News

We had a great meeting Wednesday night.    Following Peggy Boike’s presentation on macro photography, Bryan Leonard shared information on his macro gear that included extension tubes, macro couplers for reversing lenses, close-up lenses and tele-converters. Carl Wegener also brought his tabletop macro lighting kit.  Bryan will make a more complete presentation on macro next year.   Here is a pdf of Bryan and Carl’s presentation.

Photo Backup and the Cloud

Those of us who live in Hudson Township have been promised an upgrade to fiber optic cable from our provider, Baldwin Lightstream.  Ted Johnston, IT professional and former member, is one of their customers whose installation has been completed.  Ted says that the new fiber that Baldwin is laying gives you a synchronous connection.  Translation:  Most cable and DSL connections are asynchronous. The upload and download speeds are VERY different. Before the switch he had 75Mbps download and 4Mbps (or so) upload on their cable service. After the switch to fiber, he now has 75Mbps both upload and download.  Why this matters:  When backing up photos to “the cloud” you use the upload speed. This switch just increased the speed he can backup photos by almost 19 times. To give you a comparison- to get a 50Mbps synchronous connection at his office in Plymouth, Comcast quoted $450 per month.  Most people will not notice this increase in upload speed, but photographers backing up to the cloud certainly will.   A few years ago, Ted gave a presentation to the club on storage backup and the cloud.  You can still download it from our Learning page.  These days, he is recommending Backblaze for cloud storage.

Phipps Annual Call for Artists

The Phipps Annual Call for Artists deadline in July 1.  The Phipps seeks submissions from visual artists in Wisconsin and Minnesota for exhibition opportunities in 2021-2022 in the galleries of the Phipps and in four public exhibition programs in 2020: Hudson Hospital & Clinic; Westfields Hospital & Clinic in New Richmond, WI; Croixdale in Bayport, MN; and Woodland Hill in Hudson, WI.  Submissions for individuals and groups will be accepted, so this could be a great opportunity to make a submission for yourself, or to partner with someone else.  Click here for details. 

Fireworks

Hudson Booster Days fireworks will be on Friday, July 5 at dusk.  This year I will be taking the walking path on the south side of town that eventually parallels the I-94 bridge.  Feel free to join me…bring your tripod and bug spray.   The Booster Days parade will be on Saturday, July 6 at 11 am.   The parade could be another opportunity for getting those street photography photos that we need for the August Salon.  Stillwater fireworks will be on July 4 at 10:00 pm. (more…)