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In my experience it doesn’t matter what the size of sensor a camera has, most lenses will have a corner-to-corner optimum sharpness in the range of f/4 – f/8 aperture, often called “the sweet spot”. Camera lens design will often give a sharp performance in the centre at the widest aperture, for example at f/1.4, with the lens aperture resolving to sharper corner to corner sharpness as it is stopped down, then the performance deteriorates again becoming softer as the lens is stopped down further owing to diffraction at apertures above f/16, personally I wouldn’t push a lens on an APS-C camera much past f/11. Why does this matter? For landscape photography ideally a photographer would want foreground to background sharpness, and simply always choosing to select an aperture of f/10, or f/16 arbitrarily may not give the correct front to back sharpness required. This foreground to background sharpness is defined in cameras as Depth of Field (DoF). Depth of Field is a factor of sensor size, closeness to the subject, and the focal length of the lens used, this attached image of a worm cast on a sandy beach illustrates perfectly the effect of DoF, shot at f/5.6 on an APS-C sensor, the band of sharpness runs through the focus point on the worm cast. For macro photography a photographer often needs to be close to the subject, which reduces the DoF, requiring a photographer to focus stack the images. Many photographers opt for a small crop sensor of micro four thirds format from Olympus, or Panasonic, to maximise the DoF in this genre of photography. Many of you know that I enjoy portrait, and fashion photography, DoF is critical as the focus should be on the eyes. A few years back, I succumbed to social media advice that I needed a full frame camera for portraiture, especially with an 85mm f/1.8 lens shooting wide open. Unfortunately, the DoF was razor thin, the lens a Sony FE 85mm f/1.8, and Sony A7 ii was heavy as a combination, and the large lens provided little room for my fingers on the handgrip, the Sony cameras were sold within a few months. On my last model photo shoot, with Ivy in Skegness, I used a new TT Artisans 56mm f/1.8 on my Fuji APS-C camera, shooting wide open the eyes were in focus but the ears, and nose were soft, stopping down to f/4 gave better focus on the face, but still retained a smooth out of focus background – bokeh. I use an app called PhotoPills on my mobile phone, the app provides a tremendous amount of data relevant to photography including a DoF lookup, here are the results from my past, and current cameras, and lenses. Camera Sensor Lens Aperture DoF Fuji 26Mp Sigma 30mm f/1.4 0.36m Fuji 26Mp Fuji 16-80mm f/4 @80mm 0.14m Fuji 26Mp TT Art 56mm f/1.4 0.13m Sony A7 ii 24Mp Sony FE 85mm f/1.8 0.08m Olympus EM5 20Mp Sigma 30mm f/1.4 0.28m Knowledge is power!! I know that any DoF greater than 0.20m for portraits will provide good definition on the face, without any softening of facial features. The Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens allows for portraits to be shot wide open. My TT Artisans 56mm f/1.8 lens is probably best stopped down to f/4, also the benefit of stopping this lens down is that the lens will provide improved sharpness at this aperture. Mark Denny has posted a YouTube video on this topic which some of you may find useful. https://youtu.be/CdNzZ9oLdKc?si=kL0fgTH7A6GUnhIM In this video Mark discusses his mistakes in selecting aperture in landscape photography, he also touches on finding the “sweet spot” of a lens. My photo of Jayne, “English Rose”, was taken with the Sigma 30mm f/1.4, shot wide open at f/1.4, the foreground petals are out of focus but importantly the eyes, and facial features are in sharp detail. This portrait of Fleur, taken in natural light with the Olympus EM5, and the Sigma 30mm lens, was shot at f/2 again preserving fine detail. For landscape photography the image here is of the rocks in a bay at Flamborough, I can see on the set of images taken at this time that I’ve fallen into the trap outlined by Mark Denney of shooting at a fixed aperture, luckily in this case the selected aperture of f/8 worked on this image, with the Fuji 16-80mm zoom lens at 16mm, the foreground rocks are in sharp detail, and the background cliff still retains a lot of detail.

Good morning All Last week we held the AGM and presentation night, the evening ran smoothly, with all Officer, and Committee posts filled so we can all look forward to another years photography. There are photographs of our trophy presentation on the website. This week, Wednesday 8th May, Brian Grommett is coming to our club to present a talk entitled "Making Photographs – Why do we Do It". Harry is taking entries for the Monthly PDI competition, with the categories of "Coastal" and "Open" to be held on the 15th May. Closing date for submission of entries is midnight this Wednesday, please remember 6 entries, with one designated as a reserve. Subscriptions are also due for the year, £30 to Paul Gray within 30 days please, if you want to bank transfer contact Paul for the details. Don’t forget to let me know if you want to go to our annual meal at the Splash, they need to know numbers and have £5 deposit per person as soon as possible. Regards Graham

In our professional working roles, we often have to change our processes, or adapt to changes; the same is very true in our photographic hobby. How many times have we set off to capture an image in mind, then had to change due to weather, ambient conditions, light etc and then, rather than go home empty handed, we make the required changes, adapt and attempt to capture something else instead? I've lost count of times where rain abandoned my play and I concentrated on indoor macro, or wind and no shelter halting an outdoor shoot and looking for cover - indeed, often getting a useable exposure using the triangle settings of Aperture, Open Shutter Time and ISO, necessitate a Photographers skill in '...Adapting and Compromising.' I very recently had a run out to a location where friends advised that a pair of Barn Owls were known to regularly hunt. Fieldcraft and knowledge indicated that their recent brood of Owlets would need food and, because of the recent rains the parents hadn't flown indicated a high chance they would be out for food. My envisaged image was an environmental shot on a wide angle lens, gimbal-mounted on a tripod, triggered by remote from a safe distance. After setting up and retiring to a safe distance, the wind got stronger and the sky lost its lovely light. The Owls did not show at all on their favoured route or post. Far from being disheartened, I changed my equipment and went in search of some other birdlife in the shrubbery. With a 1.4 convertor attached to the 100-400mm Image Stabilised L Canon pro lens I managed a capture of a very small and distant Willow Warbler. It's when you come home with something worthwhile, albeit different to what you initially intended, that you can be satisfied with adapting to what is presented. The Owls may show next time, whereas the beautiful Willow Warbler may not. Keep your options open fellow 'toggers.

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Good Morning All Last week at the club we held a studio evening organized by Derek Smith, it was a very successful evening with Jade Alexandra modeling for us. A big thanks to Derek and Jade for a very good night. There is a report on our website. This Wednesday 1st May, we are holding the AGM and presentation night, and I found the above photograph that had been in a local paper in the early 1990’s of the trophy winners that year (I think it’s 1993) from left to right, Echlin Molyneax, Kevin Adlard, Roger Taylor and myself (I did have hair once). It would be good to see as many of you as possible attending the AGM. Harry is now accepting entries for the next PDI competition, with the categories of "Coastal" and "Open". It was agreed at the committee meeting that to keep competition entry numbers manageable you can send in six entries but nominate one with an R to be dropped from the competition in the event of too many entries. I have booked the Royal Oak (Splash) at Little Cawthorpe for Friday 5th July 7.30, if you could let me know ASAP if you would like to attend our annual meal, they would like to know numbers and a £5 deposit from each person attending. For newer members partners are invited as well. Regards Graham

It was our annual studio night, and it was a real pleasure to welcome Jade Alexandra as our model to our club room. With LED lighting, and a selection of backgrounds, our model Jade freely posed in front of the cameras. Many of our members had never worked in a studio style setting with a model before, and it was a great learning experience, not only working with the constant lighting, a model, and working around the individual camera settings. I felt that the evening was a great success, one of our best such evenings, with lots of laughter, and a steep learning curve for many of our members. Jade was a totally professional model throughout the event, and I’m sure that many of our members will have some great images from the evening. Thank you, Jade, and members for what I felt was a delightful evening.

Good Morning All Last week we held our monthly competition, print subject – Weather and Open, member Paul Malley was the judge for the evening. We started with the Open where the standard was so high no one got less than 17 out of 20, then Weather category after the break, where Paul made it clear he wanted to see the weather in action rather than what it had done, that said not all photographs fitted the subject but the standard of photographs was very high again. Thank you to Paul Malley for judging and making it a very interesting night, the results are on the website. This week, Wednesday 24th April, Derek is running a studio night, you will need to bring your cameras along for this one and a flash gun as well if you have one. There is an extra charge of £5 on top of the normal £2 to pay towards the cost of the model. I took the portrait above on the last studio night. Don’t forget to take your project photographs, numbers. Regards Graham

A print competition was held last night with the categories of “Weather”, and “Open”. The judge for the evening was our very own knowledgeable, yet amiable Paul Malley, in judging the “Open” category he gave excellent critique, with feedback on the prints submitted. Selecting 7 prints as “hold backs” Paul had quite a task in selecting the highest placed prints. After the break, Paul began judging the “weather” category, he immediately made an executive decision to only apply the highest points to prints that depicted the weather as it was happening, rather than the after effects of weather, such as snow, or frost on the ground. The standard of submitted prints was extremely high, by simply viewing these prints it was obvious that our club photography has definitely improved over the last few years, and this is reflected in better performances in external competitions. A well deserved thanks to Dave Turner in organising the competition, Paul Malley for his judging, and considered opinions, lastly but definitely not least Dave Mann for the refreshments. Overall, it was a great evening, the website Competition page has been updated with the score sheets, and the top 3 placed images. The 1st placed “A Pause for Thought – Alan” in the "Open" category, and “Evening Storm Rolling in” from the "Weather" category images are displayed on here.

On Sunday April 14th the Lincolnshire Photographic Association held the ‘Fosters Colour Challenge’ at Nettleham Village Hall. 13 clubs from around Lincolnshire took part in the competition and the day was well attended with 3 members from Louth making the journey to represent our club. The Foster Colour Challenge allows for a club to enter 5 coloured prints (plus 1 tiebreaker). There are 5 rounds where the judge for the day eliminates some of the prints. The prints that are eliminated in the first round, score 1 point, second round 2 points, and so on up to round 5 and these prints gain 5 points. The judge then awards one print, the one they consider the ‘Best in Show’, one extra point is then given and that print gains 6 points. The club with the most points at the end wins the trophy; the 6th print comes into play if there is a tie. On the day Carol McNiven Young FRPS EFIAP/s BPE5* DPAGB undertook the judging in an excellent and consider way, with the final results ending in a tie between Cleethorpes and Grimsby both have 23 points. Following the viewing of the tie breaker images Grimsby took 1st place and was awarded the trophy. Cleethorpes was then 2nd with 23 points, Scunthorpe came 3rd with 19 points and then we, Louth came 4th with 17 points. Coming 4th on the day was a very good showing but the best was to come as our Tony Gaskins was awarded the ‘Best In Show’ and gained an additional point for the excellent image ’ Moon Bell’. Well done and congratulation to Tony on his achievement and well done to Louth PS for coming 4th out of 13 clubs.