Posted 17th December 2018
Summary
As of today we have 26 responses which is about 2/3 of our membership and absolutely brilliant. Everyone is pretty happy with the way the club is run and enjoy most of our current activities. We had a lot of volunteers for talks – thank you VERY much and a few people will consider being on the committee. We have taken all your comments and suggestions on board and incorporated them into our new schedule which will be published shortly. Here is a run down of the results
Q:How would you describe your photographic ability?
We are quite an experienced club with most people rating themselves as intermediate or better. There were no absolute beginners who responded.
The spread of cameras was quite even between Nikon and Canon with a few Sonys, Fuji , Panasonic and Olympus. A number of people are also using iPhones.
Q: What type of photography are you interested in? Please tick all that apply.
We are interested in a huge variety of subjects
Other was listed as: long exposure, planes, new techniques and desktop.
Putting in order of interest……
| Choices | Totals |
| Landscape | 22 |
| Nature | 19 |
| Macro | 16 |
| Night Lights | 16 |
| Architecture | 15 |
| Animals/birds | 15 |
| Street | 13 |
| Sky/Stars | 13 |
| Portraits | 12 |
| Abstract | 12 |
| Sport | 7 |
| Other | 5 |
Q: Please tick all the activities you enjoy at Visions. Leave blank any you do not enjoy.
There was a good spread of activities that people enjoy with the most popular being talks by experts. The least popular activities were Holiday photos, Fun nights and Socials at the Pub. The most popular activities were those that improved our photography.
Putting choices in order of interest
| Choices | Totals |
| Talks by experts | 22 |
| Outings | 21 |
| Talks by members | 21 |
| Friendly critiques | 21 |
| Practical photo sessions (e.g. macro, food photography, ) | 20 |
| Competition nights – member’s judging | 20 |
| Competition nights – external judge | 19 |
| Facebook Top Ten – the best photos on a given theme are chosen from Facebook | 17 |
| Studio work | 16 |
| Editing tutorials | 14 |
| Back to Basics sessions -( e.g. focusing, depth of field, using histograms) | 14 |
| Holiday photos by members | 12 |
| Social Evenings at Pub | 9 |
| Fun nights e.g. treasure hunts | 7 |
| Other – please state | 1 |
Weekend meetings/Buddy system
The ideas of weekend meetings met with almost universal support as did the idea of having a buddy system where people are matched with someone more experienced to help them develop their skills
Editing Software
The most popular editing software used are Lightroom and Photoshop with enough people being interested in beginner or intermediate levels to warrant running some sessions on these.
Competitions
Everyone was happy with the way competitions were run and there is also a fair amount of interest in taking part in SPF (Scottish Photographic Federation) competitions and friendly inter-club competitions.
Q: Are there any other activities or talks you would like to see on the programme?
There were lots of very helpful suggestions given for this question. Here are a selection…
- More practical sessions
- More talks, tutorials and outings run by experts (landscape particularly)
- Regular member’s Top 20s.
- Printing and presentation of work.
- File storage and editing workflow
- Tutorials on depth of field, histograms
- Astrophotography
- Water splash
- More portraits
- High end printers
Q:Are you interested in printing your photos for competition or display?
Facebook and The Website
The main use for both was to check the programme. A small number of people post photos to Facebook for comment and critique.
The Newsletter
Everyone found this to be helpful and informative. Most people are happy to have this as a pdf attachment.
Q: Do you have any other comments about the club and how it is run?
The comments were very positive and encouraging. The club was seen to be friendly and welcoming to new members with a variety of activities suiting all levels. It is clear that the members would like less talks and more practicals and the committee are working hard to achieve this.
Thanks so much to everyone for taking the time to complete this survey which will go a long way to improving our programme of events.
Visions Photography Club 