Innholdsfortegnelse for 20-Jun-2020 i Amateur Photographer

‘Never waste a good crisis,’ said Winston Churchill, and we’re glad to see that many of you have responded to the challenges of the pandemic by making great images. This issue features a celebration of some of the most interesting home projects taken during lockdown and it’s a reminder that in crazy times, sometimes the only sane response is to get your camera out (there’s also a wonderful parody of Steve McCurry’s ‘Afghan Girl’, which still raises a chuckle). The lockdown has also reminded us that even when we have spare time, we tend to put off certain jobs, so if you’re feeling bad about STILL not getting around to sorting out your photo collection, fret not: we’ve a painless guide to bringing order to photographic chaos. Enjoy the issue.…

THIS year's Photography Show, originally scheduled to take place at the Birmingham NEC back in March, is still taking place from 18-21 September this year – but it will be online only. Continued uncertainly around hosting large events due to the coronavirus pandemic was cited as the reason for the decision. ‘While we believe that there's nothing quite comparable to the benefits of the live show, we know that the decision to take the show online this year and return to the NEC in 2021 is the best solution for our community during these unprecedented times,' said Jonny Sullens from show organisers, Future. Details were still sketchy at the time of going to press, but Sullens promised an ‘incredibly versatile' virtual platform that enables photography and video to be shown…

What effect will coronavirus have on the global camera market? While it's easy to assume the virus is a ‘black swan' a disaster coming out of a clear blue sky, it's more nuanced than that – think of the virus more as a catalyst, speeding up existing trends. Let's start with the short term. Discounting is likely to continue into the autumn, as both makers and retailers strive to get customers back in the stores and keep up online orders. You can get some sweet deals on accessories in particular at the moment as they are sitting around taking up warehouse space. Discounting won't last long, however. ‘The camera business has gone beyond where getting market share was all that matters and makers are now chasing healthy profits much more,'…

Many of us are hamstrung by chaotic image libraries. Maybe you started with a sloppy folder structure years ago and now you’re too far down the rabbit hole to change things, perhaps you’ve given yourself a free pass with the flimsy excuse that ‘creative types are naturally disorganised’ or maybe your fledgling photo library has reached the tipping point where a bloated ‘Pictures’ folder won’t cut it any more. Whatever the reason, there are huge benefits to getting organised, and now might be the perfect time to do so. An organised library means you can find images with ease, collate your photos in all kinds of ways and even rediscover great photos you’d forgotten about. It may not be the most glamorous side of photography, but a little time spent…

If you don’t want to use a third-party software package like Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom when you buy a Panasonic camera, the solution is to install Silkypix Developer Studio SE. Currently on version 8, this has all the tools you need to help you find your favourite images and process your camera’s raw files to get them looking just right before sharing them with the world. It has a good blend of easy-to-use one-click tools and more advanced controls, along with the ability to batch-process your shots. GETTING STARTED Silkypix Developer Studio SE uses your computer's filing structure and there's no need to import images into the software, you just need to locate them using the folder organisation column on the left of the screen. As soon as you click…

IN MANY ways, the X-T200 is a likeable little camera. With its three top-plate dials and focus-area joystick, it sports probably the best control layout of any entry-level model for users who harbour ambitions beyond the basic point-and-shoot. It's also sufficiently small and lightweight to carry around all the time, with the three XC lenses providing an attractive set of options for first-time users on a budget. Best of all, it produces lovely images, with its gorgeous JPEG colour rendition being especially attractive to novice users who may not wish to dabble with raw files. But it's horribly underpowered, which makes it very difficult to love. We don't expect entry-level models to provide the same level of performance as their pricier stablemates, but the X-T200 simply doesn't come close to…

My acquaintance with this camera had something of the blind date about it. During my eBay trawling days, I spotted a listing with a very non-specific description, and a blurry image of a small black camera. From the photo, it looked like a folding camera, and I guess that the vendor hadn't realised that if you press a little button, it springs open and out pops the lens. I couldn't tell what it was, but the shape was slightly different to any of the cameras in my collection, so I put in a bid for a few pounds. I'm glad that I decided to take a punt on it, as it's quite an unusual camera. There is no name on the body, but the lens is marked Laack Rathenow. The…

France Soir by Bert Hardy A man reads a newspaper report on the French campaign in Indo-China (Vietnam) on a café terrace on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. This image formed part of a story ‘Sunday Morning in the Champs-Elysees' in The Picture Post by the legendary Bert Hardy, the Post's Chief Photographer. Hardy, who was a self-taught photographer, started his career at The Picture Post in 1941, before going on to serve as a war photographer. He stayed at the Post until its closure in 1957. At first he took up a career in advertising photography, but eventually he gave up the medium altogether to become a farmer. The Getty Images Hulton Archive is one of the world’s great cultural resources. Tracing its origins to the founding of the London…

Storm Approaching by Helen Trust Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, 16mm, 30secs at f/22, ISO 50 Helen loves everything about photography and is based in Buckinghamshire. ‘This was taken from the Fondamenta Salute overlooking the Grand Canal towards St Marks Square in Venice. It's one of my favourite locations because it's isolated at the tip of the island but you can witness the whole of Venetian life going on around you. I could see a storm approaching and the clouds moving faster over my head so a long exposure capturing the light on the buildings opposite and St Mark's Campanile was a must.' See more on Instagram @ helen_trust. Chosen by Andy Westlake, Technical Editor Tyseley Trio by Robert Falconer Canon 5D Mark II, 75mm, 0.5sec at f/11, ISO 2000…

1 Open Lightroom Import Take your memory card of fresh photos out of your camera and plug it into your computer. You can set Lightroom up so that the Import dialog opens automatically when you insert a memory card – go to Preferences > General and check ‘Show Import Dialog when a memory card is detected'. 2 Create a folder Choose ‘Copy' in the options at the top then create a folder in the ‘Destination' on the right. Check ‘Into Subfolder' and give it a suitable name. A simple folder structure could be to organise photos into separate years, then locations. If you like you can use ‘Make a second copy to' in the File Handling options to back up simultaneously to another drive. 3 Add keywords Select your images…

Storage can be a pain in the backside, but it is an essential part of photography. At some point your computer will inevitably fill up, and you'll need to copy your images elsewhere. Thankfully, external hard drives are getting larger and cheaper these days. But sometimes hard drives fail so it's important to devise a storage workflow, then stick to it. We should back up our images in at least two, or ideally three, places so nothing is ever lost. A simple method is to buy two hard drives, then regularly back up one to the other. This can get cumbersome, so you might want to invest in a Direct Attached Storage (DAS) or Network Attached Storage (NAS) system. These can hold mighty amounts of data spread over several inexpensive…

For my editorial portrait assignments over the years, I’ve usually photographed people after they have been in the public eye for some time. However, in January 2000, when I shot portraits of the prominent Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, currently the Leader of the House of Commons, he was virtually unknown to the general public. Rees-Mogg was then 30 years old. After education at Eton and Oxford, he had worked for investment banks in the City of London and Hong Kong. In 1997, he had made his first attempt at being elected as an MP, as a candidate in the mainly working-class constituency of Central Fife in Scotland. He wasn’t elected, but gained some notoriety for canvassing for votes along with his childhood nanny, Veronica Crook. Looking back, maybe that was…

Mic input A 3.5mm stereo microphone socket is found on the camera’s left shoulder. It blocks the screen from rotating completely freely, but this isn’t a serious problem in practical use. USB-C In-camera battery charging is handled by a USB-C connector, as is data transfer to a computer. There’s also an HDMI output to play images back on a television. Built-in flash A switch around the left-side control dial releases the tiny pop-up flash, which has a guide number of just 5m at ISO 100. The hot shoe accepts more powerful units. Power The X-T200 is powered by the NP-W126S Li-ion battery, as used by most of Fujifilm’s other X-series cameras. It’s rated for 270 shots per charge, or 450 in economy mode. Remote release Wired remote releases with 2.5mm…

When the Olympus OM-1 was launched in1972 it created a minor sensation. Its compact size gave food for thought for other major camera manufacturers and influenced the way that 35mm single lens reflexes (SLRs) would be designed thereafter. But if plans by the OM-1's designer, Yoshihisa Maitani, had gone ahead, the sensation would have been far from minor. It would have been a major revolution. Because the camera that Maitani originally intended didn't even look like a 35mm SLR. In fact, it looked a lot more like a miniature Hasselblad. Yoshihisa Maitani was one of the most innovative camera designers of his generation. His career at Olympus began with his design for the Pen in 1959, the first Japanese 35mm half-frame camera, followed in 1963 by the Pen F, the…

Lenses Interchangeable lenses come in a huge array of types for shooting different kinds of subjects IN GENERAL, the easiest way to expand the kinds of pictures you can take is by buying different types of lenses. For example, telephoto lenses let you zoom in on distant subjects, while macro lenses enable close-ups of small objects. Large-aperture lenses allow you to isolate subjects against blurred backgrounds, or shoot in low light without having to raise the ISO too high. Meanwhile, all-in-one superzooms cover a wide range of subjects, but usually with rather lower optical quality. Lens mounts On the whole, each manufacturer uses its own proprietary lens mount. Notable exceptions are Micro Four Thirds, shared by Olympus and Panasonic, and the full-frame L-mount that’s used by Leica, Panasonic and Sigma.…

From 1938 to 1957, Picture Post, a weekly photojournalistic magazine, could firmly claim to be one of the most respected and important publications on the planet. This was a magazine that after just two months in circulation was already selling 1,700,000 copies per week and, during the war years, adopted a fervent left-wing and anti-fascism stance (in contrast to the Daily Mail). Among its chief photographers was one figure in particular, a self-taught, working-class gentleman by the name of Bert Hardy. If you can’t immediately bring to mind the images of Hardy, seek out his famous 1951 image of two women sat on the railings of Blackpool’s promenade. You’ll know that shot – it’s one of the most iconic of post-war Britain we have. What many people don’t know, however,…

If you admire the fine art wildlife photography of the likes of Nick Brandt and David Yarrow then you probably have the late Peter Beard to thank for this. However, Beard's artistic bent extends far beyond documenting wildlife through a lens as his life's work combined collages of photography, ecology and diary entries in a unique blend of ‘Gesamtkunstwerk,' which translates as ‘total artwork.' This impressive 770-page tome is a 2020 update of the original two-volume limited edition book from 2006, but it is tinged with sadness… in between the announcement of the book's launch and its actual release Peter Beard sadly lost his life (sometime in April 2020) after going missing from his US home for 19 days. Yet it was a life thoroughly well lived – one that…

Caught by the Fuzz by Sam Binding Sony Alpha 7 III, 400mm, 1/15 sec at f/5.6, ISO 1600 ‘I'm a keen sunrise photographer, based in Bristol. I try and get out early every morning to catch the golden hour, whilst walking my dog. I often visit the deer park at Ashton Court and on this particular day I was able to get quite close to this young deer who was on the other side of the fence. I managed to snap him as the sun was rising. He didn't hang about!' See more on Instagram@sambinding. Chosen by Nigel Atherton, Editor as our #appicoftheweek…

If you've been struggling for years with a garbled mess of old hard drives, incomprehensible folder names, and crippling copies upon copies, then the task of organising your shambolic photo library can seem overwhelming. But one of the greatest strengths of Lightroom is how you can structure your photo library independently of your operating system. Instead of reorganising your messy folders you can import your maelstrom of photos into Lightroom then restructure them using Collection Sets and Collections. These are similar to a folder structure but aren't tied down to specific drive locations. Like a sort of ghost operating system, Collections and Collection Sets can be used to organise your photos independently of your traditional folder structure. As such, it gives you a chance at a fresh start without having…

1 Enable Lightroom's Face Detection tool at the bottom of the Library Module and it will automatically detect and group all photos of an individual for you to tag. 2 When first looking through and rating images, tap L to turn out the lights and Tab to collapse panels for a cleaner view that minimises screen clutter. 3 If you need to move images around your drive then do so using the Folders panel so that Lightroom keeps track of your files. 4 If Library organisation gets too dull, set up a collection called Temporary, then drop unsorted photos into it to be tackled later when you can muster the energy to do so. 5 Some people love using star ratings, but with a choice of 1-5 it can make…

During these times of confinement, I’ve seen the inside of more friends’ and colleagues’ homes than ever before. It feels like more photographs are bring taken than ever before: every plate of food, unmade bed, loo roll, bored child, pet, plane trail, cloud, shaft of light and corner of a room is being documented. In these quiet times, creativity has exploded. Photography is going to be a crucial reminder of this once-in-a-generation event. When it’s all over, people will ask: ‘What did YOU do?’ I went on the hunt for inspiration for projects to do and being done. 1. Look Out Artist-photographer Jasper White has built a reputation looking inside and outside from inside. His work inspects the relationship between people and territory and how boundaries are defined within space.…

Our cameras and lenses are tested using the industry-standard Image Engineering IQ-Analyser software. Visit www.image-engineering.de for more details One aspect of the X-T200 that really can't be faulted is its image quality. It produces files that at least match any of its similarly priced competitors, and aren't significantly surpassed by its more expensive 26.2MP stablemates. JPEG shooters will appreciate Fujifilm's peerless colour science, with its Film Simulation modes providing a good range of attractive looks. Raw shooters will find wider software support than for the firm's X-Trans models, and benefit from impressively low noise, along with plenty of scope for extracting additional shadow detail at low ISO settings. Resolution At ISO 200 in raw, the X-T200 resolves approximately 3,900 lines per picture height (l/ph), which is about as much as…

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 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 DS Canon’s Defocus Smoothing technology E…