Innholdsfortegnelse for 16-May-2020 i Amateur Photographer

lf nothing else, this lockdown has forced us photographers to be resourceful and creative. No longer can we rely on driving to stunning landscapes or jetting to exotic countries. We have to find inspiration locally, and we hope this issue will give you lots of ideas, from suggestions for shots on local walks to making a bespoke hide. Another great project to work on is printing your best shots or honing your printing skills generally, so don’t miss Matt Richards’s expert tips on page 44. Elsewhere we have a round-up of the best images from the Sony World Photography Awards and a look at classic film SLRs. No one is pretending the lockdown is easy, but rest assured, AP is doing its bit to help... amateurphotographer. co.uk Facebook.com/Amateur. photographer.magazine flickr.com/groups/…

If something is too good to be true, more often than not it usually is. Imagine my reaction then when a few weeks ago I visited the price comparison website Camera Price Buster (www.camerapricebuster.co.uk) only to stumble across the Nikon Z 6 being sold for £1199 (body only) on Amazon. Surely this couldn't be right I thought to myself? After a little investigative work into this seemingly incredible offer I found out that John Lewis and Argos were price-matching Amazon and also had the Nikon Z 6 up for grabs at £1,199. How could this possibly be, when so many other retailers were continuing to sell the same camera for £1,549? Could it be for real? Having heard about pricing mistakes in the past where retailers have accidentally mispriced products,…

Light knowledge Once you know the area directly around you, you'll learn roughly what position the sun will be at any given time of day and year. With this crucial understanding, you'll know where is best to go (or not go) and when for the desired lighting effects, be it a sunrise, backlighting or shafts of light between buildings and so on. Weather Increased familiarity brings about an acute awareness of weather conditions and the seasons. One area, no more than a few hundred metres from another, could have a different atmosphere, especially on misty days. I know a small heathland that gets a second wave of ground mist mid winter morning. Wildlife behaviour Knowing a rural area well brings increased knowledge of local wildlife behaviour. At some point in…

I read your Treasured Snaps feature (AP 1 February) with much interest. I work at a small museum where we have a collection of photographs dating from the late 1800s to the present day. Some are original copies that have been collected by or donated to the museum. Copies of some are also held by other museums and galleries. I have some questions on where the museum stands over use of the copies we hold? 1. Is the museum able to use these photographs as they wish for social media and marketing purposes? 2. Can copies for display purposes be made of the photographs? 3. Would we be able to sell copies of the photograph? 4. Who holds the copyright to the photo when multiple copies exist? Can an organisation…

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.…

● £179 ● www.manfrotto.co.uk OVER the past few years we've seen a push from bag manufacturers to make their backpacks more functional and versatile. One way in which they've done this is to implement a so-called internal camera unit (ICU), which can be stripped out in a matter of seconds to turn a camera backpack into a more general purpose one, saving the need of having to own, or buy, two separate bags. The latest backpack to join Manfrotto's range conforms to this idea, with the added benefit that the internal camera unit can be removed and used as a shoulder bag with the supplied strap. When used as a photography backpack, access to kit is via the sides. The ICU offers adequate space to house a full-frame mirrorless camera…

FOR OUR third report on how major camera retailers are coping with the lockdown, we chat to Frank Keenan, commercial director of Park Cameras. ‘With the retail stores closing down at the end of March, most of the store team are furloughed,' Frank explains. ‘But the good news is that the photographic customer is still interested in the market and interested in interacting with us. We've been working with brands to generate a lot of content, particularly video and blog tutorials.' The major brands are being very proactive in the face of the crisis. ‘A lot of them are starting to run online one-to-one and “one-to-many” seminars.' Park is reaching out to furloughed staff, running photo competitions and keeping them up to date with the market. Returning to the wider…

RARELY do all the elements come together in a single moment for a photograph of the outdoors; the time of day, the weather conditions, the direction of light, the subject and the composition. Yet regular local photo walks increase those chances – so long as you ensure you keep to the current government guidelines – because you can go for it when conditions are right and apply your local knowledge into a previsualised shot. I know this field well – seen from a viewpoint looking up a gentle hill and consequently into a mostly clear horizon, directly facing sunrise. Often there are horses in the field – I'll know when because it's two minutes from my home. This is one of several photos I have of this field from over…

Each year photographers across the globe wait in anticipation to see which images will be chosen for the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards shortlist. Showcasing some of the world’s best photography, and now in its 13th year, the competition has gone from strength to strength, and is one of the most important contests to enter and have your work recognised. This year, naturally, things are a little different. Gone is the annual exhibition at Somerset House, while the awards ceremony – due to take place in June – has also been cancelled. It is hoped the exhibition will be able to be shown at a later date. Nevertheless, to date, the winners of the Open category have been announced online, while the professional category winners as well as the overall…

Back in1963 Kodak introduced the Instamatic system with a cartridge film called 126. It was a great success and remained so until, in1972, the photo giant did it again with a new range of cameras called Pocket Instamatics. The110 size film they took was 16mm wide, enclosed in a long, narrow cartridge and had a frame size of 13x17mm. With its introduction, other camera manufacturers began retooling for the latest Kodak film and before long110 cameras ruled the world of snapshot photography. Two manufacturers, however, took a different route producing between them, four single lens reflexes (SLRs). Today, the film is relatively easy to buy, making those SLRs still very usable, along with a few other non-reflex cameras that took 110 just that little bit more seriously. SINGLE LENS REFLEX…

One of the principal concepts of photography is exposure. It's one of the first pieces of jargon that a photographer adopts to denote membership of the club. Show a non-photographer a shot that looks too dark and they'll likely say ‘that's too dark. Show it to a photographer and they'll say ‘that's underexposed' Oddly, the lay person is quite likely to be correct, because underexposure is only one possible cause of a photo looking too dark. This point is often lost on those photographers that erroneously think that exposure means how light or dark the final image looks. So, what does exposure mean? Technically, it is the luminous energy density at the focal plane. Let's unpick that a little. Luminous means not just light, but more specifically visible light. So…

Shark-infested software In response to Graham Serretta's heartfelt letter about software (Inbox, 14 March) I believe that businesses are rather like sharks. It is said that to avoid suffocation a Great White must keep swimming. In a similar way, a business must continually devour money. I remember an economics article that argued that Adobe was a ‘basket case', because its products were now so good, they did everything that their customers could possibly want. So how, the magazine asked, could Adobe possibly attract new customers, or even get any existing customers to buy an upgrade? A few months later and the same economics magazine praised the recently launched Adobe subscription plans, for their ability to compel customers to keep on paying for products. The other classic business tactic is built-in…

There are a few software packages available to download for free from Fujifilm’s website, but Fujifilm X Raw Studio is probably the one that Fujifilm photographers will find the easiest to understand and use. It’s based around the camera’s settings and even draws on the camera’s processing power to do the work. In order for it to do that, you need to set your camera’s PC connection mode to ‘USB RAW CONV’ via the menu and then connect it to your computer via a USB cable. MAKE THE RIGHT CONNECTION Although you need to connect your powered-up camera to your computer in order to use Fujifilm X Raw Studio, the software uses your computer's filing structure and you work on images that are on your hard drive. If you have…

Glass options There are a number of options when buying one-way glass, however Stopsol 4mm Classic Clear made by AGC is regarded as the best. You lose 1.5 stops of light when shooting through it but as long as you ensure you get your supply from a good batch of glass then you'll see little, if any, noticeable degradation in picture quality, as illustrated by the images in this article. Setting up When setting up a hide with windows it is important to slightly angle them so the ground is reflected, to deter birds from flying into the glass. You should also use a net set a few inches from the glass if there is still a danger of this occurring. A net will also deter birds such as pheasants,…

JUST as with the older 126 cartridge film, it is possible to reload 110 cartridges in a darkroom or changing bag. But because of the smaller gauge, you'll either need to find a supply of 16mm cine film, or cut down 35mm. Both of which is far from easy – and really quite unnecessary because 110 film is relatively easy to buy. Simply try the Lomography shop (shop.lomography.com) or Wex Photo Video (www.wexphotovideo. com), where you'll find new packs of one, three, five or ten films.…

Oh Tina Modotti, to quote from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s wonderful sonnet, ‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…’ You will gather from this that I am a massive fan of this sometimes under-recognised photographer. Not only one of the most influential photographers on me and my career, she also led a life that was pretty much the archetypal dream for any art-school hippy from the ’70s (yes, that’ll be me). Born in Italy to working-class parents, she immigrated to the United States at the age of 16 in 1913 to join her father in San Francisco, California. After a brief foray into the motion-picture business as an actress in several silent movies, Modotti entered into a bohemian circle of friends. One of these was the photographer, Edward…