Innholdsfortegnelse for April 6, 2013 i Amateur Photographer

IT IS human nature to find particular colours and shapes attractive. Whether we are looking at a photograph, building, car, furniture or clothing, some things we find more aesthetically pleasing than others. Many of our purchases are based on what an item looks like, often above its functionality. There are, for instance, cars I would never want to be seen in, regardless that their low fuel-consumption would save me a fortune and help the environment. But does it matter what our cameras look like? Take the Fujifilm X100S. Like its predecessor, it’s built in the style of a half-century-old range finder camera, but with all the modern conveniences of digital imaging. The images it produces are excellent (see our test on pages 51-56), but I’m drawn to the X100S just…

CANON’S latest DSLR, the EOS 100D, is the world’s smallest and lightest DSLR, and by quite some way. Compared to the company’s established ‘consumer’ DSLR, the EOS 650D, the EOS 100D is some 25% smaller, shaving off 9.1mm in height and 16.3mm in length, while Canon also claims it is 28% lighter, too, with the body weighing only 407g (with battery and card). Canon has managed to achieve this small size by re-engineering many of the camera’s internal parts. This includes a new drive system, with a smaller motor that reduces the shutter unit size, and a denser component layout that reduces the EOS 100D’s main board size. The battery and secondary mirror are also smaller compared to its EOS siblings. Impressively, the company has managed to reduce the size…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Wins a 20-roll pack of 36-exposure Fujifilm Superia ISO 200 35mm film or a Fujifilm 4GB media card* MAGAZINE MAGIC My wife got on my case recently, wanting our spare bedroom emptied of all the rubbish within. Our son is returning home from working abroad soon, hence the urgency to get the room prepared for him. The rubbish my wife was referring to was my hoard of APs – some dating back more than 40 years. ‘Why do you need musty old mags all about film photography when you don’t use film any more?’ she’d asked! Glancing at my DSLR, I had to admit she had a point. I flipped through a tatty issue from 1968. The price? Two shillings, or ten pence in today’s money!…

MARTIN EVENING Martin Evening is a Londonbased advertising photographer and noted expert in both photography and digital imaging. As a successful photographer, Martin is well known in London for his fashion and beauty work, for which he has won several awards. In 2008, he was inducted into the NAPP Photoshop Hall of Fame. Martin has worked with the Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom engineering teams over many years and is one of the founding members of Pixel Genius, a software design company producing automated production and creative plug-ins for Photoshop. His recent books include The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Book, Adobe Photoshop CS6 for Photographers, as well as the Adobe Photoshop for Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop series, which he co-wrote with Jeff Schewe. PHOTOSHOP has provided the ability to create…

What makes wildlife such an appealing subject for photographers? Perhaps the answer lies in the stunning diversity that the natural world has to offer us. The animal world is such a rich source of fascination that many of us cannot help but be seduced by it. Take a look back through some of our Photo Insight columns with Jim Brandenburg and you’ll soon see how nature can inspire an almost childlike sense of wonder. Yet despite it’s popularity, wildlife photography contains many pitfalls. It can be too easy to imagine that a strong subject is going to be enough to wow the APOY judges. Wildlife photography functions in the same way as all genres. It follows the rules of composition, light, exposure and framing. When producing a wildlife shot, think…

‘I LIKE to make people look as good as they’d like to look,’ said Norman Parkinson, ‘and, with luck, a shade better.’ His main aim in his 50-year career in fashion and portraiture, stated here with characteristic modesty, was to create photographs that were flattering but which also had energy and vitality. This year marks the centenary of Parkinson’s birth, and the anniversary has brought about a revival of interest in the work of this flamboyant and influential photographer. Three major exhibitions will be running simultaneously at galleries in London and Bath, and a BBC documentary on his life will be broadcast at the end of April (see page 49). Parkinson was a unique character in the fashion world. Known as ‘Parks’ to his friends, he was 6ft 5in tall,…

Deputy technical editor TO SAY that the design of the Fujifilm X100 caused a stir among enthusiast photographers is a bit of an understatement. An online poll put to Amateur Photographer readers suggested that almost half of those who took part were prepared to buy an X100, even before the camera had been tested and therefore before they knew what the picture quality was like. The camera commands the same kind of interest as the Leica red dot, and has been followed by a number of popular digital cameras with similar retro appeal, including Fuji’s own extensive X series and models such as the Olympus OM-D E-M5. Thankfully, as the successor to the X100, the X100S carries virtually the same stylish exterior, but with numerous improvements that address some of…

USA YASHICA QIn AP 19 January, Ivor Matanle explained the ways of recognising the various Yashica Electro 35 models in detail. However, the model I bought for my son from eBay doesn’t seem to fit in with the model timeline noted in Ivor’s article. Do you think it is a US model? It is fully working, produces wellexposed and sharp images, and has the following details: film speed dial 12-500, no plastic wind-on lever, black finish, regularly grained nonleather finish, the word ‘Professional’ appears on the lower front, Yashinon-DX lens (not Color-Yashinon-DX) and the flash shoe is not ‘hot’. AYour black (rather than chrome) camera is one of the early (1966) Yashica Electro 35 Professional cameras mentioned on American websites (see www.yashica-guy.com), but which I have never encountered in the…

ON TEST NIKON D7100 With its 24.1-million-pixel sensor, no optical lowpass filter and weather-sealed magnesium-alloy body, we find out how the D7100 performs SONY AWARDS WINNERS GALORE We take a look at the Open Category winners of the Sony World Photography Awards 2013 TECHNIQUE MASTERCLASS Expert Tom Mackie explains how to create pan-stitch images in the Peak District ON TEST PENTAX MX-1 We put Pentax’s first enthusiast compact camera to the test TESTBENCH SIX OF THE BEST We look at six of the best shooting apps available for iOS and Android…

News|Analysis|Comment 6/4/B “Amateur photographers will be targeted because they have a big lens” ‘Smallest, lightest’ DSLR ever • 18MP sensor • £569 body only CANON EOS 100D IN FIGHT WITH CSCs? THE DIMINUTIVE Canon EOS 100D DSLR looks set to compete directly with the growing army of compact system cameras. Canon says the EOS 100D is 25% smaller and 28% lighter than the company’s current 650D DSLR. Trumpeted as the smallest and lightest DSLR on the planet, the EOS 100D is due on sale at the end of April, priced £569 (body only). Canon hopes the new model will attract consumers hooked on traditional SLR features such as an optical viewfinder, appealing to those who shirk electronic viewfinders found on CSCs which Canon regards as a ‘compromise’. Although David Parry,…

Eyes Over Africa By Michael Poliza. TeNeues, £85, hardback, 408 pages, ISBN 978-3-8327-9209-1 PHOTOBOOKS of Africa are nothing new, but Michael Poliza’s eagle-eyed journey provides a refreshing perspective. On a helicopter trip across the great continent, Poliza exposes the upper side of all forms of life and landscape to be found there. He captures sweeping vistas, movements of wildlife and interactions between people, each image spread gloriously over an enormous double page. Although the scenery is dominant, and the landscapes most breathtaking, Poliza does well to capture all sides of life in Africa, including the urban vistas often forgotten by photographers in their bid to get some more shots of elephants and zebras (of which, naturally, there are several). The accompanying text provides a look behind the scenes, and the…

I SHARE AP Editor Damien Demolder’s concern (AP 23 March) that certain brands, of whatever product, tend to dominate the market. And we certainly can’t pretend it hasn’t been happening for years in photography. The huge popularity of Nikon, Canon and Adobe (the three brands Damien referred to) are perfect examples. So why do they tend to be the most popular choices with consumers, despite being among the most expensive? The quality attainable from Nikon and Canon equipment is renowned as top-notch. Yet so too is that which many other photographers get from less expensive models by other manufacturers. And is Adobe the only image editing software we should consider? When I played guitar in a jazz/rock band in the 1970s, the ultimate guitar for would-be players was either a…

ALTHOUGH microphotography is often considered the art of taking a closer, more detailed look at life, the level of closeness and detail that Marek Mis achieves is probably beyond that artistic definition. In fact, it strays, as he himself acknowledges, into science. Mis uses a piece of equipment most other photographers do not – a microscope. ‘This area of photography can be quite tricky to perfect,’ Mis explains. ‘Apart from the need to understand your camera, you also have to have a good understanding of a microscope and to know how it operates.’ Put simply, microphotography is the practice of using a microscope as your lens and whatever organism or material you place on the microscope slide as your subject. It requires a drive to witness the unseen minuteness of…

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 Gerard Charnley East Sussex Gerard became interested in photography about seven years ago. ‘I bought a Canon EOS 350D and stuck it straight into manual…

Exhibitions LIFEWORK: NORMAN PARKINSON’S CENTURY OF STYLE Lyttelton Exhibition Foyer, National Theatre, Upper Ground, South Bank, London SE1 9PX, until 12 May. Open Mon-Sat 9.30am-11pm, Sun noon-6pm. Tel: 0207 452 3400. Website: www.nationaltheatre.org.uk. Admission free. Sponsored by Corbis, the event includes 87 prints from throughout Parkinson’s career. NORMAN PARKINSON, A CENTENARY CELEBRATION Showing at Chris Beetles Fine Photographs, 3-5 Swallow Street, London W1B 4DE, from 9 April-4 May. Open Mon-Sat 10am-5.30pm. Tel: 0207 434 4319. Website: www.chrisbeetlesfinephotographs.com. Admission free. The exhibition focuses on Parkinson’s work from the 1940s-1960s. MOUVEMENTS DE FEMMES: NORMAN PARKINSON BY ROLAND MOURET On show at The Octagon, Milsom Place, Bath BA1 1DN, from 13 April-12 May. Open Tues-Sun 10am-5.30pm. Tel: 0844 847 5256. Website: www.bathinfashion.co.uk. Admission free. An exhibition of Parkinson’s most famous images and some…

NOT ONLY does the Fuji X100S feature an improved focus ring for manual focusing, but it also offers three manual-focus assist modes, two of which are new. Standard mode simply activates focus magnification in live view, which can be viewed on the LCD screen or via the EVF. Focus peaking is new, although we have seen it before in cameras such as the Sony Alpha 77. Again, it works via live view, adding a high-contrast black line around subject edges that are in focus. There is a low and a high setting, designed for differing degrees of precision focusing. I would like to see different colour outlines other than black for focus peaking, such as red, because the black outline can be difficult to view clearly. Most intriguing is the…

surf_digby asks Is it possible to recover deleted files from a memory card that even the camera thinks needs formatting before anything can be done with it? If so, is there any particular bit of software you’d recommend over others? PeteRob replies A deleted image (any file) can be recovered under some circumstances because deletion simply marks all the storage allocated to it available for re-use. So, if you recover it before the storage is used for something else, then you are OK. If some of the storage locations cannot be ‘read’ at all, then that is a problem. The recovered file will have bits missing, and while it may be possible to make sense of, say, a Word document, if the file is exclusively binary then filling in missing…

THE CORONET Midget is a little camera that certainly lives up to its name, but in today’s market the price is far from midget. Weighing it at around 1oz (around 28g), and regularly fetching £100 on eBay, pound for pound it costs far more than a top-of-the-range Leica. Made in Birmingham in the 1930s, the Midgets were little more than toys. Their Bakelite bodies came in a range of colours with red being the most common. More unusual colours command higher prices, and recently a blue one sold for £450 on eBay. A few months ago a new auction saleroom opened near where I live, and never having been to an auction I popped in just to see how it worked. Strictly as an observer the first time, but having…

Wednesday 3 April EXHIBITION Graham Nash: Life on the Road, until 26 May at Proud Camden, The Horse Hospital, London NW1 8AH. Tel: 0207 482 3867. Visit www.proud.co.uk. EXHIBITION London Underground, celebrating 150 years of the Tube, by Singaporean photographer Yangchen Lin, until 6 April at The Strand Gallery, London WC2N 6BP. Tel: 0207 839 4942. Visit www.thestrandgallery.wordpress.com. Thursday 4 April EXHIBITION Forest Form (landscape photography) by David Anthony Hall, until 12 May at Stone Theatre Gallery, London SE1 7DR. Tel: 0207 021 0020. Visit www.stonetheatre.com. EXHIBITION The Tannery, until 23 June at Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter, Devon EX4 3RX. Tel: 01392 265 858. Visit www.rammuseum.org.uk. Friday 5 April EXHIBITION Alchemy – The Tango Connection, includes work by photographer Aaron Davies, until 27 April at The…

● LIVING DANGEROUSLY by Lesley and Terence Spencer, £10 After the Second World War, fighter pilot Terence Spencer turned to photojournalism, and together with his wife Lesley covered stories from war to celebrity throughout the 20th century. This memoir recounts the best and worst of their experiences. Although maybe wanting a few more images, it’s a fun, informative read. ● ISCA: EXETER MOMENTS by William Oxley and Barry Davidson, £12.50 William Oxley’s poetry combines with Barry Davidson’s photography for this tribute to the city of Exeter, and those familiar with the town will likely find it a treat. The photography does vary in quality, with a few lacklustre shots, but it is bolstered by the quaintly photogenic nature of the city. ● PHOTO TIPS: PRINCIPLES OF NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY by Heinrich,…

I FOUND this image in a small town in Montana, USA, called Wisdom, population 100. It’s in a place called Big Hole Valley, in Central Montana. It’s not a ghost town – there are still 100 people living there – but there are quite a lot of empty properties. This particular house, which is right in the middle of town, has been deserted for 20 or 30 years, and it’s slowly starting to decay. The surface that you’re looking at is cedar shingles that have been painted at some stage – I would guess probably in the 1950s, judging by the colour. The shadow of the tree falling across them is from a young sapling that has just pushed its way out of the ground next to the house. The…

Round 3 of this year’s Amateur Photographer of the Year competition, sponsored by Panasonic, is The Animal Kingdom (wildlife and pets). The animal world is a popular subject for photographers, and with good reason. Flick through any book of wildlife photography and you’ll see how truly diverse nature can be. The animal world offers us countless textures, colours, shapes and modes of behaviour. All these things can be turned into photographic gold. But you may not even need to venture out into the wild. Even your own beloved pet can make a great subject. Turn to page 31 for some advice and ideas on what to look out for. We have thousands of pounds’ worth of fantastic camera equipment up for grabs, as well as the chance to be crowned…

RobeRt Doisneau is the quintessential photographer of Paris life in the mid-20th century. His photographs capture the people of the city in all their rich variety, from schoolchildren and street entertainers to factory workers, miners and the homeless. His pictures can be humorous, charming or thoughtful, but all show his innate sense of timing and composition. Doisneau, however, was aware that they only gave a partial view of the real world. ‘I don’t photograph life as it is, but life as I would like it to be,’ he wrote in 1986. He elaborated further in a later interview with fellow photographer Frank Horvat: ‘We [photographers] never show things as they “really” are,’ he said. ‘The world I was trying to present was one where I would feel good, where people…

Think Tank Photo Glass Limo £155 www.snapperstuff.com THINK Tank Photo’s Glass Limo is a long backpack designed for transporting long lenses or large amounts of kit. The bag’s interior is 22.1cm wide, 21.1cm deep and 48.2cm high, which is large enough to fit either a 600mm f/4 lens or a 500mm f/4 lens with a professional-level DSLR attached. The adjustable dividers inside also make it possible to transport smaller kit securely. The straps are well padded with a breathable mesh, and even when fully loaded I found the bag comfortable to wear. A clip-secured, removable waist belt also adds some extra security, and the YKK zips on the main pocket are designed not to open accidentally. The Limo has two exterior pockets to hold tripods or monopods, with additional straps…

These images show 72ppi (100% on a computer screen) sections of images of a resolution chart, captured with the 23mm lens set to f/5.6 . We show the section of the resolution chart where the camera starts to fail to reproduce the lines separately. The higher the number visible in these images, the better the camera’s detail resolution is at the specified sensitivity setting. Fujifilm, Unit 10A, St Martins Business Centre, St Martins Way, Bedford MK42 0LF. Tel: 01234 572 000. Website: www.fujifilm.co.uk Above: This JPEG image has been shot at ISO 3200, where detail is still quite crisp because luminance noise is well controlled FOCAL POINTS Eye sensor When selected, the eye-sensor view mode automatically switches between the rear LCD and viewfinder displays when it detects that the camera…

In terms of computer software (and, in this context, image-editing software), a plug-in is an optional program, feature or process that expands the capabilities of another ‘bigger’ program’s capabilities. As the name suggests, it ‘plugs in’ to the original program, so you don’t have to upgrade to a new version of the full program, re-install the original software or invest in additional programs to clutter your hard drive. Instead, you just install the plug-in (usually to your editing program’s dedicated plug-ins folder) and it will subsequently appear as a new menu option in the main program, allowing you to access the plug-in’s features as readily as you might choose Save or Print. Perhaps the most common plug-ins are those designed for Adobe’s products (Photoshop, Lightroom and Elements), but other software…