December Meeting - Christmas Party

If you are looking for a good place to eat ‘til it hurts while admiring beautiful underwater images you are in luck.  The December 2nd meeting will be our annual Christmas Party.  We will have a potluck dinner being coordinated by Party Planners extrordinaire, Kathy and John Ringrose.  If you want to contribute food, drink or other supplies contact John and Kathy.

The world famous Best of HUPS photo contest will also be held during the December meeting.  Any image including past monthly winners are eligible . There will be Novice and Advanced divisions in both of the categories.  The categories will be Best of Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico and Best of Indo-Pacific.  Contestants are allowed three entries in each of the two categories.

If that weren’t enough we will also be voting for Member of the Year at the December meeting.

As usual the meeting will be at the Bayland Community Center starting at 7:00 PM.  A map and directions are at the end of this newsletter.

Nominations Being Accepted for HUPS Member of the Year

This is a member that has gone beyond the call of duty to make HUPS a better club. If you know of such a person put down in writing why you think they should be Member of the Year. Nomination letters will be accepted via e-mail, hand written note, scribbled napkin or whatever your preferred media. These should be given to Dennis Deavenport or David Lenderman. David’s email is underh2o@mail.ev1.net. The Prez and Vice Prezare not eligible for this award. Voting for Member of the Year will take place at the December meeting.

Please help recognize that special HUPster.

1st Place Advanced - Jackie Reid ©2002

President's Message

All those attending the November meeting witnessed something very unusual... elections with out mudslinging.  We managed to nominate and elect officers and board members without a single negative campaign ad.  After all those ads I have seen on TV lately I am sure glad the local, state and national elections are over.

The officers and board members are as follows:

As you see there are a lot of familiar faces.  This is the team that will be making decisions for HUPS over the next year.  Please tell us what you want out of HUPS.  You would be shocked by how few members come forward with program requests.  I really want HUPS meetings to be fun and educational.  Tell us what interests you.

This year, with HUPS involvement in SEASPACE and the new digital contest, there are more opportunities to get involved than ever before.  Approach one of the officers or directors listed above and tell them that you are tired of standing on the sidelines.  Get in the game.

See You December 2nd,
David

David Lenderman’s November Program a Bali Bali Big Success
By Dennis Deavenport

So you ask yourself, "Here I am knocking around in Paradise.  What would be a good thing to do?"  Go dive, of course... and that’s just what David and Paul Durham, his dive buddy did last August.  As spectacularly exotic as Bali is above the water line, it is equally impressive below the surf.  As we saw from David’s show, taking full advantage of a bunch of frequent flyer miles and staying at Balinese bed and breakfast accommodations with locals has got to rank right up there in the "most bang for your buck" category.

David started off the evening with a whirlwind tour of Bali and it’s cultural delights.  Spectacular images of the sacred volcano, Gunang Agung, and the temples on it’s flank, terraced rice fields, intricately carved and decorated temples, and gamelean musicians shared billing with pictures from the places they stayed and visited during their trip.  Then it was off to the dive locations at Secret Bay, Menjangan Island, and the wreck at Tulamben.

Capping off the evening’s exquisite presentation was a much too short slide show set to Yanni’s hypnotic music.  Some of the finest examples of muck monsters this side of Lembeh Strait were feature creatures in this portion of the show.  The hairy frogfish was awesome but it was just one example of the many fascinating images captured by David.  The astonishing diversity of life that is the hallmark of Indonesian waters was on full display on the screen.  For a few short minutes we were transported to paradise looking through his viewfinder, living through his vision.

The presentation was just further proof of David’s rapidly developing skills.  He is not just satisfied with taking technically competent photographs.  David pays attention to the little details that make the difference between the mundane and true art.  We should all feel fortunate that we are able to observe his rapidly developing skills.

 

2nd Place Novice - Gary Merritt ©2002

Underwater Photo Workshop on the Aggressor
By Drew Trent

The image on the screen was as technically correct and interesting as any we had viewed during the evening’s critique session.  Brilliant colors lit up the screen.  Barb was ecstatic!  Only six short days earlier, she had shown her disgust on viewing her third roll of burned out or black film.

She had spent over two thousand dollars on a high-end 35mm camera with Aquatica housing, dual Ike strobes and ancillary equipment, not to mention her vacation.  Her initial results left her very frustrated.

In the interim, our group of 10 divers had experienced a mad, mad week of diving on the Turks Aggressor.  We hit the water early, sat through lectures after breakfast and then bagged hours upon hours of bottom time practicing or shooting the day’s subject.

The workshop, presented by Mauricio Handler, a BVI based professional photographer specializing in underwater imagery, focused on housed 35mm camera systems.  Several of the attendees arrived with Digital and Nikonos rigs and were not disappointed with the improvement in their results.

A typical day started with an early morning dip over the wall to capture the ever-present eagle rays and sharks.  After breakfast, Mauricio would lecture the group on the day’s topic – Wide Angle, Macro, Super Macro, available light, strobe use, and camera use with the emphasis on manual operations.  The TTL function on most systems was not used, with the diver-photographers having to dust off old brain cells to remember manual use of strobes, focus and shutter speeds.

After each dive, our Aggressor Photo Pro Chris was inundated with roll upon roll of film.  Several divers hit the water with two cameras, a housed system configured for macro alongside a Nikonos and 15mm combination poised for the shark or turtle opportunity.  Chris processed just shy of 200 rolls of film for our group, each one examined by Mauricio (and everyone else!) with the finest exposures mounted for the evening critique and slideshow.

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Drew with friend - photo by Mauricio Handler ©2002

Photo Workshop from previous column

Everyone saw a huge improvement in his or her imagery.  One photographer is renowned for his cave images but his focus for the week was super macro.  Others enjoyed the wide-angle opportunities with the myriad of sharks, turtles, rays and other large fish.  Night dives every evening brought out the unusual reefdwellers, while a day trip to a secluded island bay offered up opportunities for split shots and a walk in a nurse shark nursery.

And then there was Barb... who simply wanted to improve from rank beginner (with a ton of bright shiny new gear) to the point where most images were exposed correctly and composed in a pleasing manner.  It worked for her!

Photo Contest Winners
October 2002 - "Wide Angle"

Novice:
1st	Drew Trent
2nd	Gary Merritt
3rd	Gary Merritt
Advanced:
1st	Jackie Reid
2nd	David Lenderman
3rd Tie	Ken Knezick, Dennis Deavenport

Check it out on the WEB!

Thanks to Jesse Cancelmo for submitting the following website: http://www.howardschatz.com  Take a look at the Undewater Glamour Photos.  Very creative underwater work.  Caution - Some images are "R" rated.

Kudos To...

Gary Merritt and Jackie Reid had winning photo entries in the 2002 LAUPS Photo Competition.  You can check out the results at http://www.laups.org/40comp/winlist.htm  Jackie had a 2nd place wide angle and Gary had a 4th place in marine related surface shots.

Gary also had a 3rd place finish in the SEA 2002 NCUPS Photo Competition.

A little closer to home Gary received a Recognition of Outstanding Contributors award from the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary at their 10th Anniversary Gala.

While the best way to share your photos is undoubtedly projected on a 20-foot screen, to the sounds of waves lapping on the beach and thumb piano music – a much more convenient and personal way to share your memories is in print.  But as with everything else in the digital world, getting a good print at a good price requires a basic knowledge of digital photo fundamentals.

The five basic concepts:

1) Format: Most consumer cameras shoot at a 3 by 4 aspect ratio.  For example, my 3-megapixel Coolpix takes photos that are 2048 x 1536.  The camera can be set to take photos at the conventional aspect ratio of 3 by 2 also, to yield 2048 x 1360 images.  My higher quality Fuji S2 takes 6-megapixel images at 3024 x 2016.  What this means is that if you shoot a consumer camera at the 3 by 4 ratio, you will need to crop your image in order to print it on a conventional paper size.

2) Pixels: This is the most important concept in this month’s column – in printing, pixels are everything.  The more pixels that come out of your camera, the better print you will be able to make.  Pixels per inch, also called dots per inch (DPI), is the next most important concept – this denotes a digital image’s resolution.  It’s a bit tricky, because computers display images on screen at a resolution of 72DPI.  However, it takes 300 pixels per inch, or 300DPI to make a digital print that looks as good as a film print.  That means that a file that comes out of the Fuji S2 at a size of about 3,000 x 2,000 can make a beautiful 10 x 6 2/3-inch print.  That same file will yield a 4 x 6-inch print at over 500DPI.

3) File Format: Most cameras produce images in a format called JPEG, but others give the option to save images as TIFF or RAW files.  Still more confusing is that there are different "qualities" of JPEG images.  This leads to the next basic concept. . .

4) Compression: JPEG files are compressed by computer software to remove "wasted space" in the file.  That’s why you can choose three different qualities for your JPEGs – the highest quality has the least compression.  TIFF and RAW files are not compressed.  This is important because too much compression – while it will help fit more photos on your memory card – can lead to fuzziness or "blockiness" in your photos.

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Printing Digital Images from previous column

5) Calibration: Many times I have printed a photo that looked great on my computer but came out too dark or too light, or even the wrong color!  This is because what you see on your monitor screen is not always what you get – unless your computer and printer are not properly set up and calibrated.  The way that this is done is to calibrate your monitor using a program called Adobe Gamma or better yet, using a device that reads a color chart and compares it to your monitor to be sure it’s showing true color and corrects it if it’s not.  The next step is to make sure that the computer is sending the correct color information to the printer.  Since each printer/ink/paper combination will show colors differently, something called a “profile” is used to set all of this information before a file is sent to the printer.  Profiles are numerous and confusing, but fortunately, this concept has been explained rather well on websites such as Photo.net here:

www.popphoto.com/HowTo Article 23 and here

www.popphoto.com/HowTo Article 24 and on Digital Focus here:

http://www.digitalfocus.net. . .

These five basic concepts will help you make a digital file that is suitable for printing.  But after you have a file ready for press, how do you print it?  There are two main ways to get good prints from your digital camera, you can buy a home photo printer, or you can take them in to a lab on your memory card or CD-ROM.

Printing at the Photolab: Surprisingly, the same Fuji Frontier that most labs use for making prints from negatives is the exact same printer that they use for making prints from digital files.  Surprisingly, the photolab at Walmart is one of the best and least expensive places to make Fuji Frontier prints!  Find out what paper you will use and save your image at the size you want, at a resolution of 300 DPI (the Frontier’s highest) and save it to memory card or CD-ROM.  It’s best to also embed the Frontier’s profile into your image – the articles mentioned on Photo.net will explain how.

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Printing Digital Images from previous page

Printing at Home: Printing at home is affordable, and fun.  A good photo printer that can do 8 & 1/2 x 11-inch prints costs about $300 and one that can do 13 x 19-inch prints can be had for about $500.

The Canon S900 – the telephone handset gives the scale
 

This shot shows an assortment of Canon photo papers and one of the ink cartridges for the S900.
 

I use a Canon S900 letter sized printer.  This wonderful machine can print a 4 x 6inch print in 10 seconds and an 8 x 10 in under a minute.  The printer also uses 6 ink tanks, so if your blue runs out, you don’t have to replace the whole cartridge like in the past.  Another new feature is that this unit can do edge-to-edge printing – also called "full bleed."  Epson makes a comparable printer at a more competitive price, but it is not as fast.

When printing at home, the choice of paper and ink is very important.  The paper you use will have as much impact on your results as the printer!  The choice of ink will also have an impact on the durability of your prints.  Some inks are designed to last 30 years without fading, while others are not.  Name brand paper and inks cost about $11 per cartridge and $0.67 per page for professional paper.  I use Canon paper and inks which are matched to my printer because I feel this gives the best results.  For folks looking to save money, a little research and trial and error with generic papers and inks can also yield good results.  I’m always amazed when I hand a friend a photo I printed at home on Kodak, Ilford, or Canon paper and ask them to compare it to a print from a lab – they can’t tell the difference!

UpComing Meetings and Events

December 2, 2002 - HUPS meeting
Annual Christmas Party

January 6, 2003 - HUPS meeting
Mary Lou & Jackie Reid

February 1, 2003 - TGCC Awards Banquet
More info at http://www.tgccdiveclubs.org

February 3, 2003 - HUPS meeting
Joe Nicklo - Red Sea

HUPS Monthly Photo Contest Rules

1. Photographs must have been taken underwater, with the exception of the "Marine Surface Slides," a category which will be announced periodically.
2. The photographs must be the work of the photographer named on the slide.  The photographer does not have to be present at the monthly meeting to enter their slide.
3. No aquarium, pool, or over/under shots.
4. Photographs with divers touching or stressing marine life will not be judged.
5. Entries that have won 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, in previous HUPS contests, or any major competition are ineligible.  The only exception being the Best of HUPS night at the December meeting.
6. Slides will be disqualified if in the opinion of the Photo Contest Chairman and monthly judge, the slides do not meet the monthly subject matter, or do not meet one of the aforementioned rules.
7. All contest judging will be performed by a judge selected by the HUPS Photo Judge Coordinator, except nights when it is announced that the general membership will judge.  In these instances the Photo Contest Chairman will tabulate all ballots.
8. If a member wishes to question the results of a contest, they must submit their complaint in contest to the Photo Contest Chairman or any club officer.  The complaint must include: complainant's name, questionable slide, nature of complaint (indicating rule broken), proof behind complaint.
9. The Board of Directors will review the complaint, and if they find merit, they may disqualify the slide.

The Novice category is for those that meet the following criteria:

• Photography is a hobby.
• Have never taken best of show or 1st - 3rd in national or international photographic competitions.
• Have not been a HUPS Photographer of the Year.
  

The Houston Underwater Photographic Society (HUPS) meets the first Monday of every month at 7:00PM at the Bayland Community Center, 6400 Bissonet, near Hillcroft.

Social time begins at 7:00PM for members and visitors to get acquainted. Visitors are always welcome to join us. So, stop by and see what we are all about!