Innholdsfortegnelse for December 22, 2012 i Amateur Photographer

SOME of us took our first photographic steps as a result of being trusted with the family camera before we were old enough to own one of our own. Others started taking pictures purely for the fascination of the cameras themselves, or the mystical processes that turn that faint clicking noise into a life-like picture drying on the darkroom wall. A desire to capture special moments for posterity is what gets parents hooked, while the hope that the world can be changed inspired those who spent their childhood Sundays lying on the floor glued to the world-opening documentary photos in newspaper colour supplements. Some of us love mechanics, some science, some art and others magic. Sometimes a fondness of one of those elements can lead to an unexpected passion for…

COPYRIGHT wrangles, corporate scandals and competition controversy added extra spice to AP’s cauldron of news in 2012. Then, just as we thought it was safe to go out, calamitous breaches of photographers’ rights entered the mix once again. Meanwhile, police misdemeanours by and large took a back seat in 2012, the nature of those reported by readers merited coverage for their sheer madness. In June, The Guardian photographer Don Morley accused police in Surrey of harassment after he was quizzed over misplaced fears he and his friend Bernard Lockley had shot indecent images of a child on Guildford high street. The men, who were both left in a state of shock following the accusation, strongly suspected Committed to defending your photographic rights! COPYRIGHT BATTLES AN HISTORIC copyright battle that centred…

● THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHIC LIGHTING by Eib Eibelshaeuser, £34.50 With its impossibly broad title, this book sets itself up for a fall. It may be a sizeable tome, but unfortunately only manages to skim the surface of lighting techniques, which is a huge area of photography as any photographer will testify. Lacking direction and focus, give this one a miss. ● TEN PHOTO ASSIGNMENTS TO DEVELOP YOUR PHOTOGRAPHIC SKILLS by Amanda Quintenz-Fiedler, £15.50 A nice idea for a book, this how-to guide focuses on practical assignments with the aim of helping photographers improve essential field skills. Assignments are designed to improve metering, composition and exposure, among others, but the slightly patronising tone is a little off-putting. ● CLOSEUP & MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY by Tracy Hallett, £14.99 If you are new…

THIS image of John McCarter, reading by a window, is part of a series of photographs. You can see more of the pictures on the blog on my website. John is in his late 70s and has been living without mains electricity at his home at Downhill, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, for nearly 30 years. It seems incredible that a pensioner who lives so close to the prosperous Causeway Coast tourist area lives in such basic conditions. He has a gas cooker, but no fridge, and reads by candlelight during the long winter evenings. John is an incredibly healthy, fit man for his age, but the freezing winter temperatures he is living in are starting to take their toll. I’d read about John in the local newspaper and the story…

LAST year, just 17 points separated Amateur Photographer of the Year winner Simona Bonanno from runner-up Lee Jeffries. In 2012, things played out a little differently. APOY veteran and familiar face on the leaderboard Dan Deakin produced a series of technically accomplished images that consistently impressed the judges and kept him in the top ten. Despite the return of old APOY faces, some of the most impressive entries yet from all over the world and plenty of tough decisions for our judging panel, Deakin’s dedication and skill eventually took him to the top of the leaderboard with a total of 314 points. Deakin wins £5,000 worth of Jessops vouchers as the overall prizewinner. ‘I’m absolutely thrilled,’ says Deakin, ‘I knew winning was a possibility – I got in the lead…

IF THE weather’s mild and there’s no snow or frost, you can improvise by freezing an object yourself. In the example here, I used a preserved sea horse that I found on an online auction site. First, place the object in a translucent plastic tub, half-filled with water and put it in the freezer. During the freezing process, break the ice and refreeze it a couple of times. This will add bubbles and cracks into the ice giving it a more interesting texture. Once you are happy with the look of the frozen object, place it on a window frame. I used a north-east-facing window as the light is bright but soft in the mornings, which is ideal for macro work. Mount your camera on a tripod. I used my…

FOR MORE than five generations, Kodak has been a brand trusted by photographers all over the world. Whether you were taking holiday snapshots or grand large-format landscapes, Kodak supplied the film and the cameras that allowed you to capture it. The key to the company’s success was that it evolved to meet the needs of photographers, creating and embracing new film types and formats, as well as developing cameras for every budget in which to use them. The Eastman Kodak Company of New York, founded by George Eastman in 1892, originally sold coated photographic plates, then went on eventually to produce APS cartridge film and even one of the first DSLRs. However, a key moment in Kodak’s history came in 1900 with the launch of the iconic Box Brownie camera.…

WHILE Kodak has almost always been a powerful force in the life of the professional photographer through its films, papers and chemistry, the company’s more recent history has featured few memorable professional-grade camera systems. The last, the 14-million-pixel DCS Pro 14n, arrived in 2002 at the same moment Canon announced its similarly full-framed EOS-1Ds – and kodak ladened it with more pixels and offered it at a lower price. It was designed as a workhorse, and Kodak once proudly displayed it fitted to the back of a 5x4in monorail camera as the ‘ideal’ precision studio set-up. I’ve picked an equivalent model from the 1920s to use alongside it – the Kodak View Camera. I’m using the whole-plate, model ‘B’, version that folds neatly to make a package that is about…

USING MINOLTA MC LENSES Q I am thinking of using Minolta MC lenses on a digital interchangeable-lens camera, but could you tell me what makes of digital camera I could use them on without losing infinity focus? I do not want to use the adapters with the built-in ‘correcting lens’ as that will ruin the quality of the images. I have heard that Sony and Olympus four thirds cameras are possible options, but are there others? Charlie Sears A I think the first thing is to ask yourself how badly you want to use your Minolta MC lenses. It’s not that your Minolta MC lenses can’t take great shots, or that they’re ‘bad’ lenses, but they were never designed with digital capture in mind so there will be compromises. The…

CANON EOS M We test Canon’s first digital compact system camera, with an 18-million-pixel, APS-C-sized sensor POWER OF THE PICTURE Stephen Mayes, World Press Photo jury secretary, talks about the role of photojournalism in today’s world SONY NEX-6 The 16.1-million-pixel NEX-6 has an APS-Csized sensor, 2.3-milliondot EVF and Wi-Fi. We put it to the test GUM PRINTING In part two of his series on alternative processes, Andrew Sanderson looks at the art of gum printing…

Clement Allen Enrolled on Diploma in Digital Photography Age 16 Occupation Student Equipment Sony Alpha 200 with 18-70mm and 70-300mm lenses Q When did you first become interested in photography? A I first became interested in photography when my dad showed me his old Olympus SLR camera and I started experimenting with it. After a couple of years, I bought a Sony DSLR along with several lenses, which I have used ever since. Q What do you enjoy most about photography? A I really enjoy being out and about with my camera and capturing moments that appeal to me. I am particularly keen on wildlife and aviation photography. Q What are you hoping to achieve with your photography? A I enjoy sharing my photos with others and am often inspired…

PEACE on earth and goodwill to men are popular ideas at Christmas. Most subscribe to them – except, it seems, in Britain, when it comes to the European Union. When the EU was awarded the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize, many were incandescent. Why were they so angry? What do they think the EU is for? Most people in continental Europe understand perfectly well. It is to stop wars. Within its boundaries, it has succeeded. Compare this with the two world wars that started in Europe in 1914 and 1939. Yes, there have been the Troubles, and riots, and terrorism. Yet these aren’t like the slaughter of millions in world wars. Nor are these like the recent wars on the fringes of the EU. Consider the break up of the former…

January Fujifilm’s Astalift anti-ageing face cream, deploying technology designed to make films last longer, goes on sale in Europe. An Olympus M Zuiko Digital ED 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 EZ lens emerges as the firm insists launches would not be affected by accounting irregularities March AP speaks to Olympus whistleblower Michael Woodford (left) on the day three top officials were arrested in Japan. Sony unveils a whopper zoom for DSLRs in the shape of the 500mm f/4G, priced £11,000 May Leica dashes hopes of an affordable CSC, contrary to its suggestion the previous year. Four months later, it reveals the full-frame, 18-millionpixel M-E, marketed as an entry-level rangefinder, priced £3,900 (right). Nikon releases AF-S Nikkor 28mm f/1.8G FX lens July Jessops CEO Trevor Moore leaves the company to head up HMV. In…

IN JANUARY, Pentax remained tight-lipped over a full-frame DSLR. However, it seems the firm’s cameras will strike a rich seam of investment in the wake of the Ricoh takeover in 2011. Fujifilm outlined details of four more lenses it plans to launch for its X-Pro1 CSC in 2013. Hiroshi Kawahara, who heads up Fuji’s Product Planning operations, said photographers can expect to see a 28mm f/2.8, 23mm f/2, 70-200mm f/4 and 12-24mm f/4 lenses as part of a plan to build a stable of ‘nine or ten’ optics for the camera inside two years. In ‘early 2013’ we can expect to see a 56mm f/1.4, 27mm f/2.8 ‘pancake’, 23mm f/1.4, 55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 OIS telephoto and 10-24mm f/4 OIS super-wide zoom. Meanwhile, Samsung’s Digital Imaging sales and marketing vice-president Sun Hong…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Wins a 20-roll pack of 36-exposure Fujifilm Superia ISO 200 35mm film or a Fujifilm 4GB media card* A PREFERENCE FOR BLACK & WHITE Gemma Padley’s article A legacy of colour (AP 24 November) raises the interesting question of why some iconic photographers have preferred black & white to colour. The article uses the argument that colour film was slow, although in fact, action and street photography were still possible in good light with a reasonable aperture – I was taking slides of motorcycle racing around 1960. I think there are a couple of much more important issues here. First, there is the potentially distracting effect of colour, which traditional black & white photographers, from Cartier-Bresson to Ansel Adams and Paul Strand, found problematic. Composition in…

IN ONE black & white image a group of children look upwards in bewilderment through a window that is covered in bullet holes. In another, also in black & white, demonstrators clash with riders at a foxhunt in the English countryside. A third image, this time in colour, shows a child in Kosovo as she gazes contemplatively through a traincarriage window. Whether taken in Kosovo or England, in colour or black & white, Andrew Testa’s photographs immerse the viewer in what is happening at that moment and present life as it is in all its rawness, grittiness and complexity Testa, a member of Panos Pictures photo agency, began his photographic career in the early 1990s working as a freelance photographer for The Observer and The Guardian newspapers. In 1999, he…

INTERNET forums can offer the opportunity to share information, give advice and, in the case of our own web-based community, show of your well-honed photographic skills. Each month our competition presents our forum members with a 32GB Micro SD card with SD adapter for the winner, and 8GB cards and adapters for the second and third places. Second and third places also get an ‘Amateur Photographer Loves My Pictures’ mug. January Cold As Ice Derwentfrozenwater Benchista Benchista has created a wonderful picture that shows us an amazing view, in amazing conditions and in amazing circumstances. You can feel the cold just from the coolness of the cyan/blue sky, and the blue shadows and mist in the mountains further that impression. The blues seem so much cooler because of the warm…

FASHION photography and tableaux imagery often go hand in hand. Flick through the pages of magazines such as Vogue and Dazed & Confused, and the garments on display almost seem to play second fiddle to a hinted-at story and narrative that threatens to spill out of the frame to reveal plot turns and character developments. Take a look at the beautifully arranged images of Sarah Moon or the extravagantly strange work of Paulina Surys and you’ll get an idea of the potential of this elastic genre. Tim Walker: Storyteller is a huge event in the photography exhibition calendar. It’s not often that these works are collected into one gallery and rarely in such an impressive space as London’s opulent Somerset House. Walking through its corridors, it quickly becomes clear why…

KODAK has created countless budget-level cameras and is credited with bringing photography to ‘the people’. There is no better example of this than the camera that started it all – the Box Brownie. The first mass-production version was announced in 1900, and cost around $1. With millions of units sold since, the Box Brownie is the best-selling camera line of all time. For many, a Brownie was the first camera they owned. In 1996, Kodak introduced the Advanced Photo System (APS) film format, calling it Advantix. This was an attempt to offer a simpler alternative to the well-established 35mm film format. APS cameras offer three aspect ratios: 16:9, 3:2 and 3:1 panorama, but the film area is approximately 50% the size of 35mm and exposure information can be recorded onto…

1880 George Eastman begins production of dry photographic plates 1888 First Kodak pre-loaded box camera (100 exposures) patented in USA along with the flexible film that it used. The name ‘Kodak’ is born 1891 Kodak’s first UK factory completed at Harrow, Middlesex 1892 The company becomes Eastman Kodak Company of New York 1900 The first Brownie camera is introduced in the USA. Selling for $1 and using film that costs 15 cents a roll, it brought hobby photography within financial reach 1901 Kodak introduces 120 film for use in the Brownie No.2 camera 1912 Vest Pocket Kodak introduced and with it the new 127 film to fit 1934 Kodak Retina folding 35mm camera introduced, together with first ready-loaded 35mm cassettes 1935 Kodachrome film is introduced and becomes the first commercially…

Photo usage advice Alkabir34 asks I took some property shots for free for a client (call them Company A) as a favour. It was a marketing event they were running, but the actual property belonged to a different company (Company B) to whom I was introduced. I sent low-resolution copies of the property shots (without watermark) to Company B as examples of my work and to ask if they would like to use my services. I didn’t receive a response, but a few months later found my images on the company’s Facebook page without mentioning it to me or mentioning my name on the album. Is the company able to do this legally without my permission? Is it the same as if they used the images on their corporate website?…

PERFECT for capturing all those festive moments as they happen, the Nikon 1 J2 is speedy enough, clever enough and creative enough to capture the fun in your world without missing a beat. Designed to act fast, the intelligent Nikon 1 J2 interchangeable-lens camera ensures you stay a click ahead of the action. Ultra-portable and simple to operate, it has all you need to capture great photos and movies. The bright LCD screen offers crystal-clear shooting and playback, and functions like the innovative Motion Snapshot and the easy-to-use Creative Mode allow you plenty of creative ways to record your life. For more information about the Nikon 1 range, visit www.nikon.co.uk. For your chance to win one of these fantastic cameras, visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/competitions and upload up to five pictures of your…

CAMERA collectors are a funny lot. They come in all ages and have a variety of special interests. However, the two things that are common to them all are that they are always looking for something, but not always the same thing that they were looking for last week, and that their family will not understand exactly what they are looking for or why they want it. So it is seriously not a good idea to buy a nice old camera for a collector at Christmas – unless he or she chose it and identified it positively as something they want. Even if the collector has a lot of folding cameras with bellows, the folding camera in the charity shop might not make a welcome present. Some folding cameras are…

THE FULL-FRAME battleground witnessed a raft of new entrants in 2012, as lower-down the sensor-size chain compact system cameras fought to be crowned the new king of the interchangeable-lens camera. Early in the year, Nikon signalled its intention to beat Canon in the race to launch a new professional DSLR for sports photographers in time for the Olympics, by unveiling the 16.2-millionpixel D4 to replace the D3S. Canon, meanwhile, was hoping to pip Nikon to the post with the debut of its EOS-1D X. First announced in 2011, Canon claimed it would deliver the same resolution as the 21-million-pixel EOS-1Ds Mark III, despite having three million fewer pixels. Also entering the full-frame battleground in February was the Nikon D800, a 36.3-million-pixel model, which appeared as the firm was keen to…

Ansel Adams: Photography from the Mountains to the Sea Until 28 April 2013. National Maritime Museum, Romney Road, Greenwich, London SE10 9NF. Tel: 0208 858 4422. Website: www.rmg.co.uk. Open daily 10am-5pm. Admission: adults £7, concessions £6, children (15 and under) £2 ANSEL Adams is undoubtedly one of photography’s greatest practitioners, certainly in the 20th century and arguably of all time. A master photographer, his evocative and breathtaking American landscapes have fascinated generations of photographers and continue to intrigue. Countless exhibitions of his work have taken place over the years, but if you think you have seen it all, think again. This exhibition at London’s National Maritime Museum takes ‘water’ as its central theme and brings together more than 100 original Adams’ prints depicting bodies of water drawn predominantly from the…

CHRISTMAS time for me consists of the Twelve Days and the Eve, rather than a long-lasting activity from September to the end of December. Often, it’s been a time for overindulging in drink and food, for prolonged television viewing. I’m ashamed to say, it’s usually been a time when I’ve forgotten to take photographs or video. It’s only during later years that I realised Christmas time with the family passed without me capturing the event, yet it’s one of the most colourful times of the year. Why have I never taken the family putting up decorations? How many pictures have I of our Christmas tree and decorations? Or of the lights, and the rooms covered in paper-chains and lanterns? How many pictures have I taken of the wonderful meals we…

Agnieszka Gasiorek Poland 48pts Mentor Studio 13x18cm large-format camera, 250mm, 1/8sec at f/4.5, ISO 100 ‘400 Springs’ Judges say This beautifully crafted image is a worthy winner of our final round of APOY as every element of the image works. The title of the photo refers to a poem by Agnieszka Osiecka Dan Deakin Nottingham 44pts Olympus Pen E-PL3, 14mm, 1/800sec at f/4, ISO 400 Sun shining on louvre doors Judges say This is a very unusual image, but one that immediately stood out. We get many images of children for APOY, but this is definitely one of the most creative Daniel Portnoy Switzerland 45pts Nikon D4, 28-300mm, 1/125sec at f/7.1, ISO 2500 ‘The Sleepy Librarian’ Judges say This is a great scene. The careful choice of framing and positioning…

AP’s expert guide to photographing… AT THIS time of year everyone seems to be longing for the summer sun, but as photographers it doesn’t pay to wish the winter away. As we approach the coldest months of the year, now is the time to try our creative hands at shooting winter abstracts, and if the winter turns out to be mild that doesn’t have to stop us. I have a trick or two to show you that will help you create some great images, whatever the weather. Winter abstracts, macro images and detail shots are an excellent way of exercising our creative muscles. They give us a chance to play with shapes, patterns, contrast and colour to make pleasing contemporary images that make fine prints. If we get hard frosts,…

Amateur Photographer’s… ICONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY ICONIC PHOTOGRAPH I PHOTOGRAPHER I CAMERA IN THE mid-1830s, two rival pioneers of photography were, unknown to each other, both attempting to create a method by which they could make a permanent image using a camera. In Britain, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) experimented with his ‘photogenic drawing’ process from 1834 onwards. In 1835, he had made what is now considered the world’s oldest photographic negative – a picture of a latticed window at Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire – but didn’t make his findings public. Meanwhile, in France, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851), an artist and physicist, was developing ideas that he had discussed with his business partner Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, who had died in 1833. Niépce had successfully made the heliograph ‘View from the Window at…

KODAK 35mm films used to be a staple of the company’s business, with brands such as Gold, Kodachrome, Ektar, Portra and T-Max readily available. And it was cameras such as the Kodak Retinette series that would have used many of these films. The Retinette was aimed at more advanced photographers who understood the basics of exposure, but wanted something smaller, lighter and more affordable than an SLR. It was the type of camera that many families took on their holidays, as well as being seen at camera clubs up and down the country. The Retinette 1B has a fixed Rodenstock Reomar 45mm f/2.8 lens but with a 35mm viewfinder. Its shutter is a Pronto LK, which has a maximum shutter speed of 1/500sec. The basic specification is good, and as…

IT MIGHT get dark outside very early at this time of year, but this is the perfect time to head out and practise your light-painting skills. Find a very dark night-time scene and set a long exposure on your camera. Then, by using a flashgun, torch or even a glow stick, you can move around the scene using the light to illuminate and reveal parts of it. DOWN BY THE RIVER For this image I chose to light a small wooden bridge over a river, hoping that a reflection in the foreground would add another point of interest. The scene is located in woodland, with no artificial light for some distance, although there is an amber glow visible from streetlights a few miles away. The first step is to set…

Demosaicing is the rather elaborate word used to describe the way in which colour is created from the data recorded by a digital camera’s sensor. To get to grips with demosaicing, you first need to have a passing understanding of Bayer pattern filters. On most digital sensors, each light-sensitive photosite is fronted by either a red, green or blue filter, with two green-filtered photosites to every one red and one blue. This means that each photosite records a single shade of its filtered colour: a green-filtered photosite only records a shade of green, depending on the amount of light it receives. However, while this single photosite can only record a shade of green, adjacent photosites are recording distinct shades of red and blue (not to mention additional green), which is…

WE SEEM to say the same thing every year, but the past 12 months have been truly fantastic for photographic innovations. Features that previously skirted around the edge of the consumer camera industry found their way into exciting new products. Wi-Fi connectivity has been this year’s must-have feature, and in the Canon EOS 6D we have the first Wi-Fi-enabled DSLR. Almost all the major manufacturers now offer some form of wireless connectivity in their new cameras, which is something we have been predicting at AP for a few years. Back in 2010, I wrote, ‘Imagine a DSLR or compact system camera with the option to connect it to the internet and download new functions… In effect, the user could customise the features of their camera, and continue to add to…

ACROSS 4 A filtered darkroom illumination (9) 8 Photographer out there on his Zone (5,5) 10 Image of a person or an orientation of an image (8) 15 Could cause a revelation in the darkroom (9) 16 If lenses did dance moves (4,3,5) 18 Now owned by Ricoh (6) 19 Elephants don’t need this for their cameras (6,4) 20 Inverted film type (8) 22 Late AP Photo Science consultant and former editor of BJP (8,7) 24 Add these between your lens and camera for macro images (9,5) 27 Iconic Nikon SLR (5,1) 30 Noisy way to move a lens further from the focal plane (7) 32 Famous for photographing the D-Day landings (6,4) 33 Lens maker and 18th letter of the Greek alphabet (5) 34 Tripod manufacturer founded by Arsène…