The July 2011 League City Photography Meet up took place on 7/7/11. Below are my notes.

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Upcoming Events

Jul 13 Wed 7:00 PM | Photoshop Social
Jul 15 Fri 6:30 PM | Full Moon A Risin'
Jul 23 Sat 4:30 PM | Portrait Shoot (looks to be full)
Aug 28 Sun 12:00 PM | 18th Annual Theatre District Open House

Topic – Tips from the Digital Photography Book Series

David gave a great presentation that involved several tips from Scott Kelby's Digital Photography Book Series.

Tip #1 - Photographing Landscapes

When photographing landscapes, it is good to have something of interest in the foreground, middle ground and background
Landscape shots are best taken at F16 - F22 to get the greatest depth-of-field possible

Tip #2 - Initial Checks

WHIMS (checks to perform before every shoot)

White balance
Highlight warnings
ISO
Mode
Size (of the image)

Tip #3 - Importance of Trippds

Major discussion on the importance of tripods. Trudy and Scott displayed their tripods. Carbon fiber is the way to go for lightness.
Some tripod brands mentioned

Tip #4 - Sharpening

Sharpening after the fact - unsharp mask - Edit/Fade - Unsharp Mask - Normal to Luminosity.
Since I did not get good notes on the sharpening topic, I found a good explanation of sharpening in Photoshop on the following site: http://tresdesi8.multiply.com/

Here is what they say:

We sharpen every single photo we shoot using Photoshop's Unsharp Mask filter. Okay, it sounds like something named "unsharp" would make your photos blurry, but it doesn't the name is a holdover from traditional darkroom techniques, so don't let that throw you. Using it
is easy. Just open your photo in Photoshop, then go under Photoshop's Filter menu, under Sharpen, and choose Unsharp Mask. When the dialog appears, there are three sliders for applying different sharpening parameters, but rather than going through all that technical
stuff, I'm going to give you three sets of settings that I've found work wonders.
For people: Amount 150%, Radius 1, Threshold 10 1.
For cityscapes, urban photography, or travel: Amount 65%, Radius 3, Threshold 2 2.
For general everyday use: Amount 85%, Radius 1, Threshold 4 3.

Tip #6 - Lenses and Filters

Be careful with lenses in dusty conditions. If it is really dusty/windy...don't change lenses. Other times, just make sure you situate your camera and lens so the rules of gravity do not draw dust. Hold the camera pointing downward when changing lenses.
UV filter has a chance of protecting your high dollar lenses from some damaging situations. There are definitely two different churches when it comes to using a UV filter or not.

Tip #7 - Urban Shooting

Don't try to capture it all...capture details
Get closer to your subject

Tip #8 - Shooting Modes

Aperture Priority - You adjust the aperture and the camera sets the shutter speed (good for most shooting situations)
Shutter Priority - You adjust the shutter speed and the camera sets the aperture (good for shooting sports)
Manual - You have control over both Aperture and Shutter Speed
Program - The camera controls all (Point and Shoot)

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