Innholdsfortegnelse for March 16, 2013 i Amateur Photographer

PENTAX took us by surprise in 1997 when it introduced a 43mm lens for its 35mm film SLRs. While it was (and is still) quite an expensive optic it proved to be a very good one. That it was good didn’t take us by surprise, of course, but that it had a peculiar focal length. When questioned, the Japanese optical designers explained that the angle of view of a 43mm lens matched that which the human eye can see. This, then, was the perfect tool for real-world photography. I suspect though that if we all peered through a 43mm on a full-frame camera we would disagree – we can, as a matter of fact, see an angle much wider than the 53° this focal length allows. But the point is…

AT THE D7100’s launch, Nikon’s Consumer DSLR product manager Simon Iddon described the company’s latest DSLR as the ‘best DX has to offer’. From its name, you might think the D7100 is set to replace the D7000, but like the D3100 and D3200, and the D5100 and D5200, the company insists that both the D7000 and D7100 will jointly be part of Nikon’s ‘enthusiast’ line-up. The D300S is now classed as a ‘limited-supply’ model, and I would be surprised if the much-rumoured D400 will ever materialise to replace it. So, as the D7100 has both a high-resolution sensor and a weather-sealed magnesiumalloy build, it would appear that it could do the job of both the D300S and D7000. At first glance, there appears to be enough differences between the D7000…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Wins a 20-roll pack of 36-exposure Fujifilm Superia ISO 200 35mm film or a Fujifilm 4GB media card* WHO’S PROBLEM IS IT NOW? I write as the owner of an independent high-street photographic retailer in a backwater town attempting to make a living, wishing to draw readers’ attention to the dilemmas we face. Your news article of AP 2 March concerning the financial position and demise of Jessops shows the sorrowful state our industry currently finds itself in. For Canon et al, allowing such debts to mount indicates their dependence on one outlet to showcase their products. They do not wish to trade with small independents, as witnessed by their trade terms. It is often cheaper for us to purchase from a web-based supplier than direct,…

THIS WEEK I wanted to show how to isolate a building using a pen path to cut out the outline and place it against a solid black background. This isn’t an original idea, as I have seen other photographers use this technique before, particularly with architectural photographs. The main task here was to create a pen path that accurately defined the outline of the subject. There are quicker and in some cases semi-automated methods you can use to create a cutout. However, with a subject like this, there really is no alternative but to use a pen path. I’ll be honest here and admit that even for an experienced Photoshop user like myself, it does take quite a long time to mask a detailed building outline like this. You will…

ONE HAS to wonder how Emmanuel Radnitzky, better known by his adopted pseudonym Man Ray, would have reacted had he lived to see an exhibition in 2013 devoted solely to his photographic portraits. Man Ray was a practitioner of many art forms and his photography began as little more than a means of recording the other artwork he held in higher esteem. Later it became a job, as he took on commercial projects to supplement his income. Often dissatisfied with his results, he sought to escape what he viewed as the confines of photography by experimenting with printing and developing techniques. So why, despite this attitude, has his photography endured? Thanks to the Man Ray Portraits exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, which is showing more than 150…

Matin Photo Digital Magic Cleaner From £2.70 www.cameraclean.co.uk THIS cleaning cloth from Matin is made of ultra-fine microfibres that create an extremely soft surface with which to clean delicate optics. The cloth handles dust well: the microfibres are absorbent and you can see the dirt transferring onto the cloth with each fresh application. Even a very gentle touch, as is necessary for careful lens cleaning, is enough to see a real reduction in the amount of dust on the surface of the glass. Smudges and fingerprints are a trickier prospect, and it is a little too easy to find yourself creating smears when tackling more stubborn blemishes. The cloth is hand-washable, and the manufacturer claims that it is equally useful for cleaning other optics and glass products. With these facts…

ALL CAMERAS and raw-conversion software handle colours differently, so how can you ensure that the colours of an image match those of the scene? Our free colour chart is the answer. How a camera represents colour in its images is determined by the manufacturer. While the aim is to create realistic colours that are representative of the scene photographed, the images also have to be as pleasing as possible. Even raw images will be adjusted differently depending on the software. Cameras can have difficulty with certain colours. For instance, vivid reds and yellows tend to show little detail, bleeding into one block. USING THE COLOUR CHART Place the coloour chart in the scene and photograph it. The result is a reference shot for post-capture editing. With the reference image taken,…

LUMIQUEST’S LQ-136 kit provides a small arsenal of accessories to aid those wanting to get a little more creative with their flashguns. The kit consists of a 9x8in Softbox III, a telescopic Snoot XTR and an FXtra filter holder, all of which, along with the attaching straps and filters, fold flat into a vinyl wallet. Easily secreted within a camera bag, it provides an instantly accessible palette of creative possibilities comparable with a substantial barrage of studio monoblock lighting. Although aimed at portrait photographers, the kit should also prove popular among still-life photographers, with the only additional requirement being a pair of lighting stands to support the flashguns. DATAFILE RRP £78 Weight 425g ● Includes Pro Max Softbox III and: ● FXtra – a gel holder and 8 colour gels…

dslrdude asks Can anyone tell me how to create double exposures with my D3100? PeteRob replies I thought this was one thing that could not be done with digital cameras? Check the manual. If it doesn’t mention it, then you cannot do it, except perhaps by doing it the old way (having the camera set to Bulb and covering/uncovering the lens manually). AlexMonro replies There are certainly digital cameras that can do this – the Fuji S3 Pro and Pentax K20D to name two. If you can’t find it in the manual under ‘Double Exposure’ try ‘Multiple Exposure’. If there’s no sign in the manual that the D3100 can do this, you could always do it in your image-editing program. Just take two normal pictures and import them as separate…

SINCE the late 1940s, monorail technical view cameras have been used in professional studios and by scientific establishments for exacting photography that demands the extensive use of camera movements. These movements make it possible, by changing the relative positions of the lens and the film, to modify the content of the image (without moving the camera), to achieve normally impossible depth of field and even to photograph a mirror without the image of the camera being seen in the mirror. A lot of modern technical photography would not have been possible without monorails, which, because they were modular and more adaptable, effectively replaced folding field cameras in most professional technical photography from the late 1950s onwards. It was in the early 1950s that two medical photographers, Charles Engel and Dr…

NIKON has launched the Coolpix A, a new DX-format compact camera that was given its worldwide debut at the Focus on Imaging show as we went to press. The 16.2-million-pixel Coolpix A sports a fixed, retractable 18.5mm (28mm equivalent) f/2.8 lens that, claims the firm, rivals a 28mm professional optic in terms of image-quality. ‘We see this as a space we should be playing in,’ said James Loader, Nikon UK’s product manager for Consumer Products. The Coolpix A is due to land in UK stores on 21 March, priced £999.99. Trumpeted as ‘ideal for reportage photography’, the Coolpix A does not include a built-in EVF but will be compatible with an optional optical viewfinder. The price of this accessory, the DF-CP1, had not been released at the time of writing.…

Seaside Polaroids By Jon Nicholson, Prestel, £19.99, hardback, 96 pages, ISBN 978-3-7913-4730-1 THOSE who remember grappling with old Polaroids must be bewildered by the Instagram generation. As Roger Hicks noted in his Final Frame (AP 23 February), after years of struggling to surpass inferior image quality, we have produced a crop of photographers who deliberately fuzz up images for a faux-vintage look. Yet the apps don’t quite capture the feel of film, and Jon Nicholson has achieved this with these images of British coastal towns, taken on an authentic ’70s Polaroid camera. While the book could be called a nostalgia trip, the dated charm of the British seaside lends itself to a lo-fiaesthetic. Sometimes it feels like Nicholson is battling against the rigid square format to keep his compositions interesting,…

PEOPLE say that luck plays its part in any kind of success, but I must be one hell of an unlucky lady when it comes to success from my photography. Scant doesn’t begin to describe it. I’ve always owned decent equipment but the only ‘assignments’ I’ve had were photographing some of my friends’ children. Yet nowadays the idea of aiming my camera anywhere near children, even those of my friends, gives me the heebie jeebies. That’s what political correctness does for you. Over the years I’ve sent numerous submissions to various photo magazines, only for it to cut like a knife when they were rejected. I did once have a picture published in AP’s photo critique page when it was manned by Mike Maloney who, amazingly, singled it out for…

THE ICONIC British red squirrel really is a fantastic subject for wildlife photography. They’re the kind of creature that can cheer you up just by looking at them. Every pose they make oozes character, which makes them an endless joy to photograph. Red squirrels are native to British shores and once thrived across our woodlands. However, they are now in serious decline in England and Wales, although thankfully they remain widespread and relatively common in Scotland. Their survival is a result of the efforts of many dedicated people who refuse to allow this endangered species to become extinct. Unfortunately their future remains uncertain as the much larger, introduced American grey squirrel outcompetes them for territory and food. Just a handful of grey squirrels were introduced to Britain in the late…

LIKE many art forms, photography can find itself subject to shifting parameters and social trends, with 2010-2011 seeing a heavy emphasis on the genre of street photography. A number of photographers, both amateur and professional, jumped on the street-photography bandwagon and began producing images that were both candid and strangely voyeuristic. Suddenly the everyday, mundane lives of the people who traversed the streets and walkways of otherwise unremarkable locations became viable – and sometimes absurd – subjects for art. On another level, it communicated the notion of observation and surveillance – a subject that is becoming an increasingly prominent issue on our British shores. As we move through 2013, we can see another trend developing, although it is not a million miles away from street photography. Vernacular (or found) photography…

WITH so many advanced features in modern digital cameras, it is easy to become over-reliant as photographers on technology. From auto white balance to autofocus, many of us simply let the camera do the hard work while we concentrate on composition. However, as good as all this might be, the camera isn’t infallible. There is always something that a photographer can do to get more from an image, and given that there may only ever be one opportunity to capture it, it’s worth spending a little extra time to make sure that the photograph is as good as it can be. For JPEG shooters, it is critical to get the image right in-camera, but even those using raw should seek to give themselves the best possible raw file from which…

ONE OF the most important things that any photographer can do is learn about the lenses and cameras that they use. Just a few simple tests will make a big difference to the detail and sharpness that can be captured in images. As photographers know, lenses are quite individual, with different models being sharper or softer at different focal lengths or apertures. Knowing the sweet spot of their lenses – the point at which a lens can resolve maximum detail – is something that every photographer should aspire to. Of course, it won’t always be possible to use a lens at a particular focal length or aperture setting, but knowing how it performs at its best will allow a photographer to make a reasonable compromise when it comes to image…

IN LIGHT of the danger to the compact camera market posed by the rise of smartphones, Sony is concentrating on two key areas where dedicated compact cameras still have the advantage: image quality and zoom range. In fact, 80% of Sony’s compact cameras in 2013 will be ‘high-zoom’ types. Its three new models, the HX300, HX50 and WX300, all feature new sensors and improved optical zooms over their predecessors. The HX300, on test here, offers the widest zoom in Sony’s range. The HX300 is Sony’s flagship bridge (super-zoom) camera, offering a mammoth 50x optical zoom. Its equivalent focal range is 24-1200mm, with a maximum aperture of f/2.8-6.3. This zoom range is matched only by Canon’s PowerShot SX50 HS and the Fujifilm FinePix SL1000, while Fuji’s FinePix HS50EXR and Nikon’s Coolpix…

Line pairs per millimetre (or lp/mm) is often used as a measure of image resolution, and it’s commonly seen describing the resolving power of a lens or film. On its own it doesn’t give a full picture of a lens’s (or film’s) capabilities, but it does give us a useful indication of its performance. A line pair consists of one black line and one white line of equal width and orientation, and the basis of the measurement is simple: a test target containing multiple line pairs at a range of different sizes, angles and at different points in the frame is photographed. The number of line pairs that are subsequently resolved (that is, distinct from one another) gives you the resolution of the lens or film. Although the measurement process…

RECENTLY I flew to the United States to visit my son and his young family. He followed a job to America some time ago and quickly embraced the culture, much to the chagrin of my daughter and I. When they picked me up at Chicago airport dressed in baseball caps and white trainers, for the first few moments of our reunion I couldn’t decide who was the foreigner. Once we got to my son’s home, though, I was given a cup of tea and a Rumpole of the Bailey DVD box set to pass the time, and I was relieved that he hadn’t completely forgotten his roots. It was only upon flying home to London, avoiding the cough of the uncouth gentlemen next to me, that I looked out of…

Wednesday 13 March EXHIBITION Century of style by Norman Parkinson, until 12 May at the National Theatre, London SE1 9PX. Tel: 0207 452 3000. Visit www.nationaltheatre.org.uk. EXHIBITION Tickling Jock: Comedy Greats from Sir Harry Lauder to Billy Connolly, until May 2014 at Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh EH2 1JD. Tel: 0131 624 6200. Visit www.nationalgalleries.org. Thursday 14 March EXHIBITION Landmark: the Fields of Photography, contemporary works, until 28 April at Somerset House, London WC2R 1LA. Tel: 0207 836 7613. Visit www.somersethouse.og.uk. EXHIBITION East End Faces, by David Bailey, until 26 May at William Morris Gallery, London E17 4PP. Tel: 0208 496 4390. Visit www.wmgallery.org.uk. Friday 15 March EXHIBITION Somalia – A Humanitarian Story, ends today at the Royal Geographical Society, London SW7 2AR. Tel: 0207 591 3000. Visit www.rgs.org. EXHIBITION…

● PHOTOGRAPHING FAMILIES by Michele Celentano, £21.99 For the portrait photographer, getting quality shots of an entire family offers a range of challenges, both from pushy parents and fidgety children. Michele Celentano offers a guide for dealing with these situations and has plenty of tips for soothing tricky subjects. A broader selection of images would have been useful – the same shots crop up a fair few times. ● PANOBOOK 2012 by Kolor, £30.99 Kolor’s annual panorama competition produced a superb crop of inventive images last year, and the standouts have been collected for this book. The images are divided into landscape, cityscape, water and so on, and some of the effects that inventive photographers have achieved are just astonishing. Some categories are fuller than others – Landscape is enormous,…

DAVID WARD David Ward is one of the UK’s finest landscape photographers. With more than 20 years’ experience in largeformat photography, he has photographed extensively throughout the UK and in countries such as Canada, Iceland, Norway and France. He has also led workshops for Light & Land. David has written two books on his photographic philosophy called Landscape Within and Landscape Beyond. Each month, he will discuss the story behind one of his fantastic landscape photographs I DISCOVERED this shot while taking a walk along the beach in one of my favourite locations, Achnahaird, which is in the north-west Highlands of Scotland. Although it’s a location that I don’t often visit, it’s a place I am incredibly fond of. I was recently looking back through some of my favourite images…

The Editor’s Choice wins a Vanguard GH-100 3-in-1 pistol grip ball head worth £129.99* Combining the smooth precision of a ball head with the impressive ergonomic control of a pistol grip, the award-winning GH-100 enables you to position your camera exactly where you want it. The ball head has an anodized centre ball and friction-control switch, while the pistol grip enables you to position your camera or spotting scope effortlessly. The GH-100 also has 360° of panning movement, with 72 clicks of 5°. www.vanguardworld.co.uk How to submit your images Please see the ‘Send us your pictures’ section on page 3 for details or visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/spotlight Matthew McCormack London When Matthew was asked to take some photographs of a friend’s band, it ignited a passion for photography that has continued to…

Dawn Rouse Grace Dieu Priory ruins Nikon D3100, 75-300mm A DULL and overcast day is hardly ever the right time to take pictures that include lots of sky or of subjects that need to be shown to be three dimensional, such as castle ruins. Dawn’s problem starts with the camera being fooled by the bright sky, which has led it to take a very dark picture. I’ve corrected the exposure with a dramatic adjustment in Levels, so the highlight is not the sky but the brightest part of the stonework. An equally dramatic curve has added the missing contrast and colour saturation that overcast conditions neglect, while two hue shifts (first to the master channel for a global change, and then to the cyan channel to fix the cold shadows…

AS GOOD as modern autofocus systems are, all but the most expensive professional cameras may struggle in extreme low-light conditions. Our free AF target card will help to overcome this problem, assisting the camera to focus in dull light and aiding the user when focusing manually. Whether a camera uses phase- or contrast-detection AF, each system relies on being able to see a subject clearly before bringing it into focus. In low light a camera may find it difficult to focus accurately, so the photographer is often forced to use only the more sensitive centre AF point, focusing on a high-contrast edge and then recomposing, as a way to get around this difficulty. Our free AF target card operates on this same principle. The simple chequerboard provides a high-contrast target…

ONE OF the most basic devices a photographer can keep in their camera bag is a humble white balance card, yet it can make a significant difference to how images look. It is all too easy to set a camera to auto white balance (AWB) and then rely on this setting to produce good results. The problem is that the job of this feature is to look for dominant colours in a scene and then neutralise them as much as possible. In most situations it will produce a reasonable result, but it can be all too easily fooled, causing a reduction in the any dominant colour in a scene. For example, a vivid autumnal woodland may look more muted when shot in AWB mode. Similarly, the default white balance settings…

CAN I SELL MY OLD KIT? Q I have bought/read several hundred (if not thousands) of issues of AP over the years, but have been more or less housebound due to illness/disability for a few years now. I am, however, the possessor of a range of Nikon 35mm SLR equipment (cameras and lenses) which I can no longer use. In attempting to dispose of it I am repeatedly told that there is no market for it, as I assume digital SLRs are now in demand? Can you advise please? C Redfern AThe people telling you there is ‘no market’ for your 35mm Nikon gear are wrong. Yes, the market for second-hand 35mm equipment has shrunk, but it has not disappeared. Indeed, we regularly get letters asking about using older manual…

FIRST LOOK Read our initial thoughts on the new Nikon Coolpix A advanced compact camera ON TEST THIRD-PARTY MACRO LENSES We compare a Sigma 105mm, Tamron 90mm and Tokina 100mm macro optics WILDLIFE SMALL WONDERS Vadim Trunov explains his studio set-up macro shots of insects, and how you can recreate them at home AP GUIDE TO… SERIF PHOTOPLUS X6 We test this feature-packed and affordable alternative image editing software ON TEST PANASONIC’S TZ40 A flagship travel compact camera with a new 18.1mp sensor, 20x optical zoom and built-in Wi-Fi…