Innholdsfortegnelse for 12-Nov-2016 i Amateur Photographer

There’s this big misconception in photography that you need to jet to exotic locations to get stand-out shots. In fact, as this issue’s feature on autumn macro reveals, you can often get stunning results much closer to home. You don’t need to spend a lot, either. Join Tracy Calder as she shows how to get the most from this ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ on pages 14-19. Get your skates on though, before all the leaves fall off the trees! We received lots of good feedback on our ‘Make Cash with your Camera’ issue (AP 27 August), but don’t worry if you missed it – we’ve got another, more in-depth big feature on stock photography on pages 24-27. The rules of the game have changed: rather than jaw-dropping landscapes…

WITH almost everybody now using their phones in place of a compact camera, Kodak looks as though it has spotted what might be a gap in the market, and come up with a smartphone design that's focused on picture taking. The exterior of the Ektra has a two-stage physical shutter button and a leatherette finish, with a handgrip that allows one-handed shooting. The main camera is based around a 21-million-pixel sensor, with a 26.5mm equivalent optically stabilised f/2 lens, which should help to give decent results in low light. There's also a 13-million-pixel front-facing camera for selfies, with an f/2.2 lens and phase-detection AF. The 5in screen features full HD resolution. The Ektra will be available in December, priced £449.…

WOULD you like to see one of your pictures appear on the cover of Amateur Photographer? We are looking for a festive-themed photograph for our Christmas issue, but you can interpret the brief in any way you like – anything goes, from baubles to birds. Aside from front-cover fame, the overall winner will receive an A3 print of the finished design courtesy of PermaJet (www.permajet.com), and a cash prize of £100! There will also be a second winner (as awarded by the public vote on Photocrowd, www. photocrowd.com), who will receive £100 and an A3 print of their image. The closing date for entries is 20 November 2016. Upload your picture(s) via photocrowd.com/contests/610-christmas-cover-star. For full terms and conditions and some tips, visit apmag.co/ xmascover16.…

‘The photographic databases of local newspapers are priceless’ When my brother died unexpectedly at the age of 40, my family was distraught. Like others struck by grief, we flapped around searching for ways to celebrate a life cut short. A faded newspaper cutting celebrating his non-stop bicycle ride from Yorkshire to London and back, years earlier, provided one cue. The crumpled newsprint clipped from Bradford's Telegraph & Argus featured a monochrome shot of him with his bike, holding a map and checking his watch. It is a classic newspaper feature: the image communicates the gist of the story, the caption provides the details. Hoping that a better print might comfort my mother, I contacted the paper. Its picture editor promised to check the archives. A couple of weeks later, I…

Sheffield Park and Garden, East Sussex With a huge variety of native and non-native trees reaching their peak at different times of the year, there is always something to shoot at Sheffield Park. Among the autumn highlights is the maidenhair tree (Ginkgo biloba) with its brilliant amber leaves. To find out more visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk. New Forest National Park, Hampshire With a glorious mix of ancient, ornamental and native trees, the New Forest delivers an impressive autumn display. It's also popular for its abundance of fungi, and free-roaming horses and pigs, the latter of which are released in autumn for pannage. To find out more, visit www.thenewforest.co.uk. Grizedale Forest, Lake District, Cumbria Situated between the lakes of Coniston and Windermere, Grizedale Forest lies in the heart of the Lake District and…

Asking a blunt question sometimes does no harm. So, full marks to AP (29 October) for the honesty of the front cover's poser ‘Who needs raw?' They say one experiment can beat a thousand arguments – and it can! A fellow amateur-photographer friend and I agreed some months back to use the same file shot taken in JPEG and raw, where one would go the JPEG route and the other would take raw for carefully controlled post-capture ‘treatment'. The resulting A4 prints were side-matched for comparison. Seven knowledgeable onlookers were invited to choose a favourite. The results were 5-2 in favour of the JPEG version for a variety of expressed reasons. The raw version had taken over an hour to finalise (substantially longer than the JPEG result), used more card…

Shoot local There is a goldmine of potential stock images in every town and city. Keep an eye on local news, and read posts on social media to keep abreast of what's happening near you. This shot of starlings returning to roost was taken in my hometown of Aberystwyth. Use your family Pictures of children using technology are always in demand with stock buyers. When your models are family and friends, it's also easier to obtain model-release forms, making them more saleable. You can usually download such forms from a stock library's website. Keep it simple Try to create images that sum up the situation, activity or event in a clear, unequivocal way. If you stick to the mantra of one person doing one thing, you can't go far wrong.…

Mick Rock has nigh on the ultimate rock-star name (which is his real name, by the way), looks like a rock star and has a coterie of rock-star friends that has included David Bowie, Lou Reed, Syd Barrett and Iggy Pop. When I met him recently at the Taschen bookstore in central London, a queue was snaking around the corner of the shop waiting for Mick to sign copies of his latest tome, The Rise of David Bowie 1972-1973, so it was clear, Bowie association aside, that this was one photographer who had his own fan base. Inside the store I asked Mick what made him first pick up a camera. He laughs and replies: ‘LSD. I was studying modern languages and literature at Cambridge and took an acid trip…

PANASONIC'S 4K Photo mode is included on the G80, giving some really useful options for shooting at 8MP resolution and 30fps without taking up too much card space. It includes the clever pre-burst mode that records 1 second of footage before and after the shutter button is depressed, making it easier to capture peak action (although at the expense of battery life). There's also 4K Post Focus, which allows focus to be adjusted after shooting by tapping the screen: previously I've found this to be more technically clever than practically useful. However, it's now joined by an interesting in-camera focus-stacking mode that allows the generation of composite images with extended depth of field after shooting. Unfortunately, this is limited to using a minimum shutter speed of1/30sec, which means it selects…

Old-camera capacity Q When I bought my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8 in 2007, the largest-capacity SD cards offered less than 1GB. Now, it seems, the smallest available is 4GB! Would such vast storage capacity harm my old camera? Long before I got my Panasonic, I got an Itorex Macrowider, and I've found it useful when scenes were too confined for the zoom's 36mm-equivalent focal length. Again, would using this be harmful to the camera? Bill Houlder AI have an 8MB (megabytes, not gigabytes) card. When SD cards were first launched, there was widespread speculation about why anyone would ever need a 2GB card, which was predicted at a time when 32MB was generous. Your FZ8 can happily take SDHC memory cards up to 32GB in capacity, but larger capacity SDXC cards…

Who was Yan? I don’t know, but he was once well enough known to sign his photographs (bottom right-hand corner), even when they were to be made into postcards by Photo Quinault of Lourdes, France. In this one, the ‘Big Beach’ is divided in two by a lamp standard. And yet, it still works. The crowded left-hand side, with its beach tents, is as separate from the right-hand side as this picture is from the present. When did he take this picture? I don’t know that, either. From the clothes and the beach tents, and especially the mixture of cloche and broad-brimmed hats, it was probably before the Great War started in 1914. And yet, as far as I can see, the collection was still available in the 1950s. The…

Skógafoss at Night by Jackie Tran Foreground: Canon EOS 5D Mark III, 16-35mm, 411secs at f/2.8, ISO 800. Stars: Canon EOS 5D Mark III, 16-35mm, 30secs at f/2.8, ISO 800 Landscape photography is a genre that benefits most when we see familiar scenes taken in usual ways. In this image uploaded to our website gallery by AP reader Jackie Tran, we find a good example. Iceland, that most photographed of locations, is a wonderful playground for any landscape photographer. Skógafoss waterfall in the south of Iceland has been photographed many times. Here we see that Jackie has photographed this epic location at night. There are two exposures – one of the location and one for the sky. Combined, they offer us an atmospheric and dreamy portrait of Iceland. Win! Each…

In News , AP 5 November, we announced the winners of the 52nd Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, with the overall winner being Tim Laman with his incredible image of an orangutan climbing a tree. However, there were plenty of images that more than deserved their place in the competition, and we'll look at some of those in next week's issue. In the meantime, this is the winner of the Black & White category. The shot is called ‘Requiem for an Owl' and was taken by Swedish photographer Mats Andersson. Mats took this in the forests of Bashult, southern Sweden. It's a beautifully melancholic photograph that makes use of its atmospheric location and the ghostly dawn light. Words & numbers  42 countries represented at Photokina 2016 “Some days you…

Published by Aperture Price £35 128 pages hardback ISBN 978-1-59711-383-0 What exactly do we mean by the term ‘concerned photojournalism'? In The Concerned Photographer (1968), Hungarian American photographer (and younger brother of Robert) Cornell Capa articulated perhaps the clearest definition of the term: ‘images in which genuine human feeling predominates over commercial cynicism or disinterested formalism. Similarly, the writer David Campbell argues that ‘photojournalism – that broad swathe of photographic practice that tells visual stories about the world, and which can include documentary, editorial, news or social photography – has a particular responsibility and a particular opportunity to both represent the world better and make better worlds imaginable.' It's with these thoughts in mind that we find ourselves in the company of Aperture's recent republication of Susan Meiselas's contemporary classic…

Instagram Marko Korosec @markokorosecnet A road to nowhere. This is a stunning image of low clouds enshrouding a section of the Crni Kal Viaduct in Slovenia. The eerie light is thanks largely to the full moon glowing above the bank of clouds. Follow us at @amateurphotographermagazine Facebook Artur Szczeszek Taking a different view can, from time to time, lead to dynamic images of familiar scenes. In this rather dizzying image, Artur has taken position and angled his camera upwards to create a beautiful shot of natural leading lines. Like us on www.facebook.com/amateurphotographermagazine Flickr Léon Hucorne This image was taken in the Louis Vuitton Foundation art museum in Paris, France, and is a perfect example of how to create engaging silhouettes Ð expose for the highlights and ensure your subject…

Keep it clean Use a paintbrush or a pair of tweezers to remove any stray pollen or dirt. When you're shooting a light-coloured subject, such as this leaf, even the smallest amount of muck can be distracting in the final picture. Check the weather forecast When the wind speed measures 5mph or more it can be tricky to shoot flowers – unless you're using blur for artistic effect. Conditions tend to be calmer in the mornings, so it's a good idea to head out early. Reveal texture Bright but overcast days are perfect for revealing texture. Tree bark is a great example, with every knot and gash visible. If the day is bright wait for a cloud to cover the sun, diffusing the light and reducing the contrast. Explore every…

You answered… What you said ‘It’s not something I’ve ever tried, but I’d give it a go if I had a suitable subject.’ ‘I’ve used time lapse quite a bit, with decent results, but it’s not one of my favourite techniques. It’s just another thing I know I can do when the mood takes me.’ ‘I’d like to give it a go, but I never seem to be able to find the right subject.’ ‘No, I really have no interest in this subject. It just doesn’t appeal to me.’ This week we ask… Have you ever submitted images to a stock library? Vote online www.amateurphotographer.co.uk…

Is it still possible for photographers to make a living from stock? It is possible, yes, but realistically stock should form an important part of your revenue strategy. You might make print sales or carry out commissioned work, but the joy of stock is that it can make you money while you are asleep. It can be hard work shooting, editing and keywording, but it will bear fruit if your work is strong enough. The price of stock has fallen dramatically. Do you think prices will ever recover? The world is changing, in many areas. Look at the music industry: many people now have a Spotify subscription, rather than buy individual tracks. In the photography world there has been an extraordinary pressure on pricing, but the number of images being…

3 Legged Thing Equ nox Albert • £329 • www.3leggedthing.com John Huxley tries out an extra-tall tripod At a glance • Maximum height 179m • Minimum Height 13cm • Twist Leg locks Monopod Leg One of the legs can be unscrewed and a tripod head attached so it can be used as a monopod. Head clamp The clamp from the AirHed 360 head can be unscrewed and attached directly to the tripod, in place of the centre column. D-ring On the base of the centre column is a ring to attach extra ballast or a strap. IF YOU haven't come across 3 Legged Thing before, it's a UK company that's attempting to add some character to the world of tripods. One of its latest supports is from the Equinox range,…

Drive-mode dial Alongside the usual single, continuous and timer modes, this finds room for 4K Photo, 4K Post Focus and intervalometer positions. Tripod socket This is placed in line with the lens but right at the front of the body, to make space for the IS unit. This might cause problems with some tripod quick-release plates. Focus-mode switch This allows easy selection between manual focus, single shot autofocus and continuous AF. Connectors On the camera’s side are micro HDMI and micro USB ports, alongside a 2.5mm remote control connector and 3.5mm stereo microphone jack. The latter partially hinders the movement of the screen. Built-in flash The small pop-up flash is placed in front of the hotshoe, which accepts more powerful dedicated external units. Card slot As you’d expect at this…

Bokeh for iPhone 7 Plus dual camera Following its promised iOS 10.1 update, the Apple iPhone 7 Plus’s dual camera can now make use of ‘portrait mode’, using software adjustments to approximate the selective focus effects usually limited to higher-end DSLRs. The mode involves using the phone’s two lenses together to sense depth and construct composite shallow depth of field effects. Apple is calling the release an ‘open beta’, so it is still a work in progress. Award success for Fastec and bees Fastec Imaging has helped net a short film about endangered North American bees a Best Short award, after contributing its high-speed technology. To shoot his documentary, photographer Clay Bolt used a TS5 high-speed camera to capture the flight behaviour of the bees in slow motion. Learn more…

AN EXHIBITION and book celebrating the work of Terry O'Neill with the late David Bowie back in the '70s has launched in the US, with one shot from a 1974 show in LA bringing to light a particularly intriguing question: ‘Who's that girl?' ‘The first show I'd shot of David was at a very small club in London, so I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. But I was absolutely astonished at watching him perform in front of such large audiences in the US,' O'Neill says. ‘There wasn't that divide you have now between audience and performer. ‘As he bent down, I could see what was about to happen, so I readied my camera. I was able to capture that one singular moment.' But the question remains…

Keith Morris Keith has been working as a freelance news and editorial reportage photographer for more than 30 years. Recent clients include the Lottery Heritage Fund, the National Trust, Visit Wales and S4C. To see more of his work, visit www.artswebwales.com. To book a place on one of his workshops or seminars, visit www.abbeyphotoschool.co.uk/alamy_sales_seminar.html. I started selling stock photographs in the 1980s, supplying a wide range of editorial-style work on 35mm colour transparency film to Photo Library Wales, based in Cardiff. In 2006 I joined Alamy, probably the UK’s best-known generalist photo agency. Since then, I have been consistently adding to my portfolio of images with this agency, and now have something close to 40,000 photographs on the website. As a full-time press/PR/editorial/ documentary photographer, I find that the way…

‘I happened to go into the studio at that moment and grabbed the shot. I don’t think McCartney was aware I was taking it’ Harry Borden Harry is one of the UK’s finest portrait photographers and his work has been widely published. He has won prizes at the World Press Photo awards (1997 and 1999) and in 2014 he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Photographic Society. The National Portrait Gallery collection holds over 100 of his images. The invitation to photograph Sir Paul McCartney came out of the blue. It was a Thursday afternoon in March 2006 and I was on a train, heading back home to Devon after a shoot in London. The sun was shining and I was daydreaming. The train had just pulled out…

Our cameras and lenses are tested using the industry-standard Image Engineering IQ-Analyser software. Visit www.image-engineering.de for more details THE Panasonic Lumix DMC-G80 brings no real surprises in terms of image quality. Results are very similar to the GX80 before it, which uses the same sensor and also forgoes an optical low-pass filter. It can't quite match the best current APS-C cameras for dynamic range or noise when compared ISO-to-ISO, but it equals or surpasses 1in-sensor compacts, which many photographers find give perfectly acceptable image quality. It's also worth noting that the G80's effective in-body IS means that, depending on whether your subject is moving, you may not need to use such high ISOs all the time. Dynamic range The G80 gives fairly typical dynamic range measurements for a Micro Four…

YOU should probably think of the Apple iPhone 7 Plus dual-camera as two interchangeable prime lenses, rather than a zoom, the longer of which is of limited use in low-light conditions. The system is noticeably still a first-generation product and even Apple has not been able to bend the laws of physics, leaving considerable room for improvement. However, thanks to the much increased photographic flexibility in bright light and the fun-to-use Portrait Mode, the Apple variant is still the most useful dual-cam set-up we have seen so far, and a definite step in the right direction. I have enjoyed shooting with it more than with any other smartphone camera and I am looking forward to further exploring its capabilities in the coming months. If there is one reason not to…

The overall winner will stay for three nights in the stunning Ngala Lodge and four nights in the Mandina Lodges in the Makasutu Forest where you’ll receive: • Guided forest walks • River trip by pirogue • Return flights from Gatwick • Half-board at the Mandina Lodges and b&b at the Ngala Lodge The overall winner will also be invited to photograph this dream trip and have their work featured in Lonely Planet Traveller and Amateur Photographer magazines. PLUS Each category winner will win a Fujifilm X-T10 camera worth £779. This compact mirrorless digital camera turns any trip, whether in everyday life or to the other side of the world, into the ultimate photo opportunity. Visit fuji.co.uk/x-t10.…