OPS Weekly Newsletter 26 January 2025
- Please start selecting and printing your entries for our second print competition on 11 February. Let’s enjoy seeing your finest
- Last week’s meeting Tues 7 January: Astro-photography with Gareth from LCE
Gareth took us through the ins and outs of astro-photography. He had planned to have us trying out some of the techniques but unfortunately it was too cloudy to photograph anything in the sky.
He had a very well thought out and easy to follow set of tips for each aspect of astro-photography and walked us through the process. He listed the subjects in order of easy to difficult. Starting with the moon, then landscapes, on to star trails, then the milky way, the rare for Oxford aurora before the extremely difficult deep space.
He started with the very basics which is all about keeping warm, dry and safe. You will need:
- Headtorch
- Thermal under layer
- Waterproof outer layer
- Hat
- Gloves
- Boots
Then you will need to take with you some photography equipment which will include:
- Solid tripod
- Camera with manual control
- Remote control (timer)
- Spare batteries
- Long telephoto & wide-angle lenses
- Star tracker
- Telescope
Besides the taking of photos you will improve your chances of getting a great shot by having handy ‘apps’ that will tell you important information about the sky and where you can see it – away from built up areas – the things in it, the weather, and working out your exposure. His list of apps were:
- Location tracking – Google Maps
- Astro positions – Stellarium / Photo Pills
- Moon Phase – Daff Moon
- Chance of Aurora – My Aurora Forecast
- Weather – Clear Outside / Windy
- Exposure Calculator
Nest up were a few tips about general techniques
- Set screen brightness to minimum
- Trust the Histogram
- Prioritise maximum capture information. In this he meant getting as much data as possible from the scene so that you can pull out the detail. This is not ‘get it right in camera’ photography.
Then Gareth went through tips of his list of ‘subjects’ that ran for ‘easy’ to ‘difficult’ First up was the moon.
- Long focal length lens (>300mm equiv.)
- Spot metering
- Shutter speed priority or
- f/11, 1/ISO (1/100, ISO 100… 1/500, ISO 500 etc) This is known as Looney 11. Set your aperture to f/11 and your shutter speed to whatever ISO your camera to set to.
- Watch for blown out highlights
One of the problems with photographing the sky is the fact we are standing on a spinning planet. Any ‘long’ exposure will render the stars in the sky not as dots but as elongated blobs. To avoid this there it ‘The 500th Rule’ which:
- Ensures stars are rendered as dots
- 500/Focal length (FF equivalent) = Shutter Speed
- 14mm = 35 secs
- 20mm = 25 secs
- 24mm = 20 secs
- 50mm = 10 secs
- 200mm = 2.5 secs
So the wider your lens the longer an exposure you can take before the stars start to blur. The longer the lens the less time your have.
Gareth took us through techniques for night time landscape techniques
- Manual focus
- Check by zooming into bright star/planet
- Highest ISO, widest aperture
- Allows you to quickly check composition
- Dial in the exposure using the histogram
Landscape Techniques – Exposure
- Work out the settings with Exposure Calculator
- Maximum shutter is set by 500th rule
- Brighter (lower f/ number) apertures = more stars
- ISO will be what it will be – Gareth usually shoots at 3,000 iso
- Be careful of losing shadow detail
Star Trail Techniques
- Know where the North Star is, this will let you know where the star trails will curve in the sky
- Longer exposures create noise…
- … so use a timer remote to capture a series of shorter exposures
- … then blend in Photoshop using merge/lighten – do this is batches to avoid humungous file sizes that will crash you computer
- Can also be used to create a timelapse
Milky Way Techniques
- Core is only visible to the south during summer months
- South coast is the best UK location
- Astro trackers massively increase detail
- A lot of online examples feature significant post processing
Aurora Techniques
- Your camera will see more than you
- Be prepared to react
- The next 12 months are likely to be the best for 7 years
- Interval remote
Deep Space Techniques (not for the faint hearted, or those without access to the Hubble telescope)
- Astro Tracker is essential
- Flat frames (calibrate camera ISO noise)
- Bias frames (calibrate lens)
- Dark Frames (calibrate temperature noise)
- Lots of post processing
A fascinating subject brought to life. His images were superb. He had a great shot of Brightwell Barrow with a blood red sky during the aurora spectacle that happened late last year.
- Next meeting Tues 28 January 19.30: Adrian Arbib – photographing protests
Adrian is an Oxford based photographer. Over the years he’s worked on human rights investigative and campaigning work, which has taken him all over the world from West Papua, Indonesia, Mongolia, Nigeria, Namibia and India to name but a few. His work has been published widely and on assignment in the Guardian, New York Times, and for 6 years he worked as a staff photographer for La Repubblica. More recently he was the subject of a press injunction when he was covering RWE’s dumping of fuel ash at Radley Lakes, which supported by the NUJ resulted in a landmark decision in the high court on press freedom.
- Upcoming meetings in 2025
Tuesday 4 February: I Also Fight Windmills – a literary photobook by Ania Ready
Former OPS member Ania is a Polish-British photographic artist and author based in Oxfordshire, UK. She works with photography, archives, and texts. In her work, she explores the human psyche, and how it can be affected by outside forces: societal, medical and political ones. Ready is interested in what it means to have an agency in how we look and respond to the world. She has a special interest in the topic of femininity, hysteria and madness. Ready creates images, collages, and also works with alternative, cameraless processes.
Tuesday 11 February: Print Competition no. 2
Our judge will be Chris Palmer
Tuesday 18 February: What Does Photography Mean to You? By Grant Scott
Grant is the founder of United Nations of Photography, and began working as a professional photographer in 2000 after working for fifteen years as an art director of photography books and magazines such as Elle, Tatler and Foto8. He was the editor of Professional Photographer magazine and founded Hungry Eye magazine. Grant now works as a freelance photographer, writer and documentary filmmaker. He is a Senior Lecturer and Subject Coordinator of Photography at Oxford Brookes University and the author of several published books on photography.
Tuesday 25 February: Three OPS members presentations by Michelle Peters, Rob Farrands and Helen Stewart
- Programme Secretary vacancy
We have a full and varied programme for you this season thanks to the hard work and excellent choices by Les. Unfortunately, due to unexpected changes in Les’s work commitments he cannot continue in the role and we need someone to step forward to start the planning and booking of speakers for next season’s programme. Please do contact me or any other committee member if you are interested in taking on the role.
- Events photographic in and around Oxford
Photo Oxford Workshops
Join us for an exciting series of alternative photography workshops in March and April to explore the art of cyanotypes, anthotypes, phytograms, botanicograms, chemigrams, caffenol film development, pinhole cameras, photography as performance, and psychogeography.
https://www.photooxford.org/workshops
OPS’s Winter Exhibition, the Westgate Library, Westgate Shopping Centre, Oxford
Many thanks to everyone who put their prints into the exhibition and to everyone who helped mount the images. The exhibition looks very good so please do go and visit and enjoy the variety of images on show. It runs to the end of January.
Camera Club: Why Are You Here?
A group of budding young photographers aged 12 – 17 have worked with artist, Elina Medley, to create and then curate their first exhibition, proudly showing at Magdalen Road Art Space @ Magdalen Road Studios
You can see the exhibition at Magdalen Road Art Space @ Magdalen Road Studios.
Join us for the Private View on 14 Feb at 5pm.
14 February – 20 February 2025
11am – 3pm
https://www.thenorthwall.com/whats-on/youthlab-camera-club-exhibition/
Bird Photographer of the Year Exhibition
An exhibition showcasing impactful and stunning images of birds taken from around the globe in 2024 is now open. Oxfordshire Museum, in Woodstock, is hosting the Bird Photographer of the Year exhibition until late February.
The Oxfordshire Museum
Fletcher’s House
Park Street
Woodstock
OX20 1SN
Saturday 11 Jan 2025, 10am-Sunday 23 Feb 2025, 5pm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8n8yr28jdo
Bettina von Zwehl: The Flood
This exhibition will feature photographs by London-based artist, Bettina von Zwehl (b. 1971). Von Zwehl’s aim is to rekindle wonder and curiosity as critical tools for exploring new ideas and practices.
https://www.ashmolean.org/exhibition/ashmolean-now-bettina-von-zwehl
Don McCullin talks to Richard Ovenden
The Bodley Lecture and Award of the Bodley Medal: Life and Work
Thursday, 3 April 2025
6:00pm-7.00pm Sheldonian Theatre
£8 – £20
- General photographic interest
Stag beetle fight wins top prize in close-up competition
Close-up Photographer of the Year have announced the winners of their CUPOTY 6 competition, supported by Affinity Photo. An image of two male stag beetles battling for mating rights has won the grand prize, whilst the Young photographer competition was won by a bee-eater hunting insects. Winners share their stories and techniques with co-founder Tracy Calder…
Let it glow: fireflies illuminating Japanese woodlands – in pictures
For 10 days in the summer, the forests of Japan’s Yamagata prefecture are lit up by himebotaru, a type of firefly endemic to the region. Photographer Kazuaki Koseki has attempted to capture the phenomenon in his Summer Faeries series, compiled over a period of eight years. “The spectacle of fireflies flying through the summer forest is like the twinkling of a starry sky,” says Koseki. “That sight is fantastic enough to forget the awe of the night forest.” In recent years, the fireflies’ habitat has been increasingly endangered by deforestation and the tourism industry. “The unpredictability of the fireflies’ trails of light highlights the urgency of our planet’s climate crisis, while at the same time holding a strong and enduring hope for the future.”
Iconic review – Bardot, Bacon and the Beatles bestride the plastic fantastic age
Holburne Museum, Bath
This compact yet brilliant show looks at how painters responded to the subjugation of real life in the 1960s media age, with its explosion of photos, film and mass reproduction