The 2011 AGM We routinely hold two annual formal meetings usually in March and November. Our 2011 AGM was held at Carl and Di Watson’s home 41 Eastbank Rd Thornton RD3 Whakatane. A Pot-Luck dinner was preceeded by a film slide show of Orchids by Eric Scanlen. Later, we toured ancient Thai ruins via digital slides from Roland Glaser projected by Max Pow. Roland also showed us how to Improve the Fuji W1. John Wattie showed macro stereo views. Ultra close ups of the HuHu insect etc. Multi layered focus zones enabled impressive clarity never prior seen by the society. These were also viewed on his Zalman monitor. The projection was left/right reversed. Rather than swaping the projection filters, we resorted to wearing our glasses upside down. A Quadrascopic movie, two 3-D movies in one, by Marc Dawson was not played. Max mistakenly believed that a colour was missing and that this might harm his projectors.

New members Anne Sarten and Roland Glasser, front center view 3-D Orchids at the NZSS 2011 AGM

Last year has been quite amazing with respect to 3D photography. First Fuji released their second 3D camera, a W3 – whatever happened to the W2? Then there was the proliferation of 3D screens, some of these are very large. At the same time a down turn in the economy has meant not many have been sold and they were released after so many people, myself included, had upgraded their old CRT television to a modern plasma or LCD TV. I have looked at a few of these, flicker type 3D TVs, and the 55 - 60” screens are impressive when good material is being viewed. I think if they can come up with glasses free viewing that works well then slowly these screens may take over.

At least three members have bought W3, 3D cameras, while some four or five have W1 cameras. Roland Glaser our newest member has come up with a way of removing the windows covering the lenses of the W1 (these create haze and often uneven haze at that) without dismantling the camera, and he will show us how he did this at the AGM.

Our folios are still mainly film and one must say with a very good viewer the sharpness and quality is better than the digital hand viewer. Digital on the other hand is better in projection because of brightness and presentation; the ability to adjust when editing images both in cropping and brightness and still have the projected image size equal to the other non-cropped images really does help. Big disadvantage is the cost and effort required for individuals to own a projection system.

So hand viewing is what needs to be developed and at the moment the pixels are just too pronounced to even come close to film hand viewers quality. There is a possibility of this changing as camera manufacturers are starting to replace optical view finders for digital finders and this will hopefully see the development of smaller pixels in digital photo frames etc.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all members for their continued support of our small club and that they may continue to enjoy member’s images at our meetings and folios.

I would like to thank Eric Scanlen, Judy Fentress, and Carl Watson for allowing us to have our meetings at their place. Also all those who provided food at our meetings it was most enjoyable and appreciated.

My sympathies go out to anyone who has family or friends in the Christchurch area and who been affected by the Earthquake on the 22 Feb 2011.

Max Pow
23 Feb 2011