Innholdsfortegnelse for November 30, 2013 i Amateur Photographer

ALL GOOD THINGS, just like all bad things and all things in general, must come to an end. However much we look into the future and see what we want to see, nothing lasts for ever. And now, it seems, a very good thing, for me at least, has ended. This issue of Amateur Photographer is my last at the helm, as the historic position of AP Editor is to disappear and the team will join that of What Digital Camera under Group Editor Nigel Atherton. I have been extremely lucky to come to an office every day for the past 16 years to talk, think and write about photography. I’ve been able to immerse myself in the subject I love, use equipment that excites me and work with people…

NIKON has defended the UK price of its new retro-style Df DSLR, which was announced earlier this month. In the UK, the Nikon Df costs £2,749.99 – including 20% VAT – for a kit including the new 50mm lens. However, in the United States the same outfit officially costs $2,999.95 (around £1,866), before sales tax. In New York City, for example, shops apply a sales tax of 8.875%. When this is added to the $2,999.95 US price, the total outlay would be $3,266.20 – around £2,031 at current exchange rates. Asked to explain the price differential, Nikon UK’s general manager John Walshe told AP: ‘Many factors influence the final price of products in the UK – this includes, but is not limited to, tax, tariff, exchange rates and logistics. ‘It…

HISTORIC photos of impoverished ‘Dickensian figures’ from 1877 have raised more than double their estimated value at auction. The images of 36 ‘London character types’ were captured by John Thomson and published in a book mostly written by socialist journalist Adolphe Smith. They sold for £12,500, which is more than double the pre-sale estimate of £6,000, at Gloucestershire auction house Dominic Winter, where experts described the work as ‘striking and groundbreaking’. Subjects featured include fish, fruit and flower sellers, cabmen, locksmiths and street doctors. Auctioneer Chris Albury added: ‘This is an incredibly important work, being one of the earliest uses of photography as social documentation. ‘Smith and Thomson argue for social reform and an improvement of these squalid conditions of a neglected and exploited underclass.’ LEICA PRIMES NEW LONDON STORE…

NIKON describes the new Df as a celebration of photography, with its designers having concentrated as much on the process and experience of taking photographs as they have on the images produced by the camera. The new camera harks back to classic Nikon F-series SLR models, particularly the Nikon FM2 but with a slight hint of a Nikon SP rangefinder. More of a subtle nod to the past is the use of the old-style Nikon logo on the front of the camera’s prism: Named the Df, the new camera is a ‘digital fusion’ of a classic SLR style merged with the latest technology that is designed to appeal to photography enthusiasts and professionals alike. FEATURES With the same full-frame 16.2-million-pixel CMOS sensor as that found in the Nikon D4, the…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Wins a 20-roll pack of 36-exposure Fujifilm Superia ISO 200 35mm film or a Fujifilm 8GB media card* FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH Roger Hicks pondered the question, in AP 26 October, as to whether you can relive your youth using an old camera from the days when you were poor but happy? I was pretty skint when I bought a Zenit E camera back in 1975. It was my first SLR and to say it made me happy would be a huge understatement. I loved everything about it. From its tank-like build to the oily smell whenever I opened the back to load a film. And in those days of near-perfect eyesight, focusing on the plain uncluttered screen was a doddle. But it was when projecting my…

WHEN you think of striking architectural images, it’s usually exteriors that spring to mind, but it’s often a building’s interior that reveals the most intriguing and eye-catching picture opportunities. Photographing interiors involves a completely different way of thinking – about exposure, composition and lighting, not to mention working around overzealous security guards. However, with the following tried-and-tested tips for tackling these issues, you’ll be able to create some amazing interior images. KEEP IT STEADY Before we even talk about how to create interesting compositions and how to cope with low lighting, it’s essential that your camera is as steady as possible to obtain crisp, sharp images. Whenever possible, I use a tripod, but this isn’t always possible with interior shots. Many places have restrictions on using tripods either because of…

PUBLISHED at the end of 2013, Weegee: Murder Is My Business is a 264-page hardback book that looks at the style and fascinating career of Weegee, one of New York City’s quintessential press photographers. For a decade between 1935 and 1946, photographer Arthur Fellig, or Weegee (from Ouija, for his ‘uncanny’ ability to arrive at crime scenes before police) as he became known, covered the police beat on the city’s Lower East Side. Formally a Hollywood photographer who photographed the rich and famous, Weegee made a name for himself shooting crime scenes, the victims and the criminals. Armed with his trusty Speed Graphic camera and a police-band radio – the real and decidedly earthly source of his information – Weegee often beat the New York police to the story, determined…

WITH company takeovers, mergers and job losses, it is not surprising that the past few years have seen Pentax lose its way a little. In 2009, two years after the company was bought by Hoya, Jessops made the decision to stop selling Pentax cameras altogether. However, the company returned to Jessops’ shelves some two years later, shortly before its purchase by Ricoh. This takeover appears to have given Pentax a new lease of life. There are now five DSLRs in its line-up, including the new K-3, although it is a fair criticism to say that they are too alike, sharing the vast majority of their features. However, the new K-3 breaks that mould. Rather than using a 16.2-million-pixel, APS-C-sized sensor, the new model steps forward with a 23.35-million-pixel, APS-C sensor…

Join us on a bespoke photo tour to Canada, accompanied by photo experts and a local guide for an opportunity to view and capture the breathtaking Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, and the Rocky Mountains’ natural wonders. This is a tremendous-value, interest packed, escorted photo tour. First, you’ll fly west to Calgary, gateway to the Rocky Mountains, and spend two nights in Banff. You will have time to capture images and benefit from inspiring advice for achieving amazing photos. There will be optional-extra excursions too! Then, you’ll journey by coach past beautiful Lake Louise and along the Icefields Parkway into Jasper National Park, to stay overnight in Jasper. From here, you’ll journey east to Edmonton, Alberta, the frontier trading city built on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River, then…

THE STORY goes that, during the First World War, a bright young designer and engineer called Reinhold Heidecke realised, while in a trench, that the best way to photograph a battlefield was to hold a twinlens reflex upside down above the parapet. He did not have such a camera. At the time, very few people in the world did, since only two or three British and French companies had made TLRs using plates between 1880 and about 1910. The story is probably apocryphal, and anyway, if he had been able to try out the idea, he may not still have had his arms for his post-war achievements. After the war, while working for Voigtländer in Braunschweig, Germany, Heidecke and a colleague, Paul Francke, suggested to the management that the company…

AP NEWS News I Analysis I Comment 30/11/13 “Many factors influence the price...” POLICE are embroiled in a dispute with a photographer who sought compensation after being stopped while taking pictures in a public place. The incident came to light during research by AP, which also uncovered apparent flaws in the systems used by one in four police forces to retrieve crucial details of legal claims made against them by the public. The photographer was stopped in Caerphilly, South Wales, under the police ‘stop and account’ procedure, where an officer is entitled to stop a person and require them to account for their actions. Gwent Police, which released the information to AP via a Freedom of Information (FoI) request, said it would only release further details upon submission of another…

THE PEOPLES PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY An internet-based society for photographers who do not live near a camera club is seeking entries for its first ‘judged’ exhibition, with certificates to be awarded to the top three places. The society, which has members in 12 countries, is free to join. The closing date for the exhibition is 20 December 2013 (10am). Visit www.photosociety.net. TAMRON DEVELOPING NEW LENS INDEPENDENT lens maker Tamron has announced the development of a 150-600mm ultra-telephoto zoom lens for DSLRs Designed to be used on full-frame DSLRs and those with an APS-C-sized imaging sensor, the SP 150-600mm f/5-6.3 features Vibration Compensation image stabilisation and three low-dispersion elements. It will be compatible with Canon, Nikon and Sony mounts. The 1,951g optic is built from 20 elements in 13 groups and features…

ON TEST SONY CYBER-SHOT DSC-RX10 We Sony’s Cyber-shot DEC-RX10, with 20.4-million-pixel, 1in CMOS sensor and Car; Zeoss 25-200mm f/2.8 lens ON TEST NIKON D610 The D610 is Nikon’s upgrade of the D600. We find out how the 24.3-million-pixel, full-frame DSLR performs AN ENGLISH AFFAIR EXHIBITION We preview a new exhibition of Tony Ray-Jones’s work, with comments from fellow exhibitor Martin Parr and curator Greg Hobson LANDSCAPE DARKNESS AND LIGHT We find out how landscape photographer Kilian Schönberger captures an intriguing combination of darkness and light in his photographs…

Forbidden Places: Exploring Our Abandoned Heritage Volume 2 By Sylvain Margaine. Jon Glez, £29.99, hardback, 222 pages, ISBN 978-2-36195-059-0 THE PREDILECTION of humankind to build new structures rather than rejuvenate old ones is a curious thing, notes this book’s introduction. In a world of increasing population and decreasing resources, it’s surprising what a common practice this still is. There are certainly enough old, condemned and abandoned structures for Sylvain Margaine to bring out a second volume of his Forbidden Places series. The images and places he finds are superb – abandoned Seaview Hospital NYC is ghoulishly fascinating. His images often focus on specific objects such as abandoned beds, sitting within these structures like tantalising clues. David Margaine’s text is interspersed throughout in a freeform manner – sometimes factual and sometimes…

TWO BENEFITS have always been unique to photography. The ability to create something unlikely to be copied exactly is one gain, and the satisfaction of capturing a lasting image at a point in time that has meaning for the photographer is the other. While it is true popular locations are visited in droves by a camera-laden public, it is also true that if all their pictures were displayed at once there would be telling distinctions. Technical skills, content and composition, as basic pointers, would reveal how people see things differently, and remain satisfied with their captured observations. Time and again while thumbing through magazines, there are recurring pictures of recognised subjects, yet each has something fresh visually. Filter treatments, framing, angle of view and, in the digital era, the post-production…

The UK’s most prestigious competition for amateur photographers 1 Alex Harford Staffordshire 48pts Canon PowerShot G3, 28mm, 1/160sec at f/3, ISO 80 Virgin Train at Crewe Station Judges say Going Abstract produced the strongest batch of entries we’ve seen in this year’s APOY. In this image from Alex Harford, the lighting is exceptional and the balance of the composition is just right. All this is rounded of in the framing, which tells us just enough to understand what we’re seeing while still falling into the category of abstract 2 Chris Whitelaw Outer Hebrides 47pts Canon EOS 500D, 18-55mm, 1sec at f/10, ISO 100 Mountains Judges say Chris’s image is certainly beautiful. Not only is it a great abstract photograph, but it’s also a nice variation on landscape photography. The mood,…

LENS ON LEICA V-LUX 4 Q What effect does the f/2.8 (single aperture) lens on the Leica V-Lux 4 have on depth of field? I would have thought that at f/2.8 at maximum zoom, the depth of field would be very small (and throughout the full zoom range for that matter). Am I missing something? Other than that, the Leica and its Panasonic twin look pretty good. William Barwick A I’m not sure what you think you’re missing, William, or why you seem to be suggesting the V-Lux 4’s wide aperture is a ‘disadvantage’? You’re right that at f/2.8 the depth of field will be small, especially at the V-Lux 4’s longest focal length setting, but we mustn’t forget that while the camera boasts a 600mm equivalent focal length at…

LIKE many recent cameras, Pentax has opted to not use an anti-aliasing filter in the K-3. For those who have managed to miss the coverage of how these filters work, they are designed to minutely blur the light reaching the sensor to help reduce moiré pattering. The result is a slight blur in the final digital image. By not using this filter, images are crisper and resolve more detail, but they are also prone to suffering from more moiré patterning when photographing close-knit patterns, such as distant netting or brickwork, or more obviously patterned clothing. To combat this, Pentax has come up with an ingenious solution. The same motors that move the sensor slightly when stabilising it are employed to shift the sensor the width of a pixel or two…

WHILE A3-sized printers are a great choice for owners of quality cameras, the reality is that many users don’t produce large prints on a regular basis. So if you have a space restriction, yet want to produce greatlooking photographs and the occasional A3 print, then look no further than the new Epson Expression Photo XP-950 all-in-one unit. The XP-950 is an A4 printer that also accommodates A3-sized photo media via a wide rear-feed speciality tray. FEATURES The XP-950 measures 479(w)x356(d) x148(h)mm, which is no larger than most current A4 all-in-one printers. Features include a motorised control panel and output tray, an 8.8cm LCD touchscreen, a 4800dpi scanner, duplex printing, Epson Connect, automatic Wi-Fi set-up and Wi-Fi direct connectivity, a memory-card reader that supports most popular card types, PictBridge, and CD…

MARK Haddon’s novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is curious in its own right. The narrator purports to be a 15-year-old boy with Asperger syndrome. At first, it is a fascinating conceit. You begin to believe that you are seeing the world through the eyes of someone so afflicted. The book is well worth starting. I am not so sure it is worth finishing, because the conceit wears thin. This is the important thing. It is a conceit, in the literary sense: technically, a euphuism, an artificial or affected style of writing. You’re not actually getting inside the head of a 15-year-old boy with Asperger syndrome. Instead, you are presented with an initially brilliant idea of what it might be like to be that boy. What…

‘Roads are impassable, rivers have overflowed their banks, and fields have become lakes,’ reported AP this week in 1935 – such were the prevailing conditions in ‘practically every low-lying district of the country’ owing to excessive rainfall. But photography would be the winner. The resulting change in the landscape was akin to creating ‘even greater difference in its familiar appearance that would be caused by a heavy fall of snow’. Large masses of moving water only added to the appeal of the scene for picture-making, added AP. ‘Here is an attractive and topical subject that should not be missed, but should be turned to pictorial account by every keen user of a camera or a cine camera… If the work is being done deliberately, waders may be necessary, but, in…

TREASURED images by John F Kennedy’s personal photographer – whose archive was mostly wiped out in the 9/11 attacks on New York – have been published. The vintage and fine-art prints by Jacques Lowe went on display at the Proud Chelsea gallery in London, along with ashes from the photographic negatives destroyed in 9/11, to mark the 50th anniversary of the former US president’s death on 22 November. The photos were printed and signed before Lowe’s death in May 2001 – four months before the terrorist attacks of 11 September that year. Jacques Lowe became JFK’s personal photographer after documenting his presidential campaigns. He had stored his archive in a safedeposit box at JP Morgan Chase bank, which was located in a building next to the twin towers destroyed in…

‘WE’RE a family owned store that has been in business for over 60 years,’ says Peter Gatehouse, manager at Devon Camera Centre. ‘We’ve been a Sony Alpha Centre of Excellence for five years, and our staff are very knowledgeable about the Sony camera range – in fact, most of them own Sony cameras themselves. This means we are regularly out using the cameras and can show customers images that have been taken with the products we are selling.’ Each Sony Alpha Centre of Excellence stocks a good range of Sony cameras, lenses and accessories, and receives regular product training. ‘This means we can put the products in the customers’ hands and show them exactly the right camera for their needs,’ says Peter. Recently, the Sony NEX-6 has been extremely popular…

● THE 1970S: IRELAND IN PICTURES by Lensmen Photographic Archive, £12.99 A decade in Ireland’s history is chronicled thanks to the Lensmen Photographic Archive. Following on from previous books documenting the 1950s and ’60s, this latest volume shows a wonderful cross-section of life across the country, from sporting events to cultural milestones and political demonstrations. While the Troubles don’t take centre-stage, there are a few images from Dublin bombings. ● CLOSE-UP AND MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY: ART AND TECHNIQUES by John Humphrey, £16.99 Close-up and macro are popular forms of photography, but can be tricky to master. John Humphrey’s book should help you negotiate your way through the basics, with a decent primer on more general rules of photography for those just starting out. There’s a lot of information here, and it’s…

I HAVE always been interested in the animal kingdom. It’s something I’ve had a great love of as far back as I can remember. I used to spend a lot of time when I was younger poring over books about animals and wildlife. However, my interest in photography is a little more recent as it’s only in the past seven years that it has really picked up. This image of a hare was taken two years after I frst picked up a camera. Just before that, I’d gone on safari to Kenya and that’s when I realised it would be quite interesting to try my hand at wildlife photography. I decided one day that I wanted to rent a 300mm f/2.8 lens and see what that kind of focal length…

Royal Armoury Museum, Leeds Damian Kane Apple iPhone 4S, 35mm equivalent focal length, 1/180sec at f/2.4, ISO 50 WHEN we talk about composition in photography, we’re basically talking about how the various elements in a scene are arranged. In the most basic sense, this is what goes where, and how. Of course, there is far more to it than that, which is why books have been written on the subject. Yet while there are many weird and wonderful ‘tricks’ that we can use, the compositional device used in Damian’s photograph is one of the most straightforward – symmetry. By its very nature, any photograph that relies on symmetry will be balanced, and a balanced photograph is generally seen as a harmonious one. And, broadly speaking, a harmonious photograph is a…

Camlink LED320 Video Light Around £185 www.camlink.eu.com CAMLINK’S substantial LED video light panel features adjustable colour temperature from 2,800K-6,500K, by adjusting the relative intensity of 160 orange and 160 blue LEDs in its array. Overall light intensity is variable from 0-100% via a separate step-less control. This is a powerful unit that is equivalent to 200 watts of incandescent light or a light intensity of 1,536 lumens, giving good clarity and contrast to portraits and products. A rechargeable Li-Ion battery pack is supplied along with a tethered power supply for studio use. However, I found the heavy battery pack made the light unwieldy when attached to the camera’s hotshoe and the supplied swivelling ball-and-socket hotshoe mount was not substantial enough to support the light securely. Two or more lights can…

RRP £1,099.99 body only Sensor 23.35-million-pixel, APS-C-sized CMOS Output size 6016 x 4000 pixels File format Raw (DNG or PEF) and JPEG Compression 3-stage JPEG Shutter type Electronically controlled, vertical-run, focal-plane shutter Shutter speeds 30-1/8000sec Max flash sync 1/180sec ISO 100-51,200 Exposure modes Program, aperture priority, shutter priority, sensitivity priority, shutter and aperture priority, manual, auto, effects and scene modes Metering system 86,000-pixel RGB matrix sensor – multi-segment, centreweighted and spot Exposure comp ±5EV in 1/3EV steps White balance Auto, multi-auto2, 11 presets, plus 6 custom White balance bracket N/A Drive mode Approx 8.3fps (60 JPEG, 23 raw in continuous high mode LCD 3.2in, TFT LCD with 1.037 million dots Viewfinder type Pentaprism with 100% coverage and 0.95x magnification Focusing modes Auto, single, continuous, manual, spot select, expanded area and…

Q When did you become interested in photography? A I have been interested in photography for as long as I can remember. My parents had a Kodak Brownie and I was fascinated by the magical process by which images could be produced out of a little box. Later, we had a Polaroid instant camera and I was entranced by seeing the images being created in front of my eyes. My mother had some old cinema annuals and I loved the Hollywoodstyle portraits, with all their mysterious shadows and glamour. Q What are you hoping to achieve with your photography? A I am hoping to be able to create images that are good enough to appreciate as works of art. Q What do you enjoy most about photography? A I enjoy…