Innholdsfortegnelse for 31-may-2014 i Amateur Photographer

IN AP 10 MAYWE ASKED… When you buy new camera gear, do you prefer to shop on the high street or online? WHEN I was learning to print in the darkroom, I was fortunate enough to spend some of my time trying to print in colour. I say ‘trying’, as in total darkness, with only a kettle to help keep the expensive chemicals at the right temperature, the results were somewhat hit and miss. I quickly gave up on colour printing and didn’t take it up again until I was at university, when I used automated developing processors. I guess my initial experience was similar to that of Rupert Vandervell (see page 33). He shunned the complexity of colour darkroom printing, but even with the simplicity of digital imaging he…

BOOK Sublime Nature: Photographs that Awe & Inspire By Cristina Mittermeier NationalGeographic, £27.50, hardback, 224 pages, ISBN 978-1-42621-301-4 WHAT’S left to say about National Geographic? It’s a name that has basically become a kind of shorthand formof ‘peerlessly good photography’. Cristina Mittermeier’s collection of images from National Geographic is titled Sublime Nature, and is just that. The beauty of the subjects is at times overwhelming, but it’s the skill of the photographers that’s often most on show here. Sit back and appreciate the intrepidness of Frans Lanting, the compositional skill of Art Wolfe and the painterly wisdom of JimBrandenburg. I have to make a personal specialmention for David Doubilet’s ‘half-in, half-out’ underwater images (see top right), which are absolute triumphs of composition and timing. When you view these, it won’t…

THE 1970S were notorious for crimes against good taste, and yet against all odds the period produced some extremely attractive cameras – a point not missed by Fujifilm and Olympus, among others, which have taken advantage of the retro trend. In your reviewof the FujifilmX-T1 (AP15March), I read that I should ‘prepare to want one’. Thank you. I do now. However, the problem is one of funds because my income just can’t keep up with the speed of upgrades and new cameras. Unfortunately, my original wealth-creation plan, to create a global brand of ‘potato-sack pockets’ for the discerning photographer who wants to discreetly carry his large DSLR, failed. With cameras in said pockets, robust braces were necessary to offset gravity. However, during field trials, an unforeseen side effect was that…

Amateur Photographer OF THE YEAR COMPETITION 1st PRIZE 1 Gerard Sexton Oxon 50pts Canon EOS 1DMark 1V, 400mm, 1.4x converter, 1/3200sec at f/4.5, ISO 800 Heron Judges say This was one of those shotswhere the judges had to stop and stare to work out whether or not the heron was real. The reason is that it’s such a perfectly captured moment. The position of the legs, the spread of thewings and the arc of the branch have all come together to form a dynamic image. Not only that, but the subtle lighting has resulted in a dramatic and engaging shot 2nd PRIZE 2 Mark Helliwell Cheshire 49pts Nikon D300, 18-200mm, 1/125sec at f/5.6, ISO 100 He’s Behind You Judges say Looking at this image of two owls – a great…

Eyelead Sensor Gel Stick £34.99 www.marchwooduk.co.uk EYELEAD is a German company that specialises in producing sensor-cleaning products. One of Eyelead’s new additions to its commercial range is a product that has been used in professional sensor-cleaning circles for a long time. The Eyelead Sensor Gel Stick is quite a simple concept. Essentially, it’s a stick with adhesive gel on the end that is designed to be used on a camera’s sensor to remove dust and oil. The gel is specially formulated to capture all the dust without lifting the glass off the sensor and to leave no residue behind from the gel. When tested on a variety of camera sensors, I found the Sensor Gel Stick performed well, removing all the visible dust with a couple of passes. It also…

NO ONE could ever accuse Samsung of failing to innovate; the number of different devices the company releases each year is evidence of that. Yet while some may turn their noses up at the Korean tech giant’s previous digital compacts, Android-powered cameras and bridge cameras, the NX mini is an interesting prospect that deserves some attention from enthusiast and beginner photographers alike. With the NX mini, Samsung joins the Nikon1-series cameras and Panasonic’s Lumix DMC-GM1in the miniature interchangeable-lens camera category. If size is a deciding factor, these cameras are your main options, although alternatives could include highly rated pocket travel model such as Sony’s 20.4-million-pixel Cyber-shot DSC-HX60V and Panasonic’s 18-million-pixel Lumix DMC-TZ60, both of which carry a 30x optical zoom that gives the range and flexibility of an interchangeable-lens system.…

LOW-LIGHTOPTION Q I have a Canon EOS 50D and overall I’m overall very happy with it. However, I was recently trying some low-light photos and was disappointed with the high level of noise, even at ISO 400 (I’m shooting raw and using Adobe Camera Raw for processing). As I have mainly EF-S lenses (17-55mm f/2.8, 18-200mm and 60mm f/2.8 macro), I was looking at either the EOS 7D or EOS 70D, but should I consider full frame with an EOS 5D or EOS 6D? Are these cameras really so much better at higher ISOsettings? Shlomo Spira A In a word, ‘yes’. Although noise is continually being combated to make everhigher ISO settings possible (so the EOS 7D and 70D improve on the EOS 50D), larger photosites on a sensor result…

News Analysis Comment 31/5/14 “Jus w en you thought a pocket compact couldn’t get any better” Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 III, page 6 Shopping centre pics spark complaint • Security staff alert police INNOCENTPHOTOGRAPHER INSHOCKOVERPIC DELETION Committed to defending your photographic rights! AN 80-year-old photography enthusiast has told of his shock after police urged him to delete an image of a child playing on a bungee trampoline inside a shopping centre. Mike O’Regan (pictured) had been taking pictures while waiting for his wife inside the Westfield Centre in Derby on Easter Saturday (19 April). A woman identifying herself as the boy’s mother complained to the mall’s security guards, who alerted police. O’Regan told AP: ‘I used my [Samsung Galaxy S4] phone to take a shot of an ingenious bungee/trampoline device for…

● CANON POWERSHOT G16: THE EXPANDED GUIDE by David Taylor, £14.99 The Canon PowerShot G16 is one of the best premiumcompacts around and it has plenty of nice features – goodWi-Fi with geotagging, excellent image quality and a lovely fast f/1.8-2.8 lens. It is an easy camera to get to know, so youmaywell be able to survive without a strategy guide, but if you do need a helping hand David Taylor is, as ever, here to help. ● NEWYORK by Ron Galella, £34 The godfather ofmodern paparazzi gets a book to himself, and if you don’t find that thought off-putting then youmay enjoy this collection. Most of the book consists of famous faces squint in the glare of popping flash. There is artistry, I suppose, in photographing people who clearly…

BRINGING YOUESSENTIAL EXPERTADVICE EVERYWEEK DOUG KOFSKY American photographer Doug Kofsky took his first hike into the mountains when he was just 18 and right away began documenting the sites through his photographic work. Since then, he has travelled to various locations throughout the world, including the Himalayas in 2008. He lives in New York City. To seemore of his work, visit www.dougkofsky.com. THE REASONS for my love of mountaineering are very personal. The earliest parts of my life were spent growing up in the suburbs of Boston in the USA, and when I reached the age of18 I decided to take my first trip. I spent a month hiking in the Sangre de Cristo [Blood of Christ] mountains, a subrange of the Colorado Rockies. I was following in the footsteps…

THE CITY can be a lonely place. Despite the rapid rise in population and the seeming overnight construction of architecture to accommodate the swarm, cities can often make you feel like you’re the last person on earth. These themes of isolation are the underpinning of a body of work created by London-based photographer Rupert Vandervell, a man who revels in the solitude life can bring. Each graphic image – in four series called ‘Urbanites’, ‘Man on Earth’, ‘Late Night Tales’ and ‘Duel’ – tells its own story, yet easily functions within an overarching narrative about urban isolation. ‘I’m obsessed with one particular theme – the lone figure in the street,’ he says. ‘I’ve often askedmyself why. The idea of isolation is very indicative of my character. I have always enjoyed…

REWIND to the year of themillennium and it was the PowerShot G1that sparked the creation of Canon’s G series – a camera out to appeal to photographers who desired more sophisticated control than your average point-and-shoot compact without the cumbersomeness of a heavy DSLR. It came with a 3.3-million-pixel,1/1.8in CCD sensor and a 3x optical zoomlens that was equivalent to 34-102mm, but the G1 was soon overshadowed by the PowerShot G2, G3 and G5 (there was no G4model as Japanese firms avoid this number). Fourteen years down the line, Canon is continuing to develop its range of flagship compact models that have picked up such high acclaim from prosumer photography enthusiasts for more than a decade. Perhaps most interesting has been the manufacturer’s decision to continue developing its line of…

INTERFIT’S wide product range includes continuous lighting, flash modifiers, reflectors and studio flash heads, and since entering themarket the company has become well known for its affordable lighting kits. The EX400 Ti 2-Light Softbox Kit is one of the most powerful kits in the Interfit range, and with a suggested retail price of £449 it is one of the most affordable. BUILD AND HANDLING At the heart of the Interfit EX400 Ti 2-Light Softbox Kit are two 400 watts per second flash heads. These provide more than enough power for a substantial studio set-up at home or on location, and twice the power of most entry-level offerings. The toughmoulded casings have a slightly futuristic style, which on close inspection reveals hidden ventilation gills that aid the efficient cooling of the…

‘Eternity is even more of a problem. We literally cannot imagine it. The best we can do is “more time”’ THOSE who say that time is money could hardly be more wrong. Time is value. In fact, it is the only thing that creates value. Anyone who pretends that money and value are the same thing is stupid, or dishonest, or both. Think of the things that are most valuable or precious to you. Think of a beautiful day with perfect light, in a place so beautiful that it seems almost impossible not to take a perfect picture. For devotees of traditional photography, think of an hour or two stolen to spend in the darkroom; ‘stolen’ because you ‘should’ have been mowing the lawn or doing the ironing. For those…

THERE’S been a lot of talk in the past two years about the future of the compact camera, and more so about the direction they’ll take given the ever-evolving nature of smartphones. Never one for resting on its laurels, Sony understood that to ensure the compact camera had a future it had to improve significantly for the better – something the manufacturer successfully achieved in 2012 by launching the RX100. At the time of its launch, the RX100 was revolutionary in the way it managed to squeeze a1in sensor inside a tough, travelfriendly aluminium body. With a sensor approximately 4x larger than conventional 1/2.3in-type versions found in traditional point-and-shoot compacts, the RX100 quickly became the compact to own for those who wanted to resolve the highest level of detail from…

LETTER OF THEWEEK Wins a great shockproof, waterproof and dustproof 5-Proo Technology 16GB Samsung SDHC Plus memory card offering up to 48MB/sec transfer speed. www.samsung.com/memorycard MEMORIES OF 126 Does anyone remember those little SupaSnaps Snappit cameras from the1990s that used126 cartridges and produced square photographs? Mine was a bright pink one that came with stickers and was the first camera I ever owned when I was a kid. My gramps used give me tips on how to get the best pictures. Looking back through some of my dark and blurry photos, it seems I didn’t take much heed of his advice. One time, I used up an entire film by taking pictures of pigeons in Warrington town centre in Cheshire. When I got the pictures developed, my mum confiscated my…

THANKS to its unique characteristics, infrared photography can produce some truly beautiful results that have a lovely ethereal quality about them. It’s a perfec technique for landscapes, and one that doesn’t require you to get up at the crack of dawn for the best light. We’ll discover why a little later, but first we need to understand a little more about the science behind infrared. In a nutshell, infrared light is a spectrum of light beyond what the human eye can see. This is because our eyes can only detect a small range of wavelengths that make up the frequencies of visible and invisible light, known as the electromagnetic spectrum. The light we see is classed as visible light and ranges from red to blue (violet), with the typical human…

PICTURE OFTHE WEEK Over The Edge Sergiy Srednytskyy CanonEOS550D, 70-300mm, 1/640secat f/13 WE ALL love to be amazed by the tricks of a conjurer and feel a sense of wonder. Here the conjurer is Sergiy. Through sleight of hand and subtle suggestion, he shows us a massive view but forces us to look at a tiny part of it. The draw is undeniable and irresistible. When the picture is seen at the right size, the first thing our eyes go to is the skier – even though he occupies only a minuscule part of the frame. The skier stands out for several reasons: he is the only black part of the scene; he contrasts dramatically with the bright tones behind him; he is perched on the seam where the groundmeets…

VIEWFINDERS on Canon G-series cameras have traditionally been of the optical type, but due to their small size they’ve often suffered from parallax error, whereby what is framed through the viewfinder is different to what the lens is actually seeing. The field of view has also typically been way below the100% coverage you’d expect. One example is the original G1X’s optical viewfinder that showed approximately 73% coverage at wideangle and 74% coverage at full telephoto – not an accurate view, but perhaps better than none at all. The removal of a viewfinder altogether on the G1XMark II is a bold move, but one Canon has had the foresight to make in an attempt to keep up with the competition and the likes of Sony, which offers the EV1MK electronic viewfinder…

BACK in 1994, Wet Wet Wet dominated the charts with Love Is All Around, Tom Hanks starred in Forrest Gump and, more notably for photographers, Gitzo brought us the first ever carbon-fibre tripod - the Mountaineer. Now, 20 years on, the company has brought out a thirdgeneration range of Mountaineer tripods FEATURES There are 13 tripods in the new Mountaineer range, which is divided into four series ranging from the small and lightweight series ‘0’ to the largest ‘3’. Each has a ball heac that is designed to match up with the tripod, which is balanced in size and weight for individual series. The tripod on test here is the GT1542 from series 1 The latest Mountaineer tripod range uses new Carbon eXact technology with HM (High Modulus) carbon fibre.…