Alan Sweet | Guest Contributor
The monthly meeting of the Atherton Tablelands Bird Photography Group (ATBPG) was held in Atherton on Monday, 4 September.
There were seven people in attendance with apologies from three others.
Al Sweet reported that there were now 53 members in the group, many of whom were interested parties who lived off the Tablelands but were frequent visitors. Even if not resident on the Tablelands, all ATBPG members are invited to participate in the challenge (subject to certain conditions).
The submissions for the August Challenge (“Show me some red”) were presented at the meeting and commented on. These may be viewed in the Media / Albums section of the ATBPG Facebook Group page.
The September / October challenge “A bird beginning with C” was issued.
Alan reported that a representative from Cairns Birders had approached him with a view to organising a joint bird photography outing on the Tablelands. Cairns Birders are meeting at Kay Road, Mareeba on 10th September and ATBPG members have been invited to join them.
Alan expressed his disappointment and frustration at receiving notice that the France Road Bitumen Manufacturing Plant had been approved. He expressed his views that with the growing pressure on housing and the move towards alternative energy, the pressure on birdlife and habitat will increase. More needs to be done to get the general populace involved in tackling these issues and that photographs, rather than words, should be used more widely to show people what is at risk. He believes that the Eagleby Wetlands will be the next large threat.
Barry Deacon spoke of his experiences with the Nikon Z9 mirrorless camera. The pros and cons of mirrorless versus DSLR were discussed and a discussion about camera settings, denoise software etc followed.
A demonstration of the Google image search function (Google lens) by Al Sweet was well received.
Discussion continued over coffee and cake and a good meeting finally wrapped up around lunchtime.