Innholdsfortegnelse for 4-Jun-2016 i Amateur Photographer

There are three qualities you need to be a great landscape photographer, in addition to the obvious technical and artistic skills. The first is patience: the disposition to be able to wait for long periods, usually with no internet, while the light ponders whether or not to play ball. Second (for UK photographers, at any rate) is an ambivalence to being cold and possibly even wet. Finally, a willingness to get up in the middle of the night to be at a location in time to catch the best light – which, inconveniently, is around sunrise. I don’t possess any of these qualities in great abundance, which is why I’m better at enjoying landscape photographs than taking them. Anita Nicholson gets round the third problem by camping out overnight, and…

THE LIFE'S work of veteran photojournalist Don McCullin is celebrated in a limited-edition large-format book. Priced £650, Irreconcilable Truths is a three-volume boxed set billed as the ‘most complete' collection of the photographer's work ever produced. Limited to1,000 copies, the book contains over 650 images on1,300 pages. It includes iconic work alongside previously unseen photos personally chosen by McCullin. Housed in a presentation box, each volume comes quarter-bound in cloth. The first volume is War and Reportage; the second Landscapes, Still Lifes & Travel, and the third an updated version of McCullin's autobiography, Unreasonable Behaviour. Irreconcilable Truths is published by Provocateur Press. Visit donmccullin.com for more details. Subscribe to Amateur Photographer SAVE 35%* Visit amateurphotographer subs.co.uk/15W (or see p40) * when you pay by UK Direct Debit…

There’s nothing better than waking up right in the middle of the stunning location you want to photograph, as Anita Nicholson explains Anita Nicholson Anita is a Northumberland-based landscape photographer with a love for the fells of the Lake District and the coastline of Northumberland. Visit her website at www.anitanicholson photography.com If you love exploring the great outdoors with your camera, and you don’t mind roughing it a bit and carrying a two-and-a-half-stone rucksack up a hill, then wild camping can be a fantastic way to immerse yourself in the landscape and witness sights you might otherwise miss. Wild camping presents superb and varied photographic opportunities. Wild camping can also be very flexible. You don’t need to pre-book, or cancel then lose your deposit if the weather turns bad. You can…

You answered… A Yes, I own at least one such camera and use it frequently 14% B Yes, I’ve tried it. It’s fun for a novelty, but not regularly 14% C No, but I’m intrigued to try it 15% D No, I’m more concerned with achieving the best image quality 57% What you said ‘I really can’t see the point – if you’re absolutely determined to produce naff-looking images, do it in post-production. At least you then have a choice’ ‘I get all the “lo-fi” images I can stand out of what I’ve got without buying special kit to do it’ ‘Yes, I love lo-fi and shoot it a lot, both on film (Holga, Holga WPC, Box Brownie, Zero 45) and digitally with my Fujian CCTV lens’ ‘First, define what…

How to correct for underexposure NIGEL Ackroyd's candid photograph of a saxophonist performing in the street was captured using a 400mm zoom telephoto lens. It was shot at the widest aperture setting, at1/400sec. The original is quite underexposed, which may have been deliberate because the ISO was set to 250. In a situation like this it would be better to increase the ISO to capture a lighter image rather than keep to a low ISO and underexpose. The backlighting works well, though, and this has created a wonderful lighting effect on the musician. 1 Basic panel adjustments The first step was to open the image in Camera Raw, where I used the Basic panel controls to lighten the image using the Exposure and Shadows sliders. At the same time, I…

Hasselblad H5D 50c Wi-Fi Price £13,200 body + back Sensor 50MP 33x44mm ISO 100-6,400 This camera is a bit long in the tooth, and although it still works well operation isn’t as smooth as it could be. The back comes off and can be replaced with a different resolution. A great price at the moment. Phase One XF Price £25,000-£31,000 Sensor 40MP-100MP ISO Depends on sensor The resolution of the Phase One XF can be varied with interchangeable backs offering 40, 50, 60, 80 and 100 million pixels. The body is very modern and good to use, although we still only have one AF area. Pentax 645Z Price £6,000 with 55mm lens Sensor 50MP 33x44mm ISO 100-204,800 This is a lovely camera to use, and one that sports 27 AF…

THE OIS abbreviation in the lens name indicates it is equipped an optical image-stabilisation system. This is controlled via the OIS switch on the barrel beneath the focus-limit and manual-aperture control switches. However, unlike some telezooms that provide more than one mode to ensure intentional panning and tilting isn't mistaken for camera shake, there's no second mode on this lens – it's set to either on or off. The image-stabilisation system is effective to 5 stops, and in between shooting I had the chance to catch up with Fujifilm's motorsport ambassador, Dirk Bogaerts, who uses the OIS system for every shot he takes, including panning shots. Dirk also recommends keeping the IS mode set to continuous from the camera's menu, which constantly stabilises the lens all the time OIS is…

Recently, a friend lent me his new Nikon D500 to try. It seemed to be well designed, but what impressed me most was the new autofocus system and its ability to latch onto and follow an object, even one with erratic motion. Nikon calls this system ‘3D tracking', which means it can take into account the distance of a target when it tries to track it. The D500 has153 autofocus sensors spread across the frame. Each of these can independently find the distance of an object within its field of view. The field of view of each sensor is also somewhat extended, so if the object's distance changes between readings, its rate of change of distance (velocity in a direction towards or away from the camera) can be calculated, as…

Dandelion by Dawid Zyla Nikon D7100, 28mm, 1/1,600sec at f/2.8, ISO 100 This image by Swiss photographer Dawid Zyla was uploaded to our Flickr page and shows how the humble dandelion can be used to create something quite beautiful. ‘I took this picture during a walk with my girlfriend,' says Dawid. ‘The weather was beautiful and the sun was nearing sunset. I took one lens and two colour filters with me so I could experiment with the different settings on my Nikon D7100. I live in Zurich and there's a great place nearby with thousands of dandelions. I asked my girlfriend to hold one of them and blow as hard as she could, and eventually I got the picture I wanted. I made some adjustments in Lightroom but they were…

‘Why have only one camera in your dreams when you can have as many as you want?’ I borrowed Nikon's new D5 to use at The Gadget Show Live back in April. Shooting away behind the stage, in near darkness, was proof of its excellent high ISO abilities, in particular in the102,400 to 819,200 range. I could take relatively noise-free shots at as little as1/500sec, of stunt footballer Dan Magness practising in the gloomy conditions (see below). Enthusing about this to others made them question whether the D5 was my ‘dream' camera. This was difficult to answer. The D5 is indeed a great camera, but I don't think it would be my dream model for everyday use. Its sensitivity and speed are brilliant for sports and photojournalism, but its weight…

Testbench ratings I have a question regarding the Testbench ratings in Amateur Photographer. Some of your ratings warrant a star rating using a silver box and some with a gold box. Could you explain the correlation between the two? If a product reaches the maximum 5 stars in a silver box, would the next level of ‘goodness' be 1 star in a gold box? David Richards, Dorset This is actually quite straightforward: 5-star awards have a gold box, 4.5 and 4 stars are silver, and lower scores are blue – Andy Westlake, technical editor The right judge In AP 9 April you published my letter commenting on an obnoxious judge who went on to publicly humiliate one of our members about his entry. Well, at our last internal competition evening…

Wanted: tenacious photojournalist for national broadsheet newspaper. No qualifications necessary, but experience essential. In return, you’ll receive an arsenal of photographic kit, a company car, a competitive salary, a pension and travel the world for free. Interested? To apply, all you need do is invent a time machine and travel back four decades. Even then, you’ll find that a young Brian Harris has pipped you to the job. Fast-forward to today and the career of the seasoned photographer, who has racked up nearly half a century shooting for the press, is the stuff of legend. ‘I’ve been an observer of history as it was being made,’ says Brian. ‘These events were high and low spots in everybody’s lives, but I’ve been privileged to see them happen right in front of…

Harry Borden Harry is one of the UK’s finest portrait photographers and his work has been widely published. He has won prizes at the World Press Photo awards (1997 and 1999), and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the RPS in 2014. The National Portrait Gallery collection holds more than 100 of his images. Visit www.harryborden.co.uk Polly Jean Harvey is an alternative rock icon. She has won the Mercury Prize twice, had eight nominations for the Brit Awards, six nominations for the Grammy Awards and was awarded an MBE in 2013 for services to music. The first time I photographed PJ Harvey was in 1996. At the time she was popular in trendy circles, but wasn’t widely known yet. She was about as cool as you could imagine and I…

Benro TMA28A Series 2 Mach3 Aluminium tripod We turn our spotlight on one of Benro’s latest offerings – a medium-sized aluminium tripod with twist-leg locks, all for under £120 Weight hook A small hook on the bottom of the centre column allows users to add weight to the tripod for extra stability. This hook can be unscrewed to flip the centre column upside down. Monopod leg One of the legs features foam padding. It can be unscrewed completely to double up as a monopod. Spirit level A bubble level on top of the tripod spider allows you to check if the tripod is level. Foot spikes For shooting in muddy conditions, Benro has included ground spikes. The rubber feet unscrew and the spikes can be screwed in. • Around £119…

Lens compatibility Leica’s S-mount range includes 10 lenses ranging from 24mm ultra-wide to 180mm telephoto. Leica also makes adapters for Contax 645 and Hasselblad H lenses. Central shutters Six of the Leica S lenses are available in versions with leaf-type central shutters that enable high-speed flash sync, activated by setting the power switch to CS. Tethered shooting Using Leica’s Image Shuttle 3 application, the camera can be shot tethered to a desktop computer through the USB 3.0 port, which is useful for studio work. Hotshoe This accepts Leica’s own dedicated flash units, including the powerful and well-featured SF 58 that also works on the SL (Typ 601) and M series cameras. Dual-function buttons The four buttons arranged around the LCD each access two different features, depending on how long your…

FOR ALL the little difficulties this Leica S (Typ 007) presents, it's a camera I enjoy using a great deal. Once I've set it up with the rear buttons customised to my liking, and now that I'm familiar with the menu system and how to skip pages instead of scrolling through all the options, I can make it work quite quickly. The AF is good enough and works well in most cases, and when it is insufficient the massive, bright viewfinder makes focusing manually a joy. I long for all medium-format cameras to grow more than one AF point – if Pentax can do it, surely Leica can too. It is the weakest area of the camera. The handling of the S is very important because Leica has made a…

The digitised collections of the New York Public Library (www.nypl.org) contain much that is parochial or of limited interest, but also much that is fascinating. This hand-coloured postcard, for example, raises at least seven questions. First, why do we buy (and send) postcards? It cannot be to gloat, or we should soon lose all our friends. A more convincing argument is that we wish to remind them that we think of them often. Second, why would a photographer buy postcards anyway? It is a universal law that our postcards arrive after we have returned home. So why don’t we print our own pictures and send them from home? Well, perhaps because that really would smack of gloating, and besides, we would deprive the recipients of the exoticism of the stamp…

Fuji unveils 2x converter Fujifilm has unveiled a new 2x converter for its X-series lenses that is designed to be weather and dust resistant. The Fujinon Teleconverter XF2X TC WR, due out at the end of June and costing £349, is constructed from nine elements in five groups and built to resist temperatures down to -10°C. ‘Unseen’ royals A ‘previously unseen’ photo album, revealing members of the royal family recreating scenes from famous paintings, stars in a London exhibition exploring the relationship between paintings and early photography. The Tate Britain show, Painting with Light: Art and Photography from the Pre-Raphaelites to the Modern Age, runs until 25 September. Visit www.tate.org.uk. Retail competition People working in photographic retail can put their photography skills to the test in the first competition to…

MEMBERS of the public are set to gain access to rare photos from an album acquired by the National Portrait Gallery after it was saved for the nation. The ‘extremely rare and important album' showcases work by early Victorian photographer Oscar Gustav Rejlander – most of which have never been displayed before. The Swedish-born photographer settled in the UK in the 1840s and was hailed ‘the father of art photography' for combining several negatives to form a single image. ‘Anticipating Photoshop by more than a century, Rejlander is best known for his pioneering work combining multiple negatives in the darkroom to create new, artificial compositions,' explained the NPG. Last year, the Government placed a temporary export ban on the album of 70 photos, which was at risk of ending up…

Sjoerd Stellingwerf Sjoerd is a freelance visual creative based in Deventer, the Netherlands. With nine years’ experience in advertising as a designer and art director, he specialises in concept development and visual communication. What all his creations have in common is a well-thought-out idea and, often, a sense of humour. www.sjoerdstellingwerf.nl Humour is an important ingredient in my images. I enjoy mixing subjects to create something new. Last year, I thought of creating an image of a grandmother knitting, using wool directly from the sheep. I worked up a sketch of it; I find it’s good to get concepts down on paper as it makes me think of how the shoot should come together. Preparation The picture required quite a bit of preparation, but my timing wasn’t perfect. I wanted…

SO FAR in APOY 2016 we've looked at abstracts, wideangle views and people. Now we want you to turn your lens on the animals we share our planet with, both at home and abroad. Your shots can either take the form of portraiture or can be your attempt at the ultimate wildlife shot. With camera equipment becoming so much more affordable and compact cameras boasting impressive zooms, wildlife photography is now far more accessible. And you don't have to travel thousands of miles for this category. The pets in your own home can be just as impressive, photographically speaking, than anything found out in the wild. Also consider the wildlife that's right on your doorstep. These warmer months give you a chance to get out looking for things to photograph,…

Lucas Scott, Suffolk For Lucas, the real appeal of landscape and nature photography lies in the ability to capture the environment at its best one minute before it changes into something entirely different. His ultimate aim is to explore as much of the UK as he can, including areas such as the Highlands, Snowdonia and the Lake District. He also hopes eventually to launch some beginners' workshops to help inspire future photographers who are looking to make their mark in the world of photography. 1 Dunes Day This shot was taken in Wintertonon-Sea in Norfolk and nicely contrasts the sweeping grass with the brooding sky Nikon D7100, 18-105mm, 1/6sec at f/16, ISO 100, tripod, remote release 2 A Fresh Start This image, taken on the Suffolk coast, uses the pier…

1 Nikon D610 and grip The Nikon D610 is a fantastic camera that balances small size and light weight with fantastic image quality. I use the grip for more comfort when taking portraits, but remove it when travelling and shooting landscapes. 2 Nikon SB-700 Speedlight Pro-spec flashguns can be heavy and cumbersome. The Nikon SB-700 is powerful enough for most situations, but smaller and lighter than the SB-910. I use it off-camera and fire it using Yongnuo flash triggers. 3 Nikkor AF-S 16-35mm f/4G VR For landscapes I shoot with an ultra-wideangle lens. The dramatic field of view always produces beautifully dynamic images. With vibration reduction (VR) I can shoot handheld in low light without a tripod. 4 Nikkor AF-S 50mm f/1.8G A 50mm lens is one of the most…