Innholdsfortegnelse for 09-Mar-2019 i Amateur Photographer

Until the last quarter of last year, Sony had our Product of the Year award in the bag with its remarkable A7 III. It was so much better than anything else available at that price that it was selling by the bucketload. Many of these sales came at the expense of Nikon who, in the absence of a decent mirrorless system of its own, found its users switching to Sony. Of course, Nikon pulled a pair of spectacular rabbits out of the hat at the 11th hour with its Z 7 and Z 6 (our eventual Product of the Year winner), so do those who jumped ship to Sony regret their decision? We asked James Abbott, who switched to an A7R III, for his thoughts. Also this week, we seek…

In response to the letter from Miss Redmond, ‘Photography is my lifesaver' (Inbox, AP 26 January), I thought you might like to hear about a camera club I help to run for carers in Hertfordshire. For about nine years, I have been a carer for my wife who suffers from anxiety and depression. Our group of about 30 members are all carers, indeed some are both carers and ‘cared for', and probably at least 50% of us have our own health issues to deal with too. We meet every month, and email each other regularly. We try to organise visits locally but owing to our individual caring roles, attendances are usually low and outings relatively few. Last June, we completed our second successful public exhibition, and are planning the next…

The Reader Portfolio winner chosen every week will receive a Manfrotto PIXI EVO tripod worth £44.95. Visit www.manfrotto.co.uk Lightweight and portable, the Manfrotto PIXI EVO boasts two different leg angles with a sliding selector enabling you to shoot ground-level images. It’s adjustable, with two-section legs featuring five different steps that adapt the footprint to uneven surfaces. With a payload of 2.5kg, you can tilt the camera 90° to capture incredible images. NOTE: PRIZE APPLIES TO UK AND EU RESIDENTS ONLY…

1 Copy, paste and position Copy one image – or part of it – into another in Photoshop. The easiest way to do this is by dragging it in with the Move tool. Once done, we can roughly position it and use transform (Cmd/Ctrl+T) if it needs resizing or rotating. Temporarily lowering layer opacity can make positioning easier. 2 Make a selection A composite will only be a success if the seams are hard to detect, and this relies on a precise selection. The Quick Selection tool is one of the best at isolating complex areas – we simply paint over the area and the tool seeks out edges for us. If it goes wrong, we can hold Alt and paint to subtract areas. 3 Refine the edge The Select…

The standard camera settings previously mentioned will cover most situations, but you may want to stop down the lens in order to create sun stars. To do this, simply include the rising sun in the frame and ideally have it half obscured by a tree. Now stop down the lens to f/16-f/22, and as long as the sun is half obscured in the right way you should see a sun star. If not, adjust the composition until you can capture it. Special effects are also possible in post-processing. One technique that's popular, although arguably a bit of a Marmite one, is to add Motion Blur to trees in Photoshop to mimic vertical panning. Create a copy of the Background Layer and then go to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur and set Angle to…

THE NIKON Z system is in its infancy, and as a result it means that lens availability is limited compared to Nikon's F-mount DSLRs and Sony's E-mount cameras. This will of course change, and at the time of writing the Nikon Z 14-30mm f/4 was announced and is certainly a lens I would have preferred to use over the F-Mount 16-35mm f/4 with the FTZ adapter. The FTZ adapter provides a good way for full-frame Nikon DSLR users to upgrade to the Z series and continue using lenses they already own. The ability to use lenses from third-party manufacturers makes it an attractive accessory too. I used the Sigma 12-24mm lens with the adapter and found that it works just as well as Nikon F-mount lenses. Z-series lenses now include…

• £199.95 • www.manfrotto.co.uk MANFROTTO'S Befree series of tripods has come a long way from the first example in 2013. The attraction of the Befree and Befree Advanced series of tripods is the way they're designed to be compact, portable and sturdy. A model that's always been missing from the range though has been an all-in-one solution that allows a tripod to be converted into a monopod. The Befree 2N1 is designed to do just that, but how has this been achieved? Leg warmer Provides safe grip and prevents having to hold the tripod by a cold tripod leg. Plate The tripod is supplied with Manfrotto’s 494 ball head and 200PL PRO plate. Carry bag The tripod is supplied in the box with its own red and black carry case.…

Some photographic subjects are all but irresistible. Wet leaves on stones. Doors. And, of course, lone trees, hereafter LTs. Most of us fail, most of the time. Usually it’s more about the memory than the picture: a case of ‘you had to be there’. My own success rate with LTs is so low that I’ve pretty much given up. If I succumb to temptation, they’re likely to be just as dull as 99.9% of everyone else’s LTs. Then I see something like this and think, ‘Hold on a minute. Is there a secret?’ There are, I suspect, several. The most basic is simplicity, where this one scores very highly. Most LTs have too much else in them: stones, rocks, ploughed fields, compositional gimmicks, ‘leading lines’. This one has been slightly…

WE'RE sad to report that Roy Green, who served as editor of AP from 1980 to 1985, has passed away. A well-respected and hard-working journalist, AP recorded its highest ever audited circulation of over 100,000 per week for two successive years during his tenure. Keith Wilson, who would also go on to be editor, remembers him fondly. ‘When Roy hired me in 1984, it was also AP's centenary year, so it should have been a time of great celebration. However, we did not publish for about eight weeks because of a national magazine journalists' strike. It was the only time in AP's history I believe when it did not hit the shelves every week, even during two world wars. Fortunately, the strike finished before our commemorative centenary issue in October.'…

One area of photographic gadgetry seems destined never to attain a glittering career - the digital photo frame. I've tested many over the past decade or so but none of them constituted a must-have purchase. They're often disappointingly ugly with cumbersome power cords and adapters that would ruin any room's feng shui. Their crude interfaces make them a misery to use and when you finally do get your frame working you discover the screen quality is wretched, with washed out colours and obvious pixels. When I want to share some pictures electronically I'm much more inclined to use a phone or tablet instead. But a couple of devices I've tested recently have made me think their time could eventually come. One is the Nixplay Seed. It's a digital photo frame…

DON'T be put off by the lovely-looking Nikon on the cover. This was actually a very ‘colourful' issue, with a major feature on Jocelyn Bain Hogg's project about British hardmen and gangsters. It's a great story not just because of the powerful images, but also the contrast between the private-school-educated Bain Hogg and his subjects, whose main education was from the school of hard knocks. ‘Actually – and this may seem ironic, given their profession – I found them to be the straightest, most honest people I have met for a long time,' Jocelyn recounts. Elsewhere, we also enjoyed the entertaining piece on recreating the feel of classic black & white Hollywood portraits, something which AP continues to this day in the ‘Classics Revisited' section. Returning to the main cover…

This spring, a major new exhibition of works by Martin Parr – probably one of Britain’s most prolific and most successful contemporary photographers – is on display in London. ‘Only Human’ brings together some of Parr’s best-known photographs, along with a number of works never exhibited before, all on his favourite subject: people. Although featuring portraits from around the world, the show has a focus on Parr’s unique observations of the British character. There’s arguably never been a more divided nation than the one we have right now, with new works revealing Parr’s take on the aftermath of Brexit. To celebrate the retrospective, over the next few pages we’ll be speaking to various photographers who have been inspired – whether positively or negatively – by Parr’s work over the years.…

Unusually for a modern project, ‘Ex Voto’ was shot entirely on film, using a large-format camera. Alys uses the Sinar F1 5x4 camera, with every image created using a Schneider 150mm lens. Alys says, ‘I chose to shoot the project on large format as it really slows the whole process down, and allows for a much more considered approach.’ Initially, images were shot in colour, but according to Alys it wasn’t working. ‘Once I changed to black & white, it mirrored the purity and timelessness of the people and place, giving the images a mysterious quality.’…

Tripod A tripod is a necessity when shooting at sunrise to support the camera and lens during long exposures. Telephoto lens Telephoto lenses allow you to eliminate converging verticals. A 70-200mm is best, but superzooms can also work well. Polarising filter Filters aren’t required for 95% of woodland shots, but they can be useful for reducing glare and increasing colour saturation. Backpack A backpack-style kit bag is the most comfortable way to carry your gear in the woods and helps you to focus on shooting.…

The Manfrotto Befree 2N1 can be purchased with either QPL travel lever locks like those on our review sample, or M-locks, which are the twist type of leg locks Manfrotto also produces. The QPL travel lever locks are similar to those used on Manfrotto’s 190 and 055 series tripod, but lighter. It’s worth noting that the M-lock version has no protruding parts, allowing the legs to close neatly around the head and slip in and out of storage pockets easily without snagging or getting caught.…

Each week we choose our favourite picture on Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Twitter or the reader gallery using #appicoftheweek. PermaJet proudly supports the online picture of the week winner, who will receive a top-quality print of their image on the finest PermaJet paper*. It is important to bring images to life outside the digital sphere, so we encourage everyone to get printing today! Visit www.permajet.com to learn more. *PLEASE ALLOW UP TO 28 DAYS FOR DELIVERY Send us your pictures 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…

WITH 23 million of us using Instagram on a monthly basis, a new survey by the organisers of The Photography Show (TPS) has revealed some of the frustrations people face when taking pictures on smartphones. Despite mobile devices being convenient and providing the ability to take photos in seconds, two in five respondents (40%) struggled to take great photos when the light is bad, while more than a third (36%) found it difficult to see the screen in situations like bright sunlight, and one in three (33%) expressed frustration at being restricted with zoom capability. ‘With a digital camera you have better optics and sensors than just a phone,' observed commercial and portrait photographer Ross Grieve, who is speaking at the show. ‘This gives you much better control over your…

Sophia Spurgin, Hertfordshire Sophia tells us that despite always having an interest in photography, she switched to the type of macro imagery you see here after her children decided they were too old to have their photographs taken. She grows her own flowers to use in her work, such as anemone and cosmos, but Sophia also enjoys landscape and wildlife photography. Her artistic side shines through, mainly in post-production work, but she says that it's getting outside into the garden or landscape that makes photography an enjoyable hobby. Submit your images Please see the ‘Send us your pictures’ section on page 3 for details or visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/portfolio…

Try Blend Modes Layer Blend Modes in Photoshop can be used to combine photos in all kinds of creative ways, from double exposures effects (use the Screen mode) to adding stars to the night sky with the Lighten Blend Mode here. Sometimes a simple Blend Mode change can save lots of time making complex cutouts. Consistent camera angles Here the upwards camera angle between the two shots and the consistent focal length helps the images to match, and the gentle backlighting in both scenes makes it much easier to merge them convincingly. It also highlights the importance of leaving negative space for the subject to be dropped in. Shoot silhouettes for cutouts A change in lighting can make it easier to create complex cutouts in the studio. Here, after taking…

If you go down to the woods today, be sure to take your camera. Forests have long been considered magical places to different groups of people, and photographers are certainly no exception. At different times of the year, with the right weather conditions at the right time of day, images can present themselves at every corner, and on a good day you can easily shoot a whole portfolio in just a couple of hours. Planning woodland shoots The biggest challenge in the woods is finding order in the chaos, and it can take time to learn how to identify viewpoints that suit you. Typical compositions see photographers focusing on a row of trees with the ground taking up the bottom third of the frame, centrally composed trees that stand out…

LUMINAR 3 delivers an awful lot for your money, while taking a very different approach to photo editing. Through its tools, the approach used and its pricing, it feels like it's aimed at novice and enthusiast photographers, though it perhaps has appeal for professionals too who are looking for a fresh way to make their images stand out. The fact is, under its veneer of simplicity and AI automation, Luminar is actually a powerful and versatile editing tool, with a great deal of creative potential for those who will spend the time to explore what it can do. The new Libraries feature massively extends Luminar's usefulness, turning into an all-in-one photo organising and enhancing tool rather than just a photo editor, but its Libraries feature doesn't feel fully formed yet,…