Innholdsfortegnelse for 24-Sep-2016 i Amateur Photographer

One of the earliest lessons you learn in photography is ‘spend it on the glass,’ since using a good camera with a cheap lens is like buying a sports car and never getting out of second gear. While it’s true that the finest lenses have a price tag to match, you can find bargains if you shop around. Turn to pages 49-53 to discover the best lenses for a range of mounts under £200 – I defy you not to be tempted! We also help you to get more from your existing lenses, with guides to fine-tuning autofocus and mastering manual focus. With 2016 being a Photokina year – yes, we’ll be there! – some exciting new cameras are in the pipeline. The latest is the Canon EOS M5. Canon…

IN AP 10 September's Scottish Landscape Photographer of the Year (SLPOTY) article, we incorrectly attributed an image to the overall winner Ian Cameron. The main image across pages 22-23 should have been credited to Scott Robertson, and actually shows Buachaille Etive Mor in Glen Etive in the Scottish Highlands. As a result, we failed to show Ian Cameron's image ‘Awakening Ben Loyal' (above), which was one of three images that took the SLPOTY overall prize. In addition, Ian Cameron's image ‘Caramel Ice' was also not featured correctly. This is an error that was immediately brought to our attention by vigilant readers and is deeply regrettable. With the generous cooperation of the affected photographers, the correct images and information will feature as part of our Photo Insight series in upcoming issues…

Mark Benham markbenham.co.uk MY MAIN lens is the Canon EF 24-105mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM. It’s a very practical lens as it’s stabilised and offers both zoom and wideangle options, so you can take it anywhere, which is great. However, I shot the winning image for this year’s Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year competition (below) with a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM. You can easily get this for under £100 if you shop around and it’s a bargain – an ideal first lens to go alongside your kit lens. It’s very light but also very sharp for the money, with great optics. Remember, 50mm is a classic focal length for portraits. There is so much clarity with prime lenses but relatively little distortion. Using f/1.8 is also wide enough…

Ross Grieve Award-winning New Zealand photographer Ross Grieve has spent 20 years developing his love for photography. From Sweden to Sydney, Ross has been working for clients such as Waldorf Astoria, RSA and Panasonic. A pioneer of 4K photography, Ross works both outdoors and from his studio in Pembrokeshire. Ross Grieve Seminar 1 The Power of 4K Photography Saturday 15 October, Focal Point Theatre, 12pm As a 4K photography pioneer working with the technique for more than two years, Ross takes guests through how to shoot 4K across all aspects of photography – sports, commercial, food and studio. Find out how and why he uses 4K for his professional work. Ross Grieve Seminar 2 Silent Street Photography Saturday 15 October, Focal Point Theatre, 3pm Everyone loves people watching, so it’s…

Fireworks The fleeting nature of fireworks makes them poor candidates for autofocus. When shooting fireworks, you will likely want to focus to a desired point before using manual focus to take the picture. Shooting through obstructions When shooting through a fence, railing or window, or when subjects pass between the camera and intended subjects, autofocus systems can become confused. Manual focus is also useful when focusing on window details. Macro Manual focus is particularly important when shooting close up, as any small focusing inaccuracies can mean a subject's focal point (an insect's eye, for example) isn't as sharp as the secondary areas. Panning Although advanced AF systems can be used to pan many subjects, you can also fix the focusing distance manually beforehand. With this technique, you should ensure the…

Processing an infrared capture JAMES Duffy shot this photo at Box Hill in Surrey, using a Nikon D50 with a 720nm infrared filter attached to its lens. Such filters enable you to shoot in infrared with any camera,but you do lose a few stops in exposure so, to compensate, you'd need to increase the exposure or the ISO. The 720nm filter is a good compromise for users seeking a typical infrared effect where the foliage in a scene appears white. This image was taken in February, so there wasn't much live foliage and the infrared effect is rather subtle. Even so, the composition worked well. 1 Convert to black & white I opened the raw image in Camera Raw, where I went to the HSL/Grayscale panel and clicked on Convert…

The Masjid-i of Fahraj is the oldest mosque in Iran, built in about 58AH, or 632AD. The thick pillars are built of adobe, sun-dried brick, faced with plaster. Breathe in: you can almost smell the cool mustiness of the walls. A great photograph can engage more senses than just vision. I saw this picture at Arles Photography Festival in 2016, as a part of what Palmisanocalls Work in Progress: Iran. It pretty much stopped me in my tracks, partly for its technical exquisiteness, partly for its universality. Yes, it’s a mosque, but it stands for countless ancient buildings, of any religion or none. The more you look at it, the more you see. This is the Jami or Jame Mosque, the Friday Mosque, the name generally given to the main…

Ghost of the Fairy Pool by Grant Glendinning Canon EOS 5DS R, 16-35mm, 133secs at f/11, ISO 50, ND filter, polarising filter This image was uploaded to our website gallery. ‘When I arrived at the Fairy Pools in the Isle of Skye, it was quite cloudy so I took a few landscape-oriented shots to minimise a featureless sky,' says Grant. ‘After a short while, the clouds broke with sunshine and blue sky appearing intermittently. I decided to shoot a very long exposure to capture some of the nice light and colour coming through, and shoot in portrait. The result was this image with some cloud movement and what looked to me like a face in the sky.' Win! Each week we choose our favourite picture on Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Instagram…

Along with the British Wildlife Photography Awards, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is the most anticipated nature competition in the UK. Every year the competition showcases the world's best nature images. Droves of people flood to see the exhibition at London's Natural History Museum, and you'll get your chance when it opens this year on 21 October. This year's competition received 50,000 entries from 95 countries and we'll soon know which100 are to receive recognition. In the meantime, we make do with a sneak-peak at one of the images. This split-level shot, taken in Norway by Audun Rikarsden, shows a killer whale and a flurry of gulls enjoying the spoils of a trawler. For more information, visit www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/wpy.html. Words & numbers “You don’t study photography, you just do…

Built-in flash There’s a small pop-up flash unit in the viewfinder housing, as well as a hotshoe for attaching EX-series flashguns. Tilting touchscreen The LCD tilts upwards by 85° and downwards by 180° to face forwards underneath the camera’s body. Microphone input A 3.5mm stereo microphone socket is included alongside USB, HDMI and an E3-type cable-release socket. Power The M5 promises 295 shots per charge from its LP-E17 battery, or 420 in its power-saving ECO mode. ALTHOUGH Canon launched its first mirrorless camera, the EOS M, back in 2012, the company has never seemed to take the idea quite seriously, with only six EF-M lenses for the system appearing to date. However, with the EOS M5, Canon has finally made a camera to turn enthusiast photographers' heads. In essence, the…

Charging: this is the perennial bugbear of both the travel photographer and any photographer not tethered in the studio. My current Nikon D700 has an EN-EL3e battery, which is rated at 1410mAh. According to Nikon, it should give1,000 shots. Compare this to my Fujifilm X-M1, which has the NP-W126 rated at1,260mAh, and which should give 300 images. Similar capacities, but as the AP 3 September issue on ‘DSLR vs mirrorless' showed, they have different levels of power consumption. If I go out with my Nikon, I have no worries for the day and I'm often good for the week. The same can't be said for my Fuji camera, and I always make sure I pack a spare battery. It really is worth the premium for own-brand or quality-branded batteries; they…

You answered… A No, and they never will 13% B No, but I expect they will soon 26% C Yes, and I plan to buy one for my next camera 12% D Yes, and I’ve already switched 49% What you said ‘I still enjoy using my full-frame DSLR, but for day-to-day photography the default is my CSC.’ ‘There’s nothing wrong with mirrorless, absolutely nothing, but for me they’re physically too small and don’t feel right in my hands. That’s why I moved from mirrorless to DSLR!’ ‘I still have a DSLR, but I have not touched it in two years, so I can say the change has well and truly stuck.’ ‘As others have said, yes, mirrorless can probably match DSLRs technically for my kind of photography – mainly landscapes…

WHEN you're focusing manually, any movement of either the camera or subject can affect your picture. Thus, it's a good idea to mount your camera on a firm support (and trigger the shutter remotely) to reduce the chances of camera shake, and do what you can to keep the subject steady. Tripods with reversible central columns, such as the Manfrotto 055XPRO3, are ideal for macro photography (one genre in which manual focus is pretty common) as they enable you to switch to a horizontal position and make precise adjustments while shooting at ground level. Focusing rails (also known as micro-positioning plates) are good as they can attach to your tripod and enable precise positioning with just a touch of the fingertips. When it comes to keeping your subject steady, less…

WHENEVER you adjust the tone contrast in an image, this also affects the colour. Basically, as you add more contrast, or increase the steepness of the tone curve, this has the effect of increasing the colour saturation in the image. When applying a Photoshop Curves adjustment, the hue colour values can shift slightly as well; however, with Lightroom and Camera Raw there is a built-in hue lock mechanism to prevent this from happening. In Photoshop it is possible to isolate the saturation boost effect by applying a Curves adjustment as an Adjustment layer and changing the blend mode to Luminosity. While this does allow you to accurately preserve the saturation and hue values, the result can end up looking rather flat – and therefore, a slight increase in saturation will…

Bleached-out sunsets Q I have a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX200V camera and I want to take sunset pictures. I have tried all the settings that I thought would be suitable but nothing works – the sunset part of the picture has no colour in it. Mrs L Thurston A It sounds like the problem is that the sun is too bright for the camera setting, thus bleaching out the golden tones you are seeking. The solution is to force the camera to underexpose the scene. In theory your Sony HX200V should be able to intelligently recognise the scene type and alter the exposure automatically to suit. Try either Intelligent or Superior auto modes. If this doesn’t work, you can try using the camera’s exposure compensation adjustment to darken the scene or…

Laowa moves 12mm f2/8 launch Chinese lens maker Laowa has moved the launch of its new 12mm f/2.8 lens to November. Originally due out in August, the 12mm f/2.8 Zero D wideangle lens, for full-frame cameras, features 16 elements in 10 groups, with three extra-low-dispersion elements. It is due to cost £899.99. Canon develops new sensor Canon has developed a new CMOS imaging sensor that it says makes it possible to achieve a wider dynamic range and shoot better images of moving subjects. The sensor deploys a new signal-readout drive system to expand dynamic range, while a new pixel structure aims to reduce noise. 60mm lens for Leica T Leica is set to release a 60mm prime lens for the Leica T compact system camera. The Leica APO-Macro-Elmarit-TL 60mm f/2.8…

THE CALL for entries for the 2016 international Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY) awards will close on 1 October. The competition features three portfolio categories, three ‘One Shot ‘ single-image categories, a ‘Smart Shot' category for images taken on a mobile phone or tablet, Young TPOTY, a ‘New Talent' award and an HD video category. The competition receives entries from over 110 countries. To enter and for more information, visit tpoty.com. For the latest news visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk…

ALONGSIDE the EOS M5, Canon has revealed the EF-M18-150mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM lens. With an 8.3x range equivalent to 29-240mm on full frame, the lens includes optical image stabilisation with a claimed 4-stop benefit for low-light handheld shooting and full compatibility with the EOS M5's 5-axis electronic IS. A stepper motor promises fast, silent autofocus, and there's a seven-bladed circular aperture designed to give smooth out-of-focus blur. Weighing just 300g, the lens is due in mid-December for £429. Canon has also revealed some more accessories for the EOS M5, although details are scarce. The EH29-CJ body jacket is a leather half-case in black or brown, and there's a matching EM-300DB premium neckstrap too.…

Instagram Daryll Jann @darylljann While sitting on the sandstone seat of Mrs Macquarie’s Chair on a peninsula of Sydney Harbour in Australia, Daryll Jann offers a view of the sunset against Sydney Opera House. He has documented the view through his medium-format camera – an unusual technique. Follow us at @amateurphotographermagazine Facebook Keith Fitzgerald Keith Fitzgerald captures the gaze of a male impala at the Lion Sands Game Reserve in South Africa. The soft background foliage is a perfect contrast to the strong form of the impala’s body. Like us on www.facebook.com/amateurphotographermagazine Flickr Ramon De Juan This image by Ramon De Juan is titled ‘Los Pájaros’ (Spanish for ‘The Birds’). It is an excellent example of how to achieve an effective silhouette. Ramon has exposed for the highlights, and…

ALTHOUGH it is possible to adjust the autofocusing of third-party lenses in-camera, Sigma and Tamron offer alternative solutions. In 2013, Sigma introduced its USB Dock (around £39). This has a lens mount and enables owners of Sigma Art, Contemporary and Sports lenses to upgrade the firmware and customise the focusing via a USB connection to a computer running the company's Optimisation Pro software. However, the adjustment process still relies on you taking shots to test whether the level of alteration is correct, and then trying again until you eventually find the right setting. Tamron's TAP-in Console was announced earlier this year and works in a similar way to the Sigma USB Dock, with some of the company's recently announced lenses using the TAP-in Utility software. We have yet to test…

The Ansel Adams photograph of the Grand Tetons (pictured) in AP 27 August (Big Picture) is a fine example of the great man's work, but I respectfully suggest that the same view produced by Minor White in 1959 is equally worthy of attention. Much of Minor White's work had a mystical quality and his Grand Tetons photograph is emotionally compelling – capturing a brief moment when the magic casements of Keats opened to reveal a unique, otherworldly view. Peter McKenzie, Northumberland I completely agree. Minor White's image contains so much of why we love landscape photography. The heavenly light spilling from the clouds to illuminate the landscape is a true demonstration of how a landscape will never look the same twice. No one will ever be able to take that…

DIGITAL SPLASH – the north of England's biggest photography and optics show – is back once again! Digital Splash16 is the place to be for all photographers, from enthusiasts to professionals, to get hands-on with the latest equipment, seek expert advice, get inspired by talks and get involved in great workshops – not to mention grabbing special show offers. Some of the biggest names in photography will be giving talks about their latest work, how they get their shots and their passion for photography, so you can learn from some of the best in the business. You can get involved before the show with the Digital Splash Awards photo competition, where you could win a share of £1,700 and have your image exhibited at the show. Entry to Digital Splash16…

1 Set up your camera correctly EVEN before you activate your camera's live-view function, it's worth thinking about how you will trigger the shot you wish to take, so that you can inculcate a few best practices first. For instance, you are likely to be using your camera when mounted on a tripod, in which case you should disable your camera's (or lens's) image-stabilisation system. The image-stabilisation system can create a cycle of vibrations and vibration correction that can compromise the image's sharpness. You may not need to do this if you know for certain that the camera or lens has an effective means of automatically detecting that it's being used with a tripod. For better sharpness, you should either attach a remote release to your camera or set it…

Manfrotto Off Road Stunt  Backpack • £119.95 • www.manfrotto.co.uk Matt Golowczynski looks at a backpack aimed at the adventure seeker At a glance • Holds one CSC/lens combination, three action cameras and a 12.9in tablet • Integrated action-camera mount • Included waterproof cover Hiking pole holder Attachment points on the side allow you to carry a couple of walking poles or even a tripod. Rear pocket A hydration compartment at the rear doubles as storage for other flat items. Adjustable harness The included waist and chest belts help to distribute the bag’s load. MANFROTTO'S Stunt range is headed by this backpack – a lightweight, medium-sized nylon bag with an unconventional design. Unzipping its lid around its sides reveals a spacious inner compartment, which eschews the standard removable dividers…

‘Typically, the circle of confusion is sized to be about 1/1,500th of the image diagonal’ This article is the first of a series of three in which I'll try to develop some common elements of photographic theory considering only that which occurs in front of the lens. The motivation for this is to try to remove much of the technical detail, which often provides dead ends when thinking about the basic photographic principles. In the diagram below the lens aperture or entrance pupil is shown to the right, with diameter A. Emerging from it is the angle of view that is being captured, denoted by . In reality this will be determined by the sensor frame size and the focal length of the lens, but since that happens ‘behind' the…