Innholdsfortegnelse for 16-Apr-2016 i Amateur Photographer

I’m sure, like many of you, I often cite a lack of time as the reason I don’t get out with my camera as much as I would like to. Family life, domestic chores, and my 3-4 hour daily commute all seem to get in the way. It’s no coincidence that, often, people only take up hobbies such as photography once their kids have grown up and left the nest. Sometimes, when I do get the time, I’d rather just put my feet up and relax. Does this all sound familiar? So when I come across the likes of Russ Barnes, who has managed to put together a great set of pictures of an unlikely subject – pigeons – entirely in his lunch breaks, I feel a little guilty about…

A NEW range of manual-focus lenses for DSLRs has been unveiled, aimed at both photo enthusiasts and professionals. Combining Swiss design with ‘Korean precision', the 15mm f/2.4 and 11mm f/4 will be launched by Irix. The first lens in the range – out in spring – is the 15mm f/4, which is weather-sealed and designed for disciplines such as photojournalism, landscapes and architecture. Suitable for full-frame DSLRs, the 15-elementsin-11-groups lens features a nine-blade aperture diaphragm and close focusing down to 0.28m. The two versions will both be available in Canon EF, Nikon F and Pentax K mounts: ‘Blackstone', made of aluminium and magnesium ( E 695), and a lighter version called ‘Firefly' ( E 475). UK prices are to be confirmed. Subscribe to Amateur Photographer SAVE 35%* Visit amateurphotographer…

Kate Hopewell-Smith Kate worked in creative industries and following a move out of London to raise her children, she studied photography as a hobby, which developed into a full-time business. She is a Nikon UK Ambassador and from September 2016 will be leading an intensive six-month professional photography foundation programme. www.trainingbylumiere.co.uk At the beginning of their photography journey, many people become obsessed with f-stops, shutter speeds and ISO sensitivities, thinking that mastering exposure will result in images with impact. However, this approach deals with the technical side of photography rather than the ideas and creative side. What’s missing is knowledge about composition and visual perception, which relates to how our eyes and brain work together to understand the visual whole. I studied history of art at university, learning the principles…

We use the cameras and the lenses that we can afford, or in some cases, we overstretch ourselves to buy the latest model that has better low-light performance, more pixels, or a new improved video mode. Few amateur photographers have the budget, or can justify spending thousands on the latest equipment, but we make choices. Pick a favourite photo, the year, and now look at the best photographs from that year. I have always liked the 2010 Taylor Wessing Portrait Photography winner ‘Huntress with Buck' by David Chancellor (above right). It is somewhat controversial, showing a 14-year-old girl on horseback with a buck she has killed. But it is striking, and I would be very happy if I could capture something similar. It was shot on film, in medium format,…

1 Observe your subject Observation is critical. Behaviour can be very predictable indeed, but it only becomes so if you spend time observing your subject, and understanding their traits. I spent more than two years casually observing these pigeons before I started photographing them. 2 Consider perspective I managed to entice the birds onto the top of some steps so I could get shots at ground level without having to lie down to do so. This also created an entirely different perspective from the usual overhead images, giving the feel that I was right among them. 3 Get close If you want to really engage your observer, wide angles are a fantastic way to put your audience in the story. I worked hard to try to make certain images feel…

Glaswegian photographer Dougie Wallace has gained a reputation as one of the UK’s leading street photographers. Known for his brash and bright portraits of drunken revellers on the streets of Shoreditch in London and Blackpool, and he has a distinct style that is garish and raw, leaving nothing to the imagination. For his project Road Wallah , Dougie turned his attention to the streets of Mumbai in India, and its black and yellow cabs, the Premier Padmini taxi. First introduced to Mumbai in the 1960s, these brightly adorned vehicles, with their psychedelic and patterned interiors, were once omnipresent, the streets heaving with the sight and sound of more than 60,000 cabs. It was over a four-year period, with more than 17 visits to Mumbai, that Dougie gave the taxi drivers…

How to change the white balance THIS photograph, by Anthony Jackson, was taken using a Ricoh Caplio GX100 at 15secs, f/2.7 and 100 ISO. Because the photograph was underexposed by 2 stops, it required a lot of lightening in post-production, which exaggerated the native noise signature. Under the circumstances, it might have been better to set the ISO setting to 400 and shoot using the same exposure. The main thing I wanted to show here was how adjusting the white balance setting for a raw image can dramatically affect the appearance of the photograph. 1 Apply Basic panel tone corrections The first step was to lighten the image. I opened the photo in Camera Raw and lightened the Exposure, setting this to +2.45. I set the Highlights slider to -100…

Fujifilm X-T1 Sensor: 16.3 million pixels ISO: 100-51,200 (extended) Price: £800 (body only) Fujifilm’s 16.3-million-pixel X-T1 looks great and handles superbly. It is the closest we have come to using a manual DSLR. It produces fantastic images, with great colour, but lacks the image resolution, shooting rate and speedy AF of the Alpha 6300. Olympus OM-D E-M1 Sensor: 16.3 million pixels ISO: 200-25,600 (extended) Price: £850 (body only) Olympus’ Micro Four Thirds system OM-D E-M1 camera has fast autofocus and an excellent 5-axis image-stabilisation system. However, it has a lower 16.3-million-pixel resolution and lacks the advanced video features of the Alpha 6300. Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX8 Sensor: 20.3 million pixels ISO: 100-25,600 (extended) Price: £650 (body only) Like the E-M1, the GX8 also uses an MFT-sized sensor, but with a higher…

THE MY Cloud EX2 Ultra works with Western Digital's My Cloud mobile app, which lets you access all of your files while on the move. It's possible to browse by type (either all files, photos, music, or videos), then download those you want. One particularly neat feature for photographers is Western Digital's Photos app for iOS and Android, which is optimised for showing photos. This allows you to browse through the drive and display slideshows of your images on your phone or tablet, with a clean, attractive interface and black background. Small thumbnails are loaded first, but you can download full-sized images if you want. This means that you can show any of your stored photos to friends, family or clients wherever you have a network connection, without having to…

1 Nikon AF-S Nikkor 400mm f/2.8 E FL ED VR This Nikon has replaced my 600mm lens. I switched for its lightness and flexibility with the addition of converters, so I can isolate subjects at 800mm, and show more habitat at 400mm. The AF and sharpness are superb. 2 Swarovski EL 8x32 When I go out with my camera, I always take my binoculars. It’s easier to use binoculars than a lens to find subjects, as they are lighter than a 400mm f/2.8. It is also nice to put down a camera and just watch what is unfolding in front of you. 3 Nikon TC-20E III teleconverter A benefit of having an f/2.8 lens is that it works well with both the Nikon 1.4x and 2x teleconverters. I find the…

Festivals from across the world have always provided ample fodder for travel photographers, largely owing to their often religious associations or, in the case of an event such as the Holi Festival, its astounding visual impact. In this image we find an Indian child smeared with coloured powder taking part in the Holi Festival celebrations in Mathura, India, last month. Holi, the festival of colours, is a riotous celebration of the coming of spring and falls on the day after the full moon in March each year. Revellers spray coloured powder and water on each other with great gusto, while adults extend the hand of peace. In recent times, the festival has traversed the world (you can catch it in London this August). While the spiritual edge may become lost,…

Durst is a name usually associated with darkroom equipment, particularly enlargers. The chances are, anyone who used a school or club darkroom from the1960s onwards will have come across the name. Less well known are the Durst cameras. Four were made, two rollfilm and two 35mm, and all of them quite different in design. Nowadays, we don't bat an eyelid at the thought of an automatic exposure system, but back in the1950s, when Julius Durst designed this camera, automatic exposure control was very much at the leading edge of post-Second World War camera design. Legend has it that the young Durst got his inspiration while tinkering with some electronics he found in the wreckage of a US fighter plane that had been shot down near his native Bressanone-Brixen, in the…

You answered A Yes 27% B No 30% C It depends on the type of drone or circumstances 43% What you said ‘Only professional photographers who fully understand and comply with the relevant regulations should be using drones and they should be licensed’ ‘I think there is a case for licensing drones and drone operators, with perhaps a requirement to pass a test of competency in their operation. An outright ban would be excessively totalitarian, though’ ‘I understand [licensing] is already the case, at least for commercial usage. Extending it to private use would be analogous to licensing for bicycle riders’ ‘Of course they shouldn’t be banned. These restrictions being placed on remote-controlled quad copters are slowly destroying a very popular hobby and industry’ ‘I think they should be licensed…

Russ Barnes A dedicated British landscape photographer, Russ tries to infuse an artistic approach into his photography and packs lots of different creative approaches into his work. Here, he takes a break from his usual subject matter in order to test his skills and create something different. See more on his website www.russbarnes.co.uk . Last autumn was a mixed bag for photographers, depending, as always, on where you lived in the UK. From my base in the Midlands it didn’t go well, and given my landscape photographer credentials that was something of a disaster. Weeks of dense cloud and endless rain ultimately resulted in record floods across parts of the country. When you build up the possibilities of a new season in your mind, it can often lead to disappointment…

Justin Minns Justin is a professional landscape photographer specialising in atmospheric images of East Anglia, as well as running workshops in the region. www.justinminns.co.uk THE NORTH Norfolk coast is a wonderful mix of endless sandy beaches fringed with windswept dunes, acres of wide-open salt marsh teeming with wildlife, picturesque harbours, fishing boats, flint cottages and, of course, big skies. Thornham is a small village on the edge of the salt marsh on the western end of the coast. It has a sleepy harbour that's all but deserted, and features a photogenic coal barn and a scattering of boats moored along the creek that meanders its way from here across the marsh to the sea. Access Part of the charm of the north Norfolk coast is its relative isolation. Thornham lies…

Stags, Hens & Bunnies, A Blackpool Story Published by Dewi Lewis, £28 Dougie takes to the walkways of Blackpool to capture the often hedonistic and oddly captivating stag and hen dos that stagger through the town’s neon-soaked streets. Through his lens, the subjects’ rites of passage take on a strange quality that is at once repulsive but also strangely alluring. Shoreditch Wild Life Hoxton Mini Press, second-hand prices vary London’s Shoreditch is a strange melting pot of the painfully hip and fashionably old. Dougie’s images reveal a strange and decadent ‘interzone’ that hosts a variety of cultures, generations and ethnic backgrounds. You may need to do a little searching around to get hold of this compact book, which is now out of print, but it’s worth it. AP 7 July…

Lastolite Circular Bottletop Reflector 120cm kit Elasticated edges The elasticated edges are more durable than zips and help when putting the covers on and taking them off. Carry case With the 5-in-1, you can fold the whole thing into a carry case for easy transportation. • £79 • www.lastolite.com Callum McInerney-Riley tries out a multi-purpose reflector that’s perfect for portraits At a glance • Lastolite 5-in-1 120cm diffuser with sunfire, silver, gold and white bottletops FOR portrait, studio and still-life photographers, a reflector is a must-have piece of kit, whether you're shooting inside or out. I take a reflector to most of my shoots, and the Lastolite Circular Bottletop Reflector 120cm kit is about as useful as they come. It comes with two reversible covers and the main body of…

USB power So long as there is a battery fitted, the Alpha 6300 can also be powered via USB. Flash The built-in flash has a guide number of 6m @ ISO 100. The Alpha 6300 is also compatible with Sony’s range of wireless flashguns. Battery As usual for its E-mount cameras, Sony has used the NP-FW50 battery in the Alpha 6300. This is good for 350 shots with the EVF, 400 shots with the rear screen or approx 75mins of video using the LCD screen. Micro HDMI The Alpha 6300 has a Micro HDMI socket for video output. It can capture 8-bit 4:2:2 video via this socket. Quick Wi-Fi access When in playback mode, pressing the Fn button allows you to quickly send an image to your phone over Wi-Fi.…

WITH the Sony Alpha 6000 being one of the company's most popular cameras of recent years, the Alpha 6300 has a lot to live up to. Thankfully, it more than lives up to its predecessor and takes Sony's next-generation APS-S-sensor E-mount cameras to the next level. The physical size and shape of the body remain largely the same, although we would have liked a front control dial, and we are starting to sound like a broken record asking for a touchscreen in the premium Sony E-mount cameras. This would make it so much easier to focus and be fantastic for focus-pulling when shooting video, particularly with the advantage of the 425 phase-detection AF points. But there are some significant improvements to the body, notably the weather-sealing, and the strengthened lens…

I HAVE experimented with various approaches for storing my image files, but ultimately they all seem to end up on a stack of hard drives on my desk. Some find their way onto Flickr and Facebook, and others I share via Dropbox, but the majority are inaccessible when my computer is turned off. What's great about the Western Digital My Cloud EX2 Ultra is the way it kills so many birds with one stone. The RAID1 configuration gives the security of a duplicate copy of every file, and you can plug in a portable hard drive periodically to produce another back-up. Organise your favourite photos into albums and in effect you get your own private photo-sharing service. You don't necessarily even have to copy images across yourself, as the WD…

LAUNCHED 1958 PRICE WHEN NEW £242 4s 9d (£242.24) AP Annual Camera Guide GUIDE PRICE TODAY £450-£500 THE 500C differed radically from preceding Hasselblads. Instead of using a focal-plane shutter, each of its interchangeable lenses included its own Synchro Compur shutters that synchronised with electronic flash at all speeds. Along with the Carl Zeiss 80mm f/2.8 Planar, this put the 500C at the top of the professional market. An auxiliary shutter at the focal plane prevented light from reaching the film when focusing. When the shutter button was pressed, the Synchro Compur (which had been open for focusing) closed, the aperture stopped down, the mirror swung up, the auxiliary shutter opened and, finally, the Synchro Compur opened and closed to make the exposure. When the button was released, the auxiliary…

This photograph reminds me of the so-called ‘naïve’ paintings of Henri Rousseau (1844-1910), and even though I know it’s a bison I always remember it as a rhinoceros. This is perhaps a tribute to its combination of formalism and surrealism. Formally, the image is divided into four: vertically by the river and twin-trunk tree, and horizontally by the base of the woods and the steam on the right. Formalism was very much a feature of Rousseau’s work. There is classical symbolism, too: bright clouds of steam (fire and air) providing a diagonal counterweight to the dark mass of the bison (earth and water). The surrealism is harder to define. Part of the surrealism here is the steam. Until you have seen the steam of hot springs, it is barely imaginable…

Super Stopper Photographers can exploit the creative benefits of long-exposure photography using the new Super Stopper, fresh from Lee Filters. The Lee Filters Super Stopper filter is designed to allow a 30sec exposure to be achieved from a 1/1000sec exposure, for example. The Super Stopper costs from £70.45. For details visit www.leefilters.com. McCullin gong War ace Don McCullin has won a photo award at a ceremony in Dubai, UAE. McCullin bagged the Photographic Research/Report Award at the Hamdan International Photography Awards (HIPA), which is committed to encouraging and supporting art, culture and innovation in Dubai. Closure plan denial The Science Museum has denied it plans to close its Media Space gallery, a collaboration with the National Media Museum in Bradford, this year, following a claim published in The Guardian last…

SONY has confirmed the April launch of a 50mm f/1.8 and a 70-300mm full-frame lens for its E-mount system. The move expands Sony's full-frame E-mount lens family to 20. Sony's 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G OSS – the first E-mount to carry a 300mm focal length – features two ED lens elements, a minimum focusing distance of 0.9m, maximum magnification of 0.31x, plus a Nano AR coating to minimise distortion. Built to be dust and moisture-resistant, the £1,150 newcomer also features built-in Optical SteadyShot image stabilisation. Sony also says the lens delivers ‘beautiful bokeh'. Aimed squarely at photo enthusiasts and videographers, Sony's new FE 50mm f/1.8 prime lens is priced at £240. For the latest news visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk…

Wideangle lens The first lens that most photographers would pack for wildlife would be a telephoto, but pigeons allow you to get really close so a wideangle is fantastic fun. Bread If you want to get close to city pigeons, there is one way that’s guaranteed to win you friends: food. Loaves of bread are cheap and allow you to be embedded in the action. Camera I used a Nikon Df DSLR, and mainly smaller prime lenses, to shoot the project. I figured it was a less intimidating package. It didn’t seem to spook the birds, anyway. Filters Remember to take options such as a polariser or ND filter. Slowing shutter speeds below 1/2sec ensures that you can record the flow of movement, rather than purely static captures. Recognisable jacket…

Tripod In low light, a tripod is a must for ensuring sharp shots at low ISOs, but even more so if you’re working at low angles when it always seems harder to keep the horizon straight. Filters A set of ND graduated filters will help your camera cope with the high dynamic range when shooting around the hours of sunrise and sunset. A hard grad is ideal for the clear horizons here. Wideangle lens Although a standard zoom such as a 24-70mm is useful at Thornham, I find that a wideangle lens gives you the option of getting closer and making more of any interesting foregrounds.…

Craig Boehm, Canada Craig has always been interested in severe weather and in 2012 he went on his very first storm chase, shooting photos with a Fujifilm FinePix camera. He was lucky enough to witness an amazing storm on this chase, but the photos were rather less than desired. At this point Craig decided he would definitely need to upgrade his gear along with his photography skills. Six months later he bought his first DSLR and has not looked back since. Craig loves to shoot extreme weather due to the unique challenge it brings. No two storms are the same, and with ever-changing lighting he really has to be on his game to get that perfect shot. Saskatchewan The light grass contrasts beautifully against the bruised sky in this Southern…

Phottix 5-in-1 Premium Triangle Reflector 80cm £32, www.phottix.com Due to the shape, the Phottix 5-in-1 Premium Triangle Reflector 80cm is ideal for portraits, especially for lightening under the chin when taking a headshot. It has two handles, making it easy to hold in position. Interfit 5-in-1 Reflector 56cm £24.99, www.interfitphotographic.com Although smaller than the Lastolite reflector, the Interfit 5-in-1 does boast black, white, silver, gold and shoot-through translucent. Covers attach via zips and it comes with a carry case. Sunbounce Pro Silver/White £310.99, www.sunbounce.com/en/home.html At the top end of reflectors is the California Sunbounce. The large reflectors are designed primarily for professional photographers, built to the highest standard possible and commonly used for high-end portrait shooting.…

WHILE the Sony Alpha 6300 has a 24.2-million-pixel APS-C sensor that is largely the same as that in the Alpha 6000, what most Alpha 6300 users should consider is the lenses they are using with the camera We tested the Alpha 6300 with the Sony16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 Power Zoom, the Zeiss16-70mm f/4 and the new Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lenses. The difference in quality when using the latter two lenses produces far sharper images. Sony could do with a few more premium lenses in its APS-C E-mount line-up. Raw images have a good level of detail, and when editing them using the latest version of Adobe Camera Raw, I found that colour, sharpness and noise levels can all be easily controlled. However, Sony tends to be a bit heavy handed with its…

Swappable drives Opening the top gives easy access to the hard disks if they need to be replaced. Dual USB 3.0 This allows external drives to be attached for additional storage or back-up. LAN socket This connects directly to your router using an ethernet cable. Status lights Front-plate LEDs indicate operational status and disk health. At a glance • Network Attached Storage (NAS) drive • Twin mirrored hard drives (RAID 1) • Supports multiple users • Gives remote access to files via My Cloud • Available disk-free or in 4TB, 8TB, 12TB and 16TB capacities • £245-£803 depending on capacity (£135 disk-free) • www.wd.com/en If you're anything like me and have been using digital cameras almost since they first appeared, chances are you'll have a large number of precious image…

Locating 6x6cm mounts Q I use a Minolta Autocord twin-lens reflex and a Mamiya RB67 that take 120 film and I am trying to find a supply of 6x6cm transparency mounts – plastic or card glassless. Darlington in Co Durham, my nearest town, has no photographic shops other than Max Spielmann and Boots, both of which have been unable to assist. Can you help? ME Harris A It’s great to hear you are still shooting 120mm film on your excellent RB67 and Minolta TLR. I’ve found two suppliers of 6x6cm transparency mounts. The first is Speed Graphic Ltd, Unit 4 Woodlea Park, Station Approach, Four Marks, Alton, Hampshire GU34 5AZ. Website: www.speedgraphic.co.uk. Telephone number: 01420 560 066. Open Mon-Fri, 8.30am-5.30pm. Firstcall Photographic Ltd, Cherry Grove Rise, West Monkton, Taunton, Somerset…

One of the odd things about terminology is the way it sometimes flips around. Over the past dozen years or so, ‘digital' photography has become ubiquitous, and the previous type of photography – using silver halide emulsions as the ‘sensor' – is called ‘analogue' to differentiate between the two. In fact, ‘digital' photography is, in some ways, more analogue than silver halide. Digital photography measures the amount of light (an ‘analogue' measurement) in each of an array of regularly shaped pixels. Silver halide photography depends on grains, which are either darkened or not, according to whether photons have hit them. A grain can only be black (reduced to silver) or transparent, so this is an on-off way of building an image. Both film and silicon sensors make use of the…