Innholdsfortegnelse for 13-Apr-2019 i Amateur Photographer

This week we feature the work of the legendary Don McCullin, whose retrospective is currently on show at Tate Britain. We talk to the exhibition’s curator, who describes him as having ‘a huge capacity for empathy’, and ask three photojournalists to discuss what his work means to them. It’s a thought-provoking read, which also asks questions about how photographers should represent these issues today. If the feature touches you at all I highly recommend reading McCullin’s book Unreasonable Behaviour , which remains for me the most powerful autobiography I have ever read. On a lighter note we help you to avoid the big landscape photography clichés, show you how to use the Photomerge feature in Lightroom, test Sigma’s latest 70-200mm f/2.8 fast tele-zoom, and reveal what it’s like to shoot…

IT IS with tremendous sadness that we bring you news that long-term AP contributor Roger Hicks has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. His back-page Final analysis column, which since the beginning of the year has rotated with his Legends of photography column, is one of the most popular sections of the magazine. Indeed, we often receive letters telling us it's the first thing many of you read on receiving your copies of Amateur Photographer each week. Roger has been writing for AP for almost 20 years, with his columns Back chat, A matter of opinion, Back from the front, The final frame and Final analysis. We would like to thank Roger for the open and dignified way he has continued to provide us with columns in the recent past, but…

Do your research – then stop Photographers often do far too much research before a trip begins. This not only empowers, but it also antagonises. Nothing is worse than feeling down because you're looking at a smartphone full of amazing work, which leads many back to the safety of the cliché. Arrive on location, throw your arms wide, and then get to work. The last resort Rather than bag a cliché, remind yourself that you are better than this. If you know where a popular composition is at the location you're in, only visit the concept when you have creatively exhausted all other options, or you could find absolutely nothing else. Change your vision Many pictures are clichés because of popular focal lengths. Many landscape photographers use a magic formula…

I REMEMBER reading Susan Sontag's extended essay Regarding the Pain of Others, which is a problematic title in some ways as who gets to decide who is the ‘other'? I'm looking at this image displaying a woman reduced to showing her naked, thin and traumatised body with her starving child. This woman of colour is shown at her most vulnerable and with little to no dignity. She is semi-naked and her breasts are on display. Her name is absent. I chose this image as it represents so much of the conversation and actions we need to take as 21st-century photographers in relation to ethics and representation. At the time this image was taken there was perhaps an idea that this could bring about some form of change. I'm sure these…

Round Two Setting the scene If you like cityscapes or landscapes then this round is for you. The brief is purposefully loose, and we are happy to receive images featuring anything from contemporary architecture to grand mountain vistas. From the early morning sun throwing shadows onto a skyscraper, to the undulating form of receding hills, the possibilities are endless. Don't be afraid to be abstract in your interpretation: architecture, for instance, is filled with interesting details. When it comes to shooting the landscape, light is everything – pay attention to sunrise and sunset times, weather forecasts and tide timetables, where appropriate. Whether you go urban or rural, planning is a must. Plan your APOY 2019 year Below is a list of all this year's rounds including when the rounds open,…

SHELLING out over £10k on a lens isn't realistic for a lot of people. However, that doesn't mean you can't get your hands on a costly lens for a one-off trip or special shooting opportunity. Hireacamera (www. hireacamera.com) rents out lenses and other gear. A two-week rental of the Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM costs £627, including VAT. The newer Canon EF 600mm f/4 IS III can be hired too for around £264 a day/weekend or £443 for a week.…

Resolution The lens delivers a strong set of MTF results from our Image Engineering tests. Centre sharpness improves at all focal lengths by stopping the lens down from its maximum aperture to f/4 and f/5.6. Sharpness holds up well at f/8 and f/11, but starts to drop off beyond this point. The sweet spot of sharpness is found around f/5.6, with the solid and dotted red lines indicating central and corner sharpness is superior at wider focal lengths. Shading There’s a drop in illumination of around 1.4 stops in the corners wide open at 200mm, but this quickly reduces to 0.6 stops by stopping down to f/4. Users will find the fall-off more gradual and less abrupt at 200mm. At 70mm, corners are a stop darker than the centre at…

In August last year Nikon and Canon announced their first full-frame mirrorless cameras: the Z 7 and EOS R, respectively. Now, both manufacturers are fielding two examples, with Nikon having added the Z 6 and Canon producing the EOS RP. Nikon has disclosed that it will add to the system with a new camera below the Z 6 (which the rumour mill expects to be called the Z 5). Since the EOS R is a mid-range camera it seems to be a fair bet that the Canon R range will be supplemented fairly soon by a top-end model (EOS R1, perhaps?). By the normal speed of camera introductions, this is an exceptionally fast rate of new model production. How is this possible? I can see two reasons. First, for both…

HUNDREDS of photographers submitted over 4,000 images for consideration for the UK Picture Editors' Guild Awards, judged by a panel of 10 experienced judges. The Shutterstock Press Photographer of the Year prize went to Daniel Lawson for his image of Meghan Markle walking down the aisle at her wedding to Prince Harry last May. Other categories included the Canon Sports Photographer of the Year, Fixation News Photographer of the Year, Dave Benett Photo Arts and Entertainment Photographer of the Year, Photo Essay, Fleet Street's Finest National Newspaper Photographer of the Year, and Fujifilm Student Photographer of the Year. Meanwhile, conflict, documentary and war photographer Tom Stoddart was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for his almost 50-year career. He contributes to our Don McCullin feature on pages 22-28. To see pictures…

We continue to be impressed here at AP by Huawei and Leica's collaboration, with every new offering seeming to push the boundaries just a little bit further. Introducing a 5x periscope lens, along with redesigning the sensors and introducing a ‘TOF' lens is all very interesting – but a major downside is that it leaves quite a big focal length gap between the standard 27mm lens and the telephoto - but with up to 40 million pixels available, you could always rely on cropping. We're looking forward to spending a lot more time with the P30 Pro in the near future to find out exactly what this model is capable of.…

Do products that pioneer new technologies need to be expensive? There are many commonplace gadgets that started out the preserve of the wealthy few. Personal computers, mobile phones, car radios and, more recently, OLED TVs all launched with eye-watering price tags and took years or even decades to come down in price and gain mass appeal. Happily it's not always the case, as I was reminded the other week when shooting an item for The Gadget Show. The subject was the world's first production camera to feature autofocus. This groundbreaking technology didn't launch on an upmarket SLR but on the 1977 Konica C35 AF, a relatively affordable point-and-shoot. Maybe the fact that Konica was able to adopt another company's expertise helped keep the development costs down. The camera uses Honeywell's…

I was looking at some of the entries and winning images in the Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY) competition and I was struck by the following thought, which is a criticism not only to TPOTY and other travel photography competitions but also to us the photographers. Isn't it a sad indictment of our culture that many entries and winners of such competitions seem to be images portraying people, cultures or regions of the world that are poorer, oppressed, and facing hardship and strife. Often what some would describe as developing countries? Of course I am generalising, as proven by the TPOTY submission of the image of the lady in the Venice Carnival. Nonetheless, it is my belief that we rarely seem to get a balanced representation of the countries…

THE REASON that I've chosen this image is because it demonstrates the extreme courage that Don had when he was working, especially during the Vietnam War. He has many wonderful pictures, but this image shows how close he was working to the front line - he's actually right in among the fighting. It's not very often you see a picture like that. McCullin has been an inspiration to me and many other photographers for many years, and he was one of the reasons that I wanted to work for The Sunday Times. I did get to work for The Sunday Times, but unfortunately he'd left by the time I got there. The first time I met him was in 1982, in West Beirut. I was there covering the war in…

Less is more A deceptively bold composition. Placing the lighthouse so far into the corner of the frame is a confident move. Our eye goes straight to its shape and colour, then moves slowly through the rest of the image. Figure it out A landscape doesn't have to be devoid of human presence. By including a figure in this monochromatic scene, we are given a sense of scale. A telephoto lens compresses the view, making the background loom large. Repeat yourself Architecture is the ideal subject for a study in repetition and symmetry. The few open windows in this composition add depth. Frame the scene with precision and correct converging verticals in post-production. Lead the way There's no harm in shooting classically composed scenes. When they're done well, they are…

● £269 ● www.lowepro.co.uk LOWEPRO is up there as one of the leading camera bag manufacturers, offering a carrying solution for all types of photographers, with a vast range of models for those who spend a majority of their time in the great outdoors. The company's Whistler series is now into its second generation and is once again designed for adventurists and lovers of the landscape looking for a high-performance outdoor backpack that's as good at carrying camera kit as it is a variety of outdoor gear. Lowepro labels its Whistler 350AW II and 450AW II as its most versatile packs for extreme conditions, and it's the smaller of the two we're looking at here. To keep contents safe and secure, the pack features access from the rear to the…

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.…

AHEAD of the prize ceremony in April, the list of photographers shortlisted for the Professional category of the 2019 Sony World Photography Awards have been announced. Winners of the Open categories have also been chosen. This year marks another record-breaking number of entries, with more than 326,000 submissions across four competitions received from 195 countries and territories. The Photographer of the Year, ten Professional category winners, and overall Open Youth and Student winners will be announced in London on 17 April. The shortlisted and winning images have been chosen by a judging panel which consists of some of the world's leading judges from the academia, museums, publishing, festivals and the media. All the photographers shortlisted in the Professional categories go on to compete to become category winners, with the chance…

WHILE still the subject of some derision, smartphone cameras have become so good in recent years that here at AP we saw fit to include a brand new ‘Smartphone Camera of the Year' category at the 2019 AP Awards. That accolade went to the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, which was announced in October last year. While the smartphone market is packed with healthy competition, it's fair to say that Huawei has impressed the most with its smartphone camera offerings, thanks to a range of advanced technologies in competitively priced devices. Huawei tends to announce its flagship models in six-month cycles, with the ‘P' range usually being unveiled in March, and the ‘Mate' range in October. Built for photographers Although both of Huawei's flagship models are equipped with excellent cameras, it…

Legendary wildlife photographer Nick Brandt doesn't do things by halves. His almost 20-year photographic career has produced some of the most iconic, thought-provoking and disturbing conservation photography in the world. His projects show us what the world may very well be like if humanity continues along its path of destruction. His latest book, This Empty World, depicts a world where humans have invaded every available inch of the planet, leaving nothing for the spaces previously occupied by animals. As such, in a set of extremely powerful images, he shows how humans and animals have to coexist. Shot on location in local Maasai community land in Kenya, the photographs are made up of two moments in time, captured from the same locked-off camera position. It always starts with the animal. A…

WITHOUT Don McCullin I may never have become a photographer. It was the gift of his autobiography, Unreasonable Behaviour , and an Olympus OM-10 camera at the age of 18, which sparked my passion for photography. Growing up I'd always been interested in military history and images of war; seeing Don's work for the first time was a revelation. For the first time the figures in the photographs were no longer anonymous figures caught in the maelstrom of war; through Don's photographs I saw them as individuals. For me, his ability to make eye contact in the midst of such chaos and to connect with humanity in both those who kill and those who fall victim is unparalleled. So I not only owe my own start in photography to Don's…

We're looking at a lens that improves on its predecessor in some key areas. Serious enthusiasts and professionals will love the fact it's now a weather-sealed optic for when outdoor conditions are against them, and the three AF function buttons around the barrel give it an advantage over Tamron's SP 70-200mm F/2.8 Di VC USD G2 – a lens that offers some benefits of its own being some 300g lighter and £60 cheaper. Out of the two though, I must say the build quality of this Sigma zoom trumps its Tamron rival, with more of a premium, pro-spec feel to it. The effective image stabilisation, fast autofocus and excellent image quality, not forgetting its impressive sharpness at wide apertures and excellent control of chromatic aberrations, all combine to make it…

A distinctive feature of the bag is its bright orange straps at the front that comprise a Nifco-type release buckle and Duraflex hooks. These support the attachment of heavy equipment and will most often be used by photographers to carry a tripod, but they’re also strong enough to carry a snowboard, with the Nifco release buckles at the side of the backpack offering additional support for carrying skis. This makes it a superb option for winter sports photographers. The orange straps can be removed, although they’re rather good to keep on as the Duraflex hooks in their fixed position prevent full access to the front pocket.…