Innholdsfortegnelse for 10-Jun-2017 i Amateur Photographer

If one of the best bits of travel photography is the excitement of planning a trip and working out what gear you’re going to take, one of the worst bits is lugging it all around. Good travel photography can be physically and mentally demanding, especially in the heat or on a hike, and heavy camera bodies, lenses and tripods can quickly drain your creative energy. Hence this issue’s feature ‘Slim down for summer’ on page 12. As Matt Golowczynski reveals, you can still get great travel images without taking along the contents of a small camera store; we’d love to see any great shots you’ve taken on your travels. Also, don’t miss the first instalment of this year’s Amateur Photographer of the Year competition on page 21 – some magnificent…

Michael Wolf Michael Wolf is known for capturing Hong Kong’s hyper-density in his large-scale photographs of its architecture. In his series Tokyo Compression, Wolf photographs the crush of the Tokyo subway, in which thousands of commuters make their daily journeys between work and home. Until 1 July, www.flowersgallery.com Sean Conboy Conboy has been the official photographer for the Blackpool Grand Theatre for many years. Whether you want to learn the basics, build on your existing photography skills, or are a budding professional, his photographic sessions are the ideal masterclass to learn how to shoot structures and interiors. 13 June, www.blackpoolgrand.co.uk Astrophotography winners The Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year is the biggest international competition of its kind, annually showcasing spectacular images shot by astrophotographers. This is…

Organisers of Photokina, the world's leading trade fair for photo, video and imaging, have announced that the show will take place annually from 2018. Photokina is currently held once every two years in Cologne, Germany, but to reflect the fast-paced nature of the industry and shorter cycles for new innovation and product announcements, it wants to ‘reposition' itself to cover a broader range of products on a more frequent basis. The next show in 2018 will run from 26-29 September, and will offer a ‘more compact, more intensive trade fair experience'. The 2019 event will be held in May. For more details visit www.photokina.com.…

Round One Black & White SUJAN SARKAR from West Bengal, India, is the winner of Round One of APOY 2017. Sujan takes home a Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art lens worth £749.99 and a Sigma EF-610 DG Super flashgun worth £259.99. The 50mm lens offers the ultimate in image quality. Resolution is extremely crisp at the area in focus, while both front and rear bokeh are silky smooth. The flashgun is a shoe-mount-type flash and is designed to work with the most popular DSLRs. That's a prize total of £1,009.98 1 Sujan Sarkar India 50pts Nikon 1 J1, 10-30mm, 1/500sec at f/5.6, ISO 100 ‘This image has immediate and irresistible initial impact, but it also has staying power, continuing to reward repeated viewing without diminishing its power. The strength…

Whereas some of its rivals, such as the Nikon D5600 and Pentax KP, go without an anti-aliasing filter in an effort to resolve the finest detail, the EOS 77D holds on to an anti-aliasing filter. With this in place, it has its work cut out to achieve the same levels of resolution. At ISO 100, the sensor resolves a level of detail that we'd expect from an APS-C DSLR with an anti-aliasing filter. Our dynamic-range tests show an improvement on the 750D/760D, with the EOS 77D returning figures that are higher across the entire sensitivity range. Dynamic range Compared to the EOS 760D, which delivered a figure of 11.6EV at ISO 100, the EOS 77D produces a higher 12.5EV figure at its base sensitivity setting. The dynamic range is higher…

Transferring photos from a memory card to your computer is one of those mundane tasks that chugs away in the background (most of the time) while you go and make a cup of tea. If I've shot a wedding, then my usual workflow is simply to plug the CompactFlash (CF) card into my Lexar USB3 card reader and then watch the images appear in Lightroom. However, the whole topic of data transfer speeds came back to haunt me recently after a day of shooting 1,000 images for a computational photography project. The main camera was my trusty Nikon D700, which I used to shoot uncompressed 14-bit raw files (and nothing else). These weigh in at a fairly svelte (given the 12MP resolution) 14MB each, so my go-to CF card is…

Inspired reading I don't often buy AP (I never seem to get time to sit down and read it all in a week), but having scanned it during my lunch I was pretty impressed. I was particularly interested in the feature about shooting locally ( Local heroes , 20 May). This is something I'm making a conscious effort to do more of, although for someone who loves shooting hills and mountains, Staffordshire is quite a challenge. Maybe I can squeeze some sort of project out of this, who knows? Dave Fieldhouse, Staffordshire Many thanks Dave – great pictures can often be found on your doorstep, which, with air fares rising, is good news! Geoff Harris, deputy editor…

Panasonic Lumix TZ100 £528 The TZ100 combines a 20.1MP 1in sensor with 25-250mm (equivalent) lens inside a body that fits inside a jacket pocket. The sensor/lens combination delivers far better images than would ordinarily be expected at this level, and it even manages to find space for an electronic viewfinder. The f/2.8-5.9 maximum aperture may put some off, though. Sony Cyber-shot RX10 III £1,399 With a 20MP 1in sensor, an optic that offers a focal range equivalent of 24-600mm in 35mm terms and image stabilisation, the RX10 III is one of the most tempting all-in-one solutions. It's the priciest option on this list and quite bulky, but its excellent performance means it could serve as your main workhorse. Pentax K50 £389 body only The K50 may be one of the…

Flash sync speed The EOS 77D has a flash sync speed of 1/200sec. This is slightly slower than the 1/250sec flash sync speed you get if you opt for the slightly more advanced EOS 80D. Exposure compensation In manual mode, the rear thumb wheel controls aperture, but in program, aperture-priority and shutter priority modes it can be used to adjust exposure compensation (±5EV) on the fly. Mode dial The mode dial is positioned on the left side of the body. It’s the locking type and requires the central button to be depressed as it’s rotated. LCD display Although it’s small, the top-plate LCD displays the information you’ll want to refer to, including ISO, shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation (±2EV), battery life and Wi-Fi status. Video functionality The EOS 77D doesn’t…

• Free • app.olympus-imaging.com/oipalette At a glance • Replicates Olympus in-camera processing effects • Works on smartphones and tablets • For Android and iOS devices Buttons At the top right of the screen are buttons for undoing an edit, comparing to the original, and saving or sharing images Tool selection Along the bottom of the screen you’ll find art filter, Color Creator, highlight/shadow, text and settings icons Color Creator You can apply a tint to your images with a variety of colours and intensities. It is controlled by an intuitive graphical interface Options Art filters are displayed in a row across the screen, with thumbnails that preview how each variant will look NOWADAYS, it seems, you can't buy a camera that doesn't include a plethora of creative image-processing controls, with…

Mini camera drone arrives from DJI DJI has launched the neat and compact Spark mini camera drone that is the first to allow users to control it by hand gestures alone, without the need to master a separate remote controller. A kit including an aircraft, a battery, a USB charger and three pairs of propellers, is available, priced £519. Visit www.dji.com/spark Instagram introduces archive feature Instagram has rolled out a new feature called archive that allows users to hide selected posts, but allows them to be looked at in private or even be restored. Previously, Instagram users had to delete content. The ability should come in handy for photographers looking to make sure they’re leading with their best shots. Irix releases lens profiles Swiss lens manufacturer Irix has released updated…

Dana Lixenberg of the Netherlands has won the 2017 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation prize. Her winning long-term photography project captured a multi-faceted portrait of the residents and community of the Imperial Courts housing project in Watts, Los Angeles, USA. Titled ‘Imperial Courts (1993-2015)', the project began in the aftermath of riots sparked by the infamous beating of Rodney King by the LAPD. It charts the community of the area as it returned from the scene of violent protest back to an underserved and often invisible community. The passing of time Following a controlled and formal photographic style that she calls ‘slowing things down', Lixenberg expanded and revisited her project over 22 years as she followed the trajectories of individual lives in the neighbourhood. In her later visits, she took to…

AFTER a disastrous Kickstarter campaign to launch the Triggertrap Ada in 2013, things went from bad to worse for the company, leading to the closure of Triggertrap earlier this year. Triggertrap began as an open-source universal camera trigger in 2011. While the campaign to launch the Ada smashed its £50,000 target, Triggertrap had massively underestimated the cost to get the product to market. The Triggertrap mobile system consists of a mobile app, a mobile dongle and a camera connection cable. With Triggertrap no longer in business, the company decided to make the Mobile Dongle hardware open source. While the app is still available free on the Apple App store and Google Play store, its future is uncertain now that the hardware has become open source. The hardware open source for…

You answered… A Yes, I plan to buy one this year 10% B Yes, perhaps in a few years 21% C No, it will always be too expensive 23% D No, I have no need of it 46% What you said ‘I would very much like to see a comparison test between a high-end medium-format film camera and lens, using say a Schneider-Kreuznach Xenotar 80mm and Rollei Ortho 25 film, and the best of the new medium-format digital stable. My money would be on the Schneider and Ortho 25 film.’ ‘I just can’t see myself needing one at all, or even a full frame for a while. My Sony APS-C is more than enough for my current needs.’ ‘What about: No, I have too many already!’ ‘Absolutely, I just keep…

DESIGNED for portrait and location photographers and videographers on the move, AEOS is a bi-colour, location LED light with a unique ‘ultra-thin' design concept. Weighing in at less than 1.5kg and just 2cm thick, AEOS is one of the most portable lights on the market. It delivers a powerful light output of 5,750 lux at three feet, but is also one of the most energy efficient LEDs on the market, able to run for three hours at 100% power on a single 95W battery – more than twice as long as the industry standard. Unlike most LED lights with limited tilt angles, the AEOS uses a pro-level ball head as standard Our bundle includes: • Rotolight AEOS light • Pro Aluminium Ball Head • Power adapter • 95 Wh V-Mount…

Ken Mayled, Vale of Glamorgan Ken's first forays into photography began back in the 1970s, when he enrolled on a course in freelance photography and photojournalism. It was this that gave him the confidence to go out and explore the world around him with his camera. Since then, he has found an appreciation for all genres of photography, but here we focus on his black & white street photography. Ken also shoots colour work and is a member of Barry Camera Club. 1 The Look Ken has found a strangely eerie scene here. There’s something almost uncomfortable about the staring adverts Olympus Pen E-PL3, 14-42mm, 1/800sec at f/8, ISO 200 2 Drink Dance This image works due to the competing elements. Somehow, the various forms hang together nicely Panasonic Lumix…

CANON'S Dual Pixel CMOS AF technology made its debut on the EOS 70D back in 2013. Since then, we've seen it introduced in no fewer than seven DSLRs, which include the EOS 80D and EOS 800D. In practical terms, the main benefit of Dual Pixel CMOS AF is that it greatly speeds up focus-acquisition times when the camera is being operated in live-view mode. The way it basically works is that each pixel on the sensor's surface is split into two individual photodiodes – one left and one right. Each of these can be read separately, thereby allowing faster phase-detection autofocus while simultaneously being used for image capture. Prior to the introduction of Dual Pixel CMOS AF, Canon DSLRs relied on contrast-detect technology, which is typically slower and less accurate…

Resolution Typically for a wide zoom, the Tamron is sharpest when set to its widest position, and loses a little bite on zooming in. In general, it gives the best results with the aperture set from f/5.6 to f/11, with diffraction visibly softening images from f/16 onwards, and f/22 or smaller best avoided. Shading While light fall-off towards the corners of the frame is quite noticeable wide open at all focal lengths, it’s strongest at the 10mm position. It also never fully goes away at smaller apertures, but can be minimised in-camera by stopping down to f/8. Naturally, it’s easy to remove in post-processing from raw when desired. Curvilinear distortion At 10mm, the lens shows an unusual pattern of distortion, with a near-perfectly corrected central square region but noticeable barrel…

Huge numbers of cameras were produced under the Agfa brand in the second half of the 20th century. The Silette range in particular was extensive, and models bearing the name spanned more than two decades. The first Silettes were launched in1953. Over the years, designs evolved and new features were added. The Agfa Super Silette Automatic is one of the better specified examples. It dates from 1959, which was arguably the best time, as later models used plastic body parts and felt less solid. With the word ‘automatic' in the name you'd be forgiven for thinking this camera has an autoexposure function. However, it uses a manual needle-match system, which is coupled to the aperture and shutter-speed control rings. It's quick and simple to use, but not what we would…

‘The picture is quite clever. There’s a Busby Berkeley quality to the unfolding poses’ The Imperial War Museum never fails to surprise me when I go there, simply because it is so un-warlike. And, for that matter, so unimperialist. When I first went there as a small boy, of course it was all very exciting. However, with each returning visit, I feel closer and closer to the people who are portrayed there, and I appreciate more and more the art (in every form) that is on display. This is from the IWM’s new, stunning and remarkably affordable book, The Second World War in Colour (£14.99). No matter what your opinion of black & white as an artistic medium, or as a medium for reportage, the sheer unfamiliarity of colour from…