K: 2704 x1520p 24/25/30 (29.97)
FHD: 1920x1080p 24/25/30
HD: 1280x720p 24/25/30/48/50/60
Max Video Bitrate 40 Mbps
Supported File Formats FAT32 ( ? 32 GB ); exFAT ( > 32 GB )
Supported SD Card Types Micro SD Card 8 GB included
Operating Temperature 32° to 104° F ( 0° to 40° C )
Photo JPEG, DNG
Video MP4, MOV (MPEG-4 AVC/H.264)

Church of the Most Holy Rosary, Midleton

Drone Tutorial FOShea-4 The return to home feature, implemented automatically when the drone is out of range or by pressing a command on the controller, landed the drone back automatically within two feet of where it had taken off from – simply amazing.

We reviewed the images on a large screen back at The Midleton Park Hotel after the demo and were suitably impressed by the quality of the images even in less than ideal conditions.

The popularity of drones is definitely on the increase and brings new opportunities to the photographer and videographer alike.

Thanks to James for sharing his knowledge and expertise.

Members: Click here for more.

Peter Cox speaks to ECCG

East Cork Camera Group were honoured indeed to have renowned Irish Landscape Photographer, Peter Cox, in attendance at our latest meeting at The Midleton Park Hotel on Tuesday 3/5/16.

Based in Ballingeary, Co. Cork, Peter is one of the most successful photographers in the country running workshops all over the world while his work has been exhibited at home and abroad as well being featured on national and international television.

Peter is a Fellow of the Irish Professional Photographers’ Association (IPPA) and has received a Qualified European Photographer award from the Federation of European Photographers. His retail gallery at 4, High Street, Killarney, Co. Kerry, is a veritable photographic treasure trove featuring magnificent prints and is really worth a visit.

Also in the gallery can be found Peter’s two self-published photography books, The Irish Light and Atlantic Light, both of which were successfully funded on Kickstarter.

The Irish Light is a beautiful, hard-covered, coffee table book of 128 pages which includes ninety of Peter’s best photographs from 2005-2012.

Atlantic Light is a collection of aerial photographs of the Wild Atlantic Way – Ireland’s west coast. The first of its kind, the images were made from a combination of helicopters, aeroplanes and drones.

Both books are beautifully produced and really are a must-have for everyone’s bookshelf.

Peter’s talk to the Group was first class covering mainly Composition, Light and the Technical aspects of his photography which was music to the ears of all in attendance who could have listened for the night but, as we had to let him back to Ballingeary at a reasonable hour, his talk had to end but not before many questions were answered and several books personally signed.

Many thanks to Peter for making the journey to Midleton and for a really enjoyable talk.

Find out more about Peter here:
Website
Facebook
Twitter

ECCG Scavenger Hunt – 30/6/15

scavenger hunt group

The final meeting of the Group before the summer break took place on another beautiful sunny evening on 30/6/15 when we gathered at the Courthouse, Midleton for a scavenger hunt.

We divided into four groups and were given the following random themes, Connects, Reflective, Informative and Wasteful, which were computer generated just before the 7pm ‘off’. The aim was to capture and submit one image per theme per group which would be judged later at the Midleton Park Hotel.

From 8.30pm the groups returned to the hotel and submitted their entries in turn and, following some sorting of the sixteen images, the judging began. With only an hour and a half allotted for shooting the images, the interpretation of the themes produced some great shots and, with absolutely no post-processing, the images were judged straight from camera. With the members voting in their groups, tallying the marks was fast and so results were available very quickly.

The results were as follows:

In third place with 224 points was Group C: Gráinne Davies, Noelle Lowney, Jim Curtin and Joe Keniry.

In second place, with 230 points, was Group D: Finbarr O’Shea, Michael Hickey and Eileen Upton.

In first place, with 234 points, was Group B: John Tait, Lorna O’Dwyer and James Brady.

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scavenger-hunt-2015-1

The deserving winners were presented with a beautifully themed cake created by the wizard confectioners at Day’s Eurospar Whitegate. The cake remained with the winners long enough to have their photo taken with it and thereafter, was sampled by all in attendance!

Click here to view the gallery of images submitted for the competition. Enjoy.

While ECCG will not have regular meetings during July and August, shoots will continue on a weekly basis and meetings will resume again on 1st September next. If you think you would like to get involved, contact us using this link.

ECCG Visits the Giles Norman Gallery, Kinsale – 19/5/15

On Tuesday 19/5/15 a group of ECCG members fulfilled a long-held item on our bucket list when we visited Giles Norman, Ireland’s foremost black and white photographer, at his gallery at 45 Main St, Kinsale, Co. Cork.

REPRO FREE Renowned photographer, Giles Norman, who hosted a reception and signing of his new book 'Ireland ?timeless images' at Hodges Figgis in Dawson Street. Picture. John Allen

Giles, himself, was on hand to show us around the gallery and we were eager to hear about his photography methods and workflow.

Having been heavily influenced by street photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Doisneau in his early years, he has adopted their style of ‘travelling light’ with just one handheld camera and one lens which is incredible when you scan his gallery and take in the wonderful images he has captured in this way.

He claims to be not concerned with the technicalities of photography so much as the composition of his images preferring instead to concentrate on what he sees through the view finder and capture the decisive moments as they happen.

Hanging in his gallery is this insightful passage:

Perfect Composition

“Every image we see, has its perfect composition and the closer we get to that the better the photograph. It’s the difference between a bad photograph and a good one, a good photograph and a great one. It’s the fundamental being of both landscape and street photography, the one thing you must learn, the one thing your camera can’t do for you. My advice to any aspiring photographer is to concentrate on composition and let your camera do the rest. Most cameras have an automatic program mode, find it, use it, trust it. Don’t look at your camera, look through it, because while you are looking at it, moving dials and changing buttons, the clouds have moved, the light on the sea has disappeared, the couple kissing are now talking, the photograph is less than it could have been, the image has lost it’s perfect composition”.

– Giles Norman

Often times we are guilty of getting caught up in the ‘gear’ that goes with photography, mistakenly thinking that it is essential in getting THE shot. Not so and Giles is living proof of this fact.

giles norman group

Giles’s first publication with Collins Press, a book entitled ‘Ireland Timeless Images’, was published to coincide with his 25th year in business and he is currently working on his next book, a collection of images of Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way.

Many thanks to Giles and his wife, Catherine, for hosting ECCG at the gallery.

Click here to visit Giles’s website. Giles on Facebook. Giles on Twitter.

Charles Lee ASINWP Visits ECCG

deer

East Cork Camera Group was delighted to welcome nature and wildlife photographer, Charles (Charlie) Lee, ASINWP, to speak at our recent Group meeting at the Midleton Park Hotel.

fox1 A man clearly with a passion for his subject, Charlie is also absolutely on top of his photography game. As he scrolled through his slideshow and passed around some prints, the approval of the audience was audible and, while we would have been more than satisfied just to see the images, he was also keen to share the background to each image including the methods he used to make the shot including his favourite shooting locations.

In May 2013 Charlie gained his Associateship from The International Society Of Nature and Wildlife Photographers and you can see his gallery of twenty images that made up his entry here.

While admitting to his reputation as the ‘bird on a stick’ photographer, Charlie is much more than that as his portfolio spans all sorts of nature and wildlife from the great to the small, on land, water and air. His stunning images of shy animals such as the fox above convey the skill, patience and knowledge of the man while Charlie is also a fine landscape and seascape photographer.

abstract bird

Not content with the rich pickings of regular nature and wildlife photography, Charlie also has a stunning collection of bird in flight images taken with slow shutter speeds that really catch the eye. The resulting blurred motion captured in these images and printed on museum paper lends a fine art look and feel that is really pleasing.

With the high standard of the work on show together with Charlie’s obvious eagerness to continue to push the boundaries, one feels that a Fellowship cannot be far away. Well done Charlie and thanks for sharing your photography and knowledge with us.

Mouse over the image below to activate the slideshow controls and see some more of Charlie’s images. Go to his website here for more. Enjoy!.

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