Innholdsfortegnelse for 12-Oct-2019 i Amateur Photographer

As you will have noticed from the cover, AP is celebrating its 135th birthday, and we have dedicated this issue to reflecting upon a few of our personal highlights from 135 years of photography. We look back at some of our favourite photos, and the landmark cameras whose introduction nudged photography on to the next level in its evolution. As a complete contrast we also test the new 61MP Sony A7R IV, which represents the cutting edge in current camera design. If you’re looking for nuggets of wisdom we’ve compiled 135 great tips to improve your photography – that’s one for every year of our existence – and sticking with the 135 theme, do enter our competition to win a sublime Sigma 135mm f/1.8 Art lens – a portrait photographer’s…

New Epson large-format printers Epson has announced the SureColor SC-P7500 and SC-P9500, its first 12-colour large-format printers offering a wide colour gamut. Both use Epson’s new UltraChrome Pro12 inkset with K3 technology, which outputs both black inks simultaneously and includes orange, green and violet for greater colour accuracy. They go on sale in December; prices are to be confirmed. See www.epson.eu. Hipstamatic returns and is even more retro Remember Hipstamatic, the image-editing app for smartphones featuring retro effects? Although it was soon overshadowed by Instagram, the free app has relaunched as Hipstamatic X (Apple iOS only). ‘We’ve made it more retro, more analog, and less social than ever! Kind of the opposite of everything that Apple and Google are doing...’ say the founders. See analogfeelsgood.com. Photo prize winner The Chartered…

Being nearly 50 years old in the year of Amateur Photographer’s launch, photography was far from a new medium. But the pursuit of photography from a hobbyist or ‘amateur’ point of view was a much newer phenomenon, making it a ripe market to launch a weekly publication. In the 135 years since our very first issue – dated Friday, 10 October 1884 – the photography world, and indeed the wider world, is pretty much unrecognisable. Imagine hopping into a time machine and handing a reader of the first issue the latest copy of AP; their mind would be blown by full colour (on every page!), the latest advancements in photographic technology and the wide range of subjects, and contributors, published all these years later. Let us also imagine what the…

Hats off to Angela Nicholson; she is a brave lady. Her cracking article Why bother with raw? (AP 14 September) is bound to put the feline among the photographers. I'm expecting a bulging Inbox as resolute Rawists clash over this with jousting J-peggers. What Angela has achieved has to be applauded. Such clear information, with backing comments from respected JPEG users, definitely provides convincing persuasions. Technical issues apart, the commonsense factors also come through loud and clear. Full marks, again, to AP for presenting a thought-provoking article, most helpful and attention grabbing. Gary Hughes As the ex-technical editor of Amateur Photographer, Angela knows her stuff, so thanks for the kind comments. JPEG has long had its fans, particularly amongst press shooters, but is now attracting an even bigger audience –…

Maarten Mellemans Maarten is a fine-art photographer based in Belgium. He’s worked with a wide range of clients including magazines and music festivals; he also organises workshops. See maartenmellemans.be and photographydomination.com. A big chunk of my assignments consist of capturing events in a documentary style, ranging from corporate events to weddings and music festivals. I love being on the go and capturing moments that are over in the blink of an eye. As such I have to travel quite a bit and need to keep my kit light and nimble. This means I mainly work with prime lenses as they give great results and are lightweight and compact to carry. Since I generally deliver quite a lot of images per assignment, I do all of my organising and main editing…

WHITEWALL'S Product Manager, Jan-Ole Schmidt, offers some sound printing and presentation advice for photographer Maarten Mellemans. He says, ‘Maarten Mellemans has perfectly captured the moment this woman puts on her make-up and the image has a great tone and feel. ‘With over 1,000 printing, mounting, and framing options at WhiteWall, there are several choices that would work perfectly for this image. First I would recommend our Original Photo Print Under Acrylic Glass. Adding a frame – the 15mm, walnut-coloured Basel model would be my first choice here – would provide an additional accent. On the other hand a very traditional yet fantastic idea for Maarten's image would be our Solid Wood Frame with Passe-Partout. The 20mm Hamburg frame in the brown alder colour would be an ideal complement to his…

Like the Sony A7R III, the A7R IV features a Pixel Shift Multi Shooting mode. In this mode the camera uses the IS system to precisely shift the sensor in 1 or 0.5-pixel increments between consecutive exposures. Uncompressed Raw and silent mode are automatically selected in Pixel Shift Multi shooting and after the raw files are written to the card, these can then be merged together on a computer running Sony's Imaging Edge software to create one super-high-resolution composite image. Whereas the A7R III previously only allowed you to merge four frames of the same scene, the A7R IV now allows you to capture up to 16 separate pixel-shifted images containing a total of 963.2-million-pixels worth of data. The final output is a colossal 240.8MP (19,008 x 12,672 pixel) image.…

Since AP published its first edition, photographic technology has changed beyond all recognition. In 1884, photographers were using cameras constructed from wood and brass, and taking pictures on glass plates coated with light-sensitive emulsion. Since then, plates have given way to roll film and then cartridge film, before digital technology transformed image capture. Folding cameras have been superseded by fixed-body designs, rangefinders by SLRs, mechanical shutters by electronic, and manual focus by autofocus. Right now we're in the middle of another big transition – from DSLR to mirrorless. All the way through, AP has been following and commenting on the trends of the day. In this article we'll be taking a look at how cameras have evolved and progressed over this time, by focusing on a few specific models. Some…

1884 First issue of The Amateur Photographer published, edited by J Harris Stone 1900 Kodak launches the Brownie box camera. It used 127-format roll film and cost $1 1908 First AP cover picture 1908 Merged with Photographic News, with the editor (F J Mortimer) of Photographic News becoming the editor of the newly merged magazine 1914 Leica Camera founded by Ernst Leitz 1917 Nikon is founded as Nippon Kogaku Tokyo 1918 AP combines with Photography, to become The Amateur Photographer and Photography. The ‘and Photography' was dropped in 1925 1919 Olympus is founded, making microscopes and thermometers. Its first camera is introduced in 1936 1934 Fuji Photo Film Co. is established, with the aim of being the first Japanese producer of photographic films 1937 The Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory is…

George Bernard Shaw The legendary author and playwright, GBS was also a keen photographer who wrote on occasion for AP. Frank Meadow Sutcliffe Sutcliffe is one Britain's most revered photographers. Famous for his images of Whitby, his work was widely published in AP during the early 1900s and he also penned many columns for the magazine. Alfred Stieglitz Recognised today as one of the world's most influential photographers, Stieglitz was a member of the Linked Ring group of photographers, along with various AP editors and staffers. He contributed images, letters and columns to AP and even won one of its photo competitions. Lancelot Vining Vining was AP's preeminent columnist during the post-war years. His best-selling 1946 book My Way With the Miniature was regarded as something of a classic and…

Margaret says she never remembers a time when she didn't take pictures. ‘I can't draw or paint,' she says, ‘so the camera has always been my outlet for creativity. Photography lets me express myself, and also lets me visit some beautiful places with stunning scenery.' One such place is the USA's ‘Big Sky Country' of Montana and North Dakota, where these images were taken. ‘Shooting these buildings, vehicles and landscape in b&w infrared gives them a timeless quality,' she explains. Visit www.mmrainey.com.…

NEVER in the history of AP has a cover been so perfectly designed to terrify modern children as this one from 11 October 1978. The cover model looks like the uncle of killer clown Pennywise from Stephen King's It, and we are struggling to find any connection with the Photokina camera show, which was also covered in this issue. Turns out there is none, as this creepy comic entertainer came as part of a feature on Italian photo novels. We hope we haven't upset any coulrophobes out there. Other highlights in this issue included a column on a disturbing photo of a baby seal (the laughter never stopped in this issue), a review of Sunpak flash gear, and a guide to taking photos of animals indoors. Oh, there was also…

1 White balance I never bother with in-camera white balance, so the first thing I do in Lightroom is adjust it, either by eye or with the pipette. I don't care too much about getting it ‘right' but try to find a specific mood that I think suits the image or series. So in this case I reduced the orange. 2 General adjustments I further enhanced the image by playing around with the sliders in the ‘Basic' panel. While doing this, I kept a close eye on the histogram as I wanted to retain detail in the shadows and highlights. I also nudged the Clarity slider, to add a subtle punch to the print. 3 Fine-tuning Next, I fine-tuned the colours further as this is the key part of the…

Our cameras and lenses are tested using the industry-standard Image Engineering IQ-Analyser software. Visit www.image-engineering.de for more details The A7R IV's new sensor has got a lot of photographers excited about what we can expect from the next wave of high-resolution full-frame cameras. The lab results from the Sony A7R IV are the best we've ever recorded from a full-frame chip. Its 9504x6336 pixel count equates to a 31x21in or 80x53cm print at a critically sharp 300ppi output resolution. Even when you crop down to APS-C mode, you're still capturing 6240x4160 pixel files that measure 20.8x13.8in (52.8x35.2cm). Canon's EOS 90D currently offers the highest resolution of any APS-C camera. Resolution At ISO 100 the sensor, which forgoes an optical low-pass filter, achieves approximately 5,400l/ph, which exceeds all figures we’ve previously…

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.…

ACDSEE has updated its Photo Studio editing package, the latest addition to a competitive market sector seeking to lure consumers away from Adobe's subscription-only Lightroom and Photoshop packages. A major new feature in the Windows-only Photo Studio Ultimate 2020 is a focus-stacking tool, which will appeal to macro fans, and an HDR merge option. The clone tools have also been overhauled for more natural-looking results, along with improved layer support. With Resize Canvas, creating composites or adding solid backgrounds has become easier, and text can be edited non-destructively. Face recognition and detection features have also been beefed up, enabling you to tag and search by name. Indeed, the powerful searching and cataloguing tools are a key feature of ACDSee. Raw support has also been added for a slew of new…

When J Harris Stone launched the first issue of Amateur Photographer in 1884, he could not have dared to imagine that his little journal, which didn't even carry any pictures, would go on to become the pillar of the British photography media throughout the 20th century, and that 135 years later it would still account for nearly half of all photo magazines sold in newsagents and supermarkets across the UK. Despite the enormous changes that have occurred in camera technology and photography culture during this time, AP has managed to stay at the forefront as the world's only surviving weekly photography magazine. There's a popular game where you can invite any five people, alive or dead, to a dinner party. I still haven't finalised my five, but if I could…

On 10 October 1884, J Harris Stone launched the first issue of a new weekly periodical ‘devoted to the interests of Photography and kindred arts and sciences’ and in his first editorial he set out AP’s stall thus: ‘Photography has, within the last few years, become so popular with amateurs, that at the present time their number vastly exceeds that of professional photographers. Recruits of either sex – for here let us say that ladies make excellent manipulators – are daily being added to the rank of those practising this pleasing and truly fascinating art, which is not to be wondered at when one remembers that some of the most successful photographs that have ever been taken are the work of amateurs.’ Harris Stone was the spark that ignited the…

VERY few magazines survive for 135 years, so we’ve put together a very special competition to mark this milestone. You’re being offered the chance to win a Sigma 135mm F1.8 DG HSM Art telephoto prime lens designed for modern high-megapixel DSLRs. This is an optically superb lens with a far-reaching range, making it ideal for wildlife, sports and action, portraits and events and much more. This state-of-the-art Sigma prime has a dust- and splash-proof design for great performance in any weather conditions. A new large hypersonic motor (HSM) delivers ample torque to the focusing group for outstanding speed, ensuring stable performance even at lower speeds. Its attractive compression effects make the Sigma 135mm f/1.8 the ideal portrait lens, and its large aperture helps with low-light shooting, subject isolation and background…

On the phone Jon Bentley (Viewpoint, 17 August) bemoans the lack of a modern, high-quality film scanner. The reason, I suspect, is very simple: lack of demand. And the ‘blame' lies fair and square with the smartphone. I still take photos with a pro-quality Olympus and enjoy looking at A4 enlargements printed on my (old) Canon printer, which also allows me to scan old negs and slides. But, this is a 74-year-old speaking. My middle-aged children and teenage grandchildren are different; their lives revolve round their iPhones. Even though we could easily look at printed photos, ‘email it to me' is the usual request. If it looks good on a 5 or 6in screen, they are happy. Online on the BBC News recently, I read about a 14-year-old who runs…

Landscape From identifying great light to playing with aspect ratios, we offer some advice for land lovers 1 What makes great light? There is no magic solution for knowing when and exactly where a magnificent sunrise or sunset will happen; however to up your odds there are certain conditions to look out for. Clouds are good but not so many that they are too dense – between 30-70% is ideal. Rain about two to six hours before sunset can be good as it can clear the atmosphere, but remember it's best not to have too much wind. It's still a bit of a game of chance so keep trying and getting out there with your camera. AP 2 Go high There are many ways to get an aerial shot but…

BrendanFarrell, Birmingham A foggy evening in November 1953 and the bright lights of a camera shop window in Birmingham drew my attention. There, next to a display of Kodak box cameras, was a copy of AP and a book, Boys Book of Photography by AP contributor at the time, J Allan Cash. Now, 66 years later, I'm still reading AP and have never missed an issue. Over the years AP has steered me through film and digital, and provided huge support in good times and bad, including bereavement. With recent articles about how photography has helped people fight illness and depression, maybe AP should be available on prescription through the NHS. Alan Greenwood, West Yorkshire I have had a continuous interest in photography since the late 1950s, when I was…

1 Ask your lab Find out what kind of image format, resolution and colour profile they expect you to provide to get the best possible results. Some offer their own printing profile you can use to export your images. 2 Sharpen during export Even if you sharpen your image during the edit, it's important to select the sharpen option at the export phase. The output sharpening is needed to compensate for the loss of sharpness caused by resizing and printing, making sure your images remain crisp. 3 Calibrate your screen If your monitor colours are off you'll never get them right for print. So buy, rent or borrow a monitor-calibration tool as soon as possible. 4 Get the best possible screen No need to buy the…

Anti-flicker shooting Flicker from fluorescent and other artificial lighting is detected by the camera and the shutter action is timed to minimise the flicker effect on still images. This mode helps suppress exposure and colour anomalies at the top and bottom of images shot at high shutter speeds between continuous shots. Rating function Ratings can be applied during review playback. Images rated between 1 to 5 stars picked up by Lightroom. The protect function is assigned to the custom button C3 by default. Real-time Eye AF for Animals Advanced AI-based subject recognition in Sony’s Real-time Eye AF includes an algorithm supporting animal tracking. It greatly increases your success rate when shooting pictures of animals in the wild or pets at home. AF tracking sensitivity This is adjustable in five steps…

Apparently it was musician and composer Frank Zappa who once declared, ‘so many books, so little time’, and despite the arrival of eReaders and the internet our passion for the printed page shows no signs of abating. In fact, our love of photography books, in particular, is now so great that a festival dedicated to the subject is being hosted by the Martin Parr Foundation and The Royal Photographic Society (19-20 October). We’ve taken the opportunity to study our shelves and pick our favourite photography titles, and we’ve asked some carefully selected individuals – including Parr himself – to do the same. Read on and enjoy. Workers Sebastião Salgado Aperture ISBN 978-0893815509 PICKING just one photography book as my favourite is an almost impossible task, but I can easily name…

MARTIN PARR is one of Britain's best-known photographers. He is also one of the country's leading exponents and collectors of the humble photo book. In 2017, he gifted his extensive collection of books to the Tate, but he remains a leading authority on the subject. This month, in collaboration with the nearby Royal Photographic Society (RPS), the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol will be hosting a new festival dedicated to photography books (BOP 2019). In celebration of both the event and our 135th anniversary special edition, we asked Martin to choose some of his favourite books of the past few decades. Here is his selection. BOP 2019 The inaugural BOP festival will take place on 19 and 20 October. Entry to the festival is free, but there will also be…

‘Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Photography is my favourite book at the moment. It gives me loads of great ideas and tips, regardless of the gear I'm using.' Darren Gibson ‘David Yarrow's Wild Encounters contains some beautiful black & white imagery. It's one of my favourite books, next to the Ansel Adams series.' Pete Lauer ‘I found Ansel Adams's The Negative incredibly informative, although his The Camera was just as interesting.' Rob Ambidge ‘Digital Macro & Close-up Photography by Ross Hoddinott is an excellent book.' David Kirkwood ‘Any books that are by John Hedgecoe – the first to become a professor in photography.' Lars Holst ‘Dream Street by W Eugene Smith is an eye-opening read with fantastic photography.' Chris Sweet Photography ‘Wildlife Photography Field Skills and Techniques by Paul Hobson.…

I love, and am passionate about photography. It has been my life (44 years and counting) and I am honoured to have been asked to contribute to this magazine on its 135th anniversary, albeit in a very small way. I say I love photography, which is true, but I worry about what photography is becoming, and the picture chosen this week sums up what I feel. The modern world has given rise to what I describe as ‘competitive photography’. Users of film belittle those who have embraced the digital revolution. Modern day wet-plate enthusiasts get angry with people shooting digitally and having the brass neck to try and make their pictures look like they were shot on wet plate without having to pour gallons of noxious and poisonous chemicals down…