Innholdsfortegnelse for 21-Sep-2019 i Amateur Photographer

‘Spend it on glass,’ goes the advice of wise old photographers, and it’s as true today as ever. However fancy the technology inside your camera body, using a jam jar bottom as your camera’s business end will give you predictably mediocre results. While top new lenses can be eye-wateringly expensive, the good news is that you can get some really outstanding second-hand lens bargains at the moment. In this packed issue, we reveal some of the best pre-loved deals you can get for under £200, we get tips from readers about their favourite lenses, and we also show how to get great results from using older lenses on newer bodies. Furthermore, we show you how to correct distortion and other common lens problems with software. Stir in all your favourite…

Graeme Youngson's first love, photographically speaking, has always been street photography, particularly because it's something you can do any time you have a camera with you. ‘Sometimes I find it's when you are not actively looking for photographic subject matter that opportunities seem to come your way,' he says. Recently, he has been concentrating on capturing images in strong, low, directional light. Late afternoon in winter is often the best time for this approach. ‘This style can often give a sense of isolation and the potential loneliness of the urban world,' he says.…

My first SLR came with a screw-mount 50mm f/2 lens. No kit zoom like you get these days, just a good old fixed focal-length, manual-focus 50mm. At the time I felt short-changed. It didn’t bend and stretch the world like a wideangle or magnify it like a telephoto. It just saw what I saw, pretty much. After a while though, I began to see the benefits of that lens, and even when zoom lenses started to take over the world, I still made sure there was space in my bag for a 50mm. Fast forward almost 35 years and it’s still the case. When I travel, my Canon 50mm prime travels with me. Obviously, I have a 24-70mm zoom that covers the same focal length, but the two lenses are…

1 Calibration Always calibrate your monitor prior to processing and preparing images to print. Accurate colour is essential when creating fine-art prints. Use a hardware colorimeter, for example, a DataColor Spyder. There are numerous tutorials to help you with colour management. 2 Trial run Soft proofing your shot prior to printing will help you to produce an accurate print, with similar contrast and colour to what you see on screen – thus saving money on wasted ink and paper. 3 Paper chase Paper choice will have a huge impact on the look of your print. Matt papers tend to display a lower maximum black, less contrast and colour saturation compared to gloss papers. Be prepared to make adjustments to your file to allow for a particular paper's…

At school I was told to produce a project that compared the work of a famous European with that of a British person in the same field. I can’t recall how I’d come across German photographer Walter Nurnberg, but I decided to hold his portraits next to those of Lord Snowdon’s to determine whose were ‘better’. At the time I assumed Nurnberg must have had to work much harder to make something of himself, and I found his carefully constructed lighting and composition far more skilfully accomplished than Snowdon’s ‘snaps’ of his famous chums. Good God, Snowdon didn’t even use flash most of the time, while Nurnberg used in it spades. (I have since, I’m glad to say, come to appreciate Snowdon’s ability to craft a natural atmosphere a little…

IT WAS an enormous ask for judges tasked with selecting just 50 images for the first SheClicks exhibition, which is due to open in London in a few days' time on 25 September. The female-only community, which was set up by Angela Nicholson, has grown to almost 5,000 members in just over a year of its existence. Although the idea of an exhibition has been firmly in founder Angela's mind for some time, she could never have hoped for such an enormous reaction. In the end, more than 2,000 entries, across a huge range of genres, were submitted for selection. This stunning and playful image was captured by Christine Johnson. It and 49 others will soon be on display at the After Nyne Gallery in Notting Hill, London. To see…

TURNING to Nikon's mirrorless cameras, the company also announced its seventh lens for the full-frame Z range. The Nikkor Z 24mm f/1.8 S is ‘optimal for all types of photography including landscapes' according to Nikon, and features 12 elements in 10 groups with four aspherical elements and an Extra-Low Dispersion (ED) glass element to beat aberration. A Nano Crystal coating also minimises ghosting and flare, and the lens is moisture- and dust-resistant. Another key feature is Nikon's Multi-Focusing System, which combines two AF drives for fast focus performance, while a control ring enables silent aperture control or exposure compensation. It can also be used to focus the lens manually. The Nikkor Z 24mm f/1.8 S goes on sale on 17 October for £1,049. For the latest news visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk…

In telly we often hire our camera kit, and the people I know in that particular business say it's booming. I'm rarely tempted to rent gear for my own photography though. I did hire a fisheye lens once to take a few shots of roundabouts, of all things, for a car magazine, but the experience was comprehensively underwhelming. The rental cost was dizzyingly high; the lens itself was an obsolete model, worn smooth by the fingers of previous renters; and I had to go and pick it up in person from the rental company. I ended up wishing I'd bought one instead. However, I recently met the infectiously enthusiastic Guy Thatcher, who started Hireacamera in 2003. He told me that renting cameras to try them out is increasingly popular today.…

THIS week the slightly unsettling cover heralds an interesting interview with Simon Donnelly, who was a fully fledged photographic pro by the age of 21. We think, though we are not sure, that Simon is still working as a professional wedding photographer, so if you are reading this, please get in touch to confirm. Another highlight was an interview with the legendary Yousuf Karsh. Karsh, who would have been 83 when this was published, gives some great insights into his way of working and talks about some classic images. Karsh photographed some of THE major figures in 20th-century history and politics, such as Churchill and Fidel Castro, as well as Hollywood celebrities. He was a master of portrait technique and lighting as well as a generous spirit. It's also good…

My first-ever camera was a Pentax ME with a fixed 50mm lens. This set-up forced me to get close to my subject, and it also taught me the art of composition. It’s all too easy nowadays for photographers to put on a zoom lens and forget to move their feet. I actually think using a zoom makes composing a shot harder, as there are just too many options. Getting used to one or two lenses can turn you into the photographer you want to be. It certainly did with me. It changed the way I look at the world. If I’m shooting a wedding then a 50mm lens allows me to include some of the environment around my subjects, while staying close enough to continue engaging with them. It also…

James Paterson James is as skilled a photo editor as he is a photographer. His work has appeared in countless magazines and books, and in 2014 he was appointed editor of Practical Photoshop magazine. His subjects range from portraits to landscapes, architecture and underwater scenes. For James, Photoshop is more than just a work tool. Visit www.patersonphotos.com 1 Where to start The Lens Correction Panel in Lightroom's Develop Module is the place to apply automatic and manual fixes for inherent problems present, to some extent, in every lens. By contrast, to fix perspective problems like keystoning, use the Transform Panel. 2 Manually fix distortion If the lens you used is not automatically detected, then you may be able to find it manually in the long list of brands and models…

If you’d like to see your words or pictures published in Amateur Photographer, here’s how: Something to say? Write to us at ap@ti-media.com with your letters, opinion columns (max 500 words) or article suggestions. Pictures Send us a link to your website or gallery, or attach a set of low-res sample images (up to a total of 5MB) to appicturedesk@ti-media.com. Join our online communities Post your pictures into our Flickr, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram communities or the gallery on our website.…

WE ARE sad to report the death of Peter Lindbergh, the acclaimed German fashion photographer who helped propel Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell to supermodel stardom. Lindbergh was born Peter Brodbeck in Leszno, Poland, on 23 November 1944, and studied painting at the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts in the 1960s. He became a photographer by accident, after discovering he enjoyed taking photos of his brother's children, and opened his first pro studio in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1973. In terms of Lindbergh's photography, he is best known for his black & white, classically composed cover shots of youthful supermodels, but he also did some great work with older subjects, notably Helen Mirren. ‘This should be the responsibility of photographers today to free women, and finally everyone, from the terror of…

Japan is one of the easier places in the world to be a street and documentary photographer – easier in the sense that the Japanese are naturally polite and helpful, particularly to foreigners (and even more so with the country gearing up for next year's Olympics). Even if somebody doesn't want to appear in your picture, the worst that usually happens is you get a politely ambiguous ‘chotto' (hold on), rather than being told to eff off, chased down the street or reported to the police. Even if you don't speak a word ofJapanese, mega-cities such as Tokyo and Osaka are easily navigated via ultra-reliable public transport or clean, safe taxis, and are full of curious nooks and crannies to wander around without getting mugged. In some ways though, this…

As a portrait photographer, I have a vast array of prime lenses in my kit bag. This includes wideangle focal lengths such as the 35mm f/1.4 to be able to incorporate more of the background with my portraits, and telephoto primes such as the 135mm f/2, which completely diminishes the background to help my subject stand out. One of my first prime lens purchases was a 50mm, and it’s a lens that I keep coming back to. Whether I’m photographing a studio lookbook, an outdoor fashion editorial or capturing portraits of a couple at their wedding, the 50mm has consistently proved itself to be a versatile focal length, giving me the ability to capture a wide variety of creative portraits in various locations and lighting situations. For that reason, it’s…

Photographers have long partnered camera bodies with lenses developed for other systems, although in the past few years the concept has crossed much further into the mainstream than before. Much of this is down to the influx of modern mirrorless systems, which suddenly made it possible to create many new and intriguing – if sometimes incongruous – camera and lens combinations. New systems continue to be introduced, and with them, further adapters to broaden pairing possibilities. While photographers have found success in mounting vintage lenses on to bodies from a variety of camera lines, the Micro Four Thirds format deserves special credit here. The relatively short flange-to-back distance (i.e. the distance from the sensor to the lens mount) of the first mirrorless system models has meant that many older lenses…

1 Remove fringing A degree of chromatic aberration was obvious on the original file, with some cyan fringing along the legs (where contrast is greatest). So I checked the Remove Chromatic Aberration box under Lens Corrections in Lightroom. 2 Reduce brightness The highlights were overly bright in the original file, so I dragged the Highlights slider (found under the Tone panel) to the left to reduce the brightness of the sun. In this instance, I did so aggressively, selecting a value of -100. 3 Lift the shadows I dragged the Shadows slider to the right, and made slight adjustments to Blacks and Whites to produce a more pleasing overall exposure. These adjustments were made very much to eye, with me adjusting each slider intuitively. 4 Tweak colour I manually tweaked…