Innholdsfortegnelse for 01-Aug-2015 i Amateur Photographer

Summer is a strange time for photographers. It’s the season when most of us have the greatest amount of time off to pursue our hobby, and yet various factors conspire to make it difficult to come away with many great shots. For those of us with school-age children or grandchildren, summer is also family time, which often means going to places that may not be our first choice for photography. Second, summer light is harsh and unflattering for most subjects, unless we shoot at either end of the day, but this entails getting up very early or staying up quite late. Fortunately, despite these hurdles, it is possible to get great pictures during the summer – whatever your preferred genre. This week our features and technique editor Phil Hall has…

NIKON has warned D750 users that the shutter may not work properly. In some cameras, made in October and November 2014, the fault can result in ‘shading of a portion of images'. Nikon has urged customers to check their camera's seven-digit serial number to see if it is one of the affected models, and has pledged to repair the shutter free of charge. A spokesperson for Nikon UK said: ‘We're very sorry for any inconvenience that this might cause. ‘While the number of cameras affected is small, we are taking proactive action to minimise any potential future issues.' Nikon UK declined to say how many of the faulty cameras have reached Europe or the UK. To find out if your camera has one of the serial numbers affected, visit http://advisory.nikonrepair.eu/Language_…

Freeloader CamCaddy 2 universal charger • £20 • www.solartechnology.co.uk This handy universal battery charger makes it possible to charge the block-style batteries many cameras use. While the original CamCaddy had issues with build quality, the CamCaddy 2 has a much better design than its predecessor. A highlight of its overhaul is that it now features a Micro USB power input. This allows users to charge their camera batteries with a cable attached to any kind of USB power source, including power banks, laptops, USB plugs and even some car chargers. For long summer days out travelling between shoots, it's a very useful alternative to carrying loads of spare batteries. Olympus Stylus Tough TG-4 • £300 • www.olympus.co.uk If you're heading to the beach, wading through water, doing any kind of…

Do you own a 50mm lens? You answered… A Yes 80%B No 13% CYes, if a 50mm equivalent counts 7% What you said ‘I did have the Canon EF 50 f/1.4 USM, but sold it to help fund my EF 24-70mm f/2.8L. I’m tempted to pick up the new Canon 50mm STM, though’ ‘I started photography back in 1987 and have had a 50mm ever since. My current one is the SMC Pentax-DA 50mm f/1.8. I also regularly use a Pentax-DA 40mm. I value the extra speed and sharpness over a zoom’ ‘I have three, one is the Minolta MD Macro Rokkor-X 100mm f/3.5’ ‘I’m a Leica film user and a Leica 50mm f/2 Summicron M is obligatory. I have a couple for the Nikon film SLRs and DSLRs. Why…

Concentrating the focus THE MAIN interest in this photograph by Gordon Clark is the young boy playing the guitar, with his dog fast asleep behind him. With a shot like this it might help to include passers-by in order to tell a more complete story or add interest, but I don't think the woman captured in this shot adds anything to the composition, especially as she is walking away from the boy and not engaged with him in any way. For this reason I reckon the photograph could be improved by applying a tighter crop so that the focus is solely on the boy and his guitar. In my view, the cropped version transforms the photograph completely and works much better. 1 Crop the image In this first step, I…

FROM cine film to analogue video, the enthusiast photographer has always been able to shoot moving images. Just as with photography, digital technology has changed the way enthusiasts can shoot video. Almost every digital stills camera is now capable of shooting video, and many of these cameras can produce footage that is of broadcast quality. Computers have also had an impact, as editing software that was once the preserve of the professional can now be found on the most basic computer, or even a smartphone. On top of that, the internet, and websites like YouTube, allow us to share our video creations with the world. Yet videography can be a daunting place. There's a new range of formats to use and acronyms to understand, as well as composition and exposure…

THIS tutorial session is essential for amateurs who would like to learn the basics of filmmaking with a DSLR or compact system camera, and will cover everything you need to know to get more out of that red record button. Expert videographer Simeon Quarrie will provide you with the technical and practical skills needed to start shooting high-quality video, including: Setting up your camera for optimum results Essential shooting skills The importance of high-quality audio Lunch will be provided and, as an added bonus, you’ll have the chance to get hands on with the latest Canon equipment. PLUS 10 lucky attendees could also win an exclusive practical afternoon session, to put their new-found skills into practice. To secure your place on this not-to-be-missed learning opportunity, please email afoyevent@timeinc.com with the…

A few years ago, I rekindled a love of photography that I'd first discovered as a child. With my new Fujifilm FinePix S1730, I started taking photographs of practically anything that caught my eye, eagerly posting them on internet sites and awaiting praise or ‘likes.' Not long afterwards, I purchased a Fujifilm FinePix HS10 because, at least in my mind, it was the next ‘must-have' camera. Did it improve my photographs? Well, no, not really. Since then, I've bought quite a few must-haves, including a Nikon D90, a Nikon D5100 and my latest camera, a Nikon D7100. Yes, my photography has improved no end, but – I hasten to add – not because of the cameras. Instead, it's because I've studied photography in more depth. I recently looked back with…

Film fan I love the hipsters! I owe them thanks for helping make film a ‘thing' again. I bought three colour films from Poundland (I think you can guess how much they cost per roll) and now I am on my way to my local Boots in Croydon to drop off some rolls for one-hour developing. I encourage film fans to take advantage of film becoming cheap and easy once again. I'll bet many readers still own their film cameras, or would perhaps like to try a Lomography camera. It's a great feeling when someone hands you developed prints – no eye strain shifting tiny sliders in Lightroom. Lisa Singh, Greater London Film has indeed enjoyed a resurgence of interest recently, mostly from young people under 25 who have grown…

You may remember that in AP 23 May we broke the story of how Time Inc UK rediscovered an exceptionally rare collection of portraits and on-set photographs of various stars of music, entertainment and sport. All the original negatives had remained unseen since their publication in TV Times magazine some 50 years earlier. The collection was host to a variety of images of stars like Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, The Beatles and Diana Rigg, as well as some images taken by superstar photographers Helmut Newton, Cecil Beaton and David Bailey. After a bit of detective work, we can reveal that one of the TV Times staff photographers was Rod Ebdon. Rod has spent the past four decades working his way through pretty much all aspects of photography, including magazine, broadcast,…

STREET photography is as popular as it ever was and is easily accessible to most photographers. Even if you don't live in a street alongside other people, you almost certainly travel to, and work in, places where the rich tapestry of street life chugs on like a well-oiled machine. All you have to do is photograph it, and show the rest of the world what happens in that location. There can be a great temptation to head to the biggest, most bustling place you can find, but you don't need to. Street pictures can be shot as easily beside the quiet and seemingly empty village post office as they can among the maddening crowds streaming past the Bank of England. This round is about capturing the atmosphere of a place,…

3 Legged Thing EVO3 Punks Rick Quick release The square quick-release plate is compatible with Peak Design capture clips and is Arca Swiss compatible. Weight The carbon-fibre legs ensure this is a lightweight set of sticks. On the scales it weighs 1.1kg. Monopod This orange anodised ring indicates the leg that can be unscrewed and used as a monopod. Parallel locks The TPR 80 parallel locks ensure that the leg locks don’t totally unscrew. £199 www.3leggedthing.com Michael Topham puts 3 Legged Thing’s latest carbon-fibre travel tripod to the test At a glance Maximum working height: 140.6cm Minimum working height: 19.5cm Closed folded length: 34cm Supports up to 20kg with leg locks set at 23° 3 LEGGED Thing is a company known for its quirky product names and the latest addition…

Mode dial Unlike the 750D’s mode dial found on the right of the top-plate, the 760D’s mode dial is positioned on the left with the on/off switch beneath. It’s of the locking type and requires the central button to be depressed to rotate it. Battery The rechargeable Li-Ion LP-E17 battery is rated for 440 shots on a single charge. Canon produces the BG-E18 battery grip too (£99) that accommodates two LP-E17 batteries and helps to improve vertical shooting. LCD display Although it’s petite, the top-plate LCD displays all the important information you’ll want, including ISO, shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation (-2EV to +2EV), battery life and the number of shots remaining on the card. Connectors Microphone, HDMI, remote release and an A/V out port are found at the side of…

1 Nikon D600 This isn’t the flagship camera from Nikon by any means but its exceptional image quality, small size and minimal weight mean it is perfect when I’m handholding it all day on long shoots. 2 Nikon AF Nikkor 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 I’ve had this lens for nearly as long as I’ve been shooting, and although I’ve acquired numerous other lenses along the way I keep coming back to this one. It’s not the fastest lens out there, but its sharpness and sheer versatility of focal length mean it’s still the lens I use most to cover any eventuality. 3 Lensbaby Composer Pro with Sweet 50 optic lens Sometimes you just want to add a little interest to your shots and there haven’t been many shoots in recent years that…

You have 24 hours to pack up all your belongings. After that you will be expelled from your country. Friends, or at least friends of friends, have been shot for resistance: for refusing to change their names; for continuing to speak the language of their ancestors, the language you share with them. In 1989 alone, more than 300,000 people take the hint and flee the country voluntarily. They become refugees: Bulgarians of Turkish origin, in refugee camps in Turkey. In due course, after the fall of Todor Zhivkov, more than half of them will return. Photographing refugees is heartrending. I know. I’ve done it. You want to help them personally. You can’t. There are simply too many of them, and there’s only one of you. No one knows exactly how…

IF YOU know how to expose a still photograph, then you know how to expose video. There is one important rule, the 180 ° shutter rule (see right), but the basics of aperture, shutter and sensitivity remain the same. Depending on the camera you're using, you may have the option to shoot a very low compression, or even raw video footage. This will give you much more flexibility when editing the video, and allow you to recover some shadow and possibly highlight detail. Generally, though, you want the footage to look as good straight out of the camera as you can, and this means avoiding blown-out highlight areas. Sensitivity Just as with stills photography, the higher the sensitivity, the less light is required to expose the frame. However, due to…

Hotshoe mic A mic can often be attached to your camera’s hotshoe. Although this is convenient, it may not always be the best place to put it. Mic input Unless you’re using a separate digital audio recorder, you’ll need a camera with a mic input to achieve good-quality audio with your video. Headphone output It’s important to be able to monitor the quality of the sound you’re recording, so a headphone port is a desirable feature. BUILT-IN microphones fitted to DSLRs and compact system cameras are fine for short personal clips of your holidays or the kids playing in the garden – subjects where the camera operator is also likely to be the narrator – but for anything more professional, the quality is woefully inadequate. Good sound quality is just…

Omnidirectional Lavalier mics (also know as a lav, lapel or clip mic) use this 360 ° polar pattern and can easily be placed on a presenter or interviewee. You can hear someone standing next to the speaker, as well as noise from the side, behind and below. Cardioid A cardioid microphone has the most sensitivity at the front and is least sensitive at the back. Cardioid microphones have more of a 300 ° polar pattern, which is useful for capturing audio from the front and sides of the microphone. Supercardioid These offer a narrower pick-up than cardioids and a greater rejection of ambient sound. They also have some pick-up directly at the rear, making it useful for interviews, as it saves time turning the microphone around every time a question…

WHEN filming on a DSLR, one of the most important skills you have to learn is how to keep your camera steady. With stills images a tripod or monopod is the obvious choice, and these supports also work with video cameras, but what do you do if you want moving footage? How do you keep your camera tracking or panning while ensuring the footage looks smooth? There are many tips, tricks and techniques for this and, in fact, there's a whole industry based around supporting your camera. Tripods If you're just starting out, try using a standard camera tripod. Remember that when you're shooting video, you should apply the same principles as you would if you were shooting a long-exposure image. To keep the footage completely steady and free from…

Panasonic duo Panasonic is to launch a Leica DG 100-400mm f/4-6.3 and a Lumix G 25mm f/1.7 lens at dates and prices that are to be confirmed. All we know is that the lenses will be optimised for the latest technology in Lumix G cameras and will be light enough to be used handheld. Mexico hotshot Mexico-based photographer Gabriela Torres Ruiz has won the annual Exposure Award Photography Competition with a series of diptychs on a theme of ‘silence and meditation’ (see left). The competition also saw UK portrait photographer Briony Teasel named winner of the Early Entry Award. To view this year’s best entries visit www.see.me/exposureaward. Armed and ready Manfrotto has launched four new friction arms, which allow the attachment of extra cameras and photographic accessories to tripods. The…

Mastering Wildlife Photography By Richard Garvey-Williams, Ammonite Press, paperback, £19.99, 176 pages, ISBN 978-1-78145-086-4 WITH wildlife photography being one of the most popular genres today, why do you need a book on how to ‘master' wildlife photography? Richard Garvey-Williams reveals that wildlife photography is more than taking pictures of animals. From photography in the field to post-production, Garvey-Williams takes us on an emotional journey, with fantastic images, excellent tutorials, advice on protecting the environment and explanations of your duty as a photographer. Most handy of all, Garvey-Williams shows off his preferred equipment and techniques for shooting wildlife photography. Covering a wide range of wildlife such as the black rhino and hummingbird, this book is superb for any aspiring wildlife photographer. It is also filled with great facts and figures to…

What is a GreenAcres woodland burial? A burial at a GreenAcres Woodland Burial park is carried out in a similar way to that of a traditional burial, but your loved one or their ashes will be buried in a woodland environment instead of a traditional cemetery or crematorium. GreenAcres is committed to the long-term care of the woodland, so a proportion of every plot bought for burial or ashes ahead of time is kept secure in an independent trust fund that helps maintain the woodland for many years to come – creating a legacy for those who are buried in the parks. What makes GreenAcres Woodland Burials special? Each GreenAcres park provides a place of peace and tranquillity set within a haven of beautiful English woodlands, giving families the time…

When I left school in 1977, my dream was to become a professional photographer. I wrote to all my local newspapers and to every photo studio I found in the Yellow Pages, asking if they would consider taking me on as a trainee. Sadly, every one of them turned me down, saying they didn't have any vacancies but would keep my details on file. One suggested that I go to university to do a degree in photography, but when I found out that I had to do a year's art foundation course first, I decided that it wasn't for me. Disheartened, I gave up and went into finance instead. I've probably earned more money through this career, but my dream has always remained. I was recently sorting out some old…

Interesting light THE STREET photographer isn't beholden to the characteristics of the sky to determine the kind of light on offer. You can travel to places with interesting light and find directional light even on an overcast day. Light gets funnelled between buildings, through tunnels and under bridges. On a clear day, you can use this directional light to highlight your subject with a powerful beam while keeping the rest of the frame in shadow, particularly when using exposure compensation. The absurd WE ENCOUNTER many people on our day-to-day travels and the one thing we can all be sure of is that they're certainly a strange bunch. One of the hallmarks of street photography is recognising absurd and strange situations, and then reacting quickly. It also takes a keen eye…

Our cameras and lenses are tested using the industry-standard Image Engineering IQ-Analyser software. Visit www.image-engineering.de for more details Canon has been put under pressure from other manufacturers to increase the resolution of its beginner DSLRs, so the 24.2-million-pixel sensor the 750D and 760D employ bring both models in line with the company's closest rivals. Whereas the Pentax K-S2 and Nikon D5500 both go without an anti-aliasing filter in a bid to resolve the finest levels of detail, the 750D and 760D hold on to an anti-aliasing filter. With this in place, the 760D doesn't resolve quite the same super-fine level of detail, but the 3,200l/ph the sensor resolves at ISO 100 is what we'd expect from an APS-C sensor with an anti-aliasing filter. Just like the 750D, the 760D's dynamic…

Sensor The 16.3-million-pixel APS-C sensor employs Fujifilm’s unique X-Trans CMOS colour filter array. Built-in Wi-Fi This allows connection to a smartphone for image sharing and remote control of the camera. Battery The NP-W126 battery has sufficient stamina for 350 shots per charge, by CIPA standard tests. Control dials The top-plate hosts an array of analogue dials for shutter speed, exposure compensation, ISO, metering mode and drive mode. Tilt screen The 3in, 1.04-million-dot LCD tilts 90¡ upwards and 45¡ downwards. Viewfinder The 2.36-million-dot OLED EVF offers a huge 0.77x magnification and 100% coverage.…

LAUNCHED 1936 PRICE £21 approx (with 105mm f/3.5 Skopar), AP 29 March 1939 GUIDE PRICE TODAY £80-£150, depending on condition. Up to £450 with the 50mm f/3.5 Heliar THE RESOLUTION, pictorial quality and brightness of photographs shot with Voigtländer cameras excited me at exhibitions held by the camera club that I belonged to in my teenage years. I seriously wanted, but could not afford, the used Rangefinder Bessa like the one that I now own, and have been using, in my seventies. With its 105mm f/3.5 Skopar lens set in a Compur Rapid shutter that gives speeds up to 1/400 sec, it is a seriously good camera. What’s good Beautifully engineered, simple to load, and easy to open and close. Superb lens quality. Uses readily available 120 film. What’s bad…

Nearly every digital camera now comes with the obligatory red button that activates its video mode, but how many of us actually get around to pressing it? Unlike stills photography, video can be daunting. There is a whole new set of rules, techniques to practise and editing software to get your head around. Plus, there is another dilemma: what to shoot? Thankfully, photographers aren’t starting from scratch. Many of the same principles apply to stills and video, particularly framing, exposure, composition and lighting. You can start with just the basics and introduce new techniques as you go. And as for what to shoot, well, there is plenty to choose from. If you are stuck for ideas, just turn on your TV. Wildlife documentaries are a great place to start. Watch…

TO COINCIDE with the launch of The Video Mode website, we're pleased to announce our new Amateur Filmmaker of the Year (AFOY) competition. AFOY challenges you to get creative with your filmmaking, and gives you the opportunity to win some fantastic prizes worth £10,000 in total. The competition is split into three rounds, each with its unique theme: Nature, Time and Love. To enter, submit a video no more than five minutes in length, of HD quality. You can shoot on any camera you'd like, and the content and editing are up to your imagination – so long as it fits the round's particular theme. Visit www.thevideomode.com to view the top videos, as well as the scores and a leaderboard for the overall competition. The winner will be the person…

ONE FEATURE that has found its way from professional video cameras to digital cameras that also shoot video is zebra patterning. The moving black & white striped pattern can be seen in areas of the image that are blown out. Usually the zebra pattern can be set to a specific value. If you only want to see areas that are completely white, with no detail, then set the zebra pattern to100%. However, to make sure there is enough detail for editing, and that no area is white, even if seen on a variety of different screens, it may be worth setting the zebra lower, to, say, 95%. This will then warn you of any area that is over 95% in brightness. The zebra pattering and histogram should be your guides…

Although we use a variety of cameras (mostly Canon DSLRs or the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH3), our audio recording kit is fairly consistent. We use: A Sennheiser EW 100-ENG G3 (around £720) Probably 90% of our videos are shot using this wireless lapel mic, attached to the presenter. We have two sets, one using XLR connections for our audio recorder, and the other fitted with 3.5mm mini-jacks so it can go directly into the camera. A Sennheiser MKE 600 shotgun mic (around £260) For those occasions where a lapel mic isn’t suitable, we use this excellent shotgun mic, both on and off the camera, depending on the situation. Rycote accessories To combat wind noise, our mics are fitted with Rycote windshield accessories, including the Softie Windshield Kit for our shotgun mic.…