Bangor and North Down Camera Club, BNDCC, Northern Ireland,UK.
Promoting and developing all aspects of photography through example, discussion and competition.

Don Ireland is facing some stiff competition in his photography - from his daughter Rachel - aged 10. Rachel took the photo below, entitled 'Discarded', and entered it into a competition organised by' Glen Water'. After winning first place, Rachel was presented with two mountain bikes and helmets. No doubt Don and Rachel will be using their new mountain bikes to go in search of more award winning photos.

Copies of 'Photography Ireland' Irish Photographic Federation / Northern Ireland Photographic Association, Yearbook 2008 can be obtained from Glorija Perry, our NIPA Rep. Cost £10 .
Congratulations to three Club members who each had 2 images published - Ray Magill, Hugh Rooney and Mark Allen.

Congratulations to David Foster, his photo came 1st in the recent NIPA Round 2.

The results of Round 3 can be found here. All members who achieved a 1st, 2nd or 3rd should submit a jpeg of their entry to the Webmaster.

V1.3 download here, includes:

• Support for RAW NEF images taken with the D3 and D300 has been added.
  
• Support for Picture Control has been added.
• A Picture Control item has been added to Camera Adjustments in the Base Adjustments. The Colour Mode, Tone Compensation, Saturation and Sharpening items have been moved to the new Picture Control item.
• An Active D-Lighting item has been added to RAW adjustments in the Base Adjustments,and Sodium Vapor Lamps and High Temperature Mercury Vapor (7200K) settings have been added.
  
• RAW images can now be saved with lossless compression. Images captured in lossless-compressed RAW format can now be saved in lossless-compressed RAW format, regardless of camera model. (Limited to use with images captured with Nikon digital-SLR cameras).
  
• The Vignette Control function, which was previously for use only with RAW images, is now supported with JPEG and TIFF images. (Limited to use with images captured by Nikon digital -SLR cameras).
  
• The function for modifying images captured with a fisheye lens, available in Lens Adjustments in the Base Adjustments, is now compatible with images captured with the AF Fisheye-Nikkor 16mm f/2.8D.
  
• Features for editing RAW images, previously available in the Camera Settings palette, have been eliminated.

Look at the pink dots. - going around and around. Follow the movement of the rotating pink dot and all of the dots will remain only one colour, PINK!

But look again and see more.

Update: we now have 12 member galleries up and running!

Our new web site is a great success attracting visitors from all over the world.  But, with your help, we can make it better. You are invited to submit 8 photos for your 'members gallery' that will be displayed on the club web site .Galleries will be created on a first come first served basis. It takes some time to make the galleries and upload them to the Internet. Bangor and North Down Camera Club are offering this service free of charge.

We believe that such an approach can only enhance the credibility of our web site.  It will allow members (that perhaps do not have a web site of their own) to display their photos and share the web address with their friend's and family. Click here to find out more.

The results of Competition One and a small gallery of the winners have been added to the web site. Click here to find out more.

Despite the fact that our new web site has only been up and running for a few weeks it has been great success. A 'Google' search for 'bangor camera club' or 'camera club northern ireland' has us at the number one position on page one of Google! This is a marvelous result, one that many companies have to pay £1,000's to achieve such a result.

But we also know quite a bit about the visitors to our site. Here is a short summary:

• We have received visitors from all over the world: USA, Canada, Vietnam, Sudan, Japan, Germany, Australia, Turkey, Croatia, Netherlands, Sweden, Israel, Spain, Poland and Norway.
• We can see that we have received many visits from camera clubs from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland - including Bray, Sligo and Dublin.
• We have had more visitors from Canada than the Republic of Ireland.
• On average we get over 100 unique visitors per week.

Clearly we are putting the Bangor and North Down Camera Club on the global map! Thanks must go to; Jack Thompson, our Information Officer, and Mark Allen, our Competitions Secretary, for their help in making our new web site a big success. But you to can also help, if you have a non-commercial website, a flidkr or photo gallery, or any news that you think club members would be interested in - then please let me know.

David Roberts
Web Master

Dear Club Members

Some of you will know that I have acquired two new grandchildren during the last three years. Much as we love living in Ireland, and despite the wonders of digital photography, my husband and I have decided to move back to Canada in order to be 'hands-on' instead of 'virtual' grandparents.

Friday nights at the Camera Club have given me much pleasure over the years both visually and socially. Many thanks to all for the warm welcome extended to me, the pleasure of your company and the gift of your individual ways of looking at the world as reflected in your photographs. To me your contribution to the quality of life in this community as a means of expression and communication has been of immense value and I wont forget it!

Every good wish to the Club for continued success.

Kathy Thornton

With the forthcoming season about to commence, the Chairman has taken the opportunity to produce his Annual Chairman's Letter to all Club Members. See the menu link About>Download Chairman's Letter.

The new 2007-2008 season Programme Brochure has been completed and is available for download form the menu link About>Download Programme Brochure.

An additional page has been added to this web site setting out the Bangor and North Down Camera Club House Rules. These are in a short but important list.

The Club Committee have approved new competition rules for 2007 / 2008. The rules have been revised and updated and if you intend to enter any of the club competitions you should carefully read the new rules, which can be seen here.

Reminder

You are reminded that the first competition will be held in September. You may submit up to 3 photos in colour, 3 in monochrome and up to 3 Slides. The subject is open, you may submit photos on any subject. Entries must be submitted by 14.9.07, so you only have two weeks to select your photos and get them printed. The judging will be carried out the following week (21.9.07). For more information please read the rules.

The Competitions Secretary will be giving a detailed explanation of the new rules and the new judging process on Wednesday 12th September 2007, at the club house. Although the new rules have been made as simple as possible, there are significant changes to the way competitions will be handled and managed for 2007 / 2008. You may therefore find this presentation useful. There will be an opportunity to ask questions

Bangor Camera Club member Mark Allen has had one of his photos published in the September Edition of 'What Digital Camera', page 98. While he didn't win, his image came 2nd. It all came about in an unusual fashion.

The editor of WDC did not have enough quality entries so he went onto Flickr [www.flickr.com] and in one of the Flickr travel groups asked:

'We're running a travel photography competition which closes tomorrow, so here's a last minute invitation to enter your best travel photo.'

Mark's entry was one of over 100 photos submitted.

Club Exhibition Prints are now on display at the Bangor Flagship Centre, upstairs in the Cafe area and downstairs beside the entrance to Dunnes Store.