Important Note From Jim Sanders

Dear NOCCC Members,

This years club election will be held this Sunday, June 1st.

Only those members who are present at the meeting may vote.

As of this date we have no candidates for President or Vice President. Don Armstrong, your current President, will not take a second term.

If someone does not volunteer for each of those positions at the meeting, the future of the club becomes rather tenuous. If you care about having the club continue, think about volunteering. If you want to talk about it, call me, Jim Sanders, 714-544-3589.

We also need one volunteer to fill the 8th Board of Directors position.

As an active member of the club since it was founded 36 years ago, I would hate to see the club flounder, but it may. Too few people have been carrying the load for too long of a time. Think about it!

Best Regards,

Jim Sanders

May 2014 Meeting Beginner’s Digital Photography SIG

SIG Leader: John Krill #3160

Bruxie is a new take on The Sandwich, using a creative version of an authentic Belgian Waffle as the bread. Bruxie Waffles are paired with quality seasonal ingredients, offering both Savory choices like Buttermilk Fried Chicken, Prosciutto & Gruyere, and Hot Pastrami, as well as a variety of Sweet options such as our Seasonal Crème Brulee, Nutella & Banana and S’Mores. There is one located across the street from the college.

We had 7 members at the meeting.

Video For The Day

Didn’t get to show any videos. Will try again next month. I hope to make this a regular feature.

Geotag Photos Pro Continued

While preparing last month’s report I went searching for Windows desktop apps that could be used to embed GPS data into photos and avoid using Adobe Lightroom. I found a couple Windows apps that worked and I will report on these apps in a future post. What I did find was the web site for GeoTag Photos Pro. It’s: http://www.geotagphotos.net/. I mention this because they have a Windows and Apple desktop utility that can used to embed your GPS data from the GPX file you created on your iPhone or Android device. All you need to do is log-in using the Username and Password you created when you first setup the app on your tablet. You don’t even need the GPX file you sent to yourself because they KEEP a copy at their site and use it to embed the GPS data into your photos.

Geotag Photos Pro is easy to use with a simple interface. It’s a recommend.

Note: We paid $3.99 for the Pro version but at the web site it states the cost at $4.99.

Using Picasa to embed GPS data into your images.

To embed GPS data into your images using Picasa you also need Google Earth installed. Follow the next few steps. In Picasa select all the photos you want to have GPS embedded and from the top menu select: Tools >> Geotag >> Geotag with Google Earth. Google Earth will pop up and there will be a small window where you can click through your images and embed a position which you selected with the special pointer and by clicking ‘Geotag’ or ‘Geotag All.’ When done click ‘Done.’

Saving or Printing the Current Screen Image

To save or print what is currently on your computer screen simply press PrntScr. That key is generally located along the top row of the keyboard. What you’ve actually is copy the screen to the ‘Clipboard.’ With Photoshop Elements or any graphics editor just paste the image into the active canvas. With Photoshop Elements you can also select File >> New >> Image From Clipboard. Now it’s treated as any other image in Photoshop Elements.

June Meeting

I will continue to show one or two youtube videos at the beginning of the meeting.

PS: You have any ideas?

Standard Stuff That Is Always In This Report

If you have a special request for information regarding digital photography let me know. E-mail me using the address listed below.

Check out the SIG BLog for other information and maybe info on what we will discuss at the next meeting.

As always we will answer any and all questions.

If you have a special request for information regarding digital photography let me know. E-mail me using the address listed below.

See you at the next meeting.

Where the Pictures From The Main Meeting Go To Die

Note: I am using a new Web location for the photos I take at the meeting. I now upload the photos I take to Microsoft OneDrive and Flickr. A link will be put here every month to the folder location with the current month’s photos.

OneDrive Photos for the April 2014 Club Meeting: http://1drv.ms/1g1GMzN

Flickr Photos for April 2014 Club Meeting: http://tinyurl.com/oyv5ef8

SIG BLog: https://nocccbgphotosig.wordpress.com/

Email: noccc.bgphotosig@gmail.com

April 2014 Meeting Beginner’s Digital Photography SIG

GPS Embedded With My Tracks and GeoTag Photos Pro

SIG Leader: John Krill #3160

We had 8 members at the meeting.

Video For The Day

Showed a short video that explains where the term ISO was derived. Interesting stuff. The photographer, Nick Carver, that explained ISO is local. He has an office/classroom in Tustin, CA. http://www.nickcarverphotography.com/.

Geotagging Your Photos

Many of us have digital cameras that have no GPS built-in but we still want to have GPS data embedded into our digital photos.

Today we had a demonstration of two GPS tracking apps for the Android.

My Tracks

The first is a free app from Google called My Tracks. My Tracks is a general use GPS tracker. Take it on walks and you can keep track of how far you walked, total time of the walk, how fast, the calories consumed. You can view your walk overlaid on Google maps. For photographers you can upload a GPX file that can be used to embed GPS data into your photos. Because the GPX file type is not the default for My Tracks you need to select Export from the menu and then to make it easier for the photographer use the Share option and send the file to yourself. Once that was figured out the app became very useful. It has a simple interface and is easy to use. It’s a recommend.

Geotag Photos Pro

The second program that was shown is called GeoTag Photos Pro. The app works with both Apple and Andriod tablets. The app cost $3.99 when purchased through the Google Play store. Unlike My Tracks GeoTag Photos Pro is strickly for photographers. Once you’re through with your picture taking just stop the app. Then upload the GPX file. It will send a GPX file to the email address you specified during setup.

While preparing this report I went searching for Windows desktop apps that could be used to embed GPS data into photos and avoid using Adobe Lightroom. I found a couple Windows apps that worked and I will report on these apps in a future post. What I did find was the web site for GeoTag Photos Pro. It’s: http://www.geotagphotos.net/. I mention this because they have a Windows and Apple desktop apps that you can use to embed your GPS data from the GPX file you created on your iPhone or Android device. All you need to do is log-in using the Username and Password you created when you first setup the app on your tablet. You don’t even need the GPX file you sent to yourself because they KEEP a copy at their site and use it to embed the GPS data into your photos. All I can say is that it’s easy to use but I think their desktop app works only with JPG files. Haven’t tested with other image formats.

Geotag Photos Pro is easy to use with a simple interface. It’s a recommend.

Note: We paid $3.99 for the Pro version but at the web site it states the cost at $4.99.

Note 09 April 2014: Found a list of supported file types at the Geotag Photos Pro web site. Geotag Photos Pro supports the following file formats: jpg, nef, cr2, crw, dcr, ciff, erf, orf, k25, kdc, mef, mrw, nrw, pef, raf, tif, tiff, raw, arw, rw2, srf, sr2, srw, x3f, dng.

They do support RAW camera formats. Desktop Geotag Photos Pro supports more than 40 RAW files formats, including most common NEF, CRW, CR2, RAW, RW2 and so on.

New Method For Cleaning Your Camera’s Sensor

Showed a youtube video that demonstrated the use of the Sensor Gel Stick. If you are interested then do a search a youtube for: How To Clean A DSLR Sensor: Sensor Gel Stick. You can also go to the web site: http://photographylife.com/product/sensor-gel-stick.

The SIG Blog. I have a link, on the sidebar of the blog, to a youtube playlist for videos I recommend to the SIG members. One of those videos is the above mentioned. Nick Caver videos are also listed. I recommend them.

May Meeting

I will continue to show one or two youtube videos at the beginning of the meeting.

I will demonstrate the additional features I discovered for Geotag Photos Pro.

PS: You have any ideas?

Standard Stuff That Is Always In This Report

If you have a special request for information regarding digital photography let me know. E-mail me using the address listed below.

Check out the SIG BLog for other information and maybe info on what we will discuss at the next meeting.

As always we will answer any and all questions.

If you have a special request for information regarding digital photography let me know. E-mail me using the address listed below.

See you at the next meeting.

Where the Pictures From The Main Meeting Go To Die

Note: I am using a new Web location for the photos I take at the meeting. I now upload the photos I take to Microsoft OneDrive and Flickr. A link will be put here every month to the folder location with the current month’s photos.

OneDrive Photos for the April 2014 Club Meeting: http://1drv.ms/1oHA3UO
Flickr Photos for April 2014 Club Meeting: http://tinyurl.com/lpcogsu

SIG BLog: https://nocccbgphotosig.wordpress.com/

Email: noccc.bgphotosig@gmail.com

What’s Up At The Main Meeting, Sunday, April 6, 2014

Main Meeting Speaker: Monique Stennis, Digital Marketing Specialist at Inter Valley Health Plan will present, “An Orientation to Digital Media”. She will discuss Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, YouTube, Meet-up, and Inter Valley’s new interactive website, “For Health & Living.”

Attendees will also get some tidbits on how to stay safe on-line. This is an orientation workshop and not designed to be hands-on.

Main Meeting meets in Irvine Hall at 2 PM.

Beginning Digital Photography SIG

SIG leader, John Krill, will demo two Android GPS Tracking Apps. Both can be used to create a GPX file for programs like Lightroom use to imbed GPS data into your photos.

We will also view a short video which answers the question: What is ISO and What Does ISO Mean?

The photographer who made the video is local,Tustin, CA, and he gives lessons.

January 2014 Meeting Beginner’s Digital Photography SIG

Earth over the horizon of the moon. Apollo 8 Mission.

SIG Leader: John Krill #3160

We had 8 members at the meeting.

Historical Pictures For Free

Any photo taken by the US Government is public domain. I brought in a photo taken by the Apallo 8 crew of Earth rising over the Moon. All the NASA photos are available at the DVIDS web site. That’s the Defense Video and Imagery Distribution System. The tiny URL for one of the Earth Rising photos is: http://tinyurl.com/mlrnf8o.

You could also go to the Library of Congress for many historical photos that can be downloaded for free. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/

The White House Flickr Photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse

JPG and Metadata

A first part of the meeting was taken up with JPG metadata what Microsoft Windows picture details as described by it’s Properties/Details relates to other applications such as Picasa or Lightroom.

If you are using Microsoft Windows Image Properties to document or describe an image and later use that data in a slideshow then only input into the Title data only. This is done by right-clicking an image and selecting Properties. Then select the Details tab. Select Title: and input the text. When done click Apply.

You are much better off using some other program to input the Title and Caption data.

I have no idea, so far, how the Subject data correlates to anything. The Comments data becomes EXIF User Comment data.

EXIF Metadata was developed for digital camera data. This also will be discussed at the January 2014 meeting.

If this all sounds confusing then you have Microsoft to thank.

This was demonstrated at the January 2014 meeting.

Video to Stills

Question: Can we get a picture from a video?

Answer: Yes. You need to get a Frame Grabber utility. With a framer grabber you can output a single frame from a video and save it as JPG or any other format that the framer grabber supports. We did a search with Goggle and found an article that list several frame grabber utilities. An article at ezvid,com list several frame grabber utilities. http://tinyurl.com/d7yslb6

February Meeting

Haven’t got a clue. Maybe by the weekend of the meeting I may have a glimmer of an idea. Let’s hope so. See you then.

PS: You have any ideas?

Standard Stuff That Is Always In This Report

If you have a special request for information regarding digital photography let me know. E-mail me using the address listed below.

Check out the SIG BLog for other information and maybe info on what we will discuss at the next meeting.

As always we will answer any and all questions.

If you have a special request for information regarding digital photography let me know. E-mail me using the address listed below.

See you at the next meeting.

Note: I am using a new Web location for the photos I take at the meeting. I now upload the photos I take to Microsoft SkyDrive and Flickr. A link will be put here every month to the folder location with the current month’s photos.

SkyDrive Photos for the January 2014 Club Meeting: http://sdrv.ms/198KkSI
Flickr Photos for January 2014 Club Meeting: http://tinyurl.com/q2agzeu

SIG BLog: https://nocccbgphotosig.wordpress.com/

Email: noccc.bgphotosig@gmail.com

Erick Wolf, President of Air Wolf 3D, Demos Their 3D Printer

Erick Wolf, standing behind an Air Wolf 3D Printer.

Our August 11 speaker was Erick Wolf, President of Airwolf 3D. who talked about 3D printing. Based in Costa Mesa, they manufacture open rigid frame 3D printers and printer kits. To see the type of machines they manufacture, go to http://www.airwolf3D.com. It appears that the printer can use eight different types of plastics.

Their 3D printer is $1,695 while comparable units are $19,000.

3D printing can be used for rapid prototyping and models. The objects are built up layer by layer based on engineering drawings from a computer. It looks like they are using one of the Arduino related controller boards and the software they offer is open source.

Eric is also an intellectual property attorney and has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering.

On the 3D printer is a completed turbine that was printed in less time than Erick’s talk. Like fast.

August 2013 Meeting Beginner’s Digital Photography SIG

SIG Leader: John Krill #3160

We had 8 members at the meeting.

Nexus 7 Table

I brought my new Nexus 7 tablet and spent most of the meeting showing what this 7” tablet could do.

My main point was you didn’t need any extra editing apps because the editor that is part of Android was actually better than most of the photo editors I installed and then deleted.

I even edited the photos using the basic editor and then opened Instagram and formatted them for their service. All images in Instagram are square.

Only negative I have with the Nexus 7 tablet was the location of the shutter button for the camera. I’ll explain this in a future article.

Questions and Comments

LR: Changing The Order Of Images In A Collection

Explained how you can move images around with a collections so you and put the images in an order that you require. Hold the mouse pointer down over an image and drag it to the position you want it.

Show how you can copy or backup images and then when needed to have LR used those images instead of the originals. Close LR. Rename the original images, or just move them. Open LR and use the Find command to show LR where you moved the images.

Flickr

I post all the images at Flickr at the highest possible size. If you want to download an image but at a smaller size then click on an image you want and down at the bottom right you will see 3 colored dots. Click the dots and select ‘View Image Size’ You will now be able to download any size you want.

Keep bringing in your questions. It really is the fun part of being a SIG Leader – answering question.

September Meeting

Important: I will not be attending the September meeting. There still will be a meeting but without me. See you at the October meeting.

October Meeting

New Toy? I may have another new toy to show at the October meeting. Not going to tell you what it is. You just have to show up at the meeting to find out.

We will continue to take a look at Flickr and Lightroom. There has been improvements to both applications and there are worth looking at.

I still want to do a ‘Walk About.’ Didn’t I say that last month? Bring your camera and we’ll walk about and see what kind of picture taking problems we can find and maybe answer.

If you have specific picture taking problems then bring your camera and just maybe we can solve your problem.

Standard Stuff That Is Always In This Report

If you have a special request for information regarding digital photography let me know. E-mail me using the address listed below.

Check out the SIG BLog for other information and maybe info on what we will discuss at the next meeting.

As always we will answer any and all questions.

If you have a special request for information regarding digital photography let me know. E-mail me using the address listed below.

See you at the next meeting.

Note: I am using a new Web location for the photos I take at the meeting. I now upload the photos I take to Microsoft SkyDrive and Flickr. A link will be put here every month to the folder location with the current month’s photos.

SkyDrive Photos for the July 2013 Club Meeting: http://tinyurl.com/ksar2d4.

Flickr Photos for July 2013 Club Meeting: http://tinyurl.com/lsmz5bv.

SIG BLog: https://nocccbgphotosig.wordpress.com/

Email: noccc.bgphotosig@gmail.com