Innholdsfortegnelse for 14-Apr-2018 i Amateur Photographer

The shortlist for Bird Photographer of the Year (BPOTY) 2018 has just been announced and, as ever, there are some incredible pictures in the running for the overall title. Categories include Best Portrait, Birds in the Environment, Attention to Detail, Garden and Urban Birds, and Young Bird Photographer of the Year 2018. Scrolling through the top-rated entries it's clear that the judges and organisers have succeeded in their intention to celebrate the artistry of bird photography, while also promoting conservation by supporting the conservation research work carried out by the British Trust for Ornithology. This beautifully atmospheric image of whooper swans was entered into the Bird Behaviour category. It was taken by Antti Siponen in Finland, using a floating hide. Antti used a Canon EOS 7D Mark II with a…

‘She captures the privacy of people she meets by chance and they invite her into their homes’ ‘Women in Focus’ is on at the National Museum, Cardiff, Wales, from 5 May to 11 November and from 1 December to 9 June 2019. An exciting and new year-long exhibition called ‘Women in Focus' explores the role of women in photography, both as producers and subjects of photographic images. The exhibition draws on works from the permanent photographic collections at the Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, and comprises two parts: Part I runs from 5 May to 11 November 2018, while Part II runs from1 December 2018 to 9June 2019. Part I celebrates the role and contribution of women throughout the history of photography, from the first pioneering female photographers in…

Sony Alpha 7R III Michael Topham tests Sony’s mirrorless camera at Didcot Railway Centre at night Pinhole wizard Make and use your own pinhole camera with Andy Westlake’s step-by-step guide The storm chaser Mike Olbinski talks about his dramatic and spellbinding pictures of storms On sale Tuesday 17 April CONTENT FOR NEXT WEEK’S ISSUE MAY BE SUBJECT TO CHANGE…

The first glimpse of the sea is always a thrill. Released from the car, often hot and sticky after a long drive, you make your way through the dunes, grass whipping at your legs, salt fizzing on your tongue. The sand is warm beneath your feet, but carrying the obligatory cool box and windbreak makes progress slow. Ascending the final dune, your heart quickens as you anticipate the view. One more step and you are at the top, marveling at the shimmering water stretching out below you. Propelled by some primitive urge you drop your belongings and race towards the water. The first wave hits your legs and you flinch at its icy touch, but when the second wave arrives you find yourself remarking, ‘It’s not as cold as I…

While Canon has been making mirrorless cameras for almost six years, until now it didn't seem to have been wholly convinced by the idea. It's shied away from making models that might compete directly with its own DSLRs and instead mainly concentrated on producing small viewfinderless designs. Its native EF-M mount line-up includes just seven lenses. Now, though, we have the EOS M50, and perhaps things are starting to change. Canon calls it a ‘premium entry-level' model that slots into its range between the super-simple EOS M100 and the more advanced EOS M6. But it has an SLR-like design with a central electronic viewfinder, offers a similar degree of external control to the firm's ultra-compact EOS 200D DSLR and, crucially, comes to the market at a similar launch price. So…

LAUNCHED 1936 PRICE AT LAUNCH £27 GUIDE PRICE NOW First model, approximately £800; second model, £150-£200 Until 1933, single lens reflexes (SLRs) were mostly big and bulky. In that year, German camera manufacturer Ihagee introduced the Exakta: the first truly compact SLR, made to take 127 rollfilm. This camera paved the way for the Kine Exakta – the world's first 35mm SLR – launched three years later. The camera features a tapered body design with a left-handed shutter release placed beside the lens, which is interchangeable via a bayonet mount. A range of standard, wideangle and telephoto lenses can be found, along with accessories like extension tubes, bellows, microscope adapter and lens hoods. A waist-level viewfinder comprises a condenser lens, rather than the more usual ground glass. For fine focusing,…

Nikon D810, 20mm, 1/4 sec at f/11, ISO 64 This sunset scene was uploaded to our Twitter page using the hashtag #appicoftheweek. It was taken by photographer Mark McNeill from Lancashire. He tells us, ‘I was recently on the Fylde coast of Lancashire and decided to visit our local beach at sunset. This image was taken in the seaside resort of Lytham St Annes. The sun sets in the west here, and I wanted to capture a shot of the sunlight reflecting on the beach huts. The beautiful glow of pinks and oranges lit up the windows. Despite there being plenty of cloud out at sea, there was a clear, peaceful sky above the huts, which the setting sun transformed into stunning hues of pink and blue.' Win! Each week…

International Garden Photographer of the Year By Various, Garden World Images, £25, 168 pages, hardback, ISBN 978-0993452925 This beautifully produced book features the winners of the International Garden Photographer of the Year competition, now in its 11th year. The competition has grown in scale and scope in recent years, so it's much more than simply close-ups of tulips; indeed, in recent years, the boundaries between this competition and conventional landscape photography competitions have blurred significantly. Fans of more traditional macro and plant photography will still find much to enjoy here, nevertheless, and the winning images are simply superb. There really is something for everybody, and while the book is hardly an impulse buy at £25, it provides inspiration by the wheelbarrow-load. ★★★★★ Geoff Harris Adobe Photoshop CC for Photographers By…

One of the most exciting aspects of photography is its ability to capture the world in a way that’s far beyond the capabilities of human perception. It can freeze ultrafast movement to suspend a subject in time and space. At the other end of the scale, exposure time can be drawn out for seconds, minutes and even hours to capture movement in some of the most eye-catching ways possible. Landscape photography in particular offers a number of possibilities to use the long-exposure technique for creative shots. KIT LIST Shutter remote If you are shooting exposures longer than 30sec you’ll need a shutter remote to hold the shutter open manually in Bulb mode. Tripod Keeping your camera completely still during long exposures is imperative for sharp shots. Never leave home without…

While sRGB is almost a universal standard, it's certainly not the only option. Apps like Photoshop give you several working colour spaces to choose from, including Adobe RGB with its extended gamut and ProPhoto RGB, which has an even wider gamut. As well as choosing your working colour space, you can select how conversions are handled. For example, it makes sense to select the ‘Convert to Working RGB' option, so that image files with a different colour profile are automatically converted when you open them. For the conversion process itself, you're best off assigning the ‘Engine' to Adobe ACE, while ‘Intent' governs how the conversion is optimised. For this, the Relative Colorimetric option is recommended for most colour conversions. Alternatives include Perceptual, which aims to preserve the relationship between colours…

Alongside the E-PL8 that was released in 2016, the E-PL9 serves as the entry point to Olympus's PEN family of retro rangefinder-inspired mirrorless digital cameras. Positioned by Olympus as a fashionable entry-level camera for style-conscious users, the E-PL9 is primarily targeted at bloggers and first-time mirrorless buyers looking to upgrade from their smartphone. As such, it's designed to be small, stylish and easy to use. Features The E-PL9 is built around a 16MP Four Thirds CMOS sensor that has been widely employed by other entry-level and mid-range Olympus mirrorless cameras over the past few years. This has proved to be very capable in the past, delivering image quality that is far above anything that could be expected from a small-sensor compact or a smartphone camera. While the sensor remains unchanged,…

Kingston announces new ‘Canvas’ cards Three variants of memory cards are now available in Kingston’s Canvas range: Select, Go!, and React. The React has a read speed of 100MB/s and write speed of 80MB/s; it’s targeted towards DSLR and mirrorless users hoping to capture high-resolution imagery and 4K video. All the cards come with a lifetime warranty. Ricoh to start shipping the Pentax K-1 Mark II Ricoh has announced that photographers will be able to get hold of its latest full-frame DSLR, the K-1 Mark II, from 20 April. Announced in February, the 36.4MP camera features a top sensitivity of ISO 819,200, plus an upgraded Pixel Shift Resolution System II, designed to produce super-high-resolution images. Canon celebrates 15th year as top seller Canon’s interchangeable-lens digital cameras have maintained their position…

AP TECHNICAL editor Andy Westlake joined a select group of journalists at the P20 Pro's global launch event in Paris to talk about the camera design with Marius Eschweiler, Leica's Global Director of Business Development; Dr Florian Weiler, Project Manager Optical Design; and Li ChangZhu, Vice President of Huawei's Handset Business. Mr Eschweiler described how the P20 Pro's camera is co-developed by the two firms: ‘We set up joint development teams, which means from day one of the project there is a team consisting of Leica and Huawei engineers working closely together. From the Leica side we are contributing our engineering excellence especially in optical design, and we have our digital imaging experts taking care of the image signal processing. When it comes to manufacturing, Leica is not involved.' Asked…

Traffic trails Shooting traffic moving through both rural and urban environments can help to bring the scene to life and add an element of dynamism. For rural locations traffic is often more sparse than in the city, so it’s best to shoot at a time when you know it will be busy. Winnats Pass in the Peak District is relatively quiet, except for roughly an hour between 5pm and 6pm when a greater volume of traffic uses this iconic road. Nikon D610, 16-35mm, 1/8sec at f/11, ISO 100 Create light trails anywhere Painting with light is a technique that can be used to create eye-catching images of light trails, anywhere. Indoors or outdoors, as long as ambient light levels are low enough you can draw simple images, illuminate a subject…

‘Amateur’ arguments After reading Nigel Atherton's recent Viewpoint (AP 17 March), I'd say it is irrelevant whether the photographer is ‘amateur' or ‘professional', but only how good is the end product. If we delve into ‘What makes a good photograph' how long does anyone have for that discussion? Plus how many esteemed contributors to AP have waffled on about this subject since AP was first produced? Just because someone is a ‘professional' photographer doesn't mean that every shot they take is any good. Neither does it imply that an ‘amateur' takes pictures that rarely make the grade. We can all be the victim of good luck and capture something that is ‘as good as it gets'. Usually we don't know how or why it happened but are just thankful for…

To get a clearer idea of how your on-screen image will look when it's printed, it pays to use soft-proofing tools in image-editing apps during post-production if they are available. To use the one in Lightroom, open an image in the Develop module and click on the soft-proofing checkbox at the bottom of the window. Next, select the ‘Before: Current State' for a before-and-after view that shows the on-screen image on the left and a representation of the printed image on the right. In the example image shown here, we've selected an ICC profile for a Canon Pixma iP7200 printer and Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy II media. We've also checked the box for ‘Simulate Paper & Ink'. As with converting colour spaces, there's also a choice of ‘Intent'. The…