Innholdsfortegnelse for 23-Aug-2014 i Amateur Photographer

IN 2007, an elderly Chicago woman, unable to pay her rent, was forced to sell the contents of the storage lockers where she kept all her possessions. They contained over 100,000 negatives and prints and over 2,000 rolls of undeveloped film. The dealers who speculatively bought the boxes, contents unseen, were about to strike gold. Vivian Maier, the reclusive, eccentric Mary Poppins figure who took the images but died penniless and alone just two years later, turned out to be a street photographer of great skill, having stalked the streets of Chicago for decades with her Rolleiflex. Those images are now worth a fortune, and Maier, who is the subject of a recently aired BBC1 documentary and a new documentary film showing at selected cinemas, is the newest member of…

If you want a club where old men wearing cardigans talk about cameras, then there may be one out there for you. There are hundreds of photographic clubs in the UK and they are all unique. What they nearly all share is friendly camaraderie, a love of photography and a desire to take better pictures. OK, there may be some old-fashioned clubs yearning for the darkroom era, and certainly the demographic profile of a great many clubs tends towards pension age, but the vast majority are welcoming, forward looking, innovative and are far more interested in pictures than equipment. They offer a variety of exciting events and activities, which might include visits from eminent photographers showing their inspiring work, recorded talks on a variety of subjects, informal help and advice…

Sling-style bag A bag like this looks casual, and access to the camera is quick and easy. If gadgets and gizmos aren’t so important to you, there’s no need for anything bigger. Lens with a small zoom range I use a Nikon 24-85mm, which gives flexibility for wider and closer compositions. Portraits are better when the subject has agreed to be photographed and the result is collaborative. Photoshop or Lightroom I use both programs for my editing as they’re great for creating clear, artistic lighting and colour. Good editing shouldn’t be too obvious, but it helps create a focused image that draws the viewer’s attention to the points of interest.…

WHEN you have a person who is ready to be photographed, it is important to be ready with posing ideas in your mind to avoid wasting any time and potentially missing a shot. Instead of simply taking a photo of someone in the place and position they are already in, it is often better to move and direct them for a more artistic and powerful result if they’re happy to move. I always look around the space and think ahead, trying to find a good background while considering the light, and I roughly visualise the shot in my mind. This is happening even before I have found anyone to photograph, which means I’m much more prepared when I start shooting. I can move quickly and with confidence when shooting, which…

It was John Szarkowski, the pre-eminent photographer, historian and critic, who noted that photographs can be either described as windows looking out into the world, or as mirrors reflecting the artist behind the camera. But how do you analyse images when the photographer in control of the lens appears to be a total enigma, even on those occasions when the photographer turns the camera on herself? That’s the quandary that sits at the centre of the new documentary Finding Vivian Maier, a fascinating detective story that follows the journey of Chicago-based local filmmaker, photographer and Vivian Maier archivist John Maloof. It was during John’s research in 2007 to co-author a book detailing the history of his neighbourhood, Portage Park in the north west of Chicago, that he first happened upon…

Scanner Even if your scanner is a few years old, it will still deliver decent results. In fact, new models can be picked up for under £100 if you want to give it a go. Light shield To help protect your scans from light leak when the scanner lid is raised, you’ll need a decent-sized box to place over your object – a shoebox is ideal for this, ideally lined with a dark fabric. Software Scanners come bundled with software to acquire the scan (for both Mac and PC), but you’ll still need an image-editing program like Photoshop or Elements to get the best from your scanned images.…

Jeffrey Eatley, USA Jeffrey has three main passions in life: image-making, travel and automobiles. What luck, then, that he’s often able to combine these three things into one package. Photography offers Jeffrey the ability to often make a subject appear even more striking than in the flesh – something particularly evident in his images featured here. Jeffrey is hoping to build a professional career in image-making and is always looking for ways to stretch and sometimes break the basic rules of photography. Bel Air 1 By getting in close to the interior of the car, Jeffrey has revealed the intricate craftsmanship Nikon D7000, 11-16mm, 1/200sec at f/11, ISO 200, studio flash Hummer 2 Jeffrey has shot this vehicle from a crouch position to achieve a foreboding atmosphere Nikon D7000, 35mm,…

Screen size With limited editing tools available for these tablets a large screen may not be a priority, but sharp screens that show faithful colours are great for showing your portfolio Image processing Lightroom is available for iOS and soon Android, while Photo Mate R2 for Android reads many file types. Meanwhile, WindowsÕ new Surface Pro tablet runs desktop software Storage capacity While the iPad's storage is limited to the amount offered by the model you purchase, the other tablets considered here have Micro SD slots allowing their storage to be expanded Calibration The Surface 2's display can be calibrated easily using a Microsoft set-up wizard. The other tablets need third-party software in order to make adjustments to their colour reproduction Photo editing Adobe Photoshop Touch, which allows for basic…

Hi-Fi EUROPEAN STEREO SYSTEM Marantz SA8005/PM8005 EUROPEAN DIGITAL SOURCE Sony HAP-Z1ES EUROPEAN HI-FI HEADPHONE OPPO PM-1 EUROPEAN HIGH-END AUDIO KEF Reference 5 EUROPEAN HIGH-END AUDIO SOLUTION Avantgarde Acoustic ZERO 1 EUROPEAN USB DAC ASUS Essence III EUROPEAN ANALOGUE SOURCE Pro-Ject Xtension 9 Evolution Superpack EUROPEAN COMPACT HI-FI SYSTEM JBL Authentics L16 EUROPEAN MULTIROOM SYSTEM Samsung M7 EUROPEAN HI-FI ACCESSORY iFi nano iDSD Hi-Fi/HT Audio EUROPEAN LOUDSPEAKER SYSTEM Bowers & Wilkins 683 S2 Theatre EUROPEAN ON-WALL LOUDSPEAKER SYSTEM DALI RUBICON LCR HT Audio EUROPEAN HT RECEIVER Pioneer VSX-924 EUROPEAN HT SOUNDBAR Focal Dimension EUROPEAN HT SOUNDBASE LG LAB540 EUROPEAN HT SOLUTION Philips Fidelio E5 EUROPEAN HT HIGH-END Yamaha CX-A5000/MX-A5000 HT Audio/HT Display & Video EUROPEAN BLU-RAY PLAYER Panasonic DMP-BDT700 HT Display & Video EUROPEAN FULL HD TV Samsung UE55H7000 EUROPEAN HIGH-END…

Ian Burley on a versatile DSLR based on the Nikon F80 LAUNCHED February 2004 PRICE AT LAUNCH £1,600 GUIDE PRICE TODAY £199 FUJIFILM always comes up with interesting technology and the S3 Pro with its unique Super CCD SR sensor underlines this. Using two photosites per pixel, the 6-million-pixel sensor had the same number of photosites as a 12-million-pixel sensor. The extra pixels were used to endow the S3 Pro with greater dynamic range – a good selling point to wedding photographers. What’s good In 6-million-pixel mode the S3 Pro delivers on its promise of significantly extra dynamic range, pulling detail out of seemingly burned-out highlights. Based on a Nikon body, the S3 Pro gives access to countless Nikon and third-party lenses. Colour reproduction is excellent. What’s bad Its 12-million-pixel…

THE FIRST reality show for fashion photographers, due to be screened this summer, has been put on hold until next year after the main presenter resigned – prompting a change in format. Former Vogue photographer Willie Christie, who was also the executive director of the show, has pulled out of the project, leaving the executive producers, Back to Front TV, looking for another presenter. The photographer did not give AP a reason for his resignation. The concept will now be widened to cover other areas of photography. For background, see AP 2 November 2013.…

DEMAND for compact system cameras rose 12.8% in the first half of 2014, as DSLR shipments fell 21.7%, compared to the same period last year. Global shipments of mirrorless interchangeable-lens models reached 1.49 million units, with value rising to 60.7 billion yen – 40% up on a year earlier, according to Japan’s Camera & Imaging Products Association. Although DSLRs still dominate the interchangeable-lens camera market, compact system cameras accounted for more than 23% of total shipments from January to June 2014. DSLR shipments over the six months were worth more than 211 billion yen (around £1.2 billion), based on shipments of 4.9m cameras. Total digital still camera shipments (including fixed-lens compacts) dropped 33.1%, with value falling 16.4%.…

Horst: Patterns from Nature by Martin Barnes, Merrell, £30, hardback, 103 pages, ISBN 978-1-85894-637-5 OFTEN the most fascinating thing about investigating the work of a photographer, particularly one you thought you knew, is when you discover a whole body of work that escaped your attention. This will likely be the case for a majority of readers skimming through this gem of a collection by fashion photographer Horst P Horst. During the mid-1940s, Horst set about documenting botanical specimens in close detail. His intention was to use these natural patterns for things such as wallpaper, textiles, jewellery and glass. Only nine of these beautiful images were seen in Horst’s lifetime, but now we have this wonderful volume revealing the complete unseen shots in all their splendour. The Photographer’s Playbook by Jason…

VIVIAN Maier’s first camera was a modest Kodak Brownie box camera that had one shutter speed, no aperture and no focus control. In 1952, she bought her first Rolleiflex camera. Over the course of her career, Vivian used a Rolleiflex 3.5T, Rolleiflex 3.5F, Rolleiflex 2.8C, Rolleiflex Automat and others. She later also used a Leica IIIc, an Ihagee Exakta, a Zeiss Contarex and various other models of SLR cameras. Despite Vivian’s various collections of cameras, it’s the Rolleiflex TLR that will most often be associated with her work. Its silent leaf shutter, waist-level finder and bright screen were ideal tools for her street photography. ‘The Rolleiflex is a great disguise camera,’ says Joel Meyerowitz in the film. ‘It isn’t a camera you hold up to your eye. You can keep…

1 Arrange objects Once you’ve fired up the scanner, make sure the surface is as clean as possible before you place your object on the glass, otherwise you’ll end up spending a lot of time retouching the image later in Photoshop. With that done, arrange your object. Avoid using heavy items as this can break the glass or mount. 2 Cut out light Leave the scanner lid upright and, if working at night, switch off all lights to avoid any light leaks. If you’re working in the day, use a box with a hole cut in the base to place over your object to avoid unwanted light encroaching on your scan. Ideally, you’ll line this with dark fabric, such as velvet. 3 Scanner set-up In this example, we’ll be using…

Seals Alex Birch Canon EOS 20D, 70-200mm, 1/400sec at f/10 THE ORDER in which the viewer looks at the elements in our pictures is something we should strive to control. We want them to see the main subject first, and then to pick up the background detail, the surrounding features that add information to the story. In Alex’s extremely cute picture of these seals, taken at Donna Nook in Lincolnshire, we need to see the pup first to know what the expression of the mother’s face might mean. Of course, we don’t know these are mother and pup, or what the expression on the mother’s face means – but that hardly matters, as we’ll all assume what we want. In Alex’s original there are three things for us to contemplate:…

Austria FotoObjektiv Editor: Klaus Lorbeer www.fotoobjektiv.at Belgium Shoot Editor: Erik Derycke www.shoot.be Czech Republic FotoVideo Editor: Rudolf Stáhlich www.ifotovideo.cz Finland Kamera-lehti Editor: Asko Vivolin www.kamera-lehti.fi France Chasseur d’Images Editor: Pascal Miele www.chassimage.com Germany FotoMagazin Editor: Thorsten Höge www.fotomagazin.de Greece PhotoNet Editor: Menelaos Meletzis/Konstantinos Floros www.nexusmedia.gr Hungary FotoVideo Magazin Editor: Sándor Benkõ www.fotovideo.hu Italy Tutti Fotografi Editor: Paolo Namias www.fotografia.it Netherlands Focus Editor: Dirk van der Spek www.focusmedia.nl Norway Fotografi Editor: Toralf Sandaker www.fotografi.no Poland Foto-Kurier Editor: Krzysztof Patrycy www.foto-kurier.pl Russia Foto & Video Editor: Vladimir Neskoromny www.foto-video.ru Spain Super Foto Digital Editor: Jorge Coma www.grupov.es Sweden Foto Editor: Jan Almlöf www.tidningenfoto.se United Kingdom Amateur Photographer Editor: Nigel Atherton www.amateur photographer.co.uk…

Email your questions to: apanswers@ipcmedia.com, via Twitter @AP_Magazine and #AskAP, or Facebook. Or write to Technical Support, Amateur Photographer Magazine, IPC Media, Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, London SE1 0SU Portrait shots Q I’m interested in getting a DSLR camera to shoot portraits and everyday shots, but I don’t want to spend too much. I don’t need video and don’t need the latest model. A friend has a Canon EOS 40D that she’s happy to sell cheaply. Is the EOS 40D still a good beginner’s camera? Luke Bingham A It’s refreshing to hear that you just want to take pictures and aren’t obsessed with having the very latest equipment. As you may already know, or soon discover, most camera bodies are updated almost yearly, so sometimes it’s wise to…

Pentax lens Pentax is poised to launch a new lens for its medium-format DSLRs. The HD Pentax-DA645 28-45mm f/4.5ED AW SR ‘ultra-wideangle’, has a 17-elements-in-12-groups build and is expected to cost £3,399.99 when it goes on sale in early September. The ‘dust-proof, weather-resistant’ lens is designed for use on a 645D or 645Z body. Scott free A bus driver sacked after he made a rude gesture to someone taking photographs of his vehicle was unfairly dismissed, Dundee Employment Tribunal has ruled. Scott McDonald, who was driving a National Express Dundee bus in August last year, was awarded £5,516.47. British Gold A British photographer has won a Gold Award in an international competition hosted by the Royal Photographic Society (RPS). William Lakin, a 22-year-old photographer based in Brighton, East Sussex, won…

LEICA has released a soft-release button to increase the size of the shutter button on its Leica M-series cameras. The button, which costs £35, also boasts the ability to double as one that can be worn on a lapel as a ‘buttonhole badge’. The soft-release button is available in a choice of three designs: a classic Leica logo (in red or chrome); a ‘limited’ edition to mark 100 years of Leica; or as a simple ‘M’. Leica claims it delivers ‘functionality and style in one’. For the latest news visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk…

People often tell me that they find it difficult to take good portrait photographs when they’re abroad. Approaching strangers and asking to photograph them, often with a language barrier, can be a daunting prospect. There are techniques and approaches I have developed over the ten years I have been photographing people overseas that can help you become confident as a travel portrait photographer. Many of the tips and techniques apply to portrait photography in general. There are three ways to create travel portraits. One is to interact with people that you meet while exploring a place. Another is to organise a shoot by paying models for their time, which involves some kind of meeting and prior planning. The third approach is to shoot without any interaction with the person in…

David Davenport Nikon D80, 18-200mm, 1/800sec at f/5.6, ISO 100 WE GET to see a lot of sports and action pictures, of people doing quite incredible things and putting their life in danger to perform some stunt or other. Seeing so many can make us immune to the wow factor of these events though. It is also true that, as enthusiast photographers, we try to recreate what the professionals would do – we isolate the action from the background and try to get a clear shot with no people or surroundings to distract the attention. Very often what emerges is an abstraction from life, and what has been left out of the scene is what would make the situation feel much more real, and impressive, to our audience. The reason…

Kingston MobileLite Wireless G2 £35 www.kingston.com/en WE’VE tested a few devices recently that allow you to view the contents of a memory card wirelessly, but the Kingston MobileLite Wireless G2 provides a few key features. As expected, the device has an SD card socket, which, when combined with its Wi-Fi technology and free Android, iOS or Kindle app, means that you can view the contents of the card on a smartphone or tablet. Conversely, it allows the contents of a tablet or smartphone to be copied to an SD card, saving you space on your device. The device is charged via a Micro USB connection, and a standard USB port is included to allow a USB flash drive to be used for image transfer. The MobileLite also allows media to…

AS CAMERAS, photographic equipment and consumer electronics in general get better and better, choosing the very best becomes ever more difficult. But that is the task undertaken every year by the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA), an association comprising 50 special-interest magazines in audio, home theatre, in-car electronics, mobile electronics, photo and video, from 20 European countries. Within this group sits the Photo Panel, composed of the Editors of Europe’s 16 best photographic magazines, including AP. Each year the EISA members get together within their panels to determine the very finest products released during the previous 12 months. Over the following pages we present the 19 products chosen by the Photo Panel as being the very best in their class. In more than half of the categories the choice…

WHAT YOU NEED 2in-diameter PVC pipe, rear lens cap, camera body cap, epoxy resin, sandpaper, craft knife, hacksaw, superglue, black cloth, drill EXTENSION tubes fit between your lens and camera, creating a wider spread of light that causes a larger image to be projected onto your sensor, much in the same way an image becomes larger as you move a projector further away from a wall. Extension tubes aren’t expensive, but you can make your own for around £5. How to… First, decide how long you want your extension to be. The longer it is, the greater the magnification, and greater the loss of light, so you will need a high sensitivity setting when taking images. Depth of field will be very shallow, so you will be using your smallest…

The pictures I choose for this column do not necessarily have to be set in context, as you can admire them just as great pictures. However, they drag their context with them. There is a sort of Hollywood quality to this one – you can imagine Indiana Jones at the forefront of the people entering the cave. It is from a series of pictures of sacred places in Haiti, where voodoo and Christianity mix. Many sites are sacred, to both Christian saints and voodoo deities, which are often regarded as having the same qualities. How did Cristina García Rodero take this picture? I don’t know. My suspicion is that it is early morning mist, spilling into the cave. I further suspect that she had already seen it at least once…