Innholdsfortegnelse for 04-Jan-2020 i Amateur Photographer

Do you suffer from creative block? I do. Until someone invents a creativity pill we all need some external stimulus in order to keep the brain juices flowing, so to kick off the year we’ve assembled 101 ideas for things to photograph this year. We’ve added tick boxes too so that you can see how many you have already done, and which ones you have yet to try. Sometimes that spark comes from changing something – perhaps switching systems, or trying a different genre. This week we talk to three people who did just that, to find out how it put the jump leads on their photography. You’ll get a whole year’s worth of ideas and inspiration through your letterbox if you subscribe, so why not make that your New…

YOU CAN now vote for your favourite images in the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Voting for the LUMIX People's Choice is open until 2pm (GMT) on 4 February, and you can choose from 25 images, pre-selected by the Natural History Museum from over 48,000 entries. Shortlisted images are currently on display at the Natural History Museum until voting ends. The winner will then be showcased until the exhibition closes on 31 May. The top five LUMIX People's Choice Award images will also be displayed online at www. wildlifephotographeroftheyear.com. ‘The LUMIX People's Choice images capture the essence of the competition; they all ignite a reaction about the natural world and make you see it differently,' said the museum's Tim Littlewood, who is also a judge. ‘Showcasing breathtaking beauty,…

Photography used to be simpler for me. I'm not talking about settings, or shooting on film. I'm talking about kit - I didn't really have any. Deciding what kit to take was basically ‘Do I take my Nikon D300 and 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 lens or do I not take anything?' Packing for a trip was easy. Weekend in the Lake District? Nikon D300 and18-200mm. Week in British Columbia, Canada? Nikon D300 and 18-200mm. Portraits? Nikon D300 and18-200mm, oh and throw in the 50mm f/1.8 to blur those backgrounds a little. The ever-growing kit I used that kit for years and I shot everything with it - landscapes, travel shots, portraits, technique articles for this very magazine. Obviously it didn't always produce the absolute sharpest images, but it did its job and…

1 You've got to hold a camera and work with it to know if it's for you. Don't expect to be able to do this by reading reviews or reading the manual. 2 To begin with, using a new camera is a nightmare, but you will get used to it. And however intelligent the camera's software is, you will need to be able to take control of the settings yourself. 3 Customise your camera. Brent and I have ours set up the same so we can, quite literally, throw them at each other during a shoot; but that's quite unusual!…

• £142.99 • www.manfrotto.com/uk-en BACKPACKS are great for carrying large amounts of kit, as they're more comfortable than shoulder bags for moving heavy loads over any kind of distance. The usual problem is access – it's invariably more awkward to get at your kit. For shooting on the move, the side-opening type tends to be the least inconvenient, and this is a fine example. The reason why this bag works so well lies in its cleverly designed opening. A single, continuously-curving zip forms a figure-of-six shape, and opening it from one end gives unfettered access to the main compartment. But undoing it from the other end opens a smaller flap that's just large enough to give access to your camera, without exposing the rest of the bag's contents. When used…

Fujifilm X-A5 camera with XC15-45mm lens With its competitive price-tag the X-A5 is a fantastic entry point into Fujifilm's popular X-series system. With an excellent-performing 24.2MP APS-C sensor at its core, it promises pleasing results with every click of the shutter. It also boasts 60fps full HD video recording, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for remote control and image transfer from a mobile and all of Fujifilm's popular film simulation options to add stylish effects to photos. It comes in a choice of three Neapolitan colours. £349 • 24.2MP APS-C sensor • Hybrid autofocus system • 180° tilting selfie screen Olympus Pen E-PL9 camera with 14-42mm lens It may have a Micro Four Thirds sensor, which is smaller than its rivals in this round-up, but that's still a substantially larger sensor than…

New Year’s Party by J.A. Hampton HAPPY New Year! This exuberant shot was taken on New Year's Eve 1929 at a party held at Deauville Restaurant, Regent Street, London. It was taken by the legendary English photographer J A Hampton who would go on to become very well known for his London pictures in the late 1930s including the very famous ‘Leap of Faith' shot of a man jumping over a puddle. Hampton worked at the Topical Press Agency, which was established in 1903 and at its peak in 1929 – the year of this image – employed around 1,500 representatives in Britain and worldwide. Eventually the company went bankrupt in 1957, at which point the Hulton Picture Library acquired the bulk of Topical's archive.…

ADMINISTRATORS from an advisory firm called ReSolve have been called in to wind up JR Prop, the camera retailer's property arm. Peter Jones, the Dragon’s Den panellist who owns Jessops, warned this was a possibility back in October, as the company tries to renegotiate rents and figure out what to do with loss-making stores in a challenging high-street environment. It is understood that the administrators were called in after landlords failed to approve a company voluntary agreement (CVA). At the time of going to press, Jessops' main trading company, Jessops Europe, was not affected by the decision to put JR Prop into administration, and Jones will continue running the business as usual. There was also no suggestion of any job losses.…

#appicoftheweek Oxford Street 2019 Christmas Lights By Mark ‘Jet’ Nepomuceno Nikon Z 6, 16-35mm, 1/4sec at f/11, ISO 400 Every year, the Christmas lights in the UK's capital bring festive joy to the city streets, and Mark took this image along Oxford Street in London, uploading it to Instagram using the hashtag #appicoftheweek. He's been taking pictures of the Christmas lights in central London for almost six years, and it's something he looks forward to each winter. He also enjoys shooting landscapes, seascapes, cityscapes and portraits. As Mark explains, ‘I took four shots each for the trails and the words from the Christmas lights. In post, I then combined them to achieve the light trails on both sides as well as the Christmas lights themselves.' Go to @photosbyjet and @portraitsbyjet…

1 Think about where you live. Some people live in really expensive cities and their bills are so high that they can't get out from under them. Obviously, some people can't move, but if they can I say go somewhere cheaper! Go live in Southeast Asia for a while: the cost of living is cheaper and the photo opportunities are incredible. It will make it easier to make the transition because you're not tied down with debt. 2 Finding a niche is incredibly important. When you're a beginner it's hard to do, because you're excited about so many different types of pictures, and taking pictures in general. As you get better you narrow things down and find your style. When you do this your work really stands out and you…

AP KICKED OFF 1998 with two photography legends. The cover story was an interview with David Bailey on his 60th birthday (it's on 2 January if you want to send him a card) at which he exclusively revealed that he didn't ever want to die. You read it here first, folks. At 82 he's still on course for his wish to come true. Meanwhile ‘Carlos Clarke's calendar capers' showcased Bob's latest work – the 1998 Powergen calendar, which featured a roll-call of both male and female celebrities of the day, including Denise van Outen with a tiger cub, Hugh Laurie as a biker, Angus Deayton as Zorro and, the most enduring image from the set, Zoe Ball standing on a ball. A great visual pun, though he missed the opportunity…

Carrie says she fell into photography when she moved from the city to the countryside and spotted some short-eared owls displaying and hunting near her house. Her favourite subject is wildlife as she loves to discover the animals' personalities and behavioural traits. She works in a hospital and naturally finds that time spent out on the fells, surrounded by beauty and wildlife, is a great tonic as well as an escape from the stresses of a demanding job. This superb selection of images is certainly a testament to time well spent in the great outdoors.…

Think about countries where cameras are made today and Japan comes immediately to mind. Go back 60 years or more and it was Germany that led the field. But right from the earliest days of photography, Britain held its own. When William Henry Fox Talbot shot the world's first negative in1835, he used a tiny camera made for him by a local carpenter at Lacock in Wiltshire. As photography moved into new eras, British manufacturers such as Dallmeyer, and Horne and Thornthwaite, both in London, began making cameras for the wet-plate process. Later still, as cameras moved towards the use of dry plates, names like Sanderson in London and Lancaster in Birmingham came to the fore. Then there was Gandolfi, which began life at Peckham in the 1880s, continuing to…

Canon has good reason to be proud of the third member in its trinity line-up of fast-aperture, high-performance RF lenses. As well as upholding the robust build quality and exemplary performance that Canon L-series lenses have a reputation for, they've succeeded at making it smaller, lighter and more convenient to carry than any full-frame 70-200mm f/2.8 zoom we've tested, but without compromising on image quality. Sharpness at the corners between f/4 and f/8 is a real strength of the lens. Add its fast, quiet focusing, effective five-stop image stabiliser and customisable control ring to the above and it results in a super-compact high-speed telephoto zoom that feels fit for the future of Canon's full-frame EOS R system. The only unnerving factor is how much air is pushed in the direction…

• £35 • www.sealskinz.com SEALSKINZ specialises in producing some of the best socks, gloves and hats for fighting the cold and protecting lovers of the great outdoors from extremely harsh conditions. But what is it about these Sealskinz socks that makes them different from others and worthy of a review? Unlike your average pair of socks, Sealskinz All Weather socks feature a three-layer construction with a merino wool lining to provide warmth, durability and waterproofing. Yes, that's right, these socks are 100% waterproof, making them ideal for hiking and long walks to remote locations where it's essential that your feet are kept warm and dry. The socks were given a good test on a long walk while photographing in the Lake District and proved to be extremely comfortable to wear…

AF Nikon AF lenses driven from camera AF-S Nikon lenses with Silent Wave Motor AF-P Nikon lenses with stepper motors AL Pentax lenses with aspheric elements APD Fujifilm lenses with apodisation elements APO Sigma Apochromatic lenses ASPH Aspherical elements AT-X Tokina’s Advanced Technology Extra Pro AW Pentax all-weather lenses CS Samyang lenses for APS-C cropped sensors D Nikon lenses that communicate distance info DA Pentax lenses optimised for APS-C-sized sensors DC Nikon defocus-control portrait lenses DC Sigma’s lenses for APS-C digital DG Sigma’s designation for full-frame lenses Di Tamron lenses for full-frame sensors Di-II Tamron lenses designed for APS-C DSLRs Di-III Tamron lenses for mirrorless cameras DN Sigma’s lenses for mirrorless cameras DO Canon diffractive optical element lenses DT Sony lenses for APS-C-sized sensors DX Nikon’s lenses for DX-format digital…

Bridge of size I was a keen photographer with my own darkroom in the 1960s, and for many years I read AP from which I gained most of my knowledge. I have recently returned to the hobby, and to your excellent magazine, and the changes in technology over the intervening 40 or so years are profound. We now have digital cameras with high-resolution sensors, and bright, high-resolution screens and viewfinders, while modern zooms can now effectively offer in a single lens system a very wide range of instant and seamless focal length adjustment. Put these two together and behold - we have the modern bridge camera. I now own several of these and they have transformed my photography. What I would have given for one in the 1960s! My question…

The Reader Portfolio winner chosen every week will receive a copy of Skylum Luminar 4, worth £81. See www.skylum.com Luminar is a fully featured photo editor for Mac and PC designed for photographers of all skill levels, blending pro-level tools with remarkable ease of use and an enjoyable experience. A new Library feature lets you organise, find and rate images easily, while over 100 editing features, plus a suite of fast AI-powered technologies under the hood, will make any image stand out. Submit your images Please see the ‘Send us your pictures’ section on page 3 for details or visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/portfolio…

Resolution The results from our Image Engineering tests are very impressive indeed, with a quite astonishing performance at the corners. Our plotted results tell us it’s slightly sharper in the centre between 70mm and 135mm at f/2.8 than it is at 200mm. Sharpness improves at 200mm by stopping down to f/4. By f/5.6 the corners are close to being as sharp as the centre right across the zoom range. Shading Use the lens wide open at f/2.8 and you can expect corners to appear approximately 0.6EV darker at 70mm, 1EV darker at 135mm and 1.2EV darker at 200mm. Stop down to f/4 and you’ll notice the effect of vignetting subsides. You won’t notice corner shading in real-world shots taken at f/5.6. Curvilinear distortion Barrel distortion is present at 70mm, which…

How can I remove stubborn sensor dust? Q I recently went on a fantastic landscape photography trip to the Scottish Highlands where I took probably my best-ever images. The only disappointment was realising that at some point over the last few months I'd obviously got more than a bit of dust on my Canon EOS 5D Mark III's sensor. I had to spend hours painstakingly removing the unsightly dark splotches it had produced in my shots. I have a rocket blower, but despite giving my sensor plenty of puffs, the dust doesn't shift. What products are available to help remove stubborn dust? Jeremy Wilson A Dust spots in images are an extremely common issue, and extremely annoying. There are two approaches to solving this problem. The first, and manufacturer-recommended, approach…