Our much awaited and eagerly anticipated practical evening attracted a great response from the membership and also a number of visitors. Four tables were set up in the room on which a wide variety of displays were evident ranging from autumn leaves, flowers, conkers, acorns, office equipment items, fixings, a model bus and figures and even a ladybird. Lighting accessories included on and off-camera flash units, led lights of various shapes, sizes and output to small led lights in situ in a studio light box. Each table had a supervisor to assist people to experiment with camera settings, take images and answer any questions that arose.

People were able to circulate around the displays and explore different lighting approaches, coloured backdrops and even rearranging the displays in some cases. Conversations were struck up on the equipment and techniques being used as well as comparing images taken.

The limited depth of field in macrophotography is one of the major challenges and the evening concluded with a short presentation on using the photo stacking facility in Photoshop to show the results that can be achieved with sufficient patience and computing power to process multiple images. Hopefully a few attendees will have been inspired to explore this area of photography further.