Atherton & District Amateur Photographic Society

No I'm not at all sure it's the projector. The next digital night will be done on my own laptop, which is much newer than the club's. If there is a significant improvement we will see it then.

Obviously before we buy anything we will be as sure as we can be that a major improvement will be the end result!

Many thanks for the thoughts.

I thought I'd resurrect this thread to give more people a chance to air their views. Whilst I understand clubs haven't yet received any guidance from the LCPU about the future of competitions, I see that the PAGB have just launched a new competiton:

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The Great British Cup for Projected Digital Images

At the October 2007 executive meeting the PAGB Executive agreed to host a new competition for Projected Digital Images. The competition is open to all member clubs of PAGB affiliated federations. More information will be made available shortly.

http://www.lcpu.org/lcpu/news.php
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I have recalibrated the digital projector and I think we may see an improvement in the colour. It won't ever be the same colour as the laptop's TFT monitor, but the laptop is not really up to it these days so I have adjusted the projector to get the best we can.

Personally I think it looks pretty good, but all feedback will be most welcome after you have had a chance to see for yourselves.

Hi Last night during the presentation a comment was passed that there are no slide takers in the club I didn't want to speak out from the floor to complain, but there seems to be a drive to brainwash ever so slowly everybody against slides. I'm aware that there seems to be a problem getting slides for competitions, but last year part of one club night was spent picking slides for competitions after a viewing This year nothing. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying I will always take slides, once the M8 is stable and I've saved up the cash I'm buying one, but I'm planning on keeping slide film in my M6

TomR

I'm quite certain that no-one is trying to brainwash us in to thinking there are no slide takers in the club. We are actually genuinely asking members what they want to do (hence this thread) because few or no slides are being entered in the competitions. It's also proved very hard work to get together enough slides for inter-club events. There is also pressure from other clubs who want to change to digital projection. For our battles with them, if they have no slides to offer then it will have to be prints and digital projection.

The main slide workers have almost all gone digital and despite every effort to persuade them to continue with their slides (we had a big push on this last year) the film cameras have stayed in the camera bags.

If it should happen that slides disappear from the competitions, as seems ever more likely, then I do have it in mind to have a stand-alone slide competition somewhere in the syllabus for as long as members want it.

It's really driven by what we all want to do - if we enter slides, slides will stay, if we don't then it sort of answers itself even if we do nothing....

John Said "If it should happen that slides disappear from the competitions, as seems ever more likely, then I do have it in mind to have a stand-alone slide competition somewhere in the syllabus for as long as members want it."

Thats no problem then, I guess there's no point in competition, even internal if there's less than 2 slide takers I'll have to save up for a M8

TomR

I'll have to save up for a M8

You know you want one....

thomasru wrote: Last night during the presentation a comment was passed that there are no slide takers in the club...
I didn't want to speak out from the floor... but there seems to be a drive to brainwash ever so slowly everybody against slides.

There's certainly no anti-slides movement within ADAPS.

If no-one stands up and tells us that they are still taking slides, and if no-one enters slides for competitions (as in the October monthly comp), what assumptions should we make?

and if no-one enters slides for competitions (as in the October monthly comp)

All my submissions to date have been slides ... and would have been last month also had there been one from another photographer ... we do need slides, but, as I have overheard in the Club Room that cameras with slide film are being taken out but not used, because members are taking out their digital cameras also and using them instead ... therein lies not only the problem but the solution ...

Hi Paul

I did post a note on this thread( perhaps you missed it) as follows:

Hi Just got back off holiday and saw the poll re future of competitions. I'd just like to say I still shoot film (slide) and have 4 films ready to send for processing. I have not entered the monthly competitions this year but really hope that Slide is still in for the annual next year.

TomR

Walter Brooks wrote: I have overheard in the Club Room that cameras with slide film are being taken out but not used, because members are taking out their digital cameras also and using them instead ... therein lies not only the problem but the solution ...

I would welcome more slides in competitions, but you can't force people to use slide film if they are now preferring to use digital, just as you can't force people to photograph landscapes if they prefer to shoot portraits. Everyone chooses for themselves how they enjoy their hobby of photography.

thomasru wrote: Hi Paul
I did post a note on this thread( perhaps you missed it)

I saw your earlier comment Tom. You said that you heard comments being made about the lack of slideworkers but you chose to say nothing. I just wondered why...

I always used to enter both prints and slides when I was in a club years ago. However, my OM1's have gone kaput, so until I get myself a film camera again, I'm a bit stuck for slides.
Having now bought a digital camera, I am finding it difficult to use photoshop versus the wet darkroom, but I'm sure it'll get there in the end.

So I guess what i'm trying to say is:

a. prints should stay because you see on the print what the photographer intended, ie no loss of quality, no projection issues. And it is great to be able to see a print at close quarters afterward and appreciate the work that has gone into it.

b. slides wouldn't have a loss of quality, but if there are none entered.....? Maybe because this partly due to the fact they can't be manipulated, and we have become so used to manipulating images they are falling out of favour. So if we switch to digitally projected images, the entries may increase... why not (as someone has suggested) run 35mm slides along projected images for a few competitions and see what happens? Then neither camp is excluded.

I judged a "Creative" competition last night and there were 18 slides entered. The interesting thing is that all of them had been made into slides from digital files.

If they had been digitally projected instead, then there would have been no issues with dust spots, slides "popping" and indeed focusing.

Conventional 35mm slides are not perfect as a medium either.