Innholdsfortegnelse for 31-Mar-2018 i Amateur Photographer

Get a group of photographers together in a room and landscape is likely to be one of the most popular genres. So it’s fitting that our cover feature focuses on some of the masters of landscape photography, celebrating the release of a fantastic book. Insights and tips come from big names like Ross Hoddinott, Joe Cornish, Sandra Bartocha and Marc Adamus (page 12). If you prefer people shots, we bring you a guide to shooting better child portraits on page 32, and a taster of the National Portrait Gallery’s fascinating exhibition on Victorian art photography on page 8. Gear-wise, we’ve got the hottest news and announcements from Japan’s biggest camera show (page 37), and a celebration of collectible subminiatures from the ’30s to the ’80s (page 44). Lots to enjoy!…

Victorian Giants is running at the National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Lane, London, until 20 May 2018. For more details visit npg.org.uk. Not only was photography established in Britain during Queen Victoria's reign (1837-1901), but many of the genres we know today came to fruition as well, from landscape and travel to nature, portraiture and even street. The idea of photography as art also gained acceptance during this period, although there was still snobbery and resistance from some less-enlightened art critics and painters. This major new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery focuses on four photographers, who pushed the boundaries of photography during the Victorian period: Oscar Rejlander (1813–75),Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–79), Lewis Carroll (1832–98) and Lady Clementina Hawarden (1822–65). All four experimented with new approaches to image making and…

I thoroughly endorse Roger Hicks's thoughts in his last paragraph on Bnae Brak, Israel, 2010 (AP 10 March): too many of us are too busy changing lenses, media cards, etc., and miss things. I still use digital, but I have gone back to using film – more so now. When you only have a limited number of exposures on a roll, I believe it slows you down and makes you think and compose carefully, assessing different viewpoints. I particularly like the work of Carleton E Watkins, for example his view of Yosemite Valley from a glacier point, taken in about 1875. Having just read your black & white film articles, I would love to be able to emulate his albumen prints. AP is such a refreshing magazine – long may…

Beanbag Use when shooting at ground level as it is less cumbersome than a tripod and can easily be deployed to stabilise the camera, reducing camera shake. Binoculars My Swarovski binoculars make finding subjects significantly easier as they are much clearer and lighter to look through than a camera viewfinder. AEOS This disc-like LED can be used in the studio or on location. It offers both powerful constant LED illumination and high speed sync flash, with a battery pack that lasts up to three hours of use. NEO 2 The NEO 2 is the most portable light in the Rotolight range. Like the AEOS, it also offers a combination of bright, constant LED illumination and high speed sync flash. Rotolight softbox A softbox diffuses and softens the light, which smooths…

1 Have a plan Go in to the shoot with a few ideas, poses or lighting set-ups in mind - but be prepared to improvise – children rarely stick to the plan! 2 Make it fun Children will respond better if you make the shoot fun. At the start, get them running, jumping, dancing, pulling faces, or anything else that will help them forget about the camera. 3 Continuous focus Focusing can be especially challenging, especially if your depth of field is limited. Set your autofocus to continuous. There are bound to be a few duds, so shoot lots of frames. 4 Clothing tips When choosing outfits for children to wear, steer clear of anything with big brand names or logos, as this can date the photos and distract from…

• £50 • www.3leggedthing.com Modular functionality A tapped 1/4in thread in the vertical aspect enables other accessories to be connected to the bracket. Metal construction The L bracket has a robust metal construction that’s built to last. Camera strap There are strap connectors at both the horizontal and vertical aspects of the bracket. Flat pack The bracket can be disassembled into two sections for easy storage in a camera bag. THE JOB of an L bracket might be simple, yet it's an essential accessory that all photographers who regularly mount their cameras to a tripod will want to consider. Designed to replace the quick-release plate that comes supplied with a ballhead and make the task of switching between landscape and portrait orientations much easier, L brackets are also effective at…

How do other photographers’ minds work? How do they decide what to shoot? How does one series of pictures lead to (or morph into) another? Sandy Weir’s website www.myweirview.com is an interesting insight into these questions. This picture is from his Abstract gallery, and raises the question of exactly when an image ceases to be figurative and becomes abstract. Some of the images in the gallery are far more figurative than this; others abstract almost to the point of ‘What is it?’ Fairly obviously, this one is of a river in spate, but it goes beyond that: it stands in for all gushing water. Normally I take a hard line on abstraction: pure line, form, colour. If I can tell what it is, I rarely regard it as abstract. This…

LAUNCHED at The Photography Show, Benro's new GD3WH Geared Head promises to deliver precision movement across three axes. The gearing can be disengaged, then re-engaged to allow the photographer to fine-tune their camera position for a well-framed image. To ensure perfect set-up, the head features three built-in bubble levels. The GD3WH uses an Arca-Swiss style quick-release plate, to allow you to switch between different types of heads without needing to change plates. Geared heads are useful for landscape photographers, still life and macro shooters, where absolute precision is essential. With a suggested retail price of £200, the GD3WH is available now. For the latest news visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk…

Ernst Haas (1921-86) was a photojournalist and considered one of the early pioneers of colour photography. His career spanned 40 years, and today he is celebrated as one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. Haas was born in Vienna, Austria, and grew up in a privileged home surrounded by art and culture. His father was an amateur photographer and although Haas had a keen interest in painting, he initially studied medicine. After the Second World War his passion for the arts led him to take up photography. In 1946 Haas acquired his first camera, a twin-lens Rolleiflex, for which he traded a 10kg block of margarine on the Vienna black market. His early work was free, expressive and abstract; Haas experimented and learnt his craft through studies…

Grant Pearce For the past few years Grant Pearce has been travelling around the world photographing everything from architecture to natural landscapes with his Nikon D3100. He enjoys the photographic potential of mountainous regions in particular, and loves the interaction between mountains, lakes and sky. In the past four years he has visited more than 20 cities across the globe, and plans to continue developing his photographic skills by venturing off the beaten track more often and challenging himself on his adventures. To see more, visit www.grantpearcedesign.co.uk. 1 Glencoe It was a gloomy day when Grant visited the Three Sisters of Glencoe in Scotland, but the weather served to add atmosphere Nikon D3100, 18-55mm, 1/200sec at f/5, ISO 100 2 French Alps, Chamonix Snow and ice create a natural frame…

James Paterson James is an award-winning journalist, 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. Although James specialises in portraiture, he shoots a range of subjects. Visit www.patersonphotos.com Photography is evolving at a rapid rate these days. In particular, there are two modern innovations that complement each other very nicely – the vast improvements in low-light performance of modern camera sensors, and the emergence of powerful LED lighting. As such, we can undertake certain shooting scenarios that might have been unthinkable a few years ago, like an LED-lit studio portrait session with that most challenging of subjects – children. Constant lighting LED lighting brings several benefits over flash. The first – and most…

Light set-up A low-key set-up is dominated by darker tones, and therefore, unlike the high-key set-up, the histogram will be stacked to the left side. The positioning of our lights here is in fact very similar to the high-key set-up, and the same white backdrop is used in both. But the big difference is in the power ratios. Darken the backdrop With low-key lighting we want a dark moody backdrop, so we've swapped the background AEOS for the NEO and dialled the power down to 40%. Our front left light – at 50% – doesn't have a softbox this time which means the light is harder and the shadows more defined. Angle the face Positioned slightly behind the subject, our front left key light lifts one side of them, which…

Fault in smartphone gimbal QI have just bought a DJI Osmo Mobile motorised 3-axis gimbal for my iPhone 7 as I am preparing for a three-month trek across South America, and I have decided not to carry my heavy full-frame gear. However, the results I get when using video are not very stable. I'm getting some unexpected jerkiness when I was expecting a very smooth view. I also intended to use the gimbal for stills shooting. I wonder if the problem is that the phone's optical image stabilisation is fighting with the gimbal, but I can't find an option to switch OIS off. Tillie Elphick A You have hit the nail on the head: OIS can’t be disabled on the iPhone 7. Sadly, this basically makes your DJI Osmo Mobile…

ARE YOU looking to develop your portrait photography skills? Rotolight has organised a one-off workshop with professional duo Peter Müller and Jean Noir on Saturday, 21 April. The day comprises in-depth workshops and seminars covering a number of skills: how to capture personalities and convey emotion, mixing natural and artificial light, working with models, post-production and experimenting with the latest Rotolight LED lighting kit. There are limited spaces available for the course, which will take place somewhere in Shoreditch, London (the exact location is still to be announced). The full day's tuition, which runs from 10am to 6.30pm, will cost £299. For more information and to book your space, visit bit.ly/2DtWnu4. Subscribe to Amateur Photographer SAVE * 35% Visit amateurphotographersubs.co.uk/14AW (or see p48) * when you pay by UK Direct…

THIS week we set the controls of the AP time machine to 1988, as you may have guessed from the cover model's gym gear, Medusa-esque perm and warpaint that looks as if it was applied with a paintbrush. It's looking pretty dated inside the magazine too – anyone fancy a Vivitar compact for less than £30 from the group test? Thought not. There is some good content inside this issue, however, with one of the highlights being a challenge to photograph children, set by the legendary press photographer, Bert Hardy. The images, and his comments, are really good, and readers could also win a trip to Japan off the back of this. The Fleet Street darkroom guru, Larry Bartlett, was also on hand to help you to improve your printing.…

County Londonderry, the UK's most north-westerly county, is the setting of the highly acclaimed Channel 4 sitcom Derry Girls. East of Derry city lies Coleraine where I found, on sale in Boots, Ilford film and single-use cameras. But had you wandered in, having never seen a film camera in your life, what might prompt you to buy a single-use black & white camera and try it out? Curiosity, novelty, recommendation? New technology is typically greeted with varying responses in the market. Innovators snap it up as a must-have; next it is bought by the early adopters, and finally by the (reluctant or cautious) laggards. Others, perhaps technophobes, may never buy it or have any need for it. So how do marketers encourage people to adopt old technology? Passing on photo…

Colin Prior ‘Depth of field is an illusion. Remember, we are looking at pixels on a page or screen and one of the challenges to becoming an authoritative photographer is in being able to create the illusion of three-dimensionality. It goes beyond small apertures… It is fundamentally the ability to read the three-dimensional world in which we live and understand how it will translate into the two-dimensional world of photography.' Daniel Kordan ‘I'm in constant search of light and strong compositions. On the one hand, the idea for a composition should be clear and simple, and on the other, I prefer to have complicated three-dimensional scenes with a distinctive foreground, which is balanced with the other elements in the image. I use strong perspective, rhythmical perspective and visual paths in…

Photography therapy I can relate to your article ‘Photography saved my life' (AP 24 February). I suffer from some of the problems you covered, along with physical problems. One is atrial fibrillation, commonly known as irregular heartbeat. This left me tired, lethargic, unable to concentrate and with breathing problems, sometimes for hours at a time, especially in the summer. I would lay down, getting more frustrated and depressed, which made my heartbeat worsen, which led to more depression and so on - a vicious circle. I didn't have any enthusiasm for anything; my get up and go had got up and gone. The one subject I would try to concentrate on was photos in camera magazines, and I'd try to work out how it was done. What aperture? How long…

Oscar Dewhurst Oscar Dewhurst is an award-winning wildlife photographer from London. Currently studying for a Biology Research Master’s degree at Durham University, he has already photographed a wide range of subjects around the world. See more of his work at www.oscardewhurst.com Mistle thrushes are larger than blackbirds, with their plump bellies and upright stance. However, despite being one of the UK's most widespread birds, they are currently suffering rapid population declines in the UK, with numbers having fallen by over 50% since the 1970s. Unfortunately, the lack of knowledge specific to mistle thrushes means the cause of their decline remains vague, with decreased juvenile survival and increased agricultural intensification both probable primary causes. Habitat Mistle thrushes are found in a range of habitats containing trees, such as woodland and parkland,…

Light the backdrop High key refers to scenes that are dominated by bright tones, often with light or blown-out backgrounds. When setting up for high-key lighting, begin by directing a light – the AEOS here – onto our white backdrop. This should be set at a higher power than our key light in order to blow out the background. Position the LEDs Our frontal key light illuminates the subject. This should be at a lower power than the background light. We set our exposure for the key light. Here our AEOS background light is set to full power flash, while the frontal AEOS is in constant lighting mode at 50% power. Bring lights in close Our key light is fitted with a softbox to diffuse the light. The closer we…

A few years ago I paid £5 for a bag full of cameras at a local car boot sale. Quite what possessed me to acquire yet more recently obsolete cameras, I can't say. I think I rationalised it by reckoning that the bag on its own was worth the money; it was one of those large, padded outfit cases with multiple pockets and Velcro-covered partitions, and I did use it for occasional field trips. I've forgotten what other cameras were in the bag, but the one that sticks in my mind is the Olympus AZ-330 Superzoom, which dates back to 1990. As cameras evolved during the course of the 20th century, some real design classics emerged. But for me, at least, this isn't one of them. I think it's a…