Innholdsfortegnelse for 10-Oct-2020 i Amateur Photographer

It is only recently that our society has started talking openly about mental health and how, just like our physical health, it needs to be looked after. It isn’t always easy though – life throws up many challenges to our emotional well-being. But it is abundantly clear that photography can play a big part in helping. For many people their camera is a tool they use to help overcome depression, grief and the many slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. This year, of all years, has highlighted the importance of mental health and the role that creativity can play in it. This issue is dedicated to those for whom getting through the day is often a struggle. We bring you a selection of moving and inspiring stories of photography’s power…

Benro has announced a new Rhino range of tripods, featuring the firm’s new VX ball head. The smallest model extends to 140cm yet weighs just 1.2kg and folds down to 35cm, while the largest model measures 170cm when fully extended, weighs a shade over 2kg and supports a maximum weight of 20kg. The Benro VX ball heads include a dual panoramic function, where both the base of the head and the camera release platform offer 360-degree pan movement. A newly designed quick release clamp and Arca Swiss-compatible plate reduces weight without affecting performance. The new tripods start at £200 and are on sale now.…

WITH all the hype around Canon’s 45MP, 8K-capable EOS R5, it might be easy to dismiss its 20MP sibling as a cut-price alternative for those who can’t afford the real deal. But this would be a huge mistake, because the EOS R6 is a superb camera in its own right that should appeal to many more photographers than its £4,200 sibling. If you’re a Canon DSLR user intrigued by the advantages of mirrorless technology, but unable to accept the EOS R as a satisfactory option, this might just be the camera you’re looking for. Indeed judged on its merits as a photographic tool, this is one of the finest cameras I’ve ever had the pleasure of testing. It handles brilliantly, striking a very happy medium between being smaller than a…

THE ENTRY-LEVEL market has been stagnant for a while, so it is exciting to see cameras that break with convention in a bid to appeal to a younger, more social-media-savvy market. The Panasonic Lumix G100 comes at a very competitive price, and should appeal to those who wish to create both still and moving images using a camera they can take everywhere. The image quality for both stills and video is just fine, but the crop when shooting stabilised 4K footage may be a deal-breaker for some. For stills photographers the camera faces some tough competition; for example the Fujifilm X-T200 may be preferable for those who want a larger sensor. Panasonic’s own G90 is also an alternative, with in-body image stabilisation and more controls on the camera body, for…

Playing Cards by Kurt Hutton Chelsea pensioners playing cards at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, London. This image was featured in an October 1938 story in Picture Post called ‘The Life of a Chelsea Pensioner’. Kurt Hutton was one of the founding editors of the Picture Post, photographs from which form a good bulk of the Hulton Archive. Despite having a relatively short publication life, it ran from 1938 until 1957, and it is still held in extremely high regard, having been a pioneer of British photojournalism and a stomping ground for some of the UK’s best-known documentary photographers of the period. 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…

23 August 1967 WE’VE done some great covers and some terrible ones over our 136 years, but this shot by Rod Edwards, is one of our better efforts. (See Inbox, page 22). The editorlal section comprised 36 pages that were stapled into the middle of an 84-page ad section. In his opening welcome, Editor Reg Mason recounts the tale of a photographer imprisoned in East Germany who made a camera out of cardboard, with a lens made from an electric light bulb filled with boiled water and sealed with a candle stump. He then re-sensitised some discarded radiography film by soaking it in urine, and made a 45-minute exposure from his cell window which he then developed in a salt solution. It’s amazing the lengths some people will go to…

My 1967 cover shot I hope the ‘Back in the day’ feature hasn’t run its course, particularly as I was hoping that the 23 August 1967 issue might one day feature. The black & white cover photograph of an Irish guardsman was mine, and at 84 I think I may be the oldest of your readers to have had the honour of supplying an AP front cover. (Ten years later, on 2 March 1977, a second cover was taken up by my flamingo photograph.) Coming to the present century, I twice had the pleasure of being interviewed by David Clark for illustrated articles about my wildlife photography in 2002, and street photography in 2003. Like many readers of my vintage, I am still photographing regularly, though I have largely scaled…

1 Curves Arguably one of the most important adjustment tools. The classic ‘S’ shaped tone curve will affect the image from highlight to shadow and give the image a bit more punch and bite. But you have to be careful you don’t overdo it and lose vital image detail. 2 Shadows and Highlights Subtle use of the Shadows and Highlights tool can just open up a shadow and retain some detail or rescue a highlight that might otherwise be lost when an image is printed. The key word here is ‘subtle’! 3 Photo Filters Think about where your black & white print will hang and slightly adjust the warmth or coolness accordingly. Just because you have processed it as normal, there is no reason you cannot make a subtle colour…

Accessory bar A 27cm-long metal bar allows the light and camera/ phone to be mounted onto the tripod. Each can be moved through a 7cm range. Phone holder This sturdy sprung clamp extends to 9cm wide, making it large enough to hold any sensible-sized smartphone. Filter kit Gel filters for tungsten or mixed lighting are joined by one for enhancing skin tones, and are stored neatly in the battery compartment. Table tripod With the legs folded together, this doubles as a grip. Its ball head is adjusted with a push-in button. ● £79.99 ● www.rotolight.com GENERALLY, we take it as read that our readers mainly use their cameras for still images. But practically every model now on the market is also very good at recording video, as are modern smartphones.…

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…

AP picture of the week Queen Mary 2 by Sue Woodbridge Sony Alpha 7R ll , 67mm, 1/640s at f/14 ISO 200 The cruise industry is one of those most badly affected by Covid-19 and there many places in the world where you can see groups of deserted cruiseships sitting at anchor off the coast, waiting for normal life to resume. One of those places is Weymouth in Dorset, where Sue Woodbridge took this picture of Cunard’s flagship QM2. ‘I wanted to get up close and capture these majestic ships as well as help local businesses who had taken the opportunity to swap from fishing charters to cruise ship trips,’ explains Sue. ‘I chose a point of view that showed just how enormous these ships were. They are huge!’ The…

CANON has unveiled a compact cine camera, the EOS C70, which features a Canon RF mount, enabling people to use the same lenses as the EOS R5 and R6 do. Adopting the RF mount – which has a short flange back – made the compactness of the C70 possible, said Canon. Key features include 13 assignable buttons, a multi-functional hand grip for ease of operability, input/output terminals including HDMI and 2x mini XLR terminals for audio. ‘Additionally, a new, thinner ND filter system, which gives up to 10-stops of ND filtration, provides filmmakers with greater control of exposure and depth of field.’ Canon also announced the Mount Adapter EF-EOS R 0.71x, which contains reducer optics to match the image circle of full-frame EF lenses to the camera’s Super 35mm-size sensor.…

When I was a student, Kilroy, presented by Robert Kilroy-Silk, was a popular daily chat show that I used to watch. So in summer 2019, when I was commissioned by the New Statesman to photograph him at his house, I was intrigued to meet this interesting cultural figure who had loomed large in my earlier life. Kilroy-Silk became a Labour MP in 1974, but gave it up in 1986 to become a BBC TV presenter. His show continued through to 2004, when it was cancelled due to alleged racist comments he made in a national newspaper. Afterwards, he became a Member of the European Parliament, was briefly a leading figure in the UK Independence Party and founded his own short-lived political party, Veritas, before retiring from public life in 2009.…

1 Location Will the image be displayed in a dark, north-facing, low-ceilinged 18th century cottage living room, or a bright and modern well-illuminated office space? Choose the appropriate print and framing style for its environment. 2 Medium Be aware of the differences in looking at a monitor image, a bright backlit LED screen and looking at a print which is more often than not ink on paper and lit with reflective light. The two can look and be very different. 3 Size Size matters – consider the size of print in relation to its frame and environment. I have an 8x8in print on my wall, but in a frame it is 24x24 and it works, it has impact. Be bold, and try something a bit different. 4…

The crops shown below are taken from the area outlined above in red At low sensitivities the EOS R6 delivers finely detailed images with barely any noise. Just beware that the ISO 50 setting is more prone to clipping highlights than ISO 100. There’s barely any drop in quality on increasing the sensitivity to ISO 1600, with just a little luminance noise becoming visible at 100% onscreen. Indeed it’s only at ISO 25,600 that noise has an appreciable impact, with fine detail starting to blur and colour saturation fading. By ISO 102,400 image quality is unsurprisingly suffering, but it should still be quite usable for shooting fast action in poor light. However the extended ISO 204,800 option is a step too far.…

The Holga 120 CFN fits firmly in the toy camera category. This term is used to describe cameras that can actually take photographs, but which are ultra-simple, often novelty-themed devices. They became trendy a few years ago, with devotees waxing lyrical about the quaint distortions and aberrations of the often plastic lenses. Design defects, such as light leaks, became features to be exploited to creative effect. I have to confess that I’m quite fond of the happy accidents that can happen with these low-tech cameras. Holgas started life 40 years ago in mainland China and were intended for the masses. The colourful models with added features came much later. A number of variants were made to cater for the needs of lo-fi enthusiasts, and this example is the 120 CFN,…

Julia Margaret Cameron received her first camera as a gift at the tender age of 48, but her love affair with photography had already been in progress for a long time. She travelled the world befriending experts, such as the astronomer John Herschel, and early photographers such as her brother-in-law, the Earl Somers, and the Swedish artist Oscar Rejlander. Cameron is quoted as saying ‘Beauty, you’re under arrest. I have a camera, and I’m not afraid to use it.’ She is arguably the first person to recognise photography as a bona fine art form. In the above quote, Cameron uses beauty as a proper noun; she addresses it as if it were a creature of agency, one that must be tackled and wrestled to the ground. Looking through the work…