Innholdsfortegnelse for 07-Apr-2018 i Amateur Photographer

The big story in photography over the past decade has been the introduction and growing popularity of mirrorless cameras. While ‘mirrorless’ may be an awful name for this type of camera (though no decent alternative has materialised) the cameras themselves are anything but awful. Every camera brand now has its own mirrorless system, but they couldn’t differ more in their design philosophies, target audience and features. This new breed of cameras comes in all shapes and sizes – great for consumers, but a potential minefield when it comes to choosing the right system. This week we look at a range of mirrorless camera options at different price points and spell out the pros and cons of each. If you’re thinking of making the switch I hope this makes your decision…

THE WORLD'S widest rectilinear f/2.8 lens for mirrorless APS-C cameras has been announced in the form of the Laowa 9mm f/2.8 Zero-D lens. It is the third in the line-up of Laowa ‘Zero-D' lenses, all of which feature excellent control of the optical distortion often found with ultra-wideangle lenses. Weighing just 215g and being only 53mm long, this compact and light lens comprises 15 elements in 10 groups with two aspherical elements and three extra-low dispersion elements. According to Laowa, this optical design successfully minimises both distortion and chromatic aberrations, while delivering superb optical performance from corner to corner. With a 35mm equivalent focal length of around 13mm (113° angle of view) and a fast maximum aperture of f/2.8, the lens is targeted towards astro, landscape and low-light photographers. Other…

Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II with 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 lens £469 Key Features Sensor 16.1MP Micro Four Thirds Sensitivity ISO 200-25,600 (ISO 100 extended) Continuous shooting 8.5fps Video 1,080p Full HD at 60fps Rear display 3in, 1.04-million-dot LCD touchscreen Viewfinder 2.36-million-dot EVF Much like the Lumix GX80 the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II is another mid -range mirrorless camera that has fallen substantially in price since its release in the latter half of 2015 – from £649 at launch to under £500 now. As an enthusiast camera the E-M10 II comes equipped with a range of useful features, including built-in 5-axis IS, twin control dials, touchscreen functionality and an electronic shutter. Unlike the GX80 though there is no support for 4K video capture, with the E-M10 II's video capabilities topping out…

Buying second-hand If you want to make your money go as far as possible, it is worth considering buying a second-hand camera. This enables you to get a camera that would otherwise be outside of your budget. If you buy from a reputable dealer these cameras would have been thoroughly checked and, if required, serviced too. You should also get a short guarantee of between three to six months. The savings from buying second-hand can be huge. A brand new Fujifilm X-T2 body, for example, will set you back around £1,450, but can be picked up second-hand in near-mint condition for under £1,000. Likewise, we've found second-hand examples of the 42.4MP full-frame Sony A7R II for as little as £1,500. Brand new, you can expect to pay closer to £2,400.…

I wonder what percentage of readers might be disappointed, irritated even, at one of the fads which has spread like a weed – and blossomed in our pages. It's the increasing number of photographs featuring rivers, seascapes and waterfalls in which the photographers have used extended exposure and post-shot tech to remove the real water from their shots. Waves, sunlit droplets, reflections and splashes have been smudged away to create a grey mist or woolly haze instead of... water. Nothing wrong in trying every technique, including all those long exposures, to create movement and other effects of blurring. But those who ‘smooth out' any real water are often trying to focus our attention on one element in the shot (like the recent prize-winning pic of seaside huts on stilts where…

Walberswick is a small, unspoilt and very photogenic coastal village situated in Suffolk at the mouth of the River Blyth. The long, sandy beach is backed by grassy dunes and a marsh, mudflats and heathland nature reserve, which follows the River Blyth. There is much to shoot, such as the wooden remains of the old harbour entrance, which is perfect for long exposures at sunrise or sunset with an incoming tide. Nearby are the original blackwood boarded fishermen's houses on stilts, often with rows of gulls perched on the roofs – great for classic black and white treatment. And all of this is conveniently right next to the car park. A short stroll along the river bank toward the Bailey Bridge and there are boats, old and new, and if…

Power booster The Vertical Power Booster Grip (VPB-XH1) improves the 310-shot limit of a single battery to 900 shots. The X-H1 draws its power from the batteries inside the Vertical Power Booster Grip first before it turns to the battery located inside the body. Continuous shooting The X-H1 has the ability to record 23 uncompressed raw files or 40 Fine JPEGs at 14fps with the vertical booster attached before its buffer is filled. Without the grip, the X-H1 can continuously shoot 31 uncompressed raw files or 80 Fine JPEGs at 8fps. Flicker reduction The X-H1 features a flicker-reduction mode, which allows for stable exposure during a burst of shots under fluorescent and mercury lighting, and is enabled from the main menu but can also be set to a function button…

In the beginning, most cameras didn't have a separate viewfinder. In the early days of plate cameras a ground glass plate was placed where the sensitized glass plate would eventually go, and the scene was composed on that – the photographer's view being shielded from the ambient light by a cloth at the rear of the camera. Composition was slow and methodical – but so was picture taking. Then roll film was developed and cameras became more portable. It was possible to take photographs on the move and no longer was the ground glass an acceptable solution. It was in those days that the types of optical finder that we see today were first developed. In those days the finders ranged from a simple wire loop, or ‘sports finder', through…

There are no doubt many 14-year-olds who would love to leave school; earn money; be free. In the 1970s I certainly taught several who would, and in the 1960s one of my dearest friends did, though not exactly officially. He bricked off to become a builder. Today English Heritage comes to him for advice (and practical help) in restoring mediaeval and Georgian buildings. But equally, you often see young girls, especially from Africa or India, saying that the most important thing in the world to them is an education; not to be married at 15, 14, 13... In the short term education is compulsion; in the long term, choice. The longer that we can put up with education, the more choice we have when we finish it. What would Matty…

LIGHT has announced the UK launch of its L16 camera: a pocket-sized camera with 16 different lenses. The L16 features many small lenses and sensors that lie at 45° angles across a flat plane. With each shutter release, 10 or more lenses capture the same scene from slightly different perspectives. After the shot is taken, the L16 assesses the zoom level and chooses a combination of its 28mm, 70mm and 150mm modules in each shot, merging them together to create a high-resolution 52MP still image. Because a 3D depth map of every scene is generated, using the L16 means you can adjust depth of field and focal plane after taking the shot. Light also says noise reduction is a perk of using 10 cameras at once. On the back of…

Key Features • Sensor 24.3MP full-frame CMOS • Sensitivity: ISO 100-25,600 (ISO 50 expanded) • Continuous shooting 5fps • Video 1,080p Full HD at 60p • Rear display 3in, 1.22-million-dot LCD • EVF 0.5in, 2.4-million-dot EVF SINCE the release of the original Alpha 7 in 2014, Sony's pioneering full-frame mirrorless range has undergone three major revisions and branched out to include A7S high-sensitivity variants and A7R high-resolution models. Baseline Sony Alpha 7 models have traditionally underpinned these and, as such, are positioned by Sony as all-rounder cameras designed to deliver enthusiasts with a finely judged balance of resolution, flexibility and user-customisation. Sony has recently announced the successor to the A7 II in the shape of the A7 III. While resolution remains almost identical the newer model does bring quite a…

Lewis W Hine is perhaps best known for his shots of labourers constructing the Empire State Building in New York. These welders and riveters have an almost heroic air, hoisting beams and balancing on iron girders hundreds of feet up in the air, with no safety equipment in sight. (You may recall the famous image of a group of ironworkers eating their sandwiches and sharing cigarettes while seated on a narrow piece of metal.) These gutsy construction workers took great pride in their work, and were shown to be masters of their machinery. Pictures from the series appeared in Hine’s popular book Men at Work , alongside images of miners, railroad and factory workers, among others. Manual labourers were a popular subject for Hine long before his work at the…

Round Two Fur and feathers For this round we would like you to train your lens on creatures great and small. This is an open round, so we are happy to see shots of everything from garden birds and pet poodles to crabs in rock pools and lions prowling the scrublands. It's worth doing some research before embarking on your shoot, as pictures that show an aspect of animal behaviour tend to hold a viewer's attention for longer than a standard portrait. If your animal is moving it's also a good idea to leave some space for them to ‘travel' into. In these instances you might want to experiment with panning to add a sense of speed too. Plan your APOY 2018 year Below is a list of all this…

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 Boost with curves An ‘S’ curve boosts contrast and colour saturation, so it can be useful for giving your portraits extra punch. We usually want to make the curve top heavy, as this lifts the highlights while pinning the shadows in place. Go to the Tone Curve Panel, click the Point Curve tab, and then drag the line up and down to create the ‘S’ shape. 2 Vibrant colours The Vibrance slider…

• £340 • www.manfrotto.co.uk At a glance • 147cm max height • 45cm folded length • 1,350g weight • 7kg max load Easy Link A standard 3/8in screw thread socket is hidden under a rubber plug on the spider, for attaching video lights and the like. M-locks Manfrotto says its revised twist-lock mechanism is faster and easier to use compared to previous models 3/8in connector The tripod is compatible with most tripod heads, but those with 1/4in threads will need an adapter. Strap lug A loop on the spider allows attachment of Manfrotto’s carry strap. It can also be used to hang a camera bag for extra stability. THREE years ago, Manfrotto made its first tripod with twist leg-locks, in the shape of the 190 Go! Originally produced with aluminium…

FOR THE third year running, Leica has been announced as the sponsor of Photo London. As a sponsor, the company will be hosting the Leica Collector's Lounge, where visitors to the fair will be able to see a never-before-seen, exclusive exhibition by Magnum photographer Bruce Gilden called ‘Farm Boys and Farm Girls USA'. Visitors will also be able to attend book signings and learn about Leica's product range and history. Photo London will take place between 17 and 20 May at Somerset House in London. This year, over 100 of the world's leading galleries will be exhibiting. For more information and for tickets, visit photolondon.org. Subscribe to Amateur photographer SAVE 36%* Visit amateurphotographer subs.co.uk/14SS (or see p54) * when you pay by UK Direct Debit…

This week, we rewind to 1935. It's an already tense time in Europe, but things were about to get a whole lot worse, as we'll see in next week's column. Anyway, AP readers were distracted from the gathering storm by a fun feature on cruising holidays, which only the more affluent ones could have afforded – lots of lambs rock up in this issue too, as it's spring, right? According to the editor's letter, ‘the desire to buy new apparatus is one of the signs of Spring amongst amateur photographers...' Some things will never change, and we should definitely use the word ‘apparatus' more often in AP. Lots of interesting newfangled gear is talked about, including the catchily named Speedex Compur with f/4.5 Apotar lens from Agfa and a new…

7days A week in photography A few weeks ago, the highly respected Japanese business news publication Nikkei Asian Review reported that Canon has finally realised it needs to make its mirrorless cameras appeal to as broad an audience as possible, even if that means eating into its own DSLR sales. According to Masahiro Sakata, president of Canon Marketing Japan, the firm must ‘actively roll out products for a growth market even if there is some cannibalisation. This reflects the fact that while the Japanese market for interchangeable lens cameras fell by10% in 2017, mirrorless sales grew by 29.2%. Separately, at the firm's corporate strategy conference on 6 March, Canon CEO Fujio Mitarai said ‘We will go on the offensive and work to expand our sales in the mirrorless camera market,…

Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark III with 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 EZ lens £699 Key Features Sensor 16.1MP Micro Four Thirds CMOS Sensitivity ISO 200-25,600 (ISO 100 extended) Continuous shooting 8.6fps Video 4K at 30fps Rear display 3in, 1.04-million-dot tiltable LCD touchscreen Viewfinder 2.36-million-dot EVF If your budget can't stretch to the £1,000 mark, the OM-D E-M10 Mark III is a generously featured cheaper alternative. It does fall slightly short of the X-T20 in some areas – most notably sensor size/ resolution and its reliance on a contrast-detect only autofocus system – but the E-M10 III has the better of the X-T20 in other areas. The X-T20 lacks the E-M10 III's built-in 5-axis IS technology that provides up to four stops of shutter-speed compensation. The E-M10 III benefits from greatly enhanced touchscreen functionality,…

Olympus PEN-F with 14-42mm f/3.6-5.6 EZ ED lens £1,099 Key Features Sensor 20.3MP Micro Four Thirds Sensitivity ISO 80-25,600 Continuous shooting 10fps Video 1,080p Full HD at 60fps Rear display 3in/1.04-million-dot vari-angle LCD touchscreen Viewfinder 2.36-million-dot OLED EVF The PEN-F is a super-stylish mirrorless camera that's designed to ape the look and feel of the classic 1960's Olympus half-frame rangefinder camera of the same name. With good looks and a solid, all-metal construction the PEN-F is equipped with a 20.3MP Micro Four Thirds sensor that is capable of excellent image quality, especially at lower sensitivity settings. Other notable highlights include a 2.36-million-dot EVF, a vari-angle touchscreen display, built-in 5-axis IS and 1,080p Full HD video recording. Although it hasn't dropped in price since its 2016 launch, it remains a relatively…

Research behaviour Images that show an aspect of an animal's behaviour tend to stand out, so do your research and you will be ready for the action. Try injecting some energy into your work by conveying a sense of movement. Remove the colour When the frame is full of graphic shapes and lines it can help to shoot in black & white to celebrate this. You can use the monochrome setting in-camera, but you'll gain more flexibility by shooting raw and converting the shot later. Consider the background When you're shooting wildlife it's easy to forget about the background and just concentrate on the main subject, but a poorly considered backdrop can easily destroy an otherwise excellent image. Leave space If you fill the frame too tightly it can make…

Our cameras and lenses are tested using the industry-standard Image Engineering IQ-Analyser software. Visit www.image-engineering.de for more details The X-H1 is the fifth X-system camera to be equipped with the 24.3-million-pixel X-Trans CMOS III sensor and X-Processor Pro. With the same sensor and processor combination as the X-Pro2, X-T2, X-T20 and X-E3, image quality is on a par with its classmates, with an impressive noise response at high sensitivities. Results up to ISO 51,200 are identical to those from other X-series cameras. Noise is handled exceptionally well between ISO 100-6400 and the detail resolved up to ISO 12,800 and 25,600 remains impressive for a sensor that's now well over two years old. Resolution The level of detail recorded by the 24MP sensor doesn’t throw up any surprises. The lack of…

Cameras Interchangeable-lens cameras come in two types: DSLRs with optical viewfinders, and mirrorless models with electronic viewing Controls Entry-level cameras tend to have simple, easy-to-understand controls, while more expensive models add lots of buttons and dials to give quick access to settings. Handgrip DSLRs traditionally have relatively large handgrips, while many mirrorless models have much smaller grips to keep size down. However, some can accept accessory grips to improve handling with larger lenses. Lens mount Each camera brand uses its own lens mount, and mirrorless cameras use different lenses to DSLRs even from the same brand. However, mirrorless models can often use DSLR lenses via a mount adapter. Viewfinder The biggest difference between DSLRs and mirrorless cameras is that the latter use electronic, rather than optical viewfinders. They’re more power…