Bokeh challenge and apologies

We had a great time at the Eastman Camera Club meeting December 20.   Good food, good friends, and great photos (view here).   Apologies for the poor quality the projector was turning out that night.   We tried something new and learned some things in the process.

A little background that is of interest to photographers.   Every display devices (monitor, projector, etc.) has a profile that defines how to display photos.   It includes information on brightness, saturation, and color temperature.  The monitor on your computer has a default profile that works most of the time.   You can use a monitor calibrator (available for rent through the Camera Club) to measure your monitor display and create a custom profile so that what is displayed is a true representation of the photo image.   This is important if you print your photos.   What you see on an uncalibrated monitor may not be what you get back from the printer.   I suggest you borrow the monitor calibrator and create profiles for all your computer monitors.

The club has a special calibration system for use with the projector we use in our meetings.   The projector was calibrated before the meeting.  Notice how good Jim's photos looked when he was reviewing photos from outings in 2012?   He had put his photos in a PowerPoint presentation and PowerPoint uses the profile when displaying photos.

When we used Microsoft Photo Viewer to display your best of 2012 photos they looked . . .   We'll let's just say they weren't displayed very well.   That's because Microsoft Photo Viewer does not use the display device profile.   If we had been able to view them in a web browser they would have looked right because most modern web browsers use the device profiles.

I have since installed another photo viewer on my laptop - jpegview.  It does use device profiles and the photos look great.   I recommend jpegview and a great alternative to Microsoft Photo Viewer.

We didn't mention the photo challenge for this month.  It is bokeh.   Go out and shoot photos with "good bokeh".  Don't know what bokeh means?   Check out Ken Rockwell's article.   The photo at the right is an example of bokeh.

I want to wish all my Camera Club Friends Merry Christmas.   May God bless you and your family at Christmas and through all of 2013.

Richard Siggins