Innholdsfortegnelse for 27-sep-2014 i Amateur Photographer

I recently came across AP’s motto in our first-ever issue – Viresque acquirit eundo – a quote from Roman poet Virgil’s The Aeneid. Roughly translated, it means: ‘She gathers strength as she goes’. Our first issue was only 14 pages, and just like photography, we have developed and grown over the years. Looking for ways to evolve AP, we realised that you, our readers, could help shape our title, so that AP remains the UK’s best photographic magazine. At the centre of this week’s issue, you’ll find our reader survey, which I would ask you all to fill in and return to us. Alternatively, you can fill it in online at www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/survey. All entries will be included in a prize draw to win a Canon PowerShot SX520 HS, worth £299.…

In this image, taken by AFP and Getty photographer Vasily Maximov on 12 September 2014, a polar bear basks in the sun at Moscow Zoo. On 13-14 September, Moscow Zoo marked 150 years since being founded in 1864 by professor-biologists KF Rulje, SA Usov and AP Bogdanov, from Moscow State University. Moscow Zoo has more than 6,000 animals representing about 1,000 species, and covers an area of around 53 acres. The zoo has found itself in the news recently as Russia’s new trade sanctions againt the West currently ban many foodstuffs from being imported, meaning keepers are urgently seeking to replace the imported meat, fish, fruit and vegetables on which many of the animals depend. Words & numbers Unpredictability. Accidents. Not good when you’re engaging in, say, brain surgery, but…

When the original iPhone was launched in 2007, it was not only the first ‘real’ smartphone, but also cleared the way for mobile photography as we know it today. Yes, many phones had cameras before the iPhone, but only the Apple device’s touch interface and operating system enabled the development of apps like Instagram or on-device editing. Since then, the compact-camera market has been shrinking rapidly and iPhone models are consistently topping the most popular camera rankings on Flickr, a platform that used to be dominated by DSLR photography. In short, the original iPhone was as revolutionary for photography as it was for mobile communications. Now Apple has announced a new smartphone generation in the shape of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and when looking at the new devices…

Fearghal Breathnach, from Wicklow in Ireland, is the winner of round 6, Macro World, of APOY 2014. Fearghal will receive an Olympus OM-D E-M10 with a 14-42mm EZ Pancake zoom, a 45mm f/1.8 portrait lens, a 40-150mm zoom, a 9mm fisheye lens, a macro adapter and a street case in which to carry it all. That’s a total retail price of £1,200. The E-M10 has a 161-million-pixel, four thirds-sized CMOS sensor and a TruePic VII image-processing system. The 1.44-million-dot EVF displays a 100% field of view and has a 120fps refresh rate. The 14-42mm EZ Pancake zoom lens is a slim and compact optic that is equivalent to a 28-84mm lens in the 35mm format. The 45mm f/1.8 portrait optic is ideal for low-light people shots without flash, while the…

Email your questions to: apanswers@timeinc.com, Twitter @AP_Magazine and #AskAP, or Facebook. Or write to Technical Support, Amateur Photographer Magazine, Time Inc. (UK), Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, London SE1 0SU Squaring the circle Q If the camera lens is circular, then why do the pictures come out square? Navin K A The short answer is that the shape of the pictures we take today is a reflection of the sensors that record our images, not the lenses, which are circular because that shape optimises their light-gathering properties. But then that throws back the question: why are sensors not made circular to produce circular images? There are two possible answers. Firstly, our brains are used to processing the world in a horizontal format. Rectangular and square formats closely match a…

LAUNCHED 1964 PRICE AT LAUNCH Approx £81 14s 5d (with 50mm f/2.8 Zeiss Tessar lens) GUIDE PRICE TODAY £35-£65 (with 80mm Tessar lens); £15-£35 (body only) THE EXAKTA Varex IIb was the 1964 incarnation of the vast Exakta SLR system, which originated in Dresden in 1936 with the Kine-Exakta, the world’s first 35mm SLR camera. Exakta equipment had a huge following in the scientific community and among advanced amateur photographers, many of whom still use their Exaktas. What’s good Solid reliability and precision. Shutter speeds of 12-1/1000sec, variable delayed action times. Interchangeable viewfinders, screens and lenses. Huge range of Exakta bayonet-mount lenses and accessories available. Ready availability second-hand. What’s bad Difficult to get accustomed to: wind and fire with left hand, focus with right; load film right to left, complex…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Subjective creativity A couple of my fellow AP readers recently voiced their frustration at photographers who they see as being uninspired in their choice of subject or style. They are not alone in their feelings. I, too, have on numerous occasions sat back with a feeling of ‘Groundhog Day’ and a sense of deflation. It is very hard to be truly original. We all copy, create, emulate our peers and inspirations, it’s inevitable. We should also bear in mind that an image, which to our eyes may seem little more than a pastiche, could in fact be the photographer in question’s first attempts at this subject; a symbolic personal achievement. The reality is there are only so many subjects and styles available. Yes, you may say…

Extending the canvas area GUY PILKINGTON informs us that he took this photograph of a street sweeper on a recent trip to Cuba. It would have been nice if we could have seen more of the man’s face, but the photograph still works well and has a lot of charm about it as it is. I especially like the rich colours, the texture of the walls and the doorway. My only criticism is that the composition could have benefitted from having a bit more space. Of course, it is entirely possible that there was no option to include more space either side. However, with this particular travel image, one can use Content-Aware Scaling, (see page 36) to add more space either side of the image without distorting the key areas…

The design of the Nikon 1 V3 seemed to be an about-face from its predecessor. While the V2 had been designed to appear as a miniature DSLR, albeit a rather angular one, the V3 looks much like any mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera, essentially a plain box with a lens on the front and an LCD on the back. The built-in, eye-level viewfinder of the V1 and V2 had gone, replaced with a detachable electronic finder, fitting into the accessory shoe at the top. Similarly, the big, blocky, built-in grip of the V2 has been replaced with an add-on grip. At first sight, this appears to be a radical change, but I sense the development of a theme by the industrial designers involved. Often it is assumed that the design and specification…

Cine lens A new 10mm micro four thirds cine lens is released alongside a 77mm 0.4-1.8 variable ND filter. The SLR Magic lens offers a 20mm focal length (in 35mm terms) and an aperture equivalent to around f/1.8-1.9. It includes focus gearing and a silent, ‘clickless’ aperture ring. The 10mm T2.1 HyperPrime is due at the end of October, priced £699. Wikimedia mission Wikimedia Commons is seeking photographers willing to supply openly licensed photographs of cultural heritage sights and significant historic buildings for its September competition. Prizes include a trip to Wikimania in Mexico City. Visit www.wikilovesmonuments.org.uk. Android Olloclip Olloclip’s mobile photography lenses are no longer only for iPhones, following the launch of 4-in-1 Photo Lenses for Samsung Galaxy smartphones. The Olloclip 4-in-1 boasts four lenses: a fisheye, a wideangle…

David Tipling David is one of the most widely published wildlife photographers in the world. His pictures have been used on hundreds of book and magazine covers. www.davidtipling.com Out of the water they resemble beached torpedoes; below the surface, seals are the sleek ballerinas of the seas. In Britain, our two breeding species – the harbour or common seal and the grey seal – are popular subjects with photographers. In summer, harbour seals come to shore to pup, usually from June. The adults then remain on the beach to moult, with good numbers remaining ashore, often until mid-September. Grey seals pup a little later, in autumn. In Cornwall, seal births start in August, and as you move clockwise around the coast of the British Isles, pupping periods become progressively later.…

£473 www.g-technology.com At a glance • Two 1TB USB 3.0 drives• Transfer data up to 10Gb/s• Compatible with all other G-Drive ev products BACKING UP and storing important image data is a critical requirement in any photographer’s workflow. The G-Dock ev Thunderbolt drive from G-Technology provides expandable storage, with two interchangeable drives that can be configured either as Raid 0 or Raid 1. With Raid 0, your data is split across the two drives, boosting performance. The drawback is that if one drive fails, the whole system can be affected and, in the worst-case scenario, vital data could be corrupted. Alternatively, the mirrored Raid 1 drive configuration means that if one drive fails, you have a copy of the data on the other drive – though you will be halving your capacity from…

PlayMemories The PlayMemories mobile app from Sony allows you to shoot wirelessly and transfer images to compatible smartphones and tablets. Dual video Record full HD 1920 x 1080-pixel video while simultaneously recording in MP4 codec. Front-facing screen Taking self-portraits is made much easier thanks to the Alpha 5100’s 180° flip screen. E mount Making use of Sony’s E-mount lens family, this is one of the world’s smallest interchangeable-lens cameras with an APS-C-sized sensor. Touchscreen Touch-focusing and shooting is highly responsive, but it is limited to shooting only. Apps Downloadable apps via the in-camera PlayMemories menu can expand the functionality of the camera, adding features such as time-lapse, star trail and motion shot.…

Is this surrealism? Not exactly. It’s a little girl dressed up as a late Victorian or Edwardian society beauty, photographed in formal studio style, in colour. Maybe it is surrealism, then. Little girls are one thing; society ladies in vintage sepia portraits are quite another – and colour is yet another again. Surrealism makes us look twice: it makes us wonder if we are really seeing what we think we are seeing. It combines familiar elements in unfamiliar ways. Why don’t little girls wear heavy make-up and elaborate hats? Did they ever do so? Why at one time did big girls wear heavy make-up and elaborate hats? Why did they (mostly) drop the hats? In its nature, surrealism is multifaceted. It cannot be otherwise. It makes a living, as it…