Innholdsfortegnelse for July 20, 2013 i Amateur Photographer

THIS week you can see the first results of our new lens-testing process. It has taken us some time to find exactly the right testing methods to deliver believable results and the information needed to understand how a lens will behave on a camera. Those readers who have been with us for a while may remember the human touch of Dr Stewart Bell and Geoffrey Crawley – men who would describe the characteristics of a collection of glass elements as though it were a person. These men can’t be replaced. I hope, though, that these new tests will provide the same level of scientific information, while the commentaries of our technical team will provide compassionate appreciation of what each line on the graphs and charts will mean in real life…

Concrete: Photography and Architecture Edited by Daniela Janser, Thomas Seelig and Urs Stahel Scheidegger & Spiess, £70, hardback, 440 pages, ISBN 978-3-85881-369-5 IF THERE’S a more thorough exploration of the relationship between photography and architecture currently on the market, we aren’t aware of it. These 440 bilingual pages of images, essays and critical thoughts make for a comprehensive tome and a wonderful addition to the bookshelf of any architectural photographers. The images range from the 19th century to the present, and look at buildings of every kind from every conceivable angle. The different themes covered create a good range of styles, both in terms of buildings and photography. Use it to inspire your own architecture photography – there’s plenty to choose from. It’s rather costly, but it’s really well done.…

AMONG my tools I have an axe. It is made up of four parts: steel blade, hickory wood handle, small wooden wedge and a tiny steel wedge. It is ergonomically perfect. The weight and shape of the blade speeds it deep into the cut, the curve of the handle maximises the arc of the swing and its taper almost ensures it will not fly out of the user’s hands. Nobody designed it. It achieved its form by evolution – in this case, ergonomic evolution over centuries. Each iron forger and handle whittler added tiny improvements to successive examples until the form was as perfect as the two materials, steel and wood, allowed. What has this to do with photography? Well, recently I bought a new camera, attracted by its resemblance…

IT GOES without saying that lenses play a pivotal role in shaping our photographs, be it the focal lengths on offer or the aperture settings we can choose from. We’ve probably all seen examples of photographs where a telephoto lens has been used with a wide aperture to reduce depth of field, creating a striking shot where the subject really stands out from its background – it’s a classic portrait technique. There are also plenty of examples of wideangle lenses being used to produce dramatic viewing angles that eclipse the capabilities of our own visual system and really suck us into a shot. Yet despite their many and varied traits, the combination of a super-shallow depth of field and a wide viewing angle is something that even the most expensive…

ALAN’S favourite lens is the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L Mark II. ‘I like its build quality and versatility,’ he says. ‘The lens feels like it won’t let me down and gives me confidence when using it. The quality of the photographs taken with it are excellent, so I know I can photograph all day and not worry about sharpness and focus accuracy. ‘This lens can produce beautifully blurred backgrounds at f/2.8, so the sharp, in-focus subject really “pops” in the photo. It’s great for portraits, candids and full-length shots and anything else I may want to shoot. Also, by mounting a 1.4x converter and an extension tube, it works well for photographing butterflies and dragonflies, giving a greater subjectto-lens distance than a normal macro lens. This is especially useful when approaching…

Over the next few pages we present this week’s equipment tests, reader questions and technique pointers Manfrotto Pixi mini tripod £24.95 www.manfrotto.co.uk IT MAY be small, but the Manfrotto Pixi mini tripod is very sturdy. Capable of holding a compact system camera or a small entry-level DSLR, the tripod has strong, wide legs and a quick-lock ballhead. The ballhead remains locked unless a button on the side of the head is pressed. The release button is a little stiff, which is good, as it holds the head securely, but also means that it can be bit of an effort adjusting the position of the head. When folded, the wide curved legs of the Pixi are meant to double up as a handgrip so the camera can be held when recording…

DESPITE there being some significant differences in how these 50mm lenses have performed in our lab tests, none of them is terrible. For example, the Zeiss Planar T* 50mm f/1.4 lens is very soft when used at its maximum aperture, yet it can resolve the most detail when shooting at its best aperture. Also, while the Nikkor AF-S 50mm f/1.4G may vignette quite badly at its maximum aperture, it is easy to remove in software and virtually disappears if the aperture is stopped down 2 stops. So, basically, which of the lenses will be the best for you will really depend on what you want to do with it and the camera that you own. Generally the 50mm f/1.8 lenses have the best all-round performance. They show the least distortion,…

Steve52 asks My Sony Alpha 77 will write at 12fps (in raw), but when it gets to the 12th shot it stops to write the info to the card. Usually this is OK, but recently it was a problem. I guess that the memory card I am using (a SanDisk 32GB 45MB/s) isn’t fast enough to allow extra frames to be shot during the burst. If I used a faster card, would I be able to shoot more frames before the camera stopped? Barney replies A faster card should allow the camera to write to it more quickly. An alternative would be to change the file setting of your camera to reduce the file sizes. PeteRob replies You would need to check your manual to see what it recommends. While…

ELI IS swiping through his tablet as I enter the pub, sneering like he’s just let another car go without getting a thank-you wave. ‘What seems to be the matter?’ I ask. I’ve already seen he’s reading about the results of the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, and knowing him like I do I can predict what he’s going to come out with next. ‘These are all bad, but the winner is sooo bad,’ he moans. ‘They didn’t even take the pictures! And last year was the same. I really don’t get how the judges get it so terribly wrong every year.’ ‘Why is it so egregious?’ I ask. ‘I actually find it quite a powerful statement about contemporary conflict.’ ‘Is it really, though? Don’t we all know that war is…

News | Analysis | Comment | PhotoDiary 20/7/13 “We found evidence that images and membership information… had been accessed in some way without the user’s knowledge” Sharing accounts compromised, page 7 Revamped EOS 60D boasts Wi-Fi and new AF • Due next month CANON SET TO DEBUT EOS 70D DSLR CANON is to replace the EOS 60D with the EOS 70D, which borrows its AF system from the EOS 7D and Wi-Fi connectivity found on the full-frame EOS 6D. Out at the end of August, the EOS 70D incorporates an APS-C-sized, Canonmade, 20.2-million-pixel imaging sensor and introduces Dual Pixel CMOS AF technology (the EOS 60D features an 18-million-pixel sensor). Trumpeted as a ‘DSLR first’, Dual Pixel CMOS AF is a sensor-based ‘phasedetection’ AF system that aims to deliver ‘smooth, high-performance…

● NIKON D600 by Jon Sparks, £14.99 I would estimate by this point that here at AP we have enough Expanded Guides to build a small fortress. This one, for Nikon D600 owners, continues the quality of the others, with comprehensive information, easy-to-follow guides and quality images to illustrate its points. It’s certainly a more digestible read than a camera manual. ● LONDON DAWN TO DUSK by Jenny Oulton and David Paterson, £14.99 London has long been a draw for countless landscape and architectural photographers. The consequence of this is that the book market is flooded with titles taking the city as its subject. However, writer Jenny Oulton and photographer David Paterson have photographed the city through the day, all the way from dawn to dusk. It’s a charming book…

BRINGING YOU ESSENTIAL EXPERT ADVICE EVERY WEEK ANDREW MCCONNELL Andrew McConnell began his career as a press photographer covering the Troubles in his homeland of Northern Ireland, but in 2004 switched to social documentary work, photographing around the world. Much of his work features the Middle East and Africa. He has won numerous awards, including Sony World Photography and World Press Photo accolades, and his work has featured in publications such as National Geographic Magazine, Newsweek, Time magazine, The New York Times, The Guardian, Vanity Fair, The Sunday Times Magazine, L’Espresso and Internazionale. To learn more about Andrew’s work, read our feature about his project Leaving Gaza in last week’s issue (AP 13 July). Also visit www.andrewmcconnell.com This image is part of a series called The Last Colony, which was…

ONCE you’ve shot your exposure sequence and downloaded it onto your computer, the next task is to stitch it all together. This is no different from assembling a panoramic image. You start with a collection of individual shots and run them through an ‘image-stitching’ program on your computer to combine them into a single composite. However, unlike most panoramic images you’re looking at assembling dozens of shots, so it’s easy to paralyse your computer as the size of the combined frames eclipses its processing capabilities. Sometimes it’s easier to assemble small sections to start with, and then stitch these sections together to make the whole, or reduce the size of your initial image files. For this step-by-step, I’m primarily using the Photomerge feature in Adobe Photoshop Elements, but you should…

IF YOUR PICTURES ARE FEATURED YOU’LL RECEIVE… 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 EDITOR’S CHOICE SEE MORE ONLINE AT AMATEURPHOTOGRAPHER.CO.UK/SPOTLIGHT Showing that astrophotography can be just as much about the landscape…

FOR MANY years, the 50mm focal-length lens was a staple of photography. Not only was it the optic of choice for many photographers, but with virtually every new SLR coming paired with a 50mm lens it was also many people’s first – and sometimes only – lens. The reason for the popularity of such optics was that the 50mm focal length best replicates the focal length and central field of view of the human eye. The design was usually simple, with a minimal amount of glass, so, as a result, 50mm lenses are among the sharpest ever made, and virtually free from curvilinear distortions. This focal length also means that large apertures are possible without the need for gigantic glass optics. The reign of the 50mm lens ended in the…

AS MUCH as people will go on about which camera to use, every photographer worth his or her salt knows that a good lens is just as vital. You can have all the settings, scene modes and post-processing tricks you want, but if you don’t have good glass then your images will be lacking. It’s that simple. From different focal lengths and apertures to different generations of the same models, each lens will have its own peculiarities and qualities that lend themselves to certain subjects. This got me wondering about the sort of lenses used by the professionals and the prominent amateurs – those whose business it is to know good glass. What qualities do they prize? Which focal lengths? Do they prefer the versatility of a zoom or the…

Most editing programs have an array of retouching tools that allow you to copy pixels from one part of an image to another, or ‘magically’ create new pixels to seamlessly cover a defect in the image. These are the ones that you’re most likely to encounter. ● Clone Stamp: This is a classic retouching tool that’s as old as digital image-editing itself. You identify an area that you would like to copy and then ‘clone’ (copy) it onto another part of the image. The main advantage is that you have absolute control over the source pixels and how they are copied. ● Healing Brush: An ‘intelligent’ Clone Stamp, with the Healing Brush you select the source area and target destination, and the software intervenes to create as smooth a blend…

A week of photographic opportunity Wednesday 17 July EXHIBITION The Press Photographer’s Year 2013, until 31 August at the Lyttelton Exhibition Foyer, National Theatre, London SE1 9PX. Tel: 0207 452 3000. Visit www.nationaltheatre.org.uk. EXHIBITION Visions of the Universe (images of space), until 15 September at National Maritime Museum, Greenwich SE10 9NF. Tel: 0208 858 4422. Visit rmg.co.uk. Thursday 18 July EXHIBITION Trailblazers by Anita Corbin, until 29 September at the Discovery Museum, Tyne & Wear NE1 4JA. Tel: 0191 232 6789. Visit www.twmuseums.org.uk. EXHIBITION Findings, pinhole photography by Tom Hunter, until 19 July at Church Street, Birmingham B3 2RT and St Paul’s Square, Birmingham B3 1QZ. Friday 19 July EXHIBITION Jesse Alexander: The Golden Age of Motorsport, until 24 August at Chris Beetles Fine Photographs, London W1B 4DE. Tel: 0207…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Wins a 20-roll pack of 36-exposure Fujifilm Superia ISO 200 35mm film or a Fujifilm 8GB media card* BUILT FROM SCRATCH I took up photography eight years ago when I retired and, like most of my hobbies, charged at it head-on. Enthusiasm knew no bounds. Success in the local camera club spurred me on. However, recently the pace of production slowed and the photos weren’t forthcoming, at least not the good ones. Was it burnout or just a period of photographer’s block? I was always interested in all aspects of photography – its history and development, and especially the technical side. Having looked with admiration at the quality of images taken at the end of the last century with rudimentary equipment, I had an idea. Why…

HIGH-KEY PORTRAIT I SHOT this image for the cover of my book on Lightroom 3. Previously, the cover images I’d used had been rather dark, so I decided to go to the opposite extreme. The ‘before’ image gives you an idea of the basic lighting that was used. I had a single umbrella above the camera and two lights bounced either side of the subject into polystyrene boards to provide overexposed light hitting the model from slightly behind where she was sitting. I used these same lights to light the backdrop, which was a white wall that I allowed to go to a light grey colour. The retouching work started in Lightroom, where I chose to add a blue cast and lighten the corners. I retouched this image using the…

AMATEUR photographer Alan Smith has been reading AP since the early 1980s, and since signing up for the AP gallery (www.amateurphotographer.co.uk) in 2012, many of his images have become the most popular in the Reader Gallery section. He regularly updates his photo gallery and joins in with the forum discussions. ‘I enjoy reading AP to see what other photographers are up to and to read the reviews and techniques articles,’ he says. Based in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and working as a stonemason for the past ten years, Alan spends his days creating kitchen worktops and bathroom vanity tops with granite. ‘I enjoy the hand skills needed to shape and polish the stone, and manufacturing something beautiful that has the potential to last a lifetime,’ he says. This love of creating something…

Bicycles Ekaterina Shelestova Sony Alpha 550, 18-250mm, 1/200sec at f/10, ISO 400 IN ONE sense, photography is a form of communication, but I often struggle to determine what the message is in a picture. This image is a case in point: if these are Ekaterina’s friends or family, I could understand it, but the fact that she took the shot with a 375mm (equivalent) focal length suggests she wasn’t part of the group. Also, the water at the lower edge suggests she was a distant observer. So, what we’ve got is a ‘long-lens’ shot of a distant and very linear group of people with bicycles spread across the frame. On the plus side, Ekaterina has avoided placing them centrally, instead using the rule of thirds to roughly position the figures…

WHILE the resolution graphs of each lens look very similar, there are a few models that really stand out. Most notable are the Zeiss Planar T* 50mm f/1.4 and Zeiss Makro-Planar T* 50mm f/2. At 1 stop down from the minimum aperture, both these lenses perform exceptionally well, with the f/1.4 resolving the most detail of any lens in the test. While the Zeiss f/1.4 is extremely sharp at f/8 and f/11, it is, along with the Zeiss f/2 macro, the worst lens on test here when shooting with the aperture wide open at f/1.4. Similarly, the performance of the Pentax SMC DA* 55mm f/1.4 SDM isn’t particularly great when wide open, with the corners and edges resolving almost the same amount of detail. Of all the lenses on test…

NO DIALOGUES Q I was interested in Chris Gatcum’s reply to Ken MacLean (Ask AP, AP 1 June), as I also have a Canon Pixma MG6350 printer. However, when I attempted to follow the instructions for changing the print settings, none of the dialogues in Chris’s reply appeared when I selected Print. What am I doing wrong? Ken Wilson A Without knowing the version of iPhoto you’re using, it’s hard to say for sure what’s going on. Generally, though, pressing Print in iPhoto calls up iPhoto’s print dialogue, where you get a full-colour preview of your image, along with Printer, Presets, Paper Size and Print Sizer options. Pressing Print in this window brings up a second print dialogue. This is the Mac OS dialogue, which contains Printer and Presets options.…

THE BRONICA ETR 6x4.5cm, medium-format SLR started something when it first appeared in January 1976. It was not the first 6x4.5cm SLR, which was the Mamiya M645 of 1975, but it was the first 6x4.5cm SLR with interchangeable film backs and the first Bronica to have electronic shutter control. In that respect, it preceded the 6x6cm Bronica ECTL by three years and the Bronica SQ by four years. It was also the first Bronica designed for the 15-on-120 6x4.5cm format and the first to have interchangeable lenses incorporating Seiko electronically controlled leaf shutters, flash-synchronised at all speeds up to 1/500sec. Synchronisation at all speeds made it an instant favourite with wedding photographers, to whom fill-in flash was, and remains, even in the digital age, vital. The Bronica ETR made the…