Dan
Paulsen called the meeting to order around 7:15 p.m. He began the meeting with a discussion of old business.
Dan
asked if anyone had followed up on the special paint that works like a
projector screen for the room. It
was noted that we would need permission first to paint the wall, and the zoo
director position is vacant currently. Dan
said he would get with Jim Rendina on this later.
We are not sure whom to contact – possibly Steve Wiley. Bill Pasek asked if another room might be a possibility, but
doubt was expressed that there was another room large enough that would be
available.
Steve
Brewer said there was a minor problem on the Website. He has tracked it down and found that we were three months in
arrears on the Web site fees. The
company in Florida wants $53.09 to take care of the bill for the domain, etc.
If it is okay, he said he was willing to send this to them by certified
mail to get it resolved so we can move on.
Steve moved that we do this, and Marie Bohndorf seconded the motion.
The motion passed.
Steve
said when we change the Web site, we will have the domain through Network
Solutions. This will prevent the
domain from being stolen.
Carol
Mitchell said that the trip to Savanahland is this Saturday.
The weather should be okay, but you can call Carol that morning after 8
if you think it might not be. Carol
brought some copies of the directions for those who don’t have Internet
access. Also you must sign a
form. The cost is $10.50 per
person for two hours. We pay when
we get there. There will be a
session with the chimp. You can
bring your lunch and eat in the pavilion.
She needs 20 people to go.
Barbara
Chase said that Libby McCord, our treasurer, e-mailed a roster to Barb.
Barb identified some errors so said she would send it around and have
people correct anything that is wrong.
Tracy
Goodrich told the group that Libby’s mom passed away Friday night.
Stuart
Riley said that this weekend an astronomers meeting is being held.
About 400 people are coming, two of which are from NASA.
If you are interested, you can e-mail Bob Nederman, Chris’ husband,
for more information.
It
was announced that Megan is here as zoo representative tonight in lieu of
Sarah, who is out of town. She
brought a nice projector with her so that we can connect a laptop and display
digital images.
Megan
also said the zoo needs more pictures, including animals, visitor interaction,
and plant life.
Megan
learned from Sarah that the zoo can give us $5 off of Friends of the Zoo
memberships for camera club members. She
has sign-up forms and can take checks, credit cards, and cash.
She
also said that they checked with the zoo staff and the only time they are free
to help with a zoo walk-through for the club is June 28 at 8:30 a.m.
The club will discuss this further at the next meeting.
Lastly,
Megan said that they are reconstructing the quarterly newsletter at the zoo.
She is thinking it might be good for us to submit a page of pictures
every month. We could have a page specifically for the Zoo Camera Club.
The photos would not be in color, however.
Carol
said if you haven’t been to see Wayne Hickox’ exhibit at the Prairie
Village City Hall, you should go. It
is very nice. It closes May 30.
Michelle
Riley handed out business cards for a gallery in Weston that would like photos
to sell. The split would be
70/30. Size and framing is up to
us. She said we could submit one
to five prints of fine art; they must be of archival quality.
Dan
then introduced our speakers for the evening – Nancy and Blake from Wolf
Camera.
Nancy
explained that she was the manager of the Shawnee shop on Quivira, and Marie
invited her and Blake to come and talk to us.
Marie is a good customer of theirs.
Nancy said that Blake is her top salesperson. Blake won the zoo photography contest last year.
She
said she would like to open it up to questions from our group about equipment,
processing, services, and so on. She
said they have access to anything made. The
biggest store is at College and Metcalf; it has darkroom equipment and items
that are not available at Nancy’s smaller store.
Nancy
mentioned a new system at some stores called the Fuji Frontier System.
This printer is a step up from the former walk-up self-serve printers
found in photofinishing shops. It
is a hybrid system that uses digital technology.
You can crop, use red-eye reduction, print black and white, and so on.
It can print wallet photos to 12x15 prints, as well as slides.
Several stores have it – the ones at Metcalf and Mission have it and
Olathe will later. Shawnee should
have the system by the end of the year.
She
was asked what scan DPI was used. Nancy
said she didn’t know, but it was at least 4000 and better than a film
scanner.
Nancy
was asked how Wolf’s print-to-slide quality compares to Costco.
She said they think it is better.
They are strict about calibration, cleaning, and so on.
The cost of a 4x6 print to slide is about $1.50.
You can get a quantity discount. (Someone
stated that 4x6 prints from slides at Costco are 29 cents!)
You
can get glossy or matte prints. An
11x14 is $14.99. If you join the
Frequent Photo Club for $15.99, you get a ten-percent discount on
enlargements, reprints, and so on. They
send out E6 and black and white for processing.
They
are working on a system where you can e-mail prints to them and come in later
to pick them up. This should be
available in late summer or early fall.
They
can’t print larger than 35mm film in the stores. They send 4x5s out.
Ritz
Camera bought Wolf Camera about a year and a half ago.
Both stores exist in Kansas City.
Ritz also bought a mail-order company called Camera World, plus Pro X
in the Wisconsin area and some other companies such as Camera Shop and
Inkley’s.
At
the Overland Park, Oak Park, and other stores, they have a deal where you can
get a Provia 100 36-exposure four-pack for $19.99. Kodak Royal Gold film has been discontinued and replaced by
High Definition, which Nancy feels is not as good.
It comes in 400-speed only and the color is not as vibrant, plus the
contrast is lower.
Nancy
was asked if there was any difference between Provia 400F and Sensia 400.
She said professional film has a shorter life span, and amateur film
has a longer range. Unless you are doing your own darkroom processing, however,
it’s not going to make much difference which of these films you use.
Wolf
has switched to Fuji paper because its archival qualities are guaranteed for
100 years, whereas Kodak is only about six years.
Wayne
pointed out that he has been going through his photos and has been throwing
away a lot of 3x5 and 4x6 prints created from an inkjet printer because the
colors have faded.
Nancy
said Wolf doesn’t sell anything that isn’t archival quality.
Some
discussion ensued about the walk-up self-serve photo copier/printer stations
and the archival quality of the prints. Nancy
said the Kodak ones only last a year or so.
Mickey Norton said he thought the Kodak stations use dye-sub thermal
wax prints and have lasted for years.
Blake
then talked about equipment. They
brought some examples of equipment with them tonight. Blake demonstrated the Nikon Coolpix 5700, a 5-megapixel
digital camera for $1,100. You
can make 16x20 prints from it that are considered photo quality. No one has a printer that will support that, but you can crop
it to 8x10 to print. It has an 8x
optical zoom, which is a good lens for such a small camera. You can add on some accessory lenses too, but you will lose
some light and some quality.
He
talked a little about Canon cameras with the 70-200mm 2.8 lens.
This is an enormous lens, but with enough light, he found he had no
problem with camera shake.
He
discussed the Nikon N80, using a 28-300mm lens. He likes the range of wide angle to telephoto in one lens.
Blake
said the waiting time for a Canon 10D is about four days.
It runs about $1,500.
Most
newer digital cameras have a noise reduction system that removes digital
artifacts. This allows you to get
some good nighttime shots.
Dan
asked about using filters on digital cameras.
Blake said some can accept filters with an adapter.
Cokin makes some square filters that will not affect auto-focus
capabilities. You do not need a
circular polarizer; you can create that effect later in the digital darkroom.
Blake
was asked what to recommend for someone wanting a good slide scanner without
spending a lot of money. Minolta
makes a good one for about $330. It
is a negative scanner with an adapter for slides.
Scanners
with ICE technology by Applied Science (now purchased by Kodak) are great for
removing dust particles. Linda
Hanley said the new Nikon scanner is fantastic.
Canon
makes a good flatbed scanner that works with negatives or slides.
It just came out and costs about $150.
After
Nancy and Blake’s informative presentation, we took a break around 8 p.m.
and enjoyed treats provided by Steve Brewer.
Steve
gave the next two presentations. First,
he shared a slide presentation that he and Suzanne Busby put together for a
first-grade class at Barstow. The
children were getting ready to take a field trip to the zoo to photograph
animals, and they had their cameras with them.
Suzanne and Steve shared a slide presentation of animals from the zoo
based on pictures they pulled from our Web site. Steve said there were about 50 slides in all, and the kids
loved it. The club members
enjoyed the presentation.
Next,
Steve demonstrated his progress on the updates to our Website.
His intention is to have the Web site up by the first of next month.
He proposed some changes. For
example, instead of using the image of the film canister as the page heading,
perhaps we should go with the kangaroo photo club logo.
What does the group prefer? Marie
said the kangaroo image was our official logo and suggested we go with that.
Everyone agreed.
Jim
brought in about 20 photos that we have sent him recently that Steve used as
examples. Steve said an
improvement on the new Web site will be that each image will not open in a
separate page anymore when you click on it.
Instead the photo will pop up with a strip of white at the bottom with
information about the picture and photographer.
This will make the Web site much less maintenance-intensive.
When complete, the Web site will consist of perhaps three dozen Web
pages, instead of the current 100 to 200 Web pages, making it much easier to
maintain.
Should
we include the name of the animal with the slide? The group agreed we should, but that we should check the
names for accuracy first. Steve
noted that if you send a CD of your images, you can include a readme file with
the names in it. Or you can
rename the image with the name of the animal.
Steve
said we need new images for the site! In
11 days or so, we will have a new site on Earthlink, so we need the images as
soon as possible. Send them at
640x480 resolution, and Jim will resize them.
We
discussed Steve’s slide presentation again.
Would the group like to have something like it on our Web site?
Dan said it might be nice to have something like this for schools, etc.
The group discussed and agreed that this was a good idea. We need to have consistent credits on all the images.
We could create a template on the Web site that each member could use
to note his or her information. We
need a copyright notice of some kind to cover us from a legal standpoint.
Jim could put a copyright symbol in front of each name, since the
photographer owns the image. Are
there issues with the zoo if we do this?
Megan said she would have to check.
We also can downsize the images to a low enough resolution that they
won’t print well.
Do
we want to list e-mail addresses of members on the Web site?
We can have 30 without paying extra.
We discussed the number of paying members and how many will have images
on the Web site. It was agreed
that those who submitted images would have their e-mail address included if
they want. If you don’t submit
images, your address won’t be listed.
Finally,
we discussed the issue of selling images from the Web site.
In general, we can’t do this as a nonprofit site.
With the e-mail addresses listed, however, interested buyers can
contact the photographer directly.
The
meeting adjourned at 9 p.m. The
next meeting is on June 16 at 7 p.m.
-- Tracy Goodrich