Innholdsfortegnelse for 06-Aug-2016 i Amateur Photographer

This week, as we invite you to enter your best landscape photos into the next round of Amateur Photographer of the Year 2016, last year’s overall winner Lee Acaster shares his methods for achieving his outstanding b&w images (pages 12-17). Lee has won a number of awards for his work, but not all of it is mono. Part of the skill of photography lies in identifying whether images work best in b&w or colour. With digital that decision can be made later, but I’ve found that the best photographers know what they’re going for before they press the button, and can visualise the result in their mind’s eye. Another photographer who does this brilliantly is Eric Paré. He creates incredible images using what is, effectively, a swinging torch (pages 22-27).…

Published by Dewi Lewis Price £35, 256 pages, hardback ISBN 978-1-91130-600-9 Artists and their muses have a strong history of cultural currency. Salvador Dalí's wife Gala was a subject of many of the Surrealist master's work. Lee Miller proved to be a wealth of inspiration for the photographer Man Ray (the relationship between them was sensitively explored in the 2011 Merrel book Man Ray/Lee Miller: Partners in Surrealism by Phillip Prodger). These days, we expect to find these kinds of relationships in mediums such as cinema (Scorsese and De Niro or Herzog and Kinski), but occasionally we do still find evidence of the confluence of two minds working their wonders in the field of photography. Here we find a new pairing – photographer Catherine Balet, and photographic stylist and costume…

Twitter Rankin @Rankinphoto Portrait master Rankin displays an unused shot of actor Andy Serkis taken for Entertainment Weekly back in 2014. Join the conversation at @AP_Magazine Facebook Tour de Francia 2016 The Tour de France finished in Paris on 24 July and Chris Froome became the first British rider to win three Tours de France, following victories in 2013 and 2015. Like us on www.facebook.com/amateurphotographermagazine Flickr Cath Booton Cath Booton’s image ‘Dancing in the Sunlight’ is a lovely example of how to create dreamy imagery using simple elements. Submit your photos to apmag.co/flickr…

I very much enjoyed the article (Fever Pitch in AP16 July) on my old rival and sparring partner Gerry Cranham and his work at the 1966 World Cup. But he certainly was not alone in shooting colour, as several of us did, although most also shot in black & white as well. As far as I know, however, only Gerry and I are sadly left out of those sports photographers fully accredited for the1966 event. I have been retired for over 30 years now after covering1966 and four other World Cups, five Olympics, numerous Muhammad Ali fights, goodness knows how many Wimbledons, The Open Championships (golf), and hundreds of Grand Prix races worldwide, and very often alongside photographers such as Gerry. I have also worked as chief photographer at World…

Pixelstick • $349 (£261) • www.thepixelstick.com The programmable Pixelstick comes ready with a dozen different patterns, but you can create your own for infinite different effects with colours, patterns, letters and more. Light Painting Brushes Deluxe Starter Kit • $189 (£141) • www.lightpaintingbrushes.com This has a variety of tools all in one box, including a ‘collapsible light sword' available in different colours. Tube Guard • Prices vary depending on brand • www.amazon.co.uk Take the lo-fi approach just like Eric with tube guards, which can be picked up very cheaply - they're designed for fluorescent lights. To use them for light painting, place a torch inside them, and you'll get different looks depending on the brightness of the torch.…

For this round, we want to see your landscape and cityscape photographs. Landscapes and cityscapes have a lot more in common than first meets the eye. Both require the application of the most fundamental rules of photography, both are made or unmade by the light, and both can benefit from accessories such as filters. Both the landscape and cityscape require that you learn to break down the scene and mentally reduce it to its most essential components in order to make sense of chaos. No matter what kind of location you’re shooting, planning is a must, so make sure you know the area. Are you in the best position relative to the light and composition? How does the weather affect the scene? And try to shoot in raw as you’ll…

Paul Hobson After more than 20 years as an environmental-science lecturer, Paul moved into wildlife photography full time. He loves travelling around the world, but prefers working in the UK. www.paulhobson.co.uk About the hedgehog The upper part of the hedgehog’s head and body is covered in around 5,000 banded spines, which are 20cm long. A once-familiar sight across mainland Britain 20 years ago, hedgehogs are in sharp decline, but many people still come across them, and some encourage and feed them in their gardens. • Location Can be found across the UK. • Size Adults can weigh up to 2kg, and are roughly 25cm in length. • Nest These are made of moss and leaves under vegetation. • Diet Hedgehogs are almost entirely insectivores, loving to work through leaf litter,…

Oneadaptr offers a range of other adapters for power-hungry users. The Flip Power Dual USB charger with Powerbank (US$39.99/around £30.50) features an interesting design that sees it act as a dual USB charger when it’s plugged into the wall and a power bank when the mains pins are folded away. We can’t think of many other products that combine a 2000mAH power bank, two USB ports (3.4 Amps) and British plug all together in such an easy-to-carry design. Best yet, it’s only 18mm thin and designed to slip into a pocket or small bag.…

Guy Edwardes Guy has been a professional landscape, nature and travel photographer for 20 years. His images are marketed by several leading agencies, including Getty Images and NaturePL. His work appears in a wide range of photography magazines, and has been used by newspapers, Reader’s Digest, and many card and calendar publishers worldwide. Guy runs around 35 photographic workshops each year, taking clients to some of Europe's most spectacular landscape and wildlife locations. Visit www.guyedwardes.com. 1992 Canon EOS 5 The Canon EOS 5 was my first proper SLR when I was studying photography at college. It had lots of professional features in a consumer body. I had two of these: one was set up for action and the other for landscapes. I had them for five years. 2002 Canon EOS-1Ds…

‘Follow focus is something of a misnomer, as the gear does not follow the focus’ One of today's premium products is the cinematographic lens. It attaches to a digital still camera that's being used in video mode, turning it into a cut-price cinema camera. These lenses have three attributes that distinguish them from run-of-the-mill lenses: a ‘clickless' aperture control; calibration of that control in ‘t-stops' as opposed to f-stops; and manual focus with a large rotation, often as much as 270°. Usually, the focus and aperture controls are fitted with gears, which can interface with a suitable ‘follow-focus' unit. Follow focus is something of a misnomer, as the gear does not ‘follow the focus' – it simply allows a second person (other than the main photographer) to control the focus…

‘Pellegrin almost certainly keeps an eye out at all times for beautiful things’ Flowers sometimes get a bad rap as a subject fit only for beginners. This picture, though, is a clear illustration of Sturgeon’s Law (more accurately, Sturgeon’s Revelation). When someone said to Theodore Sturgeon that 90% of science fiction was crud, he responded to the effect that 90% of just about everything is crud. In photography, especially since the invention of camera phones, the percentage is probably closer to 99.99%, but there’s still that magical tiny fraction that isn’t crud. This includes pictures that, like this one, break just about every ‘rule’ in the book. The vase is dead centre and is not sparkling clean. The flowers barely project from it and are fairly sparse. A couple of…

THE 2017 Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year competition is now open for entries. The categories are devised to show the culture and production of food in all its variety. New categories this year include a World Food Programme Food for Life category, a Startisans Food in the Street category, and an InterContinental London Park Lane Food at the Table category. The judging panel will include industry experts such as Gary Rhodes, plus AP Editor Nigel Atherton. Nigel said: ‘I'm delighted to be asked again to sit on the judging panel for these important awards, recognising work in food photography from around the globe. Since its launch six years ago, the awards have received over 30,000 entries from over 60 countries.' Visit www.pinkladyfood photographeroftheyear.com for more details. For the…

Lee Acaster Based in East Anglia, Lee is an amateur photographer who has a love of landscapes. He is widely published and has won numerous national awards, including AP’s Amateur Photographer of the Year 2015 competition. www.leeacaster.com We all see the world around us in colour, but as photographers we have the opportunity to look beyond this and view it as form, tone and texture. Shooting in black & white opens up a whole new landscape hidden beneath the surface. Colour landscape photography relies very heavily on light and weather conditions, and we are almost bound by the scene that nature presents to us. However, black & white photography offers the opportunity to create a more personal interpretation. New mindset There is much more to creating a successful monochrome image…

PROCESSING your black & white images well is vital to creating an impressive final image; it is also where you really get to add your creative input. Simply removing the colour and converting the image to greyscale will often lead to disappointing results, and can leave you with a rather flat and lifeless photograph. Increasing the tonal range by adjusting contrast, highlights and shadows will add more punch to your images, and the use of dodging and burning alters the dynamics of a shot. A quick and easy way to do this in Lightroom is by adopting Graduated and Radial filters, which you can use to concentrate attention onto the parts of the image that are most important to your composition. The soft-feathered edges of these filters allow you to…

You answered… A Yes, regularly 14% B Yes, sometimes 22% C No, I shoot in colour then convert to black & white 59% D No, I have no interest in black & white 5% What you said ‘I’ve always loved black & white photos, but have usually converted after the event using software. However, I think using the monochrome option on a camera is the best way to train your eye to “see” what a colour-free world might look like.’ ‘I have done [it] using it as a guide mode and maybe I should more often – if only as training in seeing mono potential… I probably could drop my IR camera into mono permanently as the custom WB means the “colour” image is almost mono anyway.’ ‘When I want…

‘The chair hide turned out to be a massive failure. Every time I went in it, the birds were a no-show’ Turning my back garden into a photo location was a response to my need to find an outlet for my photography following redundancy and then a change of job. Both of these had reduced my free time and access to my favourite wildlife areas. I had started the project the previous year with a small patch in the garden, probably around two square metres in size. I then added a bird table, a feeding station and some plants known to be attractive to birds: lavender and clematis to attract insects, pyracantha for its berries and dogwood for cover. All the information for this, and suggestions for the best feeds…

Bluebells Kieran Roberts Canon EOS 60D KIERAN has sent in some images he took with his new Canon EOS 60D. I've picked this shot of bluebells as it illustrates some useful points. We often choose a subject because it looks as though it will make a good image, but this isn't enough on its own. We need good light too. Good light in this case is light that creates shadows on one side of the subject and highlights on the other. It is this that helps us to understand the three-dimensional qualities of whatever it is that we are looking at. Kieran's bluebells don't stand out much. Although he has picked a wide aperture to make the background soft, the light on the flowers is about the same intensity, so…

LAUNCHED 1969 PRICE £309.18 with 80mm f/2.8 lens (1979) GUIDE PRICE TODAY £225 with 80mm f/2.8 (on eBay) MOST people believe that the Mamiyaflex C system came of age in 1969/1970 when the Mamiyaflex C330 was introduced. This was not due to a massive advance in capability or function by the C330, although there were considerable improvements, but mainly because it looked right. The introduction of all-black lenses, without the bright-steel shutter bezels of Mamiyaflex lenses made until about 1968, and a stylish overall appearance, made the C330 an endearing camera. The C330 offered the considerable benefits of interchangeable focusing screens, automatic parallax compensation with all focal lengths, and, for the first time, a frame counter that configured itself automatically for 120 or 220 film when the pressure plate was…

A FREE mobile photography app that enables people to create moving photos on their smartphones with one easy tap of the screen has been released on the Apple App Store. Called Polaroid Swing, ‘the moving Polaroid photos capture one-second moments that magically come to life when you touch them or swing your phone,' Polaroid said in a statement. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone described the new app as a ‘genre-defining medium' with ‘the potential to change the way we think about images'. Tommy Stadlen, co-founder of Swing, said: ‘Human beings see the world in short moments, not in stills or videos. The product combines Polaroid's iconic heritage with cutting-edge innovation.' To download the app, visit the Apple App Store at www.apple.com.…

‘Such systems could be abused by totalitarian regimes or other powers to undermine the freedom of the press’ As smartphones and their built-in cameras are in practically everybody's pockets/handbags these days, it is becoming difficult to enforce no-photography rules at museums, concert halls, classified company areas or other locations that don't permit the use of cameras. This has triggered the development of new technologies, two of which have been designed to block the use of smartphone cameras in predefined areas. Yondr is a lockable pouch handed out to visitors as they enter a no-photography zone; they are then asked to store their device in this pouch. Once the phone is inside the pouch, it is clipped shut via a wireless signal and only unlocks once the person leaves the restricted…

Canon EOS 5D Mark II I had my Canon EOS 5D Mark II converted to infrared (using a 720nm filter) purely for mono work. I love the extra contrast and slightly surreal effects I can achieve with it. Sony Alpha 7R I’ve recently replaced my main kit with a Sony Alpha 7R mirrorless system. It’s lightweight, and the dynamic range and resolution are superb. Zeiss Distagon T* 18mm f/3.5 I use a Zeiss Distagon T* 18mm f/3.5 lens more than any other. It’s robust and beautifully built, and performs well in colour and on my infrared body. Sonnar T* FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA Lately I’ve found myself increasingly using a 55mm lens, and the Sonnar T* FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA is light, fast and pin-sharp. Manfrotto head I like a…

Oneadaptr Twist Plus+ • £27.99 • www.oneadaptr.co.uk Michael Topham tests a portable universal adapter for MacBooks Protection The Oneadapter Twist+ features built-in fuse protection for peace of mind. Compatibility The Twist+ is designed to connect and be used with Apple MagSafe 1&2 adapters. USB Ports The four USB ports (4A) allow you to charge up to four devices. At a glance • Designed for MacBook users • Features 4 USB ports • Built-in fuse protection • Weighs 175g BEFORE travelling, it's a good idea to check that you have packed a suitable plug adapter to charge camera batteries, laptops and other mobile devices. The Twist Plus+ world charging station offers ultimate charging convenience for Apple Mac users and attaches to any Apple MacBook power adapter by replacing its attached plug…

Resolution Sharpness is very impressive indeed, particularly in the centre of the frame. The very best results are obtained at f/2.8, with diffraction visibly softening fine detail at smaller apertures. The extreme corners aren’t quite so sharp, although in part this likely reflects the effects of curvature of field in our flat-field chart testing. The sharpest results overall are obtained at about f/2.8-f/4, while f/11 and f/16 should generally be avoided. Shading Some vignetting is visible wide open, but at less than a stop it’s not especially strong. The broad fall-off profile also means that it’s by no means visually objectionable. Stopping down to just f/2 sees vignetting drop to negligible levels. Curvilinear distortion Users will see no trace of curvilinear distortion in normal operation. However, as usual for Micro…