Innholdsfortegnelse for 25-oct-2014 i Amateur Photographer

Photography has undergone many changes since Fox Talbot’s day, but the shift from film to digital has arguably been the most sudden – and significant. All revolutions have their winners and losers, and the list of companies that have fallen by the wayside is a long one. Some, like Kodak, were the architects of their own demise through mismanagement, while the withering of darkroom specialists like Paterson and Durst seemed inevitable. Polaroid, too, seemed destined to be trampled underfoot in the digital stampede. Formerly, its products were the only way that pro and amateur photographers could achieve instant gratification, or get prints without using a lab (hence its popularity for certain types of photo), but digital cameras made Polaroid’s quirky film completely obsolete – which makes its revival all the…

Panoramas Whether you’re photographing a sprawling countryside vista, or an impressive city skyscape, a panorama is the tool of choice when it comes to capturing an expansive setting. Apanorama is created by taking a series of photos, usually panning from left to right across a scene, and then digitally stitching the images together using editing software, such as Photoshop, or via a downloadable app. Thanks to the fact that a vast number of modern digital cameras now feature a built-in panorama shooting mode, panoramas have become increasingly popular over the past few years, and it’s easy to see why when you stop to take a look at some of the impressive results that can be created using the technique So, if you’ve never taken a panorama before, now is the…

AN ASTRONAUT used a Nikon D3S DSLR to capture this incredible image of the Milky Way, before tweeting it live from space. Reid Wiseman took the shot from the International Space Station where he was preparing for a spacewalk with fellow NASA astronaut Alexander Gerst. ‘The Milky Way steals the show from Sahara sands that make the Earth glow orange,’ Wiseman wrote on Twitter The astronaut took the stunning shot on 27 September, using a Nikon D3S and a 24mm f/1.4 lens, according to the image file’s Exif data. It was a manual exposure, using a three-second shutter speed and ISO of 12,800.…

Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition The WPOTY exhibition opens its doors for another year, this time celebrating its 50th Anniversary. It’ll be touring the country soon, but here’s your chance to be among the first to see these astounding images in person. Opening 24 October www.nhm.ac.uk Bridgwater Carnival Guy Fawkes celebrations kick off in Bridgwater with a carnival that includes a spectacular procession. Also on the table is the unique act of ‘squibbing’ – the simultaneous firing of a huge number of fireworks. 1 November www.bridgwatercarnival.org.uk Imagining the East End A wide range of photographers have contributed to Photomonth – 2014’s flagship exhibition about London’s East End – portrayed as a physical place and as something less tangible. until 2 November 20U.photomonth.org www.eastendarchive.org Stories Seen Through a Glass Plate…

Jeremy Walker Jeremy Walker is an award-winning professional photographer with many years’ experience, specialising in high-quality landscape and location photography from around the world for use by advertising, design and corporate clients. A belief in ‘quality is everything’, a meticulous approach and a far-reaching vision and style serve Jeremy and his clients well. www.jeremywalker.co.uk Novoflex BasicBall tripod The sturdiest mini tripod I have ever come across. Typical high-quality German engineering and such a simple design. The legs screw into what looks like half a metal tennis ball, with holes at different angles for limited adjustment. Nikon 45mm PC-E lens A tilt-shift lens for controlling perspective. Converging or diverging verticals can be corrected in Photoshop, but I prefer to get it right at the time of taking. I use a Nikon…

Email amateurphotographer@timeinc.com and include your full postal address Write to Inbox, Amateur Photographer, Time Inc. (UK), Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, London SEI OSU LETTER OF THE WEEK A Faustian pact? OK, look, seriously, I give up. I have wracked the limited cerebral resources available to me and I just can't figure it out. How on earth do the boffins at Fuji manage to squeeze so much image quality from a sensor measuring just 8.8 x 6.6mm (the 2/3in sensor found in the X20 and X-Q1 )? I understand that the AA filter has been removed and this will help but seriously, people, what's going on here? My suspicion is that deep in the bowels of the factory is a grey-haired technician who at some point during the heady,…

In a world dominated by digital imaging, the death of the iconic Polaroid company was perhaps an inevitability. Instant film couldn’t compete with the immediacy of digital and, in 2008, Polaroid finally ended production. The future for instant analogue film – once a fixture in every professional studio – looked grim. While there was enough stockpiled to keep enthusiasts supplied for a while, without a new source of film it appeared instant analogue products were to be consigned to the history books. But even as Polaroid shut its doors, two visionaries were cooking up plans to keep the format alive. Florian ‘Doc’ Kaps and André Bosman raised enough investment to purchase the final factory making instant film and set about creating a company that would, against all odds, keep the…

First off, I want to stress that I'm not a trained graphic designer. In fact, I worked as a professional wedding photographer and shot film for years before swapping to digital. It was the easy access to the internet in Indonesia that changed my way of working. KEY IMAGES TO CREATE the final composite image, Ipoenk brought together a total of seven images he'd taken. Using elements from each shot, these were then cut out and merged together in Photoshop to produce the final image. Ipoenk Mahendra Ipoenk Mahendra is a professional photographer based in a village in Cirebon, Indonesia. Since the advent of digital Ipoenk has created a series of highly stylised images of village life that has brought him a worldwide following. www.500px.com/lpoenkGraphic Seeing the various genres of…

PHOTOSHOP CC saw the very welcome introduction of Camera Raw as a filter, which you can now apply to images directly in Photoshop. Previously, you could only apply Camera Raw to non-raw files that were in the TIFF or JPEG format. Now, you can apply Camera Raw as a filter to any format of image as long as it is open in Photoshop and in a supported colour space. It also means that you can apply Camera Raw adjustments to individual layers as well as complete images. If you wish to apply Camera Raw as a filter to groups of layers, or to a single layer, where you wish the results to be re-editable, it will be necessary to convert the image layer(s) to a smart object first. However, when…

Expert reviews of the latest kit to look out for Hoya ProND200 and ProND1000 Filters ● From £34-£184 (depending on strength and filter size) ● www.intro2020.co.uk HOYA’S premium ProND filter range is designed to produce images with a completely neutral colour balance. The filters come in various sizes, ranging from 49-82mm filter threads, and in strengths from the ProND200, which offers a 1EV reduction, to the ProND1000, which filters out 10EV of light. We tested the PROND200, which offers 7 2/3 EV reduction, alongside the ProND1000 and found the claims about a neutral colour cast are true. With each of the filters, in a variety of different lighting conditions, neither filter displayed any colour cast. We also tested the filters on a camera converted for infrared use and can confirm…

THE D750 uses a 24-million-pixel full-frame sensor that includes an optical low pass filter, although residual maze-like moire in the resolution charts indicates that the low-pass filter is relatively weak. This means that in terms of resolution the D750 is similar to the D610 that sits below it in the range, but obviously it cannot deliver as much detail as the 36-million-pixel D810. Dynamic range is very impressive at low ISOs, you can therefore extract lots of detail from deep in the shadows in raw processing, or using the Active D-Lighting controls in JPEG. The camera's highlight metering mode can help to get the best exposures for raw shooters, by minimising clipping in bright areas of the shot. Image quality is excellent at sensitivities up to ISO 1600, but at…

ONE OF the most interesting aspects of the Cybershot QX1 is its ability to ‘shoot without lens’. What this means is that the camera doesn’t need to have a recognised lens attached in order to enable it to take images. In real terms, this means that you can use lens adapters on the QX1, enabling third-party lenses to be mounted, just as they can on other Sony E-mount cameras. In terms of functionality, the QX1 operates largely as normal, although obviously without the ability to change the aperture or autofocus. I tried the QX1 using a 1962 Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens and was able to take some nice floral shots utilising the f/1.4 aperture to create a very shallow depth of field. Being able to use virtually any SLR lens…

EVEN illumination is always desirable in any panoramic view and with a flat film plane this is just not possible with a pinhole. After a few cups of coffee it became obvious that the only way to get even illumination was to bend the film in a semicircle. In this way the pinhole-to-film distance is constant and the problem should be solved. Since focal length does not apply to a pinhole design, the pinhole-tofilm distance can be adjusted to make any negative size. I decided to use 2 frames of 12 on 120 size giving me a negative length of 120mm. At first sight it would appear that any angular coverage is possible, in practice due to constructional restraints I settled for a 110° coverage. This infers a ‘focal length’…

Picture research is a strange business. Rosie Barratt at AP, who secures the rights to the pictures you see in this column, is extremely good at it. But this is not the picture I originally asked for, which was by Khaldei Yevgeni. Instead, it’s a nearidentical shot by Ralph Morse. She found both. I think this is the better picture. The picture elements are necessarily very similar because there is effectively only one place the photographer can stand. Goering, on one side of the screen, is talking to his lawyer, Dr Stahmer, on the other. A ‘snowdrop’ (US military policeman) sits beside the accused. But Morse appears to have used available light, while as far as I can see Yevgeni used flash. The result is that in the Yevgeni picture,…

Snail Reflectionby JackieTighe Olympus E-5, 50mm, 1/2500sec at f/2, ISO 200 This beautiful macro image, taken by Jackie Tighe, was uploaded to our AP Flickr page. You can see more of Jackie’s work on her own Flickr page. Macro shots of insects is a recurring subject, and as you can see from this shot it’s a technique she is now confident in tackling. ‘I have been interested in macro photography for some time now,’ says Jackie. ‘When I’m planning a shoot I always look for the unusual or even set up the shot to create the unusual. Although the snail is not one of the world’s prettiest creatures, it is an absolutely fascinating subject for macro photography. ‘I took this shot late in the afternoon as the sun was getting…

This is the fifth year that Marwell have run their Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition and each year seems to be attracting stronger and stronger entries. ‘Leopard Cub in the Light’, taken by George Wheelhouse of Flitwick in Bedfordshire, beat off serious competition to become the overall winning photograph. The image of Marwell Zoo’s leopard cub was taken by George during a day trip to the zoo with his family. The overall winner’s prize included a great nine-day Wild Espana trip supplied by the competition’s sponsors Wildlife Worldwide worth £1,395. To view photos from the other winners and find details of the competition, visit www.marwell.org.uk/winners 2014 Words & numbers Photography is not a sport. It has no rules. Everything must be dared and tried! Bill Brandt Photographer (1904-1983) €…

JESSOPS has made an operating profit and opened the ‘first of many’ stores inside Sainsbury’s supermarkets. The chain which collapsed under former owners, closing all of its 187 shops last year, reported an operating profit of £280,000, on sales of more than £56m for the year to 30 April. Jessops says the results are proof that the ‘high street is well and thriving’. Chairman Peter Jones said: ‘This is a great result and I’m excited that we’ve been able to restore an iconic British highstreet brand.’ The news came as Jessops announced the opening of six new stores, to bring the total Jessops high-street outlets to 34. Jessops is set to open stores in Reading, Milton Keynes, Canterbury, Hull and Kingston in November. The first, in Tunbridge Wells, is due…

Since Fox Talbot’s days, we have been arguing about which cameras are best and judging our creative art by the technology used. Today, online forums are full of facts and statistics over which camera is sharper, faster, which is this and which is that. The talk of the town these days is seemingly the CSC v DSLR debate. Some people will tell you that DSLRs are dead, others say CSCs are not for serious photography I have a foot in both camps, using both a Nikon D800 and Fujifilm X-T1. In my opinion, neither one is better than the other, it’s simply a matter of what you do with it. The problem today, as I see it, is that few photographers understand their own needs. You can use a spanner…

Take a tripod When shooting low-light images, exposures will be long and the camera must be rock steady. Sometimes tripods are banned in certain areas of a city, so a beanbag on a wall or a mini tripod, such as the incredibly sturdy Novoflex BasicBall, will do an excellent job. A cable, or remote, release for firing the camera is recommended. Check the weather forecast Don’t be put off by talk of cloud or even rain. Clear skies for reflected light in skylines and skyscrapers is great, but clouds can reflect the light and be colourful, too. Rain on the streets adds a sense of mood and drama, while the wet surfaces can help bounce the light around. Cities can be shot and look dramatic in all weathers. Scout the…

Urban portraits Damien Lovegrove shares his tips on shooting great posed urban portraits ‘I make money from my smartphone’ We talk to photographers who have ditched their DSLRs for smartphones, and still sell their images Canon PowerShot G7 X Our full test of this 1in-sensor compact – one of the most appealing new cameras from Photokina. Shooting film pt 2 Andrew Sanderson continues his series on shooting, processing and printing black & white…

OF ALL the cameras produced by Polaroid it will always be the SX-70 produced in 1972 that will forever be synonymous with instant images. The first generation of Polaroid cameras produced monochrome images and operated using the peel-apart system. After exposure, the photographer would pull the exposed film out of the camera and the action would burst the pod of chemicals, which would spread across the image. In 1972, Polaroid introduced the first folding camera: the SX-70, and developed the first integral pack containing the film, chemicals and battery. After exposure, the camera automatically ejected the image, the action of which spread the chemicals across the image and initiated development. Within a year, Polaroid was producing 5,000 SX-70 models a day. Perhaps the introduction of this camera is largely responsible…

IN A FARAWAY PLACE Roberto Binder from London is the winner of round 7, In a Faraway Place (Travel Photography), of APOY 2014. Roberto 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 16.1-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…

To celebrate AP’s130th birthday, we’ve teamed up with some of the world’s leading photographers, the NSPCC and PhotoBox to offer you the chance to win one of130 signed prints. We have limited-edition prints from the likes of Gered Mankowitz, Art Wolfe, Steve McCurry, Charlie Waite, Steve Bloom, Tom Stoddart, Joe Cornish and Clive Nichols, and many more, and you could own one simply by supporting our campaign. All of the photographers have kindly donated their photos to help raise money for the NSPCC. PhotoBox, our print partner, will send you an A3 print of your winning image*. PhotoBox is a print company with a twist – it’s personal. PhotoBox takes your photographs and prints them onto books, framed prints and canvases from small to large sizes (to name just a…

At a glance ● 24.3-million-pixel, full-frame sensor ● Compact design for a full-frame DSLR ● ISO 50-51,200 (extended) ● 3.2in, vari-angle tilting LCD with 1.23-million-dot resolution ● Price £1,799 (body only) ● Highlight priority metering For and against + 24.3-million-pixel sensor ─ Maximum 1/4000sec shutter speed + Built-in Wi-Fi ─ No dedicated AF-on button + Tillable LCD ─ No GPS + 7fps Where in the range? Nikon D810 Price ￡2,399 Featuring a 36.3- mi Ui on - pixeI sensor, impressive dynamic range and the same 51-point AF system. Nikon D610 Price ￡1,749 24.3-million-pixel full-frame sensor with 39 focus point and a shooting speed of 6 fps in DX Crop Mode. Data file It feels like the dust has only just settled on the announcement of the D810, and now Nikon…

NIKON has covered almost every feature likely to appear on the wish list of an enthusiast photographer and added a few extra for good measure. It’s great to see Wi-Fi inside a high-end DSLR and a host of video-based advancements. The build quality of the camera is very good and it strikes a great balance between the size and weight. Thanks to the large grip at the front, the D750 feels incredible in hand. The D810 was praised for its good handling but, for me, the D750 has the edge for comfort, particularly when walking around with larger lenses. With the mode dial, button layout and menu system being akin to Nikon’s entry-level DSLRs, the amateur photographer upgrading to full-frame should feel right at home. Resolution of the D750 is,…

MicroSD Images are recorded to microSD cards, that are inserted in a socket behind the battery door. Video The QX1 can record video at full 1080p HD quality with footage saved in MP4 format. Audio is captured using the camera’s stereo microphones. Autofocus Lenses can be focused by touching any part of the image on the smartphone, or in automatic mode one of 25 contrast detection points are used. Shooting rate At its maximum speed, the QX1 can shoot at 3.5fps. Pop-up flash This small flash is useful for fill-in flash on bright days and has a guide number of 4m @ ISO 100. Sensitivity With a sensitivity range of ISO 100-16,000, the QX1 is more than capable of shooting in most lighting conditions photographers will throw at it.…

BLAST FROM THE PAST LAUNCHED 1973 PRICE with 50mm f/1.8 Zuiko £199.95 GUIDE PRICE TODAY £50-£100 THE JEWEL-LIKE quality and feel of the OM1, by specification and features just another TTL SLR, and the magnificent performance of Zuiko lenses changed the aspirations of the amateur photographic market in the mid-1970s. Other leading manufacturers had no choice but to follow suit, with smaller, lighter cameras – Canon was first with the AE1. What’s good Lightweight, interchangeable screens, excellent image quality from a full range of superb lenses. Ready availability second-hand. What’s bad There is a tendency for the silvering of the prism of OM cameras to corrode in old age, producing black or brown discolouration of areas of the viewfinder image – this is very expensive to repair.…

The week in brief, edited by Chris Cheesman D750 Wi-Fi update Nikon has updated advice on how to securely connect the D750 to a mobile device via Wi-Fi. The move came after AP identified a potential security concern, meaning someone could load D750 images to a device if the user had not first manually activated security settings via the wireless utility app. Visit support.nikonusa.com Elements 13 Photoshop Elements 13 includes Photomerge Compose, designed to make copying elements of an image from one photo to another as easy as ‘copy and paste’. Adobe has added three new Guided Edits, enabling users to add ‘pops of colour’, for example, to black & white photos. Adobe Photoshop Elements 13 costs £81.08, or £63.43 via an upgrade. For full details visit www.adobe.com Aperture rings…

THE ARMY has revealed the winners of its annual photographic competition which, for the first time, allowed the public to vote for the Best Overall Image via Facebook. Corporal Jamie Peters, serving as a Combat Camera Team photographer in Afghanistan, won Best Overall Image with a photo called ‘Fireball Flyers’. The winning shot (right) depicts an Apache helicopter flying over a large explosion during an air show. It gained 1,671 ‘likes’ on Facebook. Commenting on the standard of this year’s awards, Command Master Photographer WO1 Will Craig said: ‘It gets better each year. The amateurs have also given us a high standard of photographs. ‘It’s been impressive. Competition has been really fierce.’ Among this year’s stars was Reservist Corporal Ian Chapman who won the Amateur Portrait category with a shot…

A PHOTOGRAPHER accused of harassing Prince George, and spying on his movements, insists he did not break any law and will continue to take pictures in a public place. Niraj Tanna, a photographer at UK agency Ikon Pictures, told AP that a seven-page letter sent by his lawyer to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s legal team outlines all that he plans to say on the matter. The furore centres on an incident that took place in London’s Battersea Park on 23 September. Kensington Palace accuses Tanna of ‘placing Prince George under surveillance and monitoring his daily routines for a period of time’. Tanna’s law firm, Lewis Silkin, claims suggestions the photographer was harassing the Prince are ‘unsustainable’. For more information on the case, visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk For the latest news…

Shark: Fear and Beauty By Jean-Marie Ghislain, Thames & Hudson, £29.95, hardback,192 pages, ISBN 978-0-500-517734 WHAT do you picture of when you think of sharks? Perhaps it’s the great primordial force of nature that crashes through the ocean’s surface to devour its prey. Or perhaps you think of the darkest depths of our planet’s oceans and the fear that lurks within. What do you do when confronted with fear? You tackle it head-on, something photographer Jean-Marie Ghislain knows from experience. By confronting his own fear of sharks and occupying their territory, Ghislain has produced a series of images that confront our prejudices of these stunning creatures and forces us to view them in a very different light. Shot largely in black & white, his photographs exude a beauty and tranquillity…

It's not often that we feature a genuine recordbreaker in the magazine, but Dave Akerman is the first photographer we've interviewed to send a webcam and Raspberry Pi computer up into the high reaches of the atmosphere - we're talking 39,994m, or nearly 40km. Dave captured some wonderful images with the webcam as it made its epic ascent into near space, and, although the balloon burst, he was able to retrieve both computer and camera intact. Dave is a devotee of highaltitude ballooning, where enthusiasts use standard weather balloons with small 'payloads', usually carrying a tracking device for later retrieval, some sensors and a video or stills camera that copies images on to a standard SD card. So how did Dave get involved in this fascinating but unpredictable genre? 'I'd…

IN OUR 30 August issue, we offered three readers the chance to borrow a Leica M for a week, along with an exclusive workshop at the Leica Akademie in London’s Mayfair. This week, we feature Gary Perlmutter and a selection of his images illustrating the theme of ‘street photography’. Here he shares his first impressions of the camera. ‘The M was heavier than I had expected, like it was honed from a solid block of metal,’ recalls Gary. ‘It’s built like a tank! It’s very compact, though, much smaller than my full-frame DSLR, which is amazing considering that it also houses a full-frame sensor. The build quality really is superb – every dial rotates securely and positively, and the focus ring is so smooth and precise. The focus tab is…

Instant Light Tarkovsky Polaroids ￡16.95, Thames & Hudson, 200 Russian film-maker Andrey Tarkovsky was an artist capable of capturing transcendent beauty within his films. His Polaroid shots were equally masterful and are a clear demonstration of what can be achieved with instant images. From Polaroid to Impossible: Masterpieces of Instant Photography the Westlicht Collection ￡35, Hatje Cantz, 2011 Published three years after the birth of The Impossible Project, this volume acts as a nostalgic look back at what Polaroid was and hints at what it can be again. This is a real must for any Polaroid aficionado. Time Zero: The Last Year of Polaroid Film 93 mins, 2012 This documentary, made by Grant Hamilton in the final year of - Polaroid's production, interviews a number of photographers and former employees…

Submityour images Please see the ‘Send us your pictures’ section on page 3 for details or visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk Aligning the verticals THIS photograph is dominated by the long shadows of the traffic lights and lamp posts. Dave Clegg has captured a scene with strong graphic features, and my feeling was that this photograph needed just a few subtle adjustments. To start with, I used the Free Transform command to alter the shape of the image and straighten the vertical elements, which I felt would make the composition appear more solid. I also wanted to bring out the texture in the road surface and the best tool here was to apply a negative Highlights adjustment using Camera Raw as a filter in Photoshop CC. The final edited version therefore benefits from…

● £179 ● www.wdc.com Michael Topham tests Western Digital’s new Wi-Fi hard drive with a built-in SD card slot for wireless back-up on the move At a glance ● Windows/Mac compatible ● Wi-Fi, SD card slot and USB 3.0 interface ● Built-in battery, charged via USB socket There’s been a flurry of Wi-Fi enabled hard drives hitting the market of late, but Western Digital My Passport Wireless goes one better in the way that it offers an SD card interface, making it an ideal solution for photographers who’d like to back up on the go and control it via WD’s My Cloud app using a smartphone or tablet. Inserting an SD card with 5.45GB of data on it and transferring this to the drive took 11 minutes, 38 seconds –…

Eye-Fi support In addition to the Wi-Fi functionality, the D750 also supports Eye-Fi cards for quick and easy file sharing with a mobile device. Crop modes The D750 offers 1.2x and 1.5x crop modes, which are indicated by frame lines in the viewfinder. Pop-up flash With a guide number of 12m at IS0100. this can be used as a commander for off-camera units. Customising movie record button By default the movie record button is only active when using live view. In non-live view the movie record button can be assigned to white balance selection, ISO sensivity or image area, giving users quicker control over settings LCD screen A new 3.2in LCD monitor with a 1.23-million-dot resolution and RGBW array is tiltable. Dual card slots Two SD cards can be used…

At a glance ● 20.1-million-pixel, APS-C CMOS sensor ● Takes Sony E-mount lenses ● Bionz X processor ● Records both JPEG and raw ● ISO 100-16,000 ● Uses Sony PlayMemories Mobile app, for iOS, Android and Windows devices ● Price £249 Sony’s QX range was one of the most-talked about camera announcements of 2013. Sony devised the term ‘lens-style camera’ to describe the new devices, based on the fact that they were primarily a lens and image sensor combined. With no screen, the QX cameras need to be connected via Wi-Fi to a tablet or smartphone, on which the Sony PlayMemories Mobile app can be used to compose images, change settings and playback images and videos that have been captured. Images are saved to a micro-SD card inside the QX…

Email your questions to: apanswers@timeinc.com, Twitter @AP_Magazine and #AskAP, or Facebook. Orwrite to Technical Support, Amateur Photographer Magazine, Time Inc. (UK), Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, London SE1 0SU ● EXPERT ADVICE ● TIPS ● TRICKS ● HACKS ● KNOW-HOW Lens advice for D800 Q I have a Nikon D800 with the 24-70 F2.8 and I am delighted with the quality of the results. I am thinking of adding a couple of prime lenses – one for landscape and a macro for plant photography. I have been thinking about the Nikon 24mm and 105mm macro, but wondered if you could make any more suggestions from other manufacturers for me to consider? My preferred mode of working is to have manual control as much as possible, so I am not…

One of the prestige features of top-end cameras is ‘magnesium construction’. What this means varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. Mirrorless cameras tend to be constructed around a rectangular metal tube, in much the same way as Oskar Barnack’s original Leica, where the body was made with a flattened piece of telescope tubing. SLRs are somewhat different, being built around the mirror box, which maintains the all-important alignment between lens and sensor. Apart from three top-end cameras (the Canon 1D X, the Nikon D4s and D810), all available mainstream DSLRs have a plastic mirror box. The more expensive magnesium body cameras have non-structural magnesium alloy skin panels applied over this plastic chassis, shown in the publicity shots used to promote the ‘all-metal’ credentials. This has left Nikon with a publicity problem,…