<p> Deep South Koi and Pond Society Newsletter July 2010</p><p>Deep South Koi and Pond Society, Founded June 1993</p><p>July Meeting</p><p>Presentation by Ray Jordan, Certified Koi Judge, on "Selecting Young Koi for your Pond"</p><p>Who: Deep South Koi and Pond Society Members & Friends Date: Sunday, July 25 at 2:30 pm Place: Jones Creek Library, 6222 Jones Creek Road, Baton Rouge, LA 70817 </p><p>Directions: From Airline Hwy, turn onto Jefferson Hwy headed South. Jefferson will turn into Tiger Bend Rd. Continue on Tiger Bend until you reach Jones Creek Rd. and make a left turn. The library is on the left.</p><p>Library Phone: (225) 756-1140</p><p>*Pot Luck lunch to be held at the home of James & Linda McAdams from 11:00-1:00 prior to the meeting for club members! 6020 Eastwood Dr. BR, LA 70806 Home: 225-924-7142</p><p>Directions: Exit I-10 at College Dr, head north on College to Jefferson Hwy and take a left at the light. Stay on Jefferson until you come to Government St. Turn right onto Government and immediately get in left lane & turn left onto West Ardenwood. Eastwood is the third street on your right. Turn right. The McAdams’ house is on the right down the block. Note: if you miss the immediate left onto W. Ardenwood, continue on Government to S. Ardenwood, turn left and then turn left onto Eastwood.</p><p>OFFICERS</p><p>President: Betty Klenke Secretary: Linda McAdams (225)755-2449 (225)924-7142(H) (225)278-1080(Cell) [email protected] [email protected]</p><p>Vice-President: Alice Werline Treasurer: Kathleen Dietrich (225)766-7885 (h) (225)677-5032 [email protected] [email protected] Dues of $25.00 per family for 2010 are now due. Please make checks payable to Deep South Koi & Pond Society and mail to P O Box 82484, Baton Rouge, LA 70884. </p><p>Mark your calendar for these 2010 upcoming events!</p><p>January 24 Meeting and Auction at Shirley and Paul Charbonnet’s Home</p><p>February 28 Meeting – Harb’s Oasis</p><p>March 27 & 28 Baton Rouge Spring Garden Show at LSU John M Parker Agricultural Coliseum</p><p>April 10 Tour Houmas House Gardens & Lunch</p><p>April 18 Earth Day Celebration – Downtown Baton Rouge </p><p>May 23 Meeting at Paula and Kim Biggs’ Home</p><p>June 27 Birthday Meeting – Covered Dish at Gerald & Janis Bonds’ Home</p><p>July 25 Jones Creek Library- Speaker Ray Jordan</p><p>Aug 22 Kathie and Roger Dietrich – Member plant swap</p><p>Sept 26 Pattie Murray and Charles Williams</p><p>Oct 24 Alice and Buzz Werline</p><p>Dec Christmas Party – Paul & Shirley Charbonnet’s Home</p><p>If you have volunteered to host a meeting and I don’t have you listed please let me know.</p><p>Would you like to host a meeting at your home and show off your pond? Contact Betty Klenke for more details – 755-2449</p><p>Hi Everyone, To welcome Ray Jordan our guest speaker for our meeting on July 25 at the Library, we thought it would be nice to do something a little extra and give people a chance to meet Ray and Martha and Bill & Maureen as well as see the McAdams’ Pond. Please let us know if you plan to come to the McAdams’ for lunch so we can plan. Otherwise, we will see you at the meeting at the Jones Creek Library. Thanks, Betty Klenke</p><p>Join us for lunch to welcome our special guests</p><p>Ray & Martha Jordan of San Antonio & Bill & Maureen McGurk of Purdin Koi Farm, Glynn, LA Sunday, July 25 11 - 1 Place: Home of James and Linda McAdams 6020 Eastwood Dr Baton Rouge, LA 70806 924-7142 Jambalaya & Drinks provided please bring your favorite dish & RSVP by Wednesday, July 21</p><p>755-2449 [email protected]</p><p>Here's your chance to see James & Linda’s pond updated by the Society in April</p><p>June Meeting Minutes June 26, 2010</p><p>Alice Werline opened the meeting and thanked Janis and Gerald for hosting the June meeting at their home.</p><p>Alice had the members go around the room and introduce themselves since we had many new members who attended the meeting and Birthday Bash.</p><p>Kathie gave a Treasurers Report: Our current balance is $4,121.44, after AKCA dues were paid and expenses from LSU Garden Show and Earth Day. Also, we received a letter from Harb thanking us for our participation in the Pond Tour and advising us the donation for the Hilltop Arboritum was $5,798.00. Great news!!</p><p>Betty’s husband is a CPA and he will be setting up a computerized accounting system for us to keep better records for our expenses and financials. This will be completed soon.</p><p>James was asked to explain the AKCA and what they do for the new members attending the meeting. He encouraged everyone to join the Yahoo Groups for the club and check out the AKCA information there.</p><p>There was much discussion about next month’s meeting with Ray Jordan speaking to the club about selecting Koi and also the McGurk’s bringing Koi for us to view. Also, it was decided that we will move the meeting to the Jones Creek Library to accommodate more people and have the potluck dinner at the McAdams’ home at 11:00 before the meeting. Club members are asked to bring dish to share.</p><p>Dana mentioned the Orchid Society show next weekend and provided everyone with passes for free admission.</p><p>We collectively discussed heat issues that everyone was experiencing with their ponds, and some ideas to provide shade alternatives.</p><p>Alice adjourned the meeting and we celebrated the Club’s 17th Birthday with wonderful food brought by everyone! Special thanks to Janis for hosting us and Gerald for the delicious meat he prepared for us!</p><p>Respectfully submitted, Linda McAdams</p><p>Koi Photography Tips I have been trying hard at all the shows I've been to this year to improve my standard of photography. It should be simple – the Koi is captive in a nice round vat so why is it so hard to get a good photograph? Why am I often disappointed with the results? How do other people get so much better results than me?</p><p>Let's start at the beginning: do you need expensive cameras to get good results? NO, but ideally you do need one that allows some control over the main camera’s settings (shutter speed, aperture and iso rating), ideally one that has a manual mode allowing you to take full control. Don’t be frightened of taking the camera out of AUTO – it really is not that complicated. Even cheap point and shoot camera’s are capable of taking fantastic quality photographs at a reasonable resolution. The only other recommended piece of equipment is a circular polarising (CP) filter – this will remove the glare / reflection off the water's surface.</p><p>If conditions are such that you have no reflection, then this can be dispensed with, but 99% of the time this is a requirement. Some compacts do allow these to be placed in front of the lens but several don’t. By modern standards my Canon 20D is ancient, but it is a good basic digital slr, only 6M pixels but this is sufficient for A4 prints. Couple this with a reasonable flash gun and it allows me to take good pictures when it goes right. Most Koi pictures will be taken at focal lengths in the range of 30–70mm. I usually have a 17–70mm lens on my body for Koi photography. No need to fill 100% of the frame with the fish, better to leave some space around that you can crop off later. Try not to lose bits off the head or tail! Shutter speeds in the range of 1/125s to 1/250s are fine. Anything less than 1/60s is likely to result in blurred pictures. You want the entire body of the fish to be in focus so ideally f5.6 or above. If you are operating at f4 or below then it is likely you will not have a sufficient depth of field to get the entire fish length in focus. If the speed/aperture combination would give an underexposed image then it is worthwhile increasing the ISO rating rather than compromising on either shutter speed or aperture. Many cameras will give acceptable quality images up to ISO 800 – some much higher but it does depend on the model. If the camera has various metering modes then using a spot meter on the centre of a fish is best for me. Try to take the picture when the fish is evenly lit – not half in bright sunlight and half in shadows. Try to take the picture when the fish is on its own. Wait for the fish to be head on to you and the pecs out and even. Try not to take pictures with the Koi stuck to the side of the vat so only one side can be seen. Single Koi photographs are better taken in portrait mode rather than landscape. Group shots are better in landscape. Remember though if you change from one to the other to reset the polarizing filter. At shows, if you smile nicely at the members of the water team they may remove the air stones to let you take your pictures. Remember to accept rejection that may come politely – they are under no obligation and could be busy doing their real job! If they decline, look to see where in the vat the water is calmest and position yourself to wait for the fish to present itself there. Patience is the keyword; the fish will come round to that position, if not, go onto the next vat and comeback later. After you have taken your pictures then don’t forget the post processing (PP). If you are lucky and have the hardware, then shooting in RAW format is much better than JPEG and you then have more control to adjust the image. Either way some simple editing software will allow you to manipulate the image. Cropping is the most common component of PP. With the high pixel counts of modern cameras cropping allows you to cut out and keep the part of the photograph you want. Many other adjustments can be done but are well beyond this little blog. So the keywords are PATIENCE, CONCENTRATE and don’t forget the most important one - ENJOY.</p><p>Donald Gibbs, Hobbyist and forum moderator</p><p>LEARNING JAPANESE</p><p>With this issue, we are starting a new feature "Japanese Koi Terms. Several words and their translation will follow. Take note, you may be tested later. HaHa!</p><p>It is important to be able to count to five in Japanese when learning to talk the talk of koi. An amazing number of terms utilize these five words so it will be useful to commit them to memory.</p><p>Ichi (ee-chee) - One. A breeder often refers to his best fish as "ichiban," which means number one.</p><p>Ni (nee) - Two. A two year old koi is called a nisai (nee-sigh). A one year old, by the way, is called a tosai (toe-sigh). </p><p>San (sahn) - Three. Yep, a sansai is a three year old fish.</p><p>Yon (yohn) - Four. Yes, yonsai refers to a four year old.</p><p>Go (go) - Five. You can figure this one out all by yourself.</p><p>Internet Interests…Check out our new website!! WWW.DeepSouthKoi.org </p><p>Here are a few of our member’ favorites…</p><p> Pond keeper Magazine http://www.pondkeeper.com  Water Gardening Magazine Info on disease topics for aquatic animals http://www.koivet.com  Austin Pond Society http://www.austinpondsociety.org/  Stokes Tropicals in New Iberia http://www.stokestropicals.com/  Rare and Exotic Seeds http://www.seedman.com  Aquatic Watergardens Inc. www.aquaticawatergardensinc.com  Miami Valley Water Garden Society Web Page http://www.mvwgs.org  Master Garden Products http://www.mastergardenproducts.com/watergar.htm  http://www.ponddoc.com/  www.gardenlink.com  Dave’s Garden: http://www.davesgarden.com Check out these new links!!</p><p> A-Z Ponds http://www.azponds.com  Webb’s Water Gardens Auctions http://www.pondbidder.com  Koi USA Magazine http://koiusa.com  Texas Koi & Fancy Goldfish Society http://texaskoi.com  Kodama Koi Farm http://KodamaKoiFarm.com</p><p>If you have a favorite that will benefit other society members, please let us know. Thanks!</p>