Nottingham 2 August 2010

[sharon]

I forgot this concert has happened days ago!

Nice pictures! The ones in which Hayley is on stage are great!

I like your last one Joyce haha!
I see three curious heads in the background....
Your camera must be pretty interesting, as all three including Hayley are looking straight at it!

Sharon*

[dutchjoyce]

....i bumped into some special guests in the audience....
Connie Talbot with her parents.

Joyce

[Dori]

Hi all

Oh my goodness, I just saw these photos now and they're amazing! Hayley's new dress is stunning.

Nice work, y'all!

Dori :wink:

[martindn]

Wow, we are all at it. And I haven't finished yet either!

Nice pictures Joyce. Here's one of you!




And of all of us (with a couple of excpetions who turned up later. They know who they are!



Oh, and a not very good one of the band!

[martindn]

Oh well, I suppose I'll have to relent. I know we all love pictures of Hayley, even if mine don't quite hit the quality. Anyway, I think I've fond a cause of my image quality problem, it is the program I use to resize the images. It seems to badly reduce quality. Formost of the ones of Hayley, I used a different program called FSI Batch which runs under RISC OS and gives mush better results. I would be interested to know how other people, particularly those with very high quality images like Grant and Karsten, manage to resize them and still get stunning results.

I think the concert shots could have done with a higher ISO number, I used 1200, but could have gone higher at the expense of some megapixels, and been able to use faster shutter speeds. Oh well, you live and learn.

Anyway I digress. I do have a few picts of Hayley, some with other people. These first two show the folly of pattern metering, which since the background was black, and there was much more of it before I cropped the pictures, Hayley's face is overexposed. Better would have been centre weighted ot spot metering to get her face right. As I said, you live and learn!







Martin D

[martindn]

[martindn]

I think that is Billy. I didn't get to meet him properly, although we have tweeted each other several times.



Martin D

[keithp]

Thanks for all the reports and photos. I was sad to miss out with the cancellation of the Cardiff show. Going to Nottingham would have been a good alternative for me but sadly work commitments saw me back in Edinburgh on Monday.
Glad you all had a good time.

[grant]

Hi Joyce and Martin thanks for your latest pics - between us we have achieved a pretty good coverage of everything, so thank you again.

Love your shot of me Martin but for everyone elses benefit - I don't normally look like that - honest!

Regarding image size and quality. I use photoshop Elements to first resize the image and then reduce the image quality to the maximum I can get away with to be around 100kb but I know there are several other ways to do it.

And yes, I am putting my new lens to good use, the accuracy of the autofocus of this new Canon lens puts Sigma to shame and I got it for half price too! i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

Best wishes
Grant

[martindn]

Hi Grant,

I had been using a free program called Pixillon Image Converter which will both resize and reduce quality. The last picure in my post #156 was converted using it, the other two with FSI Batch. I think the problem is the dithering that gets applied, it makes the colours look less solid and the outline more blurred. I don't think the program gives any control of it (in like FSI Batch). FSI Batch will also apply the same conversion to a whole batch of images in one operation. But to use it, I have to move the pictures onto a different computer running a different operating system, then back onto this one to upload, so it is in some ways less convenient. But I think the result is much better.

Martin D

[keithp]

Aug 4, 2010 21:48:29 GMT martindn said:

Anyway, I think I've fond a cause of my image quality problem, it is the program I use to resize the images. It seems to badly reduce quality. Formost of the ones of Hayley, I used a different program called FSI Batch which runs under RISC OS and gives mush better results. I would be interested to know how other people, particularly those with very high quality images like Grant and Karsten, manage to resize them and still get stunning results.

Martin D

My 2p worth from the photographic viewpoint. In terms of image resizing, I use Adobe Photoshop (the version I have is Creative Suite 2 although any version will easily cope with regular requirements like resizing). When you select the image size (my DSLR records at 4256 x 2848 pixels and I often reduce to 500 x 335 or smaller for web use), there is an option of resampling the image to sharpen it. Generally speaking the quality looks very much the same in the reduced image as the original. The default options in some software for reducing images can do a very good job but others lose a lot of quality.
There are so many different software packages for image work these days that the best bet is to try some of those freely available first and see if they fulfil your requirements. Some of the commercially available packages are very expensive to would only be advisable if your are very serious about your photography.
Hope that is of some use

[gra7890]

Hi Everyone,
Thanks to those that wished me a safe journey back after the concert. It was a good run and I pulled up at home at 00.40, so exactly 2 hours for the 120 mile journey.

Really enjoyed the day, nice 'catching up' with members and I found the whole concert very moving...... particularly as my Dad was in the RAF during the war.

Contrary to what I said to a few of you about leaving the decision as to if to go to Buxton until nearer the time I decided to book today i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif
See most of you there

Graham

[jennieb]

I have to say what wonderful photo's that have been presented in the last few days in this and the photography thread. It is really nice to see so many beautiful photo's of the members and Hayley. I envy you all and must say congratulations to all you wonderful photographers and thank you for bringing it so close to us here as we are so far away from the action of it all.
Jennie B

[george]

Hi

We both had a great time in Nottingham - the concert was fantastic! So nice to see Hayley singing some different songs.

Sorry we didn't get to meet at the "right" Wetherspoons! We were not aware there were two so close together! We certainly missed out on a really large HWI gathering. It's all my fault because I didn't contact Grant earlier. Having arrived in Nottingham early and luckily just passing the concert hall as Hayley arrived we then checked into our Travelodge and had a little rest! We then seemed to leave ourselves short of time and also had problems with our food order. Not arriving at the venue until 7.15 pm.

At least we were in the right place the next morning to have breakfast with Belinda, Joyce, Karsten and Gordon (maybe there will be a photo appear!)

It was lovely to meet Belinda for the first time and also Stephany who we had only met briefly once before and of course eveyone else who were there.

George

[Joe]

Hi all,

Special thanks to all of the HWI members in attendance on August 2. I've really enjoyed seeing these outstanding photos, and all of the stories and reports were brilliant!

Thanks again,

Joe