Meeting Report 27 May 2013

A very good attendance braved cold conditions and the consensus was that it was another good night.

In the 10 minute competition Warren Knox produced "Lake Tuakitoto" which is a wetlands and lake near Kaitangata. In fact the outlet becomes the source of the Kaitangata River. The perimiter of the lake is 15 km and takes about five and a half hours to walk. Interesting film Warren.
"Road Trip 2013" was filmed by Yvonne Renton and covered the bus trip to Queenstown then over to Walter Peak and back all in one day. Good effort Yvonne but it must have been a long day.
"Thieves Alley 2013" by Gio Angelo was an excellent representation of the event earlier in the year. The film captured some of the characters taking part.
"Counterfeit Grandfather" by Gordon Caley produced a machine which transformed paper into five dollar notes. A commendable invention Gordon.
"Steam Trains" by Ted Hagen showed us a dozen or so Puffing Billies mainly at the Railway Station. This footage will prove invaluable for future archiving.
1st "Thieves Alley, 2nd  "Road Trip 2013, 3rd Lake Tuakitoto"

A Panel consisting of Nevill Smith, Andrew Wylie and Gio Angelo then answered questions from the floor followed by general discussion. A good discussion took place on Filters, Best Camera to buy, DVD rot, and storage of films.
Filters
A big advantage of using a filter (UV) was to protect the lens from dust and water. Often the best idea is to keep the filming as simple as possible and if colour balance was necessary then it could be done when editing.
Best Camera
There was no one answer to the question on best camera. Every camera will have features that are wanted or not and some compromise is necessary. The more expensive cameras will tend to have more manual settings and the cheaper ones will probably not have a viewfinder. Dealing with shading the LCD screen, there is now a clip-on shade available at a reasonable price. Details later.
UTube
A short film was shown by Andrew on the copyright requirements of UTube. The link to the film is as follows:-  Click here for link

Format
The tendency is now to move to the 16:9 format (away from 4:3) and most TV's sold now come in that format. To get it right it is necessary to have the camera, editor and projector all set to the same format. To run a check film something round such as a wheel. It should still be round when projected.
DVD Rot
Andrew had just had a DVD subject to deterioration. It could be that it had been dropped or damaged in some way and the dreaded rot was spreading.
Storage
This led on to an interesting discussion on storage of films and the point was made was to spread the risk by using a combination of say DVD's, Hard Drives, Flash Drives and even "The Cloud".
Andrew also mentioned that the worst thing you could do to electronic devices was not to use them.
Mobile Phone
Peter Begg then showed a film on the recent bus trip to Queenstown made on his Mobile phone. The quality was astonishing.
Drama
The planning of the Club's 2013 Drama was well under way and the shooting due to take place in June. It is quite a project with many members involved. The Director is Yvonne Renton and actors, cameramen, audio and lighting people, clapper boy, continuity, editing and dogs bodies make up the crew. Good Luck people!

Mid-Winter Dinner
John and Robyn Armstrong gave a preview of the Mid-Winter Dinner to be held on Sunday 23 June 2013. Also shown was a four minute promo for a film being made on Moscow. and a film show on St Petersburg. More details nearer the time.

The evening finished with a raffle and supper. Hope not too much missed in this report.

Report on Meeting 23 April 2012

Cameras
Mike Davies had brought up his specific requirements for a camera for backpacking. It needed to be light, take up little space and to be quickly readied. He also wanted a one stop camera to take video and photos. He had been told that Canon was leading the way.

Peter Begg brought along an old titling machine and an editor. 

Andrew Wylie preferred Panasonic but disliked cameras with no viewfinders.

Gordon Caley showed his HD camera. He also showed another which could be used underwater without ill effects. Gordon had made up a stabiliser which looked pretty impressive.

Gio Angelo then showed a variety of cameras including a cam in a pen. The main use was to pick up audio at a distance although Bluetooth was an alternative up to about 30 metres.

Frank Weedon showed a number of his old cameras starting off with a black box.

John Armstrong then showed his Bolex film camera, his Sony Handicam and Panasonic. His preferred camera would have a viewfinder and plug for earphone jack.

There is a detailed article at PC World "How to Buy a Digital Camcorder"
The article should be read at www.pcworld.com/article/125646/how_to_buy_a_digital-camera

They recommend you check out the LCD screen in daylight

Look at the len's optical zoom not the digital zoom

Buy extra battery

Front mounted microphones give best results

Can your hands work the controls?

Manual exposure controls are useful

Show and Tell
Warren Knox showed a little bit of Marcus Lush's "South" - the bit dealing with Dog Island. 

Altogether an interesting night with a variety of views.