Innholdsfortegnelse for 13-Jan-2018 i Amateur Photographer

Most of us take for granted the amazing technology, and the incredible precision, involved in the manufacture of our cameras and lenses. Last month I was privileged to be invited to take a tour around Canon’s L series lens factory in Japan. It was the first time anyone from the UK photo press had been allowed to peek behind the scenes. Having tested some impressive Canon lenses in recent years it was fascinating to watch them roll off the production line and to meet the people who designed them. Read all about it on page 46. Also, whichever camera brand you own, you’ll have faced the problem that digital cameras can’t record as wide a range of tones as you can see with your eyes. This week James Paterson shares…

‘I shot handheld, just happy to be making a record – my last tangible contact with him’ Death is one of the inevitables in life, yet we find our own mortality, and that of our loved ones, difficult to reconcile with what happens after death. And when we lose someone close to us, it leaves an emotional hole that is never filled, the pain just dulling with time. In consequence, memories become bittersweet and photography therefore has a key role to play. The invention of photography coincided with the high mortality experienced by Victorian society, so the development of photos of the deceased (memento mori) is fascinating in how they immortalised the individual (find out more at http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-36389581). But the Victorians were not the only ones who approached the subject…

James Paterson James is a skilled photo editor and photographer. His work has appeared in countless magazines and books, and in 2014 he was appointed editor of Practical Photoshop magazine. Visit www.patersonphotos.com In any given scene there will be two opposing points when it comes to light: the absolute brightest and the darkest. Let’s say we’ve hiked to the top of a mountain range at sunset. Pointing our camera westwards, the brightest point in the frame will almost certainly be the sun in the sky. Meanwhile the mountains in the foreground are in shade, so the darkest part of the scene might well be deep inside a cave in the face of the rock. The difference in brightness between these two points is called the dynamic range of the scene.…

‘Photography is sometimes... kind of a “Venus flytrap” of equipment’ For over 40 years the intensely powerful photography of Albert Watson – whose images range from film director Alfred Hitchcock holding a goose to a chimp brandishing a gun – has provoked, delighted and amused people around the world. His diverse body of work stretches across many photographic genres and a huge collection of it is showcased in his new book KAOS. Although blind in one eye since birth – hence his first book was titled Cyclops – Watson has established himself as one of the world’s leading exponents of photography, so much so that the US publication Photo District News (PDN) named him one of the 20 most influential photographers of all time. Speaking to AP from his New York…

At a glance • Takes a camera and one or two lenses • Slips into any bag • Drawstring cover • 18x22x11cm (external) Rear pocket A single full-width pocket covers the back of the bag, with a zip closure to keep the contents safe Movable dividers Two padded dividers are provided, and can be repositioned using Velcro Front pockets Twin slip-in half-width pockets on the front are ideal for holding filters Water-repellent cover Can be folded down around the outside of the bag to give clear access to your kit • £20 • www.manfrotto.co.uk ONE quirk of being a photographer, I've found, is that as you get more committed and acquire more kit, the more bags you seem to need. Some days you might want a small holster for a…

DAME Esther Rantzen presented the winners of AP's Silverline Photo Competition with their prizes last week at Grays of Westminster. The competition, which was kindly sponsored by Grays, asked for positive images of the elderly, and was won by Deborah Brown of Jersey. Second place went to Pete Murrell, and Hayley Lehmann won third place. All three won Nikon cameras donated by Grays of Westminster, the exclusively Nikon store in based in Pimlico, London. Also in attendance were AP editor Nigel Atherton and Silverline's director of fundraising, Nina Gopal. Silverline is a charity founded by Dame Esther, and runs a helpline for vulnerable older people. For the latest news visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk…

Sony Alpha 7R III Is this full-frame powerhouse the most versatile mirrorless camera yet? Set the tone Toners can bring a black & white print to life – Tim Rudman explains how A bird in the hand… Why you don’t need to go any further than your back garden for great shots…

Use a low ISO Lower ISOs result in images with a higher dynamic range, as the less noisy, the greater the detail held at the tonal extremes. There's one caveat –extended low-ISOs such as Canon's ISO 50 may actually result in less dynamic range, as the image is effectively overexposed on capture, then corrected. Shoot in raw format Raw files contain greater information in shadows and highlights because they hold all the raw data the sensor is capable of recording, whereas JPEGs discard excess data. So raws give you greater dynamic range than JPEGs, which is especially useful for high-contrast landscapes. Expose to the right Shadows contain higher noise levels than highlights. Create a higher-quality image by making it as bright as possible without clipping the highlights, before correcting it…

Over the past 30 years Canon has produced 90 million EOS cameras and 130 million EF lenses. It’s an astonishing figure which vindicates Canon’s decision back in the 1980s to abandon its popular FD mount in favour of the new electronic EF mount, rendering its then-entire, existing system obsolete at a stroke. Canon’s subsequent conquest and domination of the 35mm SLR market, followed by the DSLR market, is entirely due to that move, because the new mount laid the foundations for all the groundbreaking technology that followed. To celebrate this milestone, AP was one of just two UK and four German publications invited to visit Canon’s global headquarters in Tokyo and tour its Utsunomiya lens plant, where its L-series lenses are made. Canon’s Utsunomiya lens factory was built in 2005,…

Megapixels – how many do I need? Q Like most, I want good image quality. As much as I like new technology, I struggle to see the difference between a new FF camera and an old one in reasonable condition. Some say larger pixels are better but new sensors have more megapixels, hence lower size pixels. Is a Canon EOS 5DS that much better than say a Canon EOS 5D, and if so, why? What am I missing? Bazarchie (AP forum) A Sensor resolution is important, up to a point. It rather depends on your application. If you are likely to print very large or crop your images heavily then the importance of how many pixels you have to play with comes to the fore. Otherwise the quality of your…

THE LEICA Camera Group has announced revenues of almost 7 400 million in the financial year 2016-17. This implies a 6% growth for the company, compared to the near 10% decline recorded in the global camera market across the same period. In the first few months of the current financial year (2017-18), the company's cumulative growth stands at 15%. Leica introduced a number of new products in 2017, including the mirrorless CL and TL2 cameras and the M10 rangefinder. In addition, the company collaborated with Chinese company Huawei on the Mate 10 Pro smartphone. According to the CEO of Leica Camera AG, Matthias Harsch, China is the biggest growth market, and there are plans to open 20 to 30 new shops in the country. Subscribe to Amateur Photographer SAVE 42%…

The Phantom of the Opera opened in London's West End in January 1988 and it's still going strong. On the 9th of that month, when this issue of AP hit the shops, Belinda Carlisle was telling us that Heaven is a Place on Earth, but for AP readers, heaven was a photo bargain. In an era when everyone was trading in their old manual-focus SLRs for AF ones, our big feature on secondhand cameras ‘focused' on snapping up old manual bargains such as the Canon F1 and Nikon F. For those looking for new kit, we zoomed in on three bargain lenses from the Koboron brand, which apparently produced the world's first 24-70mm lens. ‘If the name Koboron isn't yet well known in this country, it soon will be,' said…

We all know that one of the best parts of television series such as Blue Planet II are the behind-the-scenes sections shown at the end of each episode. Here, we witness the genuine hardships the film crew has had to endure in order to bring back footage of the natural world so that we can enjoy it from our sofas. This particular series was more than four years in the making, and what the crew came back with was painstakingly edited into seven episodes. Once more, a powerful voiceover comes courtesy of Sir David Attenborough, whose calming, common sense tone is exactly what we all need right now. This wonderful hardback that accompanied the series reveals some of the incredible discoveries the crew made during their trips – from dolphins…

When our 18-year-old daughter told me her new boyfriend was a ‘tog' I hadn't a clue what she meant. She always uses irritating street talk. When she referred to our new flat screen TV as ‘sick' I shook my head until my wife explained ‘sick' stands for ‘cool.' Anyway, her boyfriend Daniel is a pho - tog - grapher hence the daft moniker. But a tog who uses an old Minolta X700 and various old Rokkor lenses. He shoots in black and white which he calls ‘retro' and says he loves the ‘vibe' of it. But it was when he called my old Pentax Spotmatic 500 a ‘boneshaker' that I began to bristle... Of my old Lubitel Russian TLR, Daniel said focusing it was like looking through the bottom of…

1 Set black & white points In Lightroom and Photoshop's Camera Raw we can check for, and sometimes rescue, clipped pixels by holding Alt while dragging the whites or blacks sliders. This gives us a view that shows clipped pixels as we drag. We usually want whites and black on the very edge of clipping, as this gives us a tonally rich image. 2 Fix any underexposure Modern sensors are capable of recording an incredible amount of detail in the shadows. Even a badly underexposed image like this (3 stops underexposed) can be rescued. After increasing the exposure by +3 and applying noise reduction, the image – while not as good as a correctly exposed frame – is still usable. 3 Correct any overexposure Landscapes are a good test of…

James Paterson James is as skilled a photo editor as he is a photographer. His work has appeared in countless magazines and books, and in 2014 he was appointed editor of Practical Photoshop magazine. His subjects range from portraits to landscapes, architecture and underwater scenes. For James, Photoshop is more than just a work tool. Visit www.patersonphotos.com 1 Target the yellows Sometimes a building illuminated with tungsten light will look overpoweringly yellow, even after fixing the white balance. When this happens you can try lowering the saturation selectively. Go to the Saturation tab within the HSL Panel, grab the target tool, then drag down over the yellow building. You can also use it to boost colours like the greens here. 2 Pull out shadow details Often when shooting night photos…

MR SAITO joined Canon in 1981 as an apprentice and did various jobs before finding his niche as a lens polisher. As the Takumi, he oversees all lens polishing at the plant (they polish approximately 5,000 lens elements per day at Utsunomiya) and is also responsible for training the next generation of lens polishers. What are the most difficult parts of the job to master when learning to be a lens polisher? The greatest challenge is the level of precision required – achieving that one to the millionth. Building the experience to know by eye what is required takes a long time. Lens polishing is one of the most difficult parts of the lens-making process, and you have to develop and use the three senses: sight, hearing and touch. Hearing,…

I SO, or film speed, has unfortunately become one of the most misunderstood parts of photography. There are two fundamental misunderstandings embedded in the collective consciousness that are routinely stated as fact online and even in books. I believe it is best to dispel false definitions when they arise, so here goes. Dispelling the myths False fact one is that ISO is a part of exposure. This arises from the popularity of Bryan Peterson's photographic triangle mnemonic, which has unfortunately been renamed somewhere along the lines of exposure triangle. This little graphic (below) shows that, apparently, exposure is a product of three variables: aperture, shutter speed and ISO. This cannot be the case, since ISO is defined in terms of exposure. The applicable ISO standard, which defines ISO speeds and…

In 2017 Kathryn Polley was one of three winners of the Jill Todd Photographic Award, established to encourage recent graduates in photography. It was set up by Jill’s parents to commemorate the tragically early death of their photographer daughter. So I visited www.jilltoddphotoaward.com and www.kathrynpolleyphotography.com as well as Kathryn’s other site, www.gerenargyll.co.uk. I found many excellent pictures, but this one stuck firmly in my mind. Although I keep saying that it’s possible to admire a picture without wishing that you had taken it, it is also possible to admire a picture and to wish very much that you had taken it. This for me is one such picture. A few of my own photographs are a bit like it: taken through glass, with reflections or movement or both. They are…