Innholdsfortegnelse for 16-Feb-2019 i Amateur Photographer

It’s that time of the year again, when our annual awards recognise the finest cameras, lenses and accessories for the serious photographer. However, you don’t need to have attended our glittering awards ceremony in London to get the winners’ details – all the products are listed on pages 37-51, which also serves as a handy shopping list if you’re in the market for the best new gear. Even if you’re happy with your existing equipment there’s lots to enjoy in this issue, including a guide on how to revitalise old family photos, on getting better drone images, as well as advice on planning a trip to Norway’s Lofoten Islands – one of the best destinations for shooting the Northern Lights. And if you haven’t done so already, take advantage of…

THE standout feature that made me say the word ‘wow' out loud when I used the S1R for the first time is the EVF. It's sensationally sharp, refreshes quickly and offers a first-class viewing experience. I'd have no hesitation in saying it's the best EVF I've ever used. Ergonomically, the S1R is rather nicely laid out and in many respects feels like a bigger, beefier Lumix G9. Autofocus seemed brisk and Eye AF was responsive when shooting a series of portraits. Furthermore, High Resolution mode impressed too and appeared to work well when I attempted handheld shots without a tripod. My lasting impression from using the Lumix S1R for a few hours is that it's one very capable camera indeed and there's much to like. There's appeal to the S-series…

Tributes to Ivor Matanle It's sad to hear that Ivor Matanle has passed away. There will be a great number of regular readers who will remember his wonderful in-depth articles on various classic camera brands over many years. I first came across Ivor through his books which have become like bibles to members of the camera collecting fraternity. I met him in person through the Photographic Collectors' Club of Great Britain where he gave regular talks at meetings around the country. He was one of the most knowledgeable people I have ever met on the subject of classic cameras. He was also rare among knowledgeable people in being able to communicate that knowledge in a way that was informative, interesting and often amusing. Those who remember his articles in AP…

1 Distance affects power Halving the distance between the flash and subject will increase its strength by four times – or two stops – in accordance with the inverse square law. 2 Distance and quality Changing the distance of the light also changes its size in relation to the subject – the further away it is, the harder the quality of light. 3 Watch for fall-off The fall-off of a flash is the difference in strength across the subject, and it will be more pronounced if the light is in very close. 4 Look to the catchlights If you want to see how other portrait photographers have lit their photos, the catchlights in the subject's eyes can indicate the positioning, quantity and type of light used. 5 Bounce the flash…

Morning is the best time for me as the low sunlight picks up the textures of the landscape. You might also get lucky with mist, and there are fewer people around on the streets, so it's much safer flying a drone. Amos Chapple First of all I check the batteries of the remote-controller and the drone, to make sure I have sufficient power for my flight. I also inspect the rotors and the temperature of the drone, and then look over my planned flightpath to ensure it's clear of any high buildings or helicopter routes. I always undertake low-altitude manoeuvres to check the behaviour of the drone before I go higher. Bachir Moukarzel I like to compose my shots by eye, but do rely heavily on the thirds grid to…

My favourite time of year to visit is February and March, with nice long nights for chasing the aurora and shorter days where the golden hour lasts most of the day. Being at such high latitudes the days are very short; in fact, from 27 November to 15 January, the sun doesn't actually rise above the horizon. Seeing the first sunrise of the year in mid-January is always a great time to visit. The all-day (albeit short days) twilight is a joy for photography. Food and lodging Airbnb has become quite popular now, but the fisherman's cabins ( rorbuer ) are the nicest way to enjoy your stay. The cabins, usually on stilts, have terrific views across fjords with mountain backdrops. If you're near larger towns there are some nice…

HOW MANY photographers can say they started their career taking the portrait of one of the 20th century's most iconic figures? The recipient of our Exceptional Achievement in Photography Award did just that, capturing none other than Albert Einstein in his home in 1948. Never setting out to be a photographer, she received her ‘training' for that particular photo shoot in the back of the car on the way to Einstein's house – there's nothing like being thrown in at the deep end. It's not surprising that her very first portrait continues to be of interest all these years later, but she would go on to so much more. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Marilyn has spent the vast majority of her life living and working in Europe. She first visited…

THE CHRIS CHEESMAN Memorial Award was inaugurated in 2017 in memory of AP's former News Editor, who died in 2016. It is given to someone in recognition of their outstanding contribution to the UK photo industry. This year's recipient, Adrian Clarke, is the MD of Fujifilm UK. He joined the photo business in the mid 1980s after graduating from Cambridge University and spending a summer engaged as a political canvasser in the USA. His first role at Fuji Photo Film UK Ltd was as a marketing executive working on the company's motion-picture films, professional video tape and photographic paper. When Fujifilm launched the first minilab, he began the process of populating the market with 1-hour photo outlets and the beginning of high street film processing. During the 1990s he completed…

THIS AP award highlights the most innovative products to arrive in the market over the last 12 months and this year Canon has made it onto the nominees list with two products. After much deliberation, the award went to the Canon Speedlite 470EX-AI – a product quite like no other we've seen before. Though you might think it's difficult to reinvent the wheel of how a flashgun works, that's exactly what Canon has achieved here. It's equipped the 470EX-AI with an Auto Intelligent (AI) function, which is designed to work out the optimum position of the flash head before automatically manoeuvring it to create softer, more flattering illumination. In full-auto mode, the unit requires a test flash to be taken to calculate the optimum angle for natural illumination before the…

Amateur Photographer is primarily about stills photography, which means that sometimes technological advances from the moving-picture side of the image-making business pass us by. Recently, I found myself investigating gimbals, because I was in need of an remote mechanism for aiming a camera. In the past such equipment was called a ‘motorised pan-tilt head, and these are still available, though I would guess of limited use to most still photographers. As well as these devices, my search uncovered a range of devices generically called ‘gimbals, designed for video production. The advent of DSLR video, and the consequent availability of very high quality video production at much lower cost than before, led to the production of ‘gimbals' designed to help produce smoother handheld footage. My knowledge of these gimbals was limited…

The winners of the International Garden Photographer of the Year (IGPOTY) competition 12 were announced at the Royal Botanic Gardens, in Kew, London, on Friday, 8 February. The overall winner of £7,500 and the grand title is Jill Welham from North Yorkshire. The winning image entitled ‘Fireworks', (left), showcases the wet cyanotype process that Jill uses. The resulting study of three allium heads is accompanied by the wonderful, distinct swirling patterns and shapes this process offers. This latest IGPOTY competition saw more than 19,000 individual entries from over 50 countries. The competition exhibition is open to the public at Kew from 9 February and the new IGPOTY Collection Twelve hardback book is now available. See www.igpoty.com.…

FILM-CHEMISTRY specialist Tetenal Europe GmbH appears to be in difficulties, with German staff told that production will cease in April and the company wound up after 172 years, according to a report on imaging + foto contact’s website. However, Tetenal UK said that while discussions are continuing, ‘Tetenal UK is still very much here and continues to be a robust, stable and forward-looking company.' Tetenal UK will also be attending the forthcoming Photography Show. Meanwhile a management-buyout plan to salvage Tetenal Europe has been submitted to the insolvency administrators in Germany. Tetenal began in 1847 when Theodor Teichgräber started selling chemicals for the wet-collodion process. For the latest news visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk…

INITIALLY there will be three lenses available for Panasonic's S-series cameras based on the Leica L-mount, these being the Lumix S Pro 50mm f/1.4 (£2,299.99), Lumix S Pro 70-200mm f/4 OIS (£1,749.99) and Lumix S 24-105mm f/4 Macro OIS (1,299.99). The Lumix S Pro 50mm f/1.4, with its focal length considered ‘standard' for the full-frame format, features an optical construction made up of 13 elements in 11 groups. To counteract chromatic aberrations, two aspherical lenses and three extra-low dispersion lenses are used in its design and unlike many 50mm prime lenses that have nine aperture blades, it differs in that it has an 11-bladed iris in an attempt to produce the most attactive bokeh possible. An aperture ring is also present, while switching to manual focus requires the focus ring…

At a popular level there's everything from Prince's Little Red Corvette to Madness driving in their Morris Minor. Delve deeper and there are bountifully rich seams of material; Johnny Cash building his Cadillac a piece at a time or Kraftwerk's celebration of the Autobahn. Whatever your musical tastes, the tunes put you behind the wheel, even when you're not. I've never thought photography and music achieved the same magical synergy. Not that I haven't treasured some songs on the subject. My personal favourite is Jackson Browne's Fountain of Sorrow. The great songsmith, best known for his work with the Eagles, insightfully describes the process of taking a portrait and recording a character in a moment. I bought the Late for the Sky LP, on which it appears, back in 1974…

May I crave space to write a tribute to the camera meister, Ivor Matanle, of whose death I just learned from Anne Matanle. My first contact with Ivor was through his Ivor and Anne Matanle adverts in the classified pages of AP, back when the world was a far better and kinder place. When I last spoke with him Ivor had difficulty speaking and told me that he was far from well. The last letter I received he has hand-written using a pen he valued. Though I never actually met Ivor in person, I got to ‘know' him well through conversations on the phone and the exchange of letters, and his AP articles encouraged me to write for many journals myself, including for the Leica Historical Society, Club Rollei User…

Monoblocks These are mains-powered flash units. More powerful than a speedlight, they also have modelling lights. Each light comes with a stand, and the fixtures on the front make it easy to fit light modifiers. Umbrella Diffuses and spreads the light. Either direct the flash through the umbrella, or angle it away and bounce light back off the umbrella. Useful for lighting interiors and portraits, but hard to control the spread of light. Softbox Softens and diffuses the light, much like window light. Creates attractive rectangular catchlights in the subject's eyes. Similar to a white umbrella, but easier to control the play of light and shade. Sync cable/ wireless trigger Attach this to your camera to trigger the flashes. All studio flash units will have an optical slave. This means…

A KEY reason to use studio lighting is the many options we have to change the quality of the light using a variety of modifiers. A starter kit will typically include a softbox and umbrella, and we also have the option to fire the flash bare. When fired bare, the light source is very small and, like the midday sun in a cloudless sky, light from a small source is very hard-edged. Note here (left) how it creates deep shadows under the chin. By contrast, when we modify the light with an umbrella or softbox we increase the size of the source so the light is more diffuse and the shadows become much softer. The softbox is arguably the winner here, because the shadows are soft but still nicely defined.…

1 Auto-haze removal This automatically boosts washed-out blacks and enhances detail. Go to Enhance>Auto Haze Removal to apply. 2 Remove a colour cast For colour prints go to Enhance>Adjust Color >Remove Color Cast then click on a point that should be neutral, like the headscarf here. 3 Dust and Scratches filter Found in Filter>Noise, this applies an automatic fix across the image to remove small dust spots and can halve your retouching time. 4 Content-Aware Fill This fills in missing areas. Select the problem area with the Lasso tool then go to Edit>Fill Selection and choose Use: Content-Aware. 5 Unsharp Mask Use Enhance>Unsharp Mask to sharpen soft details. Adjusting the Threshold will exclude grain from the effects of the sharpening.…

AP'S POWER of Photography Award is awarded in recognition of the power that photography has to move us and challenge our preconceptions. The winner is an Australian-born photojournalist who first gained recognition in 2009 for his work in Afghanistan. Since then he has worked internationally, with a focus on conflict and civilians caught up in it, contributing to The New York Times, Time magazine and National Geographic, amongst others. This award is for his work on a story for The New York Times that won First Prize in the People (Stories) category at last year's World Press Photo Contest. Adam was working on assignment in Nigeria when he heard about a young woman who had been deployed by militant Islamist group Boko Haram as a suicide bomber but had escaped.…

THE RETAIL industry is going through a torrid time at the moment, with one in three retailers in the FTSE 100 reporting profit warnings last year, and predictions that 10,000 shops will go out of business on the UK high street in 2019. In hobbyist markets like photography, good specialist retailers that offer great service from knowledgeable staff play a vital part in helping keep our hobby alive, and at AP we try to support them as best we can. One of the ways that we do this is through the Good Service Awards. Voted for by you, the reader – their customers – a Good Service Award logo is a signpost to existing and potential customers saying ‘This is a business that offers a high quality of customer service.'…

THIS fast wideangle prime for Sony's full-frame mirrorless system sets new standards in its class. As a member of the firm's premium G Master range, it offers stunning optical quality, combining spectacular resolution across the entire image with attractive rendition of defocused backgrounds. As a bonus, it's also substantially smaller and lighter than its equivalents for full-frame DSLRs. ‘This fast wideangle prime sets new standards in its class’ The newly developed optical formula employs 13 elements in 10 groups, including two extreme aspheric (XA) elements along with three crafted from extra-low dispersion (ED). This delivers stunning sharpness even at f/1.4, coupled with minimal distortion and chromatic aberration. In addition, the lens suffers from barely any coma flare of point light sources at the corner of the frame, making it highly…

Ask most photographers what they know about George Rodger (1908-1995) and they’ll tell you that he was one of the founders of Magnum. After that, they are most likely to recall either his war photographs or his post-war African work. He worked in more theatres of war than most, beginning with the Blitz in London. Thereafter, under the auspices of Life magazine, he covered conflict in West Africa and Burma, the Italian landings, the D-Day landings in Normandy, and subsequently the liberation of much of Europe including Paris. He was also one of the first photographers into Belsen; which leads directly to his African photography. By his own account, he realised that something had gone badly wrong when he found himself searching for the best compositions when photographing stacks of…

If you’d like to see your work published in Amateur Photographer, here’s how to send us your images: Email Email a selection of low-res images (up to 5MB of attachments in total) to appicturedesk@ti-media.com. CD/DVD Send us a disc of high-resolution JPEG, TIFF or PSD images (at least 2480 pixels along its longest length), with a contact sheet, to the address on page 14. Via our online communities Post your pictures into our Flickr group, Facebook page, Twitter feed, or the gallery on our website. See details above.…

Travel winners Tips for shooting all kinds of subjects, as AP speaks to the winners of TPOTY 2018 Nikon D750 long-term test Matt Golowczynski on the Nikon D750 after working with it for four years Obsolete and discontinued What happened when Mike Crawford used outdated photo paper for a project? Zeiss Batis 40mm f/2 CF Andy Westlake reviews Zeiss’s standard prime for Sony full-frame mirrorless CONTENT FOR NEXT WEEK’S ISSUE MAY BE SUBJECT TO CHANGE…

HOLD on to your hats, dear readers, we are back in the unchartered territory of 1976. There may not be dragons, but there was plenty of other fun stuff in the magazine, including a cover model straight out of Abigail’s Party and no cover lines at all. How can mere words be allowed to sully such a stunning hairstyle? Another highlight was ‘Notes for Novices', written by R. H. Mason, who rocked the Michael Caine look, as seen on the spread below. We also love the manic-looking toddler, heavily vignetted hound (complete with an ASBO chain collar) and sultry lovelies on this spread. The names of past contributors to AP are often a source of amusement too – take one ‘Ludwig Haskins,' who wrote a piece called ‘Oh, for a…

Lit from above A single softbox can give us a wide variety of looks depending on the positioning and strength. Here it's positioned directly above the face and angled downwards. This is sometimes called ‘butterfly lighting', as the shadow cast down from the nose looks a bit like a butterfly. Backlighting This time our softbox is positioned behind the subject to the left, lighting the far side of the face. Known as short lighting (as opposed to ‘broad' which lights the front side), this gives a low-key, moody look. The background is very dark because our flash is angled away from it. High-key A softbox can act as a backdrop for a simple high-key look. The light will wrap around the edges of the face, creating attractive edge light along…

Canon EOS 5DS/ 5D Mark IV I love my 50MP EOS 5DS, especially for shooting crisp, icy winter scenes where the resolution is really pronounced. I switch to the 5D Mark IV for the aurora images at night, as its ISO performance for astrophotography is much better suited. Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L III USM This lens is very versatile; it’s the perfect choice for wideangle landscapes while also being fast enough for pin-sharp astrophotography. It also uses the standard 100mm Lee filter system, so no extra sets of filters are required. Arca Swiss P0 Ballhead This is a lightweight, but strong, ball head that I use primarily for travel and astro photography. It’s very easy to get locked into position and, unlike geared heads, it allows the camera to be…

Gali explains, ‘I’m quite minimalistic. What’s usually enough for me is a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV and a good 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. I like the 24-70mm Mark II because it’s as good as the prime lenses. I find that the less gear I have the more comfortable I am, and also the people I’m approaching feel much more comfortable. I also have the EOS M5 but I’m not that accustomed to the electronic viewfinder. I use it when I need to be more discreet and also the flip-open screen at crazy angles allows you to get other stuff. If I have a certain shoot, the M5 with a wide lens might be perfect, so I’ll just take it along.’ Gali also has a 70-200mm lens ‘when I go to…

GEARED heads are the perfect choice for any photographic application that demands really precise camera adjustment, such as macro or architecture. In its first offering of the type, Benro has come up with an excellent design that for many photographers offers the ideal compromise between size, sturdiness and price. The GD3WH uses a conventional layout with three large control knobs, one for each axis of movement. Rotating any one of them drives the camera directly in the corresponding direction, allowing highly accurate composition setting. For quick and rough repositioning, the gearing can be disengaged using the adjacent star-shaped controls, which spring firmly back into place when released. With sturdy magnesium alloy construction, this head is both lighter and more compact than its direct competitors. Another big advantage is that its…

PHOTOSHOP has a reputation for being the best image-editing application in the world, but there are plenty of alternatives that are just as good or better in their own way, and Affinity Photo is one of them. Like Photoshop, it doesn't have its own image browsing or cataloging area, but it offers some excellent tools for fettling and fine-tuning your images. The develop module reveals great depth, colour and detail in raw files with a handy split-screen to compare your adjusted image with the original. Everyday adjustments are available as adjustment layers and provided that you save your image in the Affinity Photo file format, it's possible to return and tweak the settings you applied previously. You can also create Live Filter layers with effects displayed live on your image…

FOR USERS of full-frame DSLR and mirrorless cameras requiring a versatile zoom that performs as well in low light as it does creating a shallow depth of field wide-open, a pro-spec 24-70mm f/2.8 is definitely the way to go. Sigma's 24-70mm f/2.8 presents a very attractive saving over its Canon, Nikon and Sony rivals and puts up a strong fight against them in terms of optical performance. To maximise its appeal, it's optimised for use with sensors boasting a resolution of up to 50 million pixels. Effective optical stabilisation helps to keep subjects sharp and images free of handshake, with the option of opening the lens to f/2.8 being particularly useful in low-light scenarios and when you'd like to emphasise a subject from a busy background and create pleasing bokeh…