Innholdsfortegnelse for 30-Sep-2017 i Amateur Photographer

Wildlife is one of the most popular genres in photography, and with good reason. Here in the UK we are blessed with a range of photogenic species, and if you travel abroad the options are even wider. However, doing justice to magnificent creatures with your camera can be a challenge, which is why we’ve asked some of the finest names in wildlife photography to share their hard-won wisdom in this issue. The beauty of this genre is that amateurs can often take world-class pictures too, as you can see in our feature on Wildlife Photographer of the Year (page 32). This is also a genre that needs specialist gear, but it needn’t be expensive, as our major wildlife accessory round up on page 58 reveals. As always, we’d love to…

Grafters exhibition This exhibition explores the Industrial Revolution, with techniques in photography changing as time went on that allowed ordinary people to take photos. On show at the Bradford Industrial Museum, the exhibition is on loan from the People’s History Museum in Manchester and includes previously unseen images. Until 5 November, www.bradfordmuseums.org Portrait course This two-day course at the V&A covers a range of approaches to portraiture. It looks at the work of Martin Parr, Robert Frank and Steve McCurry, among others, to find out how the dynamic between photographer and sitter can lead to striking pictures. 1-2 December, www.vam.ac.uk , £200 (concessions available) Observations This major group exhibition combines historical works with contemporary artists and uses photography to explore the natural world. ‘Celestographs’ made…

DIGITAL Splash 2017, the biggest photography and optics show in the North of England, has announced its full speaker line-up. You can expect a range of talks from photographers and experts working in fields including landscape, street, portrait, pet and astro. Entry to the show is free, but there is a fee for talks. If you register via the website now, you can take advantage of a 10% discount. Spanning the weekend of the 7-8 October, the show will be held at the Exhibition Centre Liverpool. For more, and to register, visit digitalsplash.tv.…

Hit the road In your article Hit the road (AP 9 September), you write, ‘just hop in the car and drive right up…' This touched a tender spot and has driven(!) me to write. Like me, there must be a large number of your readers – and photographers – who are frustrated because of their advanced years who are not able to drive. I am 86 years young and I still have my inspiration, passion and a lifelong enjoyment of photography, yet I'm unable to drive, and the ability to hike long distances and yomp rough terrain are a fading ability and memory. Begging an occasional lift, or taking public transport are our only options to get further afield than our home locality. Perhaps you could persuade one of your…

‘I feel at home in Africa. I like the people, I like the animals, I like the places, so it’s always a bit like going back to an ancestral home’ Few wildlife photographers can match Frans Lanting’s consistent ability to produce books that raise the bar each time for the quality and epic scale of the images he captures. Titles such as Madagascar (1984), Okavango (1993), Eye to Eye (1997), Jungles (2000) and Life (2007) have earned numerous awards and plaudits. In describing Lanting’s work, The New Yorker once wrote, ‘No photographer turns animals into art more completely than Frans Lanting.’ So, when news breaks that a new Frans Lanting book is about to be published, expectation runs high among photographers, nature lovers, magazine editors and conservationists all over the…

DISTAGON T* 2.8/15 With a field angle of 110°, the super-wide-angle Distagon T* 2.8/15 is the ideal companion when it comes to capturing those extraordinary moments in nature. Visit www.zeiss.com/classic for the full range of Classic lenses. MILVUS 2/100 The Milvus 2/100, featuring the ZEISS Makro-Planar lens design, is currently the fastest 100mm macro lens on the market. Its precise mechanical components and large focus throw enable precise control — something that’s essential for close-up macro photography. Visit www.zeiss.com/milvus for the full range of Milvus lenses. OTUS 1.4/28 The Otus 1.4/28 is in a class of its own, providing high resolution and outstanding definition. The optical correction prevents practically any aberration you can think of – it’s quite simply the best wide-angle lens in…

Spring Spring is an exciting time for any aspiring wildlife photographer. Following the bleakness of winter, the days begin to lengthen, the first green shoots appear, foliage starts to re-grow, and birds and mammals become more active as they prepare themselves for the rigours of the breeding season. ‘Courtship behaviour usually begins in March and continues throughout the following weeks’ Great crested grebes Great crested grebes are a favourite subject of mine and their courtship behaviour is regarded as one of the most spectacular sights in British nature. Thanks to conservation efforts their numbers are up and these elegant birds are widespread in the UK, being found on lakes, gravel pits, reservoirs and even rivers. Courtship behaviour usually begins in March and continues throughout the following few weeks. As with…

Generally, we tend to associate single-lens reflex cameras with focal-plane shutters, but in the1950s and '60s some manufacturers produced SLRs with leaf shutters. The most prolific maker of this type of camera was Zeiss Ikon, with its Contaflex series from 1953-1972. While cameras with leaf shutters were smaller, lighter and quieter than the focal-plane equivalent, options for lens interchangeability were limited, and the complex synergy between shutter, diaphragm and mirror resulted in complicated mechanisms. The sequence goes like this: when composing and focusing your shot, the aperture diaphragm is fully open, as is the shutter, the mirror reflects the scene onto the focusing screen and acts as a light seal to protect the film. Once the shutter release is pressed the shutter closes, the mirror goes up, the diaphragm stops…

Photographer Ami Vitale went to great lengths for her series depicting the conservation efforts of the Wolong Hetaoping Center in China, which works to train pandas to survive in the wild. Workers at the reserve dress in full-body panda suits in order to teach the pandas not to become accustomed to human contact, and Vitale did the same to capture her unique set of images. Does such a suit fool a panda cub? That's the hope at the centre, where captive-bred bears training for life in the wild are sheltered from human contact. The series was recently placed second in the Sony World Photography Awards ‘Natural World' category, while the set of images was featured in an extended essay in Natural Geographic magazine in 2016. Words & numbers When I…

BRITISH LED lighting manufacturer Rotolight has introduced a new all-in-one High Speed Sync (HSS) Flash and continuous on-camera LED lighting system called the NEO 2. The most exciting new specification of the system is that NEO 2 has no recycle time, making it ideal for use with cameras that are capable of shooting at fast frame rates. Aimed towards portrait photographers, as well as videographers, the NEO 2 can be used simultaneously as a modelling light and HSS flash, so you get the benefits of continuous light as well as the flexibility of HSS flash, up to 1/8000sec, with 500% flash output. For the NEO 2, Rotolight has collaborated with Elinchrom to integrate a ‘Skyport' 2.4Ghz HSS wireless flash receiver. This eliminates the need to purchase a standalone flash receiver,…

‘Sony clearly understands its market as well as its potential markets’ Digital audio formats seem to be prompting an analogue renaissance. I have seen six stories in the past12 months on the increasing popularity of the LP. Then I read the news that ‘The Japanese arm of Sony Music announced it would open its own record-pressing plant in March next year to cope with the huge demand for vinyl in the country.' Increased vinyl sales are attributed to older people still attached to the format, together with a younger audience wanting to own a physical format – something they can touch and feel, much like a photographic print. Somehow not everything digital is engaging and, of course, for many, digital is no longer new. Some record buyers prefer their sound…

Frans Lanting doesn't restrict himself only to the Nikon DSLRs and lenses that have served as his main tools for much of his career. Increasingly, he uses ‘different cameras for different purposes'. These include mirrorless cameras, GoPros and the iPhone, which serves several purposes when out on location. ‘There are so many different tools and it's not a linear process any more,' he says. He is also fascinated by the history of photography and recently travelled to South Georgia, 100 years after polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton's epic Endurance expedition. While there, he dressed in period clothing similar to that worn by Frank Hurley, Shackleton's official photographer, and used a century-old Kodak folding camera. He says, ‘It was challenging to create images with that camera, and it only increased my…

Tesni Ward Tesni Ward is a professional wildlife photographer based on the outskirts of the Peak District. While the majority of her work focuses on British wildlife, she also photographs projects across the world and has aspirations to promote conservation and education through her images. Visit www.tesniward.co.uk . Sometimes life throws us a curve ball that is totally unexpected. For me, it was losing my job in sales at the beginning of February last year. Having just invested heavily in camera equipment and several photography trips, there couldn’t have been a worse time for this to happen. I spent a couple of weeks having a compulsory sulk while trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life. My job had been relatively OK, but I knew…

Most photographers have a telephoto zoom in their kit bag, generally of the 70-300mm type or equivalent. These are a great starting point for shooting wildlife, but if you want to get serious about the subject, their relatively short reach can quickly become limiting. Fortunately, there are some great longer telephoto zooms on the market that won’t break the bank (or your back!) in the way large telephoto primes do. Here are some of our favourites. Nikon AF-S Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR AF-S • £1,180 • www.nikon.co.uk FOR Nikon DSLR shooters, the 200-500mm f/5.6 offers a unique option, being relatively affordable while offering a very useful long telephoto range – extending to fully 750mm equivalent on DX-format cameras such as the D500. Its f/5.6 maximum aperture means that it's…

‘To get adequate depth of field, they must have been working at a tiny aperture, possibly with a little tilt as well’ The Abbey of Saint Denis in Paris is one of the first places I visited in France, many years ago, because I was born and christened in St Dennis in Cornwall. My late mother always told me that we were a daughter parish of Saint-Denis. I have never been able to verify this, but the church dates from before the Norman invasion in 1066. In August 2017 I found an old book of postcards of the Abbey for € 2 at a vide-grenier (flea market), albeit with the first one or two postcards missing (you tear them out to send them). You know the first reason I bought…

Epson expands EcoTank printer range The next generation of Epson printers to use cartridge-free EcoTank technology has arrived. The range includes two dedicated photo printers, the ET-77500 and ET-7700. Each printer has a high initial cost, but comes with the capacity to create up to 3,400 photos with the included set of inks. Other features include an SD card slot and a 6.8cm LCD display. Reuters offers photojournalism grant Up to eight grants worth $5,000 are being offered by the Reuters photo agency. Available to both professionals and students of photojournalism, applications must be received by 10 December 2017. Photographers need to pitch projects, including details on how it would be created. Visit reuters.com for more details. Adobe previews new Curvature Pen Tool Ahead of what is promised to be…

RICOH has launched the Theta V, which can capture 360° spherical still images and 4K 360° video at 30fps. The Theta V can record high-quality 360° still images equivalent to 14MP output. Images can be posted directly to social networking sites that support 360° video and images, such as Facebook and YouTube. Pictures can also be cropped for sharing on other networks, such as Instagram. Other features include support for 4K 360° live streaming, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi dual communication, an in-built four-channel microphone that supports spatial audio recording, and a shutter speed of up to 1/25,000sec. An optional underwater housing can be used at depths of up to 30m to achieve 360° underwater shooting. Other accessories include a 3D Microphone TA-1. Weighing around 121g, the Ricoh Theta V will be…

Sony FE 12-24mm f/4G Is this the ultimate ultra-wideangle zoom for Sony’s Alpha 7 and Alpha 9 models? APOY: Landscapes Great Sigma prizes to be won in Round Seven of our APOY competition Fujifilm Instax Square SQ10 Fuji’s hybrid digital/instant camera on test Filter holders round-up We look at some of the best holders for drop-in filters on the market today…

Images of insects in mid-flight are fairly commonplace now, but it was only in the early 1970s that British photographer Stephen Dalton became the first person to succeed in capturing them, using high-speed imaging techniques he developed himself. His groundbreaking work has graced the pages of AP on many occasions. Now, after a nine-year hiatus, he has published his 15th book, My Wood, so naturally AP wanted to talk to him about it. The first challenge in interviewing Stephen is finding his house. After a series of roads that get successively narrower, steeper and bumpier as they meander through a dense woodland canopy, I finally arrive at his idyllic Victorian farm cottage, in what can truly be described as deepest Sussex. From the rear are stunning views of the Sussex…

I’VE had a busB couple of Bears. Besides mB ongoing conservation work with our land restoration and education project (www.simonkingwildlife.com), a lot of mB efforts have been concentrated on the field of wildlife still photographB. FormBlatestbook NatureWatch, a guide on how to track and observe British wildlife, I set mBself the enviable task of trBing to generate original imagerB to illustrate all of the species covered in the book along with their signs – and that’s a lot of creatures! To do this, I travelled the length and breadth of the UK, photographing the magnificent wildlife and the clues theB leave behind; from footprints to poop. This task called upon the full batterB of lenses I have at mB disposal, including the raCorsharp ZEISS 1DDmm f/2 Milvus lens for the…