Innholdsfortegnelse for 24-Mar-2018 i Amateur Photographer

One of the things that I love about photography is the way it trains us to see the world in a different way. Photographers observe how the light falls; we notice curious juxtapositions and the shapes, patterns and colours in daily objects. It’s a 24/7 thing for us – not just when we have a camera. These skills get heightened the minute we attach a macro lens to our cameras. Suddenly our eyes are drilling down to pick out those little details for a good photograph, be they tiny subjects or the details of larger objects. It’s a fascinating perspective. But macro photography is not without its technical and aesthetic challenges, so we’ve got the experts to show how it’s done (page 12). Finally, don’t forget to enter APOY 2018…

‘Andreas Gursky’ is on at the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, until 22 April 2018. www.southbank centre.co.uk It's hard to mention Andreas Gursky without thinking of his image ‘Rhine II, which fetched an incredible £2.7 million at auction at Christie's New York in November 2011. But fixating on this piece of art would do him a disservice. He has been producing thought-provoking work for the past four decades, repeatedly crossing the boundaries between reality and fiction, and asking the viewer to play a pivotal role in the process. Gursky was born in 1955 in Leipzig, East Germany, and is the son of commercial photographers. From 1970 to 1980, he studied Visual Communication at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. He continued his artistic education at the Academy of Art in…

Stars of the show Andy Westlake rounds up all the new gear released at the CP+ 2018 trade show Small wonders John Wade tells us all about the Minox subminiatures from the 1930s to 1960s Sweetness and light Get great child portraits with Rotolight LEDs – James Paterson shows you how CONTENT FOR NEXT WEEK’S ISSUE MAY BE SUBJECT TO CHANGE…

Close-up lens If you don’t have a macro, try a close-up lens. They screw onto the front of a lens like a filter and reduce the minimum focusing distance of the lens. They are inexpensive and a great introduction to macro photography. Reflector The smallest Lastolite reflector is big enough for flower photography, or I even use just a piece of white card. A diffuser can be useful if the light is really harsh. Tripod This helps me to take time over my composition as well as focus precisely. I also use a cable release to avoid moving the camera when I press the shutter button.…

In many ways the GX9 is a really fine camera. It's small and easy to carry around, and I prefer its compact design to the bulkier GX8. Yet it still finds space for plenty of external controls, allowing enthusiast photographers to tinker with their settings. It has a solid core specification, but is also packed full of useful features that you won't find anywhere else. Crucially, Panasonic has delivered on its promise to give more attractive JPEG colour rendition. So far, so good: this is a camera that I can't help but feel that I should like, a lot. As an overall package, though, it just comes up short. The body design is nice enough, but doesn't really excel. The controls aren't set up especially well straight out of the…

Do you have more than one lens? What about a tripod, carry case or any additional video or audio equipment? The value of all your kit soon mounts up – but would you be able to replace it if something happened? Cameras are designed to be taken out and about, whether to shoot your next landscape, capture wildlife or travel photos for your portfolio, or just to capture those precious family moments. Plus, if you’re passionate about photography, as well as investing your time, you’ve probably invested heavily financially too. That’s why we’ve teamed up with well-known insurance provider, Thistle Insurance Services Limited, to bring you the cover you may need. Amateur Photographer Insurance Services can provide protection against theft and accidental damage for your camera and accessories up to…

Almost certainly, there is nobody alive today who knows who took this picture, or exactly when, or who the little girl is (was). Even if she lived to well over 100, she must be long dead now. So why is it important? Because, when we look at pictures from the past, it is all too easy to forget that these were people like us. As we are now, so once were they; as they are now, so shall we be. Let’s try to go behind the eyes of this little girl – eyes which, if we stare into them, appear to be on the verge of tears. Her clothes and jewellery suggest that she is in mourning; the necklace and armbands are improbably and rather badly picked out in gold…

TOKINA has shown two new lenses at the CP+ trade show in Yokohama, Japan. Firstly the Firin 20mm f/2 FE AF is an autofocus wideangle prime for Sony full-frame mirrorless cameras. It's a reworking of the existing manual-focus Firin 20mm f/2 FE MF, with a ring-type ultrasonic focus motor and electronic rather than mechanical aperture operation. It's due to go on sale at the end of May; pricing is not yet known. Meanwhile the Opera 50mm f/1.4 FF is the first in a new line of premium optics designed for use on full-frame DSLRs.It will feature an ultrasonic focus motor and weather-sealed barrel and should go on sale in the summer. For the latest news visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk…

Ross Hoddinott Ross is one of the UK’s leading outdoor photographers. He is a multi-award winning artist and the author of eight books. Ross has been an Ambassador for Manfrotto and Nikon UK. Visit www.rosshoddinott.co.uk . Insects and bugs LITTLE critters have always fascinated me. I've been shooting insects since I was 10 years old, using inexpensive close-up filters at first to enable me to achieve frame-filling results. When I was 11, I won BBC's Countryfile inaugural photography competition with my photograph of two emperor dragonflies. I enjoy capturing the exquisite beauty, intricacy, shape and form of insects. I favour natural light and photograph my subjects in situ in the wild to cause minimum disturbance. I authored the book Digital Macro and Close-up Photography and have won awards in competitions…

Martin Parr is so influential today, he’s inspired an adjective: Parr-esque. His unique brand of social satire and wry observation, often focusing on mass culture, British idiosyncrasies and the tourism explosion, is widely emulated. So why has he turned out be such a seminal artist? Parr was born in 1952, in Surrey, England, the son of a civil servant. While not particularly academic, Parr was passionate about photography and went to the then-Manchester Polytechnic to study the subject in 1970. During this time, he became very interested in the new wave of documentary and ‘real life’ photographers emerging in the USA – Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander and other key influencers featured in the magazine Creative Camera . Parr also admired the work of British photographer Tony Ray Jones. Unlike earlier…

Printer feature feedback Your review of an Epson printer (AP 3 March) reminded me of my experience with my Epson P600 compared with my general use Brother printer/scanner. If the Brother has a blocked nozzle (very rare) the nozzle clean function asks which colour hasn't printed correctly and then cleans only that colour's nozzle, thereby avoiding wasting the other three inks. The P600 purges all eight colours even if only one nozzle is blocked. I think is another Epson trick to make more money. I can see no reason why Epson, who now claim to be environmentally aware, could not do the same as ‘little' Brother and issue a firmware update to correct this seemingly criminal waste of ink plus the extra tanks and packaging that it causes. And let's…

Power save mode The DMW-BLG10E battery is rated for 900 shots per charge with power save enabled, compared to 250 shots without Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Panasonic’s smartphone connectivity is excellent, with the always-on Bluetooth connection making it especially easy to copy images for sharing USB charge The battery can be topped up through the micro USB port, which sits alongside the HDMI output behind a clever sprung retracting door Tilting viewfinder Like the GX7 and GX8 before it, the GX9’s viewfinder tilts 80° upwards Built-in flash A small flash unit pops up from the top-plate, with a hotshoe beside it that can accept more powerful units for creative lighting Tripod socket This is located in line with the lens but right at the front of the camera body, which could…

• £200 • www.vanguardworld.co.uk At a glance • 145cm maximum height • 40.3cm folded length • 1.2kg weight • 6kg load Suspension loop Can be used with a carabiner for clipping the tripod onto a bag, or suspending a bag from the tripod for greater stability. BH-50 head The supplied head has separate controls for locking the camera, friction adjustment and the panoramic base. Low angle A short centre column is included for shooting at ground level. Carry bag A lightweight drawstring nylon bag with a decently long adjustable shoulder strap is included for transporting the tripod. WITH cameras featuring ever-improving high-ISO performance and increasingly effective image stabilisation, it's often tempting to think that you can get away without using a tripod. However, there are still occasions when nothing else…

Iggy tabletop tripod released British tripod maker 3 Legged Thing has introduced a tabletop tripod called Iggy. Built of rugged ABS plastic, it will be sold complete with a GoPro mount for £19.99. It will also be available in a kit with the firm’s new smartphone mount ‘The Cradle’ for £24.99. ‘Cannibalism is OK’, says Canon Canon is prepared to cannibalise sales of its DSLRs with the new EOS M50 mirrorless model, reports the Nikkei Asian Review, quoting the president of Canon Marketing Japan, Masahiro Sakata. The company is currently second in the Japanese mirrorless market with a 23% share, but is bidding to steal top spot from Olympus. Leather accessories for PEN-F To celebrate the second birthday of the PEN-F, Olympus has teamed up with French leather makers Bleu…

THE SHORTLIST for the 14th annual British Journal of Photography (BJP) International Photography Award 2018 has been revealed. One of the five shortlisted photographers, Alys Tomlinson from the UK, made the cut with her Ex-Voto series of work, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize. The overall winner will be announced on 27 March and will receive a £5,000 exhibition grant and a show at leading London gallery, TJ Boulting, due to open on 13 July. The winner and shortlisted photographers will also be flown to London to attend a networking event at Photo London. They will receive coverage through BJP's channels and be featured in the magazine. Subscribe to Amateur photographer SAVE 35%* Visit amateurphotographersubs.co.uk/14AW (or see p52) * when you pay by UK Direct…

WHAT a timely issue to look back at, given the Sergei Skripal affair. In March 2005 AP was celebrating the Russian Fed range of cameras. This was back in the day when everyone was feeling pretty positive about improving Anglo-Russian relations; how things change... The Fed series of rangefinder cameras started out as rough Leica model III copies – their build is described by then-editor Garry Coward-Williams as ‘agricultural' – before the owners branched out with their own styles. Other highlights included a review of the classic Sigma 150mm f/2.8 APO Macro EX DG HSM by the redoubtable Geoffrey Crawley. And former Stars on Sunday presenter Jess Yates featured – apparently he was a ‘fanatical' amateur photographer. Some of his pictures are a bit disturbing, as befits this complex character…

‘We love your pictures and are really keen to publish some of your work' – it was the kind of unsolicited phone call that any amateur photographer dreams of. I was still composing my exclamation of delight when the reality check arrived. ‘I am afraid that we don't have a budget, so we won't be able to pay you.' Twenty years ago, such calls were rare; there were hardly any cheap-shot publishers taking a chance. Today, an extraordinary proportion of all published images are not paid for, and professional editorial photographers have had a correspondingly hard time. Hundreds have had to seek out new lines of work. ‘Lots of photographers that I know – many of them enormously talented, dedicated professionals – have struggled as a tide of free images…

Telephoto macro A telephoto macro is ideal for insects. 100mm and above will generate a larger working distance from the subject and minimise the risk of disturbing your subject. Small LED Small LED devices, like Manfrotto’s Lumimuse range, are great lighting aids. They can be camera-mounted or handheld. With a continuous light source, you can preview the effect before triggering the shutter. Geared head The design and type of tripod head you use is down to personal taste, but personally I favour a geared head for close-ups. They allow you to make very precise micro adjustments to composition, which suits the fiddly nature of close-up work.…

When did you first become interested in photography? When I was eight I took a trip to the Alaskan coast. I was amazed by the diversity of the wildlife and came home with the intention of photographing animals in my own backyard. Alaska is still my favourite place to visit. Wildlife has always been my focus because I love observing and recording animal behaviour. I am mostly self-taught, but have had several mentors including Henry Holdsworth and Melissa Groo. Do you have a favourite animal to photograph? Coastal brown bears. Ever since my trip to Lake Clark National Park in Alaska, I keep thinking back to my time watching them interact. I observed sows with their cubs, and photographed them hunting, playing and sleeping. The affection between them was amazing.…

Our cameras and lenses are tested using the industry-standard Image Engineering IQ-Analyser software. Visit www.image-engineering.de for more details Panasonic has used essentially the same 20MP sensor that we first saw in the GX8 almost three years ago, but now without an optical low-pass filter. In principle this should give the maximum possible detail, but at the risk of artefacts such as a moiré patterning and maze-like aliasing. Both Panasonic's JPEG processing and the SilkyPix raw processor, however, take the approach of blurring away these artefacts, which loses any resolution advantage. I'd expect to be able to extract finer detail using Adobe Lightroom or Camera Raw when GX9 support is available. Resolution With no low-pass filter in front of its 20MP sensor, in principle the GX9 should do well in our…

Resolution Our Image Engineering MTF tests reveal that the lens is sharpest at maximum aperture at the wide end of the zoom. At 400mm, centre sharpness sees a considerable improvement by stopping down from f/6.3 to f/8. Corner sharpness figures at 400mm aren’t as high as they are at 100mm or 200mm, but this isn’t enough to put you off using the lens at the end of its zoom range. Shading On an APS-C DSLR, only the central portion of the lens’s image circle is used, meaning it exhibits less vignetting than when it’s coupled to a full-frame camera. To reduce the effects of vignetting, users can stop the lens down to f/8 or remove it in post effectively by applying the correct lens profile. Curvilinear distortion Our tests reveal…