Innholdsfortegnelse for 09-Aug-2014 i Amateur Photographer

An AP reader once half-joked to me that photographers’ families were the least photographed in Britain. His point was that we take great care and effort over our landscapes, or whatever it is we shoot, but not our pictures of the people we care for the most – that’s if we photograph them at all. I was the complete opposite. I went to great lengths to set up photogenic scenarios, exploited good light and strove to produce a documentary archive of my kids growing up that I could be proud of. Now that they’re teenagers and no longer tolerate my lens in their faces, my dog is my muse, but if and when I eventually have grandchildren they too will think that my nose is circular and made of glass.…

The winners of an international macro photography contest have been announced. Minghui Yuan, from China, won first place and £500 in the International Garden Photographer of the Year (IGPOTY)’s Macro Art competition. Second place went to Jacky Parker, while Stefano Coltelli came third. Entries for the wider IGPOTY contest – which carries a top prize of £5,000 – close at the end of October this year. Last year’s winner was amateur photographer Rosanna Castrini from Italy. She beat 18,000 entries to take the overall title. Visit www.igpoty.com.…

To many photographers, image editing on a smartphone means wannabe-retro filters, comic-style digital stickers and crude skin-softening effects on teenager selfies. However, editing on a smartphone should not be so easily dismissed. Despite touch control and small displays, with the right apps installed, the phone in your pocket can be a powerful editing tool with one obvious advantage – it can be used anywhere and at any time. For example, you can use it on a crowded Underground train, while standing in line at the supermarket or in the dentist’s waiting room, allowing you to work on images when it would not be otherwise possible. Of course, there are a few restrictions you have to bear in mind. Most editing apps limit image output size to 4 or 5 million…

I am almost certainly your oldest reader (never mind how old), and when I was a young boy I wanted a camera more than anything, the camera being a Kodak Box Brownie. There was no way I could afford one, but my dad smoked Kensitas cigarettes, which gave coupons with each packet. He promised me the camera when he had enough coupons. I could not wait. Then, to my horror, he developed a hacking cough and my mother made him go the doctor, who told him the cough was because of smoking and he had to give it up. I was heartbroken when my mother put her foot down and said no more smoking. However, my dad did not want to give up smoking and did it on the sly,…

Nick Brandt ‘Nick Brandt is a photographer with unimaginable skill,’ says Elena. ‘He’s also a photographer who is able to draw out the mystery of the natural world. The fact that he is able to shoot these animals without the use of a long lens stuns me.’ Gregory Colbert ‘Gregory’s images demonstrate a harmony between man and the natural world that surrounds him,’ says Elena. ‘It’s similar to the kind of thing that I show in my work. Colbert’s images are deep and penetrating, and his mastery of his equipment is utterly inspiring.’ Robert Doisneau Elena says: ‘The thing that impresses me most about Robert Doisneau is his ability to find a harmonious composition within the disorder of the chaotic scenes that he discovered on his travels. The absolute force…

How did your interest in the microscopic world begin? I got my first microscope when I was 13 years old. When my dad went to Japan, our family doctor asked him to get a professional microscope for his medical practice. He bought one for our doctor and one for me. I loved it. I could put anything under there and look at it. It was very empowering for me. In what ways did you use microscopes in your career? After college I worked as a photographer and filmmaker for ten years, but at the end of that period I became interested in working with microscopes. For me, photography was always about showing people things they couldn’t normally see. I took some classes in how to take pictures through microscopes. That…

Dancing girl Andy Meyers Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 70-200mm, 1sec at f/2.8, ISO 800 THERE are plenty of appealing elements in this image, not least of which is the sense of movement that Andy has captured. While the idea is good and there are strong elements of success, Andy hasn’t quite pulled this off. I think he may have allowed the camera to have too much influence in the decision-making process and has opted to follow the metering system’s recommendation. The metering system would have been looking at that dark background and probably aimed to lighten it enough that we could see the detail contained in it. The girl, lit by a spotlight, has then been left overexposed – to the point where she is burnt out. With scenes…

MY NIKON D300 has been through a few scrapes. On returning from Vancouver one year, I opened my hand luggage to find that the directional control on the rear of the camera had snapped off, no doubt after someone had crammed a bag against mine. A repair from Nikon sorted this out, but there were two repairs I made myself. The first was replacing the battery door – a part that is notorious for breaking and falling off with heavy use. The second repair was more adventurous. The top-plate LCD glass had broken – although the LCD itself was fine, the glass had cracked. I sourced a replacement part and carefully used the heat from a hair-dryer and a scalpel to prise off the broken glass and replace it with…

Resolution The Sigma is impressively sharp at its wideangle end but softens progressively on zooming to telephoto, particularly in the corners. Overall, there’s not much difference between f/4 and f/11, but at smaller apertures than this, the image softens due to diffraction. The most striking results are at each end of the zoom range, where the lens shows abrupt shading in the corners when the aperture is wide open. This type of vignetting can be visually unpleasant, but it’s almost eliminated by closing the lens down a stop. It’s a touch stronger at wideangle than at telephoto. Shading Curvilinear distortion Typically, lenses of this type show barrel distortion at wideangle and pincushion distortion at telephoto, and this is indeed what we see. This being a 4x zoom, it’s relatively pronounced,…

Testing method To put these cards through their paces, I repeatedly ran integrity and benchmark tests using two independent pieces of software – H2testw and CrystalDiskMark – which tested the read and write speeds of the cards. I also tested the buffering performance of all the cards in this round-up using the super-fast Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000, which is capable of shooting 12 frames per second, firing off frames in high-speed burst mode and then timing the cool-off period before I could continue capturing burst images at 12fps. PNY SDXC High Performance UHS-I Class 10 • £60 • www.pny.eu PNY’s High Performance range is aimed at advanced amateur photographers and videographers who want to shoot fast-moving action stills and capture quality full HD footage. Although this card is positioned below the…

WHAT YOU NEED 3x A2 foamboard, mirror card, cloth tape, Velcro, scissors, craft knife, steel rule, marker pen A REFLECTOR is one of the simplest but most effective devices for portrait photography, yet home-made versions can work just as well. Here we replicate the wrap-around effect of a three-sided reflector cheaply, easily and quickly. How to… You can use card, mounting board or foamboard. The latter is a bit more substantial, and has a nice white finish too. Cut three A2 sheets into identical trapezium shapes, and tape them together. It’s as simple as that. To go a step further, paint one side black, which will create harder shadows on the subject’s face. Alternatively, cut mirrored card the same size as the panels and stick it on with Velcro. This…

Photographer Tom Harvey likes to shoot both landscapes and close-ups, with a particular fondness for seascapes. This is the kit he carries with him. Visit www.flickr.com/photos/96420605@N04 1 Pentax K-5 The Pentax K-5 is a great bit of kit for landscape photography, with weather-sealing and sturdy construction. Its compact design means it’s not too bulky to carry compared to some cameras. 2 Filters I have an extensive range of Lee filters, including an ND hard grad set, ND 0.9 soft grad, 0.6 and 0.9 Pro glass ND and a Big Stopper. To make them easy to carry, I’ve modified a three-pouch filter holder so I can put them on my belt if needed. 3 UltraFire torch This is an essential for me as the majority of locations I visit can be…

Keith Haring (1958-1990) was an artist who believed that art should be affordable. His graffiti-style work was deceptively simple and graphic, and he sold a lot of it through his Pop Shops in New York City and Tokyo, in the form of buttons, posters and more. It is tempting to call it ‘primitive’, but this picture, from the spectacular new Annie Leibovitz book Title TK (Taschen, 2014), was effectively a collaboration between Haring and Leibovitz in 1986/1987 and brilliantly calls into question the nature of the term ‘primitive’ as applied to modern art. Leibovitz constructed an all-white room, complete with furniture – hardly a ‘primitive’ setting. Haring then decorated it – and himself – with designs that seem to go back to the Stone Age. In the original concept he…

PENTAX brand owner Ricoh Imaging UK is set to release a ‘prestige’ version of the K-3 DSLR. Launched last year, the K-3 carries a 23.35-million-pixel imaging sensor and a weather-sealed body. The new version, of which only 2,000 units will be released worldwide, features a body finished in a ‘high-grade’, gunmetal-grey coating. There will also be a battery grip to match. At least 100 units are expected to arrive in the UK of the 1,000 destined for Europe. The kit will come in a presentation box and cost £1,099, including the battery grip. A launch date has yet to be announced.…

THIS shot of a motocross rider doing a wheelie out of a brightly lit quarry was created using flashes with coloured gels on them. A smoke bomb was let off behind the rider, right next to a flash pointed towards the camera fitted with a red gel. A second flash with a blue gel was positioned out of shot to the left of the frame, to illuminate the smoke as it rose behind the rider. Two further flashes, both fitted with honeycomb grids to stop the spill of light, were positioned either side of the rider aimed at where he was going to be when he appeared. Using high-speed sync at 1/500sec at f/6.3 and ISO 100 underexposed the background nicely, making it look like it was shot at night…

Tim Taylor British photographer and adventurer Tim Taylor is inspired by the beauty of extreme environments, from the peaks of the Himalayas to the sub-zero temperatures of the Arctic. He was joint runner-up in the One Shot – Extraordinary category of the 2013 Travel Photographer of the Year competition with his ‘Lunar Landscape’ image. Visit timtaylorphotography.com. It is never enough for me to simply observe, as I always want to be actively involved in the landscape I am photographing. While I often have an idea of what I want to convey in my images, I don’t generally set out with strict rules about how I am going to capture my shots. For me, it’s all about the freedom to explore a landscape and immerse myself in nature. Once I am…

Canon Legria Mini X £319.99 www.canon.co.uk Jon Devo gets to grips with a uniquely designed camera aimed at video bloggers and tutorial creators At a glance • 12.8-million-pixel sensor• f/2.8 aperture• Large built-in stereo microphone• CD-quality audio• 1920 x 1080-pixel full HD video THE CANON Legria Mini X camcorder features full HD video recording, a large built-in stereo microphone, a 1/2.3in backside-illuminated, high-sensitivity, 12.8-million-pixel CMOS sensor, and Wi-Fi connectivity for remote viewing and control. The ultra-wideangle f/2.8 lens offers a 170° view (equivalent to 15mm in 35mm terms). Full HD moving images can be recorded to SD media with views of 150° (AVCHD) and 160° (MP4). The stereo microphone is capable of capturing CD-quality audio. Zooming is performed via on-sensor cropping. This drops the resolution significantly during close-up mode, producing, for example, a 2.76-milion-pixel image…

Fuji plans Upcoming lenses for Fujifilm’s X-series cameras are outlined in a new ‘road map’ that features an XF 90mm f/2 R for the first time. The new 90mm ‘medium telephoto’ is due out in mid-2015, as is an XF 16mm f/1.4 R. The XF 16-55mm f/2.8 WR is scheduled for release next spring, while a ‘super telephoto zoom’ is due at the end of 2015 and the XF 50-140mm f/2.8 R OIS WR will go on sale at the end of this year. For details visit fujifilm.eu. Holiday selfies Another world’s best selfie challenge has reared its head. ‘Any scenario is ideal to show your funny side: on the beach, in the hotel, by the pool or drinking a mojito at the bar – you choose,’ says organiser Servigroup…

Designed to fuse old and new, Hasselblad is set to debut a 50-million-pixel digital back, which it claims will work with almost every V-System camera made since 1957. The Swedish firm says that the ‘back to the future’ CMOS imaging sensor-based device packs the same features as the Hasselblad H5D-50c. Company CEO Ian Rawcliffe said: ‘We have experienced a substantial resurgence of interest in our iconic V cameras – users love the traditional ergonomics and the unique appearance… ‘Photographers using V-System vintage cameras can now realise the true potential for these definitive capture devices.’ The CFV-50c is the only digital back for V-System cameras to not require external cables. Hasselblad – which no longer makes V models – says that only the 202, 203 and 205 models need ‘slight modification’…

AUTONOMOUS photographic lighting drones that automatically assume correct positions to achieve specific lighting effects have been developed by researchers at MIT and Cornell University. The drone responds to the subject’s movements and turns in order to keep the lighting consistent. The system is controlled via a camera-mounted interface, through which the photographer indicates which direction he or she wants the light to come from, and the drone subsequently positions itself accordingly. In the demonstration exercise, the photographer specified a thickness for the light’s rim width. The drone then automatically adjusted its position to maintain the same lighting conditions as the portrait subject moved and turned. Manohar Srikanth, who worked on the system at MIT, said the drone would also be able to respond to the photographer’s movements in a similar…

Adam Duckworth Adam works mainly in the action sports market for clients like Moto Magazine, Red Bull and Monster Energy. His trademark style is brightly lit portraits and action shots, using flashes that range from hotshoe-style guns to larger pack systems like Elinchrom’s Ranger series. www.adamduckworth.com If you are the sort of photographer who hates flash for its harsh and unflattering results, or only uses as it a last resort when light levels drop, then you’re missing out on a whole world of creative techniques. Taking small but powerful flashguns on location can make a big difference to your photos, creating all sorts of light from soft and flattering pools to high-contrast, dramatic slashes. By controlling the power of your flash to mix with the ambient light, and modifying its…

1 Underexpose for drama Taken just as twilight fell, the background for this shot was a messy motorbike paddock. By shooting at 1/250sec at f/9 and ISO 50, the background was rendered virtually black. The main flash was in a softbox to the left, and a flash with a honeycomb grid was behind the rider. 2 Using honeycomb grid This image was illuminated by a single flash fitted with a honeycomb grid. The grid makes the flash a bit like a spotlight, although with a softer edge to the beam of light. With the flash positioned to the left of the frame, it created a shadow of the bike that’s very much a part of the composition. 3 Beat the backlight! By carefully exposing for the ambient light to allow…

I CURRENTLY use a Canon EOS 5D Mark III and have previously used the EOS 5D Mark II and Mark I versions. I use three Canon L-series lenses – the 16-35mm f/2.8, 24-105mm f/4 and 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 in the majority of my work. For longer trips, where there is an established base camp, I may also take a 600mm lens. This set-up allows me to cover a wide range of focal lengths and subjects while producing image files of a quality that allow me to print large-format fine-art prints. It also allows me to keep weight to an acceptable level (although I still suffer in the high mountains), which is critical as I am usually carrying everything I need for an expedition on my back.…

Setting up your camera On most cameras, you’ll need to activate live view to set up your camera’s video settings. Even if you’re shooting with a full-frame DSLR, you’re only using 1920x1080 pixels, so you don’t have the same huge raw files and the latitude they provide when shooting video compared to stills. With this in mind, I always try to imagine that I am filming in low resolution, so my framing, white balance and exposure need to be as spot on as possible, so the first thing I do is turn the grid display on to avoid wonky horizons Next, set your video system region. If you are in the UK you’ll need to select PAL, whereas those in the US will want to shoot in NTSC. I leave…

The two Reader Portfolio winners chosen every week will receive a SmugMug Power account, worth £35 each, on which to host their images SmugMug is the world’s leading independent cloud-based photo website for a new generation of photographers. SmugMug Power account gives you a fully hosted, customisable website where you will receive unlimited photo uploads and gorgeous full-screen galleries. Visit www.smugmug.com Submit your images Please see the ‘Send us your pictures’ section on page 3 for details or visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/portfolio Martin Sharpe, London Martin’s first forays into photography were back in the 1970s when he was still at school. He then went on to art college to study sculpture and used photography to document his work. Martin is particularly drawn to coastal landscapes, possibly because he grew up in Cornwall.…

LAUNCHED 2009 PRICE AT LAUNCH £1,700 GUIDE PRICE TODAY £550 IN 2009, the Canon EOS 7D burst onto the scene with an amazing 18-million-pixel, APS-C CMOS sensor, 8fps sequential shooting and full HD video recording. This was all contained in a solid magnesium-alloy body. Aimed at the top end of the enthusiast market, the EOS 7D is also used by professionals. What’s more, the EOS 7D remains in the current Canon DSLR line-up. What's good Top of the list is the EOS 7D’s fast and accurate focusing that has earned the camera near legendary status among users photographing birds in flight. At the end of last year, the EOS 7D was blessed with a major firmware update that improved performance and added new features. What's bad The passing of time…

CAMERA lenses can be beautiful things to behold and almost gem-like. Much of this beauty is thanks to anti-reflection lens coatings like me. I can appear as multi-coloured tints when viewing the glass in a lens. My ancestors often only exhibited an amber hue, or maybe amber and purple if a double coating was used. Yet being pretty is not my purpose, as I dramatically reduce the amount of internal reflections in a camera lens and make the lens more efficient. I also reduce flare and ghosting. Flare is characterised by bright circular artefacts that are the shape of the lens aperture iris, as well as hazy areas of unwanted brightness and reduced contrast, usually when the lens is pointed at a very intense source of light. Ghosting is where…