Innholdsfortegnelse for 18-Nov-2017 i Amateur Photographer

Unless you really have been living like a mountain ascetic for the last few years, you’ll know we are in the middle of a film-photography revival. And as you’d expect from this analogue renaissance, darkroom printing and toning skills are enjoying a new lease of life. For some analogue experts, like Dr Tim Rudman, the skills never went away, which is why we’ve asked him to write a major two-part guide to getting dramatic darkroom toning. It all kicks off on page 16. The other massive highlight of this issue is our pre-Xmas guide to the best cameras and lenses on the market – we strongly recommend showing it to Santa. On the subject of the fast-approaching festivities don’t forget to check out our special Christmas subscription offer at bit.ly/apmagsubscribe.…

Yoga: The Secret of Life by Francesco Mastalia, powerHouse Books, £50, 224 pages, hardback, ISBN 978-1-57687-856-9 YOGA HAS gone from being something hippies and wannabe mystics did in the '60s to being as mainstream as badminton, so it's easy to forget its profound spiritual roots. This entrancing photo essay focuses on yogis from the West as well as India, and the portraits are varied and thoughtful, as are the essays – it's not just lots of buff types doing headstands in the woods. Italian photographer Francesco Mastalia used the historic wet-collodion process for the portraits, and it gives a wonderfully timeless feel as well as gorgeous background blur. His dedication and skill reflect that of the featured yogis. Geoff Harris ★★★★★ Into the Light: A Journey To Glastonbury by Kev…

1 Selenium/sepia toning The objective of duo-toning is to selectively tone the lower tones with selenium and the upper tones with sepia. This image is used in a video demonstrating this process. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=em4LxWxy_Is. 2 Duo-toning process Begin with selenium 1:20 for two minutes on warmtone papers, three minutes for coldtone papers. This locks-in and cools blacks, and boosts Dmax. Using selenium after sepia gives warmer blacks. Toning times also affect it. 3 Subtle toning effects The bleach follows running water full wash (three minutes RC prints, one hour FB prints). For subtle effects use 20% of recommended strength. Action takes seconds but is barely visible so use timer and hose off quickly. 4 Long bleach stage Here a longer bleach stage extended its action down into the mid-tones. The…

Samyang 21mm f/1.4 ED AS UMC CS • £279 • www.samyanglensglobal.com Available in Canon EF-M, Fujifilm X, Micro Four Thirds and Sony E mounts, this fast, wide prime comes into its own for shooting in low light or where creating a delightful shallow depth of field is key. It's manual-focus only, so it's no good for action or spur-of-the-moment shots, but if you have a solid focusing technique it produces exemplary results. Tamron SP 70-200mm f/2.8 Di VC USD G2 • £1,349 • www.intro2020.co.uk This telephoto zoom offers a big saving over Canon and Nikon's 70-200mm offerings, which cost closer to £2,000. With excellent optics, effective image stabilisation, fast autofocus and a weather-sealed construction, it offers excellent value for money. Indeed, it gives up little compared to its pricier rivals…

Fujinon XF 23mm f/2 R WR • Price £479 • www.fujifilm.eu/uk This lens offers a focal length equivalent to 35mm and is incredibly versatile since it forces you to interact with your subject by moving your feet. It's compact in size and reassuringly weather-resistant – it can operate in temperatures as low as -10°C. Featuring nine aperture blades, it produces attractive bokeh and is notably quiet, and fast, when focusing. Fujinon XF 35mm f/2 R WR • Price £429 • www.fujifilm.eu/uk With a focal length of 53mm in 35mm film terms, this light and compact lens offers an angle of view similar to that of the human eye. The lens is made up of nine elements in six groups, with two elements being the aspherical type. The result is rich…

Leica DG Summilux 25mm f/1.4 ASPH • £459 • www.panasonic.com/uk The Leica DG 25mm f/1.4 is an ultra-fast standard prime for use with Panasonic and Olympus Micro Four Thirds mirrorless cameras. Comprising nine elements in seven groups, internal construction includes two aspherical lenses and one Ultra High Refractive index lens. The lens also benefits from coatings to minimise ghosting and flare. Lumix G 7-14mm f/4 ASPH • £739 • www.panasonic.com/uk Owing to the 2x crop factor of the Micro Four Thirds standard, this high-end ultra-wideangle zoom provides a focal range equivalent to 14-28mm in 35mm terms. This makes it ideal for landscape enthusiasts looking to capture expansive horizons. Internally, the lens is constructed from 16 elements in 12 groups. Leica DG Nocticron 42.5mm f/1.2 ASPH Power OIS • £1,199 •…

The closure of Nikon Imaging (China) Co Ltd (NIC), a subsidiary of the camera company based in Wuxi City, Jiangsu, China has been announced. The factory, which employed around 2,500 workers, had been in operation since 2002. Its primary function was to produce compact cameras – the declining market for which is being blamed for the closure. It will come as no surprise to many that the compact camera market is suffering at the hands of ever-better mobile phone cameras. In a statement, Nikon Japan said, ‘In recent years, due to the rise of smartphones, the compact digital camera market has been shrinking rapidly, leading to a significant decrease in operating rate at NIC.' Expenses related to the closure of the factory are expected to be around ¥7billion (approximately £47m).…

To tie-in with the launch of the Lumix G9, Panasonic has also announced a new battery grip (DMW-BGG9) for the camera. This optional accessory accepts one additional DMW-BLF19E battery, which is also used in the Lumix GH5. As well as doubling the shooting stamina, the grip mimics many of the G9's key controls, including the AF selector, to offer a more intuitive shooting experience in the portrait orientation. The grip is built to the same splash-, dust- and freeze-proof construction as the camera, and anyone who pre-orders the Panasonic Lumix G9 between 8 November and 24 December will be entitled to a free battery grip. The price for the battery grip once the promotion ends will be £309.99.…

Adobe's announcement last month about its latest Lightroom products have caused quite a stir, but amid all the excitement about the rather brilliant new Lightroom CC app with its cloud-centric, edit-anywhere focus, two jarring pieces of news stood out. The first was the renaming of the Lightroom desktop app as Lightroom Classic. It's an unfortunate choice of words, isn't it? ‘Classic' denotes something old, beloved and quite possibly obsolete, like a vintage car. Are we to expect Lightroom Classic will eventually go the way of the Morris Marina? Perhaps I'm reading too much into it – after all, it's just a name. Subscription only The second announcement will have far greater implications for many users. Lightroom 6 will no longer be supported – from 2018 there will be no more…

Tim Rudman Tim Rudman works exclusively with film and darkroom printing processes. He has taught printing workshops around the world and his books include The Master Photographer’s Toning Book. His latest book isIceland, An Uneasy Calm and the accompanying exhibition is touring the UK. See www.timrudman.com . Toning has much to offer the film photographer who wants outstanding prints. Longer-lasting prints and deeper, more luminous tones are worthy goals, but the optional introduction of false colour alters perceptions of reality – enabling a more personal interpretation by the viewer. It also boosts mood and atmosphere on the finished results. Using colour contrast can also enhance tonal separation and aerial perspective. Over the next few pages we consider selenium, gold and sepia toners, while in a future issue we will take…

1 Toning is easy, just plan ahead, be organised and work clean. You can make it more complex at a later stage. 2 Knowledge of chemistry is not required for print toning but the ability to follow instructions carefully is. However, an understanding of the broad principles of what is happening will help you to experiment safely. 3 Always develop prints fully. Prints snatched early have less silver and may tone weakly. Fix fully with fresh fixer, as toners react with unfixed residual silver compounds. Wash prints thoroughly because residual fixer reacts with bleaches and impairs toning. 4 ‘Direct' toners act directly on the silver grains in the print. ‘Indirect' toners need a photographic ‘bleach' to first change the silver into something they can react with. This may be a…

Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark II • £539 • www.canon.co.uk The PowerShot G7 X Mark II sits just above the entry-level G9 X II (£399) within Canon's flagship G-series premium compact range. Built around a 20.1MP, 1in CMOS sensor, the G7 X II is equipped with a 4.2x optical zoom that provides the 35mm equivalent of 24-100mm. While there's no viewfinder, the 3in/1.04-million-dot rear LCD display is impressively sharp. Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000 • £569 • www.panasonic.com/uk Released in 2014, the 20.1MP Lumix DMC-FZ1000 sits just below Panasonic's flagship FZ2000 bridge camera. Both models share the same 20.1MP, 1in Live MOS sensor and 2.36-million-dot EVF, although the FZ2000 has a 20x zoom (24-480mm) whereas the FZ1000 is fitted with a16x zoom (24-400mm). Both have built-in image stabilisation and both provide 4K…

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM • £106 • www.canon.co.uk Compatible with full-frame and APS-C DSLRs, this ‘nifty fifty' is a short telephoto lens with an equivalent focal length of 80mm on an APS-C. It incorporates a stepper motor (STM) for smooth and quiet AF, and makes for an ideal upgrade from an18-55mm kit lens. Stopping down from f/1.8 to f/2.8 improves sharpness, and all trace of vignetting disappears by f/4. Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM • £199 • www.canon.co.uk If you're after a wideangle zoom for your Canon APS-C DSLR, this is a fine example to contemplate. Its stepping motor technology (STM) helps keep focus operation inaudible, and with 4-stop stabilisation it's possible to shoot sharp, handheld images with shutter speeds as slow as 1/5sec. Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8…

Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 17mm f/1.8 • £369 • www.olympus.co.uk One of the best things about Micro Four Thirds is the availability of small, high-quality primes such as this17mm f/1.8. With a moderate wideangle view equivalent to 35mm on full-frame, it's ideal for street photography where you want to be discreet. The push-pull manual focus ring with distance and depth-of-field scales is a particularly nice touch. Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45mm f/1.8 • £209 • www.olympus.co.uk Perhaps the single must-have prime for Micro Four Thirds users is this tiny, inexpensive lens, which gives a short telephoto view equivalent to 90mm. Its relatively fast maximum aperture makes it perfect for shooting pictures of people indoors, with a nice degree of background blur. It gets a big thumbs up from us. OlympusM.ZuikoDigital ED 12-40mm…

Pentax 35mm f/2.4 SMC DA AL • £119 • www.ricoh-imaging.co.uk The Pentax 35mm f/2.4 is an entry-level standard prime that equates to 52.5mm when mounted on an APS-C DSLR. While not as fast as the Pentax 35mm f/2 SMC AL, it only costs around a third of the price. Internally, the lens is constructed from six elements in five groups and benefits from a Super Protect coating on the front element to aid with cleaning. Pentax 50mm f/1.8 SMC DA • £129 • www.ricoh-imaging.co.uk This lightweight prime equates to 76.5mm when mounted on an APS-C DSLR. This pushes it into portrait-lens territory, where its fast f/1.8 maximum aperture can be used to help lift subjects from the background. The front element comes treated with Pentax's Super Protect coating to repel…

How to apply a selective colour adjustment This image by Ingeborg Gibbon is flawless. It helps, of course, that she shot it using a good-quality macro lens. The camera was most likely mounted on a tripod and the butterfly subject is beautifully positioned in the frame with a narrow depth of field, where the head and body are in perfect focus. When photographing flowers or insects, some things may contain more colour detail than can be seen on the display. So in this instance I used a selective colour adjustment to darken the luminance of the yellow patches on the wings. 1 Basic panel adjustments First, I opened the image in Camera Raw, selected the Crop tool and cropped more tightly around the butterfly and leaf. In the Basic panel…

Which SanDisk 64GB SD card for my XT-2? QI want to buy a new 64GB SD card for my Fujifilm XT-2. I've always found SanDisk to be good and, for better or worse, I'm sticking with SanDisk but I wish its product range was easier to understand. There is plenty of choice online – perhaps too much. For around £20 I have the choice of SanDisk SDSDU-064G-U46 Ultra SDXC UHS-I Class 10, SanDisk SDSDB-064G-B35 64 GB SDXC Class 4 Memory Card-Blue and the SanDisk Ultra 64 GB SDXC Class 10. For £30 I have the option of a SanDisk Extreme 64 GB SDXC Memory Card up to 90 MB/s, Class 10, U3, V30, FFP. Mnemonic madness if you ask me! Can you help me sort the wheat from the chaff?…

Recently, there has been a renaissance in medium-format systems. We have seen new models for existing systems, as well as completely new systems. In the former category are the Pentax 645Z (released three years ago), the Phase One iQ digital backs for the company's XF system (originally Mamiya) and the Hasselblad H6D. In the latter group comes the Hasselblad X1D and the Fujifilm GFX 50S. Both of these new entrants are mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, bringing the latest in digital camera architecture to medium format. Both have required a completely new infrastructure of lens and accessory support. Obviously, the manufacturers have felt the investment in developing these systems to be worthwhile, so let's examine the business case. The first factor is one of opportunity. All of these cameras are based…

BOTH Panasonic and Olympus have announced new cash back offers for winter. Panasonic is offering up to £100 for those purchasing G-series mirrorless models, a range of different lenses and compact cameras including the LX100 and the FZ2000. Meanwhile, Olympus is offering £200 cash back on its flagship OM-D E-M1 Mark II model, as well as up to £85 on a range of six lenses and the OM-D E-M5 Mark II. As the two manufacturers use the same lens mount, you can use lenses from either brand no matter which camera you own. Full details on the deals can be found at either panasonic. co.uk/promotions or bonus.olympus.eu.…

This big book of portraits contains 316 large-format pages, as befits one of the biggest personalities in photography – Annie Leibovitz. Having started her five-decade career in the1970s as a widely acclaimed photographer at Rolling Stone, Leibovitz has gone on to shoot the great, the good and the not-so-good in the world of music, movies, politics and business. This coffee-table-busting tome contains some of the finest examples of the past12 years. There are certainly plenty of the big-budget set-piece shots for which Leibovitz is famous/infamous: notable examples include Jack Nicholson posing like a gumshoe in LA at night, and an elaborately lit shot of George Clooney surrounded by lots of women in their undies. Playing it straight Ironically, it's the more intimate and straightforward portraits that have the most enduring…

Evening’s standard As someone who has soldiered on with Photoshop Elements 8 for years I never cease to be amazed by the post-production skills of AP's Martin Evening. Time after time he analyses readers' images, then turns them into near masterpieces so far removed from the original it's occasionally hard to believe they're the same picture. Martin is proof positive of the necessity of skilled post processing. Those who insist we get it right in camera could learn a lot from him. If a picture can be rescued from the rubbish bin and be hugely improved via photo editing software then why not? Particularly when it's someone as skilled as Martin at the controls. We tend to give photographers a lot of credit for their camera skills. Isn't it about…

Toners Most are readymade products. Some are a single solution that may need diluting, whilst others consist of two or more concentrates to be diluted and used either in sequence or mixed together immediately before use. Trays Use separate trays for each chemical stage as contamination can easily ruin your prints – especially fibre-based (FB) prints. A separate water-bath is useful to slow steps down for finer control. Tongs or nitrile gloves These keep chemicals off your skin, and fingerprints off your prints. Use soft-tip tongs, as hard tips can damage the softened emulsions. Rinse clean tongs and gloves between stages, and handle prints by their borders. Measuring beakers/ graduates Don’t use your kitchen graduates for chemicals and don’t try to use large-volume graduates for small volumes of chemical concentrates,…

Despite having lived in the US for over half a century, Harry Benson’s distinctive Scottish accent is as clear as a bell down the phone line from his New York home. Just shy of his 88th birthday, he took time out to speak to AP about his career and his latest book, Persons of Interest, which features a selection of his best images from 1957 to 2016. His first published photograph, of a roe deer, was in the Glasgow Evening Times 70 years ago, and his body of work includes the legendary image ‘The Pillow Fight’ (see page 25) featuring the Beatles, which was chosen as one of TIME magazine’s collection, 100 Photos: The Most Influential Images of All Time. Benson’s interest in photography was sparked during the Second World…

Panasonic GH5 • £1,699 • www.panasonic.com/uk Panasonic's GH range has long been the standard bearer for mirrorless video enthusiasts, with the GH5 being the latest model in the series. Headline features include the ability to record 4K video at 50/60fps, alongside 4:2:210-bit recording at 30fps for maximum flexibility at the post-production stage. Still-image abilities aren't lacking, either, with the GH5's 20.3MP Micro Four Thirds sensor capable of excellent image quality. Panasonic FZ2000 • £999 • www.panasonic.com/uk The FZ2000 is presented as a stills/video hybrid device in much the same way as the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX10 IV is. Built around a 20.1MP, 1in sensor, the FZ2000 is equipped with a 24-480mm equivalent optical zoom. In terms of its video abilities, the FZ2000 can record Cinema 4K at 24fps or QFHD 4K…

Leica Summilux-M 35mm f/1.4 ASPH • £3,649 • www.leica-camera.com The perfect partner for Leica M-series cameras, especially when shooting street and documentary photography, this wide prime is widely regarded as one of the best lenses ever made for any camera. The latest incarnation features a floating element behind the aperture blades to ensure that the performance is equally outstanding at close focusing distances. Leica Elmarit-M 28mm f/2.8 ASPH • £1,650 • www.leica-camera.com If the 35mm (see above) isn't wide enough, this 28mm should be perfect. In addition to offering a wider angle of view, it is the most compact M-series lens and weighs just 180g. Its diminutive profile means that, unlike its big brother, the 28mm f/2 (£3,230), it won't block the corner of the rangefinder. Leica Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4…

AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G • £179 • www.nikon.co.uk This is a very attractive focal length for portraits when used with Nikon APS-C DSLRs, and although this lens is a few years old now, it remains a good buy. There was some colour fringing visible in our high-contrast tests and this was echoed to a very slight degree in real-world photographs, but not enough to undermine overall image quality. AF-S DX Nikkor 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6 VR ED • £579 • www.nikon.co.uk This16-85mm zoom lens features Nikon's two-mode Vibration Reduction (VR-II) system. The lens is a versatile performer, but because of its variable aperture the smallest f-stop decreases from f/22 at 16mm to f/36 at 85mm, and the corresponding resolution figures do take a hit due to diffraction. AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G…

Sony Planar T* FE 50mm f/1.4 ZA • £1,449 l www.sony.co.uk This lens is pretty much as near to perfect in terms of optical quality as it's possible to get. It's stunningly sharp even at maximum aperture, while rendering beautifully blurred defocused backgrounds, thus making it ideal for low-light or portrait shooting. A built-in aperture ring makes for intuitive operation, too. Sony FE 85mm f/1.8 • £599 • www.sony.co.uk Sony's full-frame FE lenses have gained a reputation for being huge and expensive, but the firm also makes some smaller and more affordable options for enthusiast photographers. This 85mm prime is a great portrait lens for both full-frame and APS-C users, combining decent sharpness with attractive background blur. Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro G OSS • £889 • www.sony.co.uk The only…

About Stonechats Stonechats are robin-sized birds, with an orange-red breast and contrasting dark head, and white neck patches. In winter, they are widely dispersed across the UK in a range of habitats, making them more accessible to photographers than during the breeding season. • Location Fairly widespread in the UK. In the summer, they can be found breeding on moorland, heathland and sometimes grassland. In winter, some individuals move to the coast. • Size 11.5-13cm long, so slightly smaller than robins. • Breeding Stonechats breed in heathland, coastal dunes and rough grassland where there are scattered small shrubs and bramble, gorse or heather, in which a cup-shaped nest is made of grass and moss. • Diet Primarily invertebrates, but also seeds and fruit such as blackberries. • Population 59,000 breeding…

THE HOLIDAY season is almost upon us, which means it's time for Stir-up Sunday, sentimental TV adverts, and the Amateur Photographer Christmas cover competition. This year we have teamed up with Photocrowd, Billingham and PermaJet to offer you global exposure, and some great prizes to boot. The prizes The expert's winner (as judged by the AP team) will see their picture grace the cover of the AP Christmas Special (23-30 December). They will also receive a Billingham Hadley Pro bag worth £200, courtesy of Billingham (www.billingham.co.uk) and an A3 print of the finished design courtesy of PermaJet (www.permajet.com). There will be a second winner (chosen by a public vote on Photocrowd (www.photocrowd.com), who will receive £100 and an A3 print of their image. If the standard of entries is high…

‘The smoke symbolises fire and warmth; the substantial stone building, shelter and security’ Is it possible to remember a place you have never seen? I have never been to Bhutan but I remember this place, or somewhere very like it. Intellectually, I find it hard to believe in past lives but I know too many people with too many past-life memories to dismiss the idea completely. The lighting and composition are perfect. It is early in the morning but well after sunrise – look at the shadows. It’s cold and misty, and the farmers are cooking their breakfast on wood-burning stoves. The scene plugs into a primeval reaction: the need for warmth, shelter and security as the cold seeps into your bones. The smoke symbolises fire and warmth; the substantial…