Camera Owners of the Bay Area

The November 2005 meeting of the Camera Owners of the Bay Area (COBA) user group will be held on Wednesday, November 9, 2005 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) from 7:30-10:30 pm.

So, you want to enter a Photo Contest…

Michael Soo, the receipient of the “Photographer of the Year 2005″ award will walk you through the contest selection, preparation and winning the Photographer of the Year award. You can read about the award at:

http://www.soocool.com/poty/

Born in the Asia and studied in the United States, Michael Soo picked up the best of both cultures in his way of life. His quest for all things balance tipped in his favor when he started photography. His aptitude in creativity and art laid dormant for years was evoked with a roar! Armed with strong technical background, he was able to create a wonderful coalesce of art and humanity; light and shadow.

Michael Soo is the receipient of the “Photographer of the Year 2005″ award. His pieces of work are refreshing as he refused to follow the norms as you can witness in the October 2005 issue of Popular Photography magazine. You can find more of his work in the following sites.

• http://www.soophotography.com
• http://www.soocool.com

Underwater Photography

In his annual update, Eric Cheng will discuss the latest events in Underwater Photography. He will have an amazing slideshow from his recent adventures around the world and below sea level.

Eric Cheng is rapidly becoming known around the world for his expertise in digital imaging. He has authored many web journals documenting his trips around the world, and has been published in numerous publications, both in print and on the web. In 2003, Eric was awarded a prestigious Antibes Festival award for his work with Wetpixel.com, the Antibes underwater imaging web site of the year. In 2005, Eric won a category in the prestigious Nature’s Best Magazine photo competition. Eric also leads trips and has given workshops and seminars at DEMA, SeaSpace, Digital Shootouts, and the Boston Sea Rovers Clinic.

• http://echeng.com/travel/
• http://wetpixel.com

We’ve posted Chris Pedersen’s presentation on Photo/Video Slideshows up for people to download. Let’s hope it will give you a headstart on your holiday videos later this year!

On the Mac, in addition to programs like iMovie, Final Cut Express, and Final Cut Pro, there’s an application called Photo2Movie. You can read a review of the product on Luminous Landscape.

The October 2005 meeting of the Camera Owners of the Bay Area (COBA) user
group will be held on Wednesday, October 12, 2005 at the Stanford Linear
Accelerator Center (SLAC) from 7:30-10:30 pm.

Canon EOS 5D

It’s hard to believe that 5 years ago, the state of the art was a
Canon EOS-D30, with a 1.6x crop 3 megapixel sensor. For roughly the same
price today, you can pick up a Canon EOS 5D with a full-frame, 12.8MP sensor!

Are you one of the lucky ones who have already received a 5D? If
so, bring it to the meeting!

We hope to have at least one 5D next week, along with some initial print
comparisons between it and other digital cameras.

Photo-Video Slide Show Creation

You remember years ago when there were these way cool slide
presentations where synchronized 35mm projectors would be combined with
music to produce fancy multimedia shows? Or maybe you’ve seen one of
those documentaries made famous by Ken Burns in which the last remaining
100 photographs of the Civil War are turned into hours and hours of
interesting television.

Have you ever wondered what kinds of tools exist to turn your own
photographs into a multimedia slide show?

Have you wondered if tools exist that do it automatically?
What about being able to do it at HDTV resolutions and play it in a
family room?

At the next COBA meeting, Chris Pedersen will be talking about how he
has used video editing packages, various web-services and even some
cheap and cheerful consumer software to create photo-video slide-shows.
He’ll cover the basics of adding panning, zooming and transitions as
well as some more advanced techniques such as incorporating satellite
imagery to show location, and how to make slide shows that play at HDTV
resolutions. He’ll cover “how-to” examples with some of the tools, and
show the kinds of output that are possible for the web, DVD and HDTV.