Innholdsfortegnelse for 04-Jul-2020 i Amateur Photographer

One positive thing about the lockdown has been the chance to try new things in photography, particularly close-up and macro. So we asked close-up king Ross Hoddinott to share some essential tips for getting really cracking shots of back-garden creatures. As always, if the feature has inspired you to try your hand at macro, or you are already a big fan of the genre, we’d love to see your shots. Other highlights include an in-depth test of a wideangle lens for full-frame mirrorless, Sigma’s 14-24mm f/2.8, and a field test of the medium-format Fujifilm GFX 50R by AP regular Ben Brain. APOY round 5 is seeking entries too and you can win £1,000 of Sigma kit! Enjoy the issue and don’t forget you can get AP delivered every week –…

At the time of writing this, social distancing means little opportunity to travel far with our camera. But, in reality, our backyards are home to a wealth of subjects, which should be treated as a valuable habitat and a productive resource for your photography. Fortunately gardens come alive at this time of year and buzz with insect activity. Fruit trees blossom and flowerbeds bloom, attracting busy bees, hoverflies and colourful butterflies. If you have a small pond, expect dragonflies and damselflies to patrol the skies. Amongst grasses, stems and foliage, you will find moths, caterpillars, shield bugs, lacewings, grasshoppers and brightly coloured ladybirds, while spiders decorate flowers and buildings with wonderful webs. Under rocks and flowerpots you will discover woodlice and other wonderful mini beasts. Look closely and you’ll discover…

I still love my X It was interesting to see the X30 mentioned in Richard Jelley's letter (AP, 9 May). My favourite camera in my own collection is its predecessor, the surely underrated X20. Fujifilm's mirrorless cameras are very popular with amateurs and seem increasingly to be adopted by pro's. However, now all but forgotten are some early members of the ‘X' range that, like the X100, were compacts. The X10 had a zoom lens but, to reduce its size, a much smaller sensor. This resulted in an attractive, rangefinderstyle body that was not quite as small as some other digital compacts but much better specified. I've always enjoyed taking portraits with nice bokeh, which is hard to achieve with small sensor formats, but the X10 had a trick up…

Kaleidograph is a name I have invented for a technique I first saw demonstrated in the days before digital. Using film, it was a difficult process to master. In the digital age, it’s a doddle. As a starting point, there are two simple processes to learn, needing only an elementary grasp of Photoshop. Copy, flip and paste Choose a suitable picture, rotate it 45° and crop a square section out of the centre. Call this segment 1 and copy it. Open a new document, adjust the canvas size to twice the width and height of segment 1 and paste that segment in the top left corner. Copy segment 1 again, flip it horizontally to make segment 2 and paste that beside segment 1. Copy segment 2, flip that vertically to…

When David Collyer saw his photograph on the front page of The Guardian, he nearly fell off his bike. When he saw the two pages of pictures inside, he bought every copy from the garage on his way to his job as an operating department practitioner at the Nevill Hall Hospital in Abergavenny. It's been a long ride for the committed 52-year-old documentary photographer. His enthusiasm began as a teenager shadowing Terry Habgood, chief photographer at the Surrey Advertiser. David moved to Abergavenny from Bristol in 2017, a conscious decision to downgrade his NHS position and spend more time having a life outside work, and to concentrate more on his photography. It was both that propelled him to the front page. David had been considering documenting the final year of…

A new way to support heavy wildlife lenses Q With lockdown rules about outdoor exercise opening up a bit, I'm now looking to really go out and embrace my passion of wildlife photography once more. I'm lucky enough to own a fantastic 500mm prime lens for this but due to my age, struggle to support it after a while. I find monopods don't take the weight in the way I'd like and find my tripod a bit restricting in terms of its movement when tracking a subject. Any ideas for a solution to this problem? Frank Wilson A Telephoto primes are an ideal choice for wildlife photography, but as you’ve found Frank, they are often bulky and heavy. While many professional sports and wildlife photographers do opt for monopods, you’ll…

Lowepro Photo Sport BP 300 AW II Backpack Available in blue or black, the Photo Sport BP 300 AW II has been designed for active users. It has room for a DSLR and two standard lenses, features a dedicated space for a 2-litre hydration reservoir, has multiple attachment points for trekking poles or small tripods, and internal space for a bike helmet or other personal items. An all-weather cover protects your gear, while the padded and adjustable ActivZone™ harness system keeps the bag supported at all times for total comfort. £159 • UltraCinch secures gear for bounce-free protection • Space for one DSLR and two standard lenses • Weight 1.5kg Gitzo Adventury 45L Backpack If you're interested in a bag with maximum storage space consider the Adventury 45L. It can…

Aerial Garden Party by Fox Photos A couple of aviators leave their aircraft and join the aerial garden party held to mark the opening of the new Redwing Aerodrome at Gatwick. Robinson Redwing biplanes were first built at the Croydon-based Robinson Aircraft Company in 1930, with a goal to produce a ‘gentleman's aeroplane'. It moved its entire fleet of 12 aircraft to Gatwick in 1932, with the aerodrome used as a new flying base. It was a pretty short-lived relocation however, with the company moving back to Croydon in 1934. The Getty Images Hulton Archive is one of the world’s great cultural resources. Tracing its origins to the founding of the London Stereoscopic Company in 1854, today it houses over 80 million images spanning the birth of photography to the…

MANY zoos have reopened across the UK, prompting printer suppliers Cartridge People to set up a new zoo wildlife photography competition. You need to go to Cartridge People's Instagram, Facebook or Twitter page. Then, post your favourite zoo or wildlife park photograph on social media. Use the hashtag #CPZooLife and tag @CartridgePeople and the zoo or wildlife park where you took your image. You can enter as many times as you want and the competition will run until 2 August. ‘The winner will also have their winning design posted to our Cartridge People's Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and our competition landing page,' said a spokesperson. ‘They will also receive an A2 canvas or a 20x20in square canvas printed with their winning design.' See bit.ly/cartridgezoo.…

‘We will soon find ourselves living in a world without Holocaust survivors. This inevitable reality confronts us with challenging questions. What will the face of Holocaust commemoration look like when the survivors are no longer with us? How will we be able to convey the impact and relevance of Holocaust memory to future generations without the eyewitnesses themselves?' These questions – and more – are asked by Avner Shalev, chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, in Martin Schoeller's poignant and important new book, Survivors. The work itself provides at least part of the answer. Between 1933 and 1941 Nazi Germany pursued a policy that removed the rights and property of the Jews, followed by the branding and concentration of the Jewish population. In 1941, the Nazis launched the systematic mass…

YOU WILL need to achieve a high level of magnification to take eye-catching close-ups of the insects residing in your garden. Many telezooms have a short minimum focusing distance and thus provide a decent level of magnification – close enough for bigger insects, like dragonflies and larger garden butterflies, like painted ladies and red admirals. However, for smaller insects, like beetles and bees, you will need to focus closer. The budget option is to buy an auto extension tube or close-up filter – take a look at NiSi's NC close-up filter, which is great for garden insects. However, the downside to close-up attachments is that you have to get close to achieve a high level of magnification. Ideally, when photographing timid, flighty subjects like insects, you want to generate a…

Receiving your ‘Special Green Issue' of AP 6 June gave my heart a heavy sinking feeling, as our world leaders are impatient to kick start the global economic industrial machine after the Covid-19 worldwide lockdowns. At the age of 14, a family friend shared with me his copies of The Ecologist magazine. What is now a common subject in the media, that humanity is rapidly destroying this planet, I read back in 1963. Scientists had recorded at the turn of the 19th century that industrial use of fossil fuel was increasing the average global temperature. In 1966 I saw a poster on that read, ‘Not until you have polluted all the land, the lakes, the rivers, the seas, will you realise that you cannot eat money' – signed Anon Native…

1 Learn to look at picture subjects in a different way, noting how aspects line up across the frame while visualising how they will translate when the kaleidograph is assembled. 2 Simple subjects that contain strong horizontal lines make a good starting point as the lines become four sides of a diamond in the kaleidograph. 3 Look at what is below and above the horizontal lines and visualise how this will converge either in the middle or at corners of the final image, according to how the segments are assembled. 4 Graduated tones in skies, particularly at sunset and sunrise, add an interesting texture to the centre or edges of the finished image. 5 Colourful subjects without any real sense of composition can result in an explosion of colour, particularly…

SIGMA has always been quick to acknowledge gaps in the market. Up until recently, full-frame E-mount and L-mount users have been limited by the selection of wideangle zooms available to them; in particular those with a fast f/2.8 maximum aperture. For Sigma to call it the ultimate large-diameter, wideangle zoom lens for full-frame mirrorless cameras was a bold claim, but having tested it extensively with the highest resolution mirrorless camera on the market, I can confirm it is at this current time. Constructed to a robust, weather sealed standard with quiet and accurate focusing, there's very little not to like if you're into landscape, architectural or astro photography. The fact it doesn't accept screw-in filters will make it more expensive if you don't already own a large filter system, but…

Q My two main passions are hiking and photography, often combining them as I adventure around the UK and further afield. Despite owning a few small camera bags though, I've never found one that I really love for my trips, they've all either lacked enough room for my gear or failed to support me properly. Are there any particular models I should be looking at picking up? I normally carry a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, a spare lens or two and a tripod. Elisha Campbell A When it comes to camera bags there are literally hundreds of choices, all providing their own unique feature sets. If you’re looking for a camera bag that’s suitable for hiking, we’d probably opt for a classic backpack-style design that will offer you shoulder…

‘Fenton’s images were the first use of photography to record conflict’ True ‘pioneers’ in photography are slippery. We’ve seen in this very column many names vying for the title. Thankfully, we can say with some confidence that one name stands above all others when discussing war photography: Roger Fenton. Born in England, Fenton was a big name during photography’s ‘golden age’ of the 1850s. A well-travelled and educated individual, he founded the Royal Photographic Society, was appointed the official photographer of the British Museum and excelled at a dizzying number of photography genres. However, it was his striking document of the Crimean War in 1855 that assured his legacy. Fenton’s images were the first use of photography to record conflict, though perhaps that term is a little misleading. His photographs…

AP picture of the week Badger by Dave Harden Panasonic G9, 200mm, 1/125sec at f/2.8, ISO 5000 It's unusual to see good daytime shots of badgers. The lovely setting, attractive lighting and shallow depth of field combine to make this one a deserving picture of the week. Derbyshire-based Dave is a keen amateur photographer, mainly of wildlife and landscapes. He says, ‘The Peak District isn't too far away, though recently I've been checking out my immediate surroundings, being lucky enough to have fields and quiet footpaths in front of my house. I've spent about a month watching this sett not far from my house. This badger just happened to come back to it over the top of a bank and I managed to catch it when it paused.' See more…

A few days ago I received an email about a new grants program designed to support women, female-identifying and non-binary photographers and videographers. It offered a substantial amount of money and mentorship to the successful applicant. I was excited at the thought that this could kickstart someone's career. However, as I read on, my heart sank. Applicants were required to submit their proposals for projects about the ‘authentic representation of women. Most competitions have a theme, but why does every one aimed at women seem to focus on what it's like to be a woman? It's widely recognised that there should be equal gender representation in photography and videography, but these competitions, bursaries and awards seem to be so academic and worthy. Why don't they aim to support women who…

The results are in for the UK National Round of the EISA Maestro Photo Contest, which sought people’s best ‘movement’ shots, presented as part of a portfolio. The winner is Peter Barker from Hertfordshire who goes through to the final round of the EISA Maestro Photo Contest 2020, alongside other winners chosen by photography magazines around Europe. Peter also wins a year-long subscription to AP. The winning entries from each of the 16 participating EISA countries will be judged together at the Association’s General Meeting in summer 2020. The final results of the International Maestro contest will then be revealed at the EISA Awards Gala. All three winners will be invited to Berlin for the official EISA Awards. Read on for more on Peter, and the runners up, Graeme Youngson…