Innholdsfortegnelse for 21-nov-15 i Amateur Photographer

Photographing people can be difficult. I think a lot of photographers believe you need models and a studio. Where do you find these people? How do you go about booking them? What’s the proper etiquette? How do you direct them? What about hair, make-up, lighting and studio hire? And then there’s the worry of looking foolish by making a mistake or not knowing quite what you’re doing. It’s no wonder many people don’t bother. It doesn’t have to be like this. Friends and family often make better subjects. They’re more understanding. And forget the studio. If you photograph people where they feel comfortable you’ll get natural looking images as a result – and images that mean something to both you and them. Read more on pages 10-15, and then perhaps…

DRONE maker DJI has acquired a minority stake in legendary camera maker Hasselblad, a company with a history of aerial photography including NASA space missions. The ‘strategic partnership' will allow the companies to combine their ‘technical knowledge and inventive spirit'. Hasselblad CEO Perry Oosting said: ‘DJI and Hasselblad are equally enthusiastic about creativity and excellence, and we are looking forward to sharing technical expertise and paving the way for future innovations.' DJI's founder and CEO Frank Wang said: ‘With this partnership, we combine our strengths to further push the borders of what's possible in imaging technology.' Founded nearly 75 years ago, Hasselblad has focused on medium-format camera gear. Subscribe to Amateur Photographer SAVE 28%* Visit amateurphotographer subs.co.uk (or see page 50) * when you pay by UK Direct Debit…

Steve Morgan Steve is based in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, and specialises in location portraiture for editorial and corporate clients. Known for his strong graphic style, his work is regularly commissioned by national and international clients. www.stevemorganphoto.co.uk Telling stories in photography is not just the preserve of the globe-trotting photojournalist. Taking a portrait of a person in their home, place of work or community can convey a sense of who they are, their character, an insight into their personality and a window into their lives. This is environmental portraiture. Also known as location portraiture, this technique uses the surroundings not only to provide context but also to help create a mood and a composition that contributes to an understanding of that person. The beauty is that most of us will…

1. Context When shooting an environmental portrait, choose a location to add context and relevance to the story you're telling. Here I shot the CEO of a wool-clothing manufacturer pictured with textile looms and wearing the company's product. 2. Add drama If you want to add a bit of extra drama to your shot, the use of off-camera flash can be incredibly successful. Here the flash side lit the subject, and the ambient exposure was underexposed to isolate him from the background. 3. Differential focus Using an 85mm f/1.2 lens at f/1.6, I was able to ensure this shepherd in the Lake District with his prize ram was separated from the background. It also allowed me to include the context of farm, fields and countryside. Keep the point of focus…

Market girl, Beijing, China Fotospeed dyes and Zig pens For this I used one of Roger Hicks’s images printed on Ilford Multigrade WT RC Matt paper. The print is wiped with a cellulose sponge dampened with distilled water and a few drops of wetting solution. Some people soak their prints for several minutes then blot or squeegee them dry. I don’t like working on wet prints, and sometimes even work dry. 1 Adding dye By way of experiment, I tried spreading the blue of the sky with cotton wool. It worked, but didn’t blend like oils. 2 Painting with no1 brush Next I switched to a brush, using brown warmed up with a flesh tone for the interior of the roof and the boxes behind the girl. 3 Test colours…

Northeast Millennium Bridge, Tyne and Wear This dramatic pedestrian tilt bridge is a must-photograph location along the River Tyne and is often referred to as ‘the Blinking Eye’ bridge due to the way it raises for river traffic to pass through. Yorkshire Ribblehead Viaduct, North Yorkshire By Michael Topham www.michaeltopham.co.uk Ribblehead in North Yorkshire is best known for its viaduct, which carries the Settle-Carlisle Railway across Batty Moss in the valley of the River Ribble. This Grade II-listed structure has been standing for more than 140 years and is still used today for its original purpose. East of England Herringfleet Mill, Suffolk By Justin Minns www.justinminns.co.uk There's no shortage of windmills in this part of the country, and although it's wonderfully preserved it's the location that makes this one special.…

All-metal construction The barrel is made of a good-quality aluminium alloy. Flare-resistant The inside is painted matt black to suppress reflection of stray light. Lens release A sliding tab releases the lens, allowing you to remove it quickly and easily. Commlite CM-EF-MFT mount adapter • £98 • Available from www.amazon.co.uk Andy Westlake tests an electronic adapter for Canon-mount lenses At a glance • Enables Canon EF and EF-S lenses to be mounted on Micro Four Thirds cameras • Allows electronic setting of the aperture THE RISE of compact system cameras has seen an explosion of interest in adapting lenses of different mounts for use on them. However, this is difficult with modern electronic mounts such as Canon EF, as it requires translation circuitry between the camera and lens. Luckily, such…

Detail orientated QI am currently using a Canon EOS 1200D with a Sigma 17-70mm lens attached. I also own a Sigma 10-20mm f /4.5-5.6 wideangle, Sigma 50-200mm f/4-5.6 and Canon EFS 24mm lens. The main subjects I like to photograph are landscapes and architecture, but I'd like a better zoom lens so I can focus in on more detail in the architecture. I have about £250 to spend. What would you recommend? Stephen Todd A To get better architectural detail than you can from your Sigma 50-200mm, you’ll need a longer focal-length lens. It’s also important to make sure that whatever you buy includes optical image stabilisation, otherwise you risk image blur ruining your shots. Looking at buying new, your best bet would probably be the Tamron SP AF 70-300mm…

LAUNCHED 1959 PRICE £50 14s 4d (£50.71 in 1960) GUIDE PRICE TODAY £30-£50 IN 1959 Agfa responded to the success of Kodak's Retina IIIC and other coupled-rangefinder cameras with multiple brightline viewfinders for various focal lengths, by launching the Ambi Silette. A rigid-bodied coupledrangefinder camera, it featured a bayonet-mount 50mm f/2.8 Color Solinar four-glass interchangeable lens. A 35mm f/4 Color Ambion wideangle lens, a 90mm f/4 Color Telinear and a 130mm f/4 Color Telinear were launched at the same time. All were high-performance lenses coupled to the camera rangefinder/viewfinder, which had switchable 35mm, 50mm, and 90mm brightline viewfinder frames. The 130mm lens used an accessory optical viewfinder that came with the lens. The camera's viewfinders were behind an irritating spring flap, which the photographer raised, if it hadn't already raised…

Frederick Wiseman's three-hour documentary film on The National Gallery includes a tantalising glimpse of a gallery photographer at work. The gallery started photographing its priceless works in1919 and has often helped develop new recording methods; it was a digital pioneer as early as 2002, shooting all its paintings using custom-built high-res digital cameras. Their use of sophisticated and groundbreaking techniques continues, as I discovered when I met photographer Anna Arca while she was recording a resplendent 14th century panel by Giovanni da Rimini. As you'd expect, there was a colour chart beneath the painting for calibration and power-stabilised lights at an acute an angle as possible to minimise reflections. More surprisingly, perhaps, the gallery routinely uses ‘multi-shot' technology. Instead of a single exposure, Anna's 50-million-pixel Hasselblad takes four shots to…

Prime lens A wide maximum aperture is important to focus quickly and shoot at a reasonable ISO and shutter speed. My current favourites are the Canon 35mm f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.2. A 50mm f/1.8 or f/1.4 are more affordable alternatives. Lighting The Elinchrom Ranger Quadra with two heads and two hybrid power packs means I can work away from the mains with a powerful flash. When travelling light, two Canon Speedlites and an ST-E2 transmitter do the job. Reflector The California Sunbounce Pro kit with its large 6x4ft reflector area provides effective fill-in light for subjects up to full length. It can be used outdoors shooting against the sun, or indoors by bouncing window light to increase shadow detail. Gaffer tape The photographer’s enduring friend, this is an essential piece…

Two words sum up all you need to know about hand colouring: try it. There are no rules, and without giving it a go you can’t tell what will work. For example, most inkjet papers are awful to work with, but just before I started this article I tried using coloured pencils bought in Lidl on Canson Arches paper from a shop selling surplus stock. It worked superbly. I also tried some ancient oil pastels on my favourite silver halide paper, Ilford Multigrade Art 300. They worked just fine, too. Choosing a print Choose a photograph you like, but don’t practise on your best prints, especially when colouring with materials you might not have used before. Use test prints, spares and rejects. Even ‘failures’ can teach you for next time.…

DAMIAN is also known for trying square formats, but is keen to stress it's more about whatever format suits the scene than any deliberate formula. ‘On location, I take the time to move around the space with my eye to the viewfinder, or with live view enabled, to assess my composition before bringing out the tripod,' he says. ‘As I was coming off film and going digital, I went through a transitional period of producing a lot of square crops. I think this was off the back of shooting 120 rollfilm from my wee twin-lens Yashica, which I loved for its lovely square-top viewfinder!'…

Christopher Hill, Norfolk ‘Having been born and raised in Norfolk, I've always had the big skies and iconic Norfolk windmills on my doorstep,' says Christopher. ‘Every time I pick up my camera and go out, there's something exciting about not knowing what I might capture. Learning to adapt to the surrounding environment, and being best prepared, is paramount.' The Reader Portfolio winner chosen every week will receive a copy of Helicon Focus Pro innovative software worth $200. Visit www.heliconsoft.com Helicon Focus is designed to merge several differently focused images into a fully focused one, thus allowing extreme depth of field. You can produce sharp images in one click, retouch results with special brushes and enjoy all the benefits of state-of-the-art technology to make your images stand out Submit your images…

Polaroid and GoPro row Polaroid camera-maker C&A Marketing has sued GoPro, claiming the GoPro Hero4 Session, unveiled this summer, copies the ‘rounded edges, slightly recessed lens and single button on top’ of the Polaroid Cube (pictured) that was launched last year. GoPro denies it infringed the patent and claims it was developing its camera ‘well before’ Polaroid filed its patent. Sigma dp Quattro design award The Sigma dp Quattro series of compact cameras, the first of which sported a body shape described as bulky and awkward by AP last year, has won the German Design Award 2016’s Excellent Product Design Entertainment category. The German Design Council praised the camera’s ‘excellent proportions, light weight and perfect ergonomics’. Demand for Sony cameras slides 27% Unit sales of Sony digital cameras, including interchangeable-lens…

PHOTOGRAPHERS can turn their digital photos into large-format 20x24in Polaroid prints in a new service from the Impossible Project. Supersense is the brainchild of the Impossible Project founder Florian Kaps. ‘At the click of a mouse, everybody can now expose personal, digital images with the legendary 20x24 camera,' the company said of the service, which costs € 250 for a single 20x24 ‘online exposure'. ‘Customers simply send their digital photographs to Supersense, where one of the seven worldwide-available 20x24 camera giants is located. ‘Supersense 20x24 experts then expose digital images from an iPad Mini's retina display, through the 20x24 camera onto 20x24 film.' For more details visit http://largeformat.supersense.com. For the latest news visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk…

SELF-GENERATED projects form an integral part of a professional photographer's portfolio. I wanted to do a picture story on manual workers in industrial environments. Many industries today have modernised into sleek, clean and automated factories, but it is still possible to find places where traditional working methods are the norm. Hargreaves Foundry in Halifax, West Yorkshire, kindly allowed me to spend a day at its works and gave me excellent access. The glow from the molten metal in the cauldron and in the furnace was very evocative, but they were the only spots of light in a generally dark foundry. Flash lighting was essential to create the mood of the portraits I required. In the image right, the foundryman and furnace are lit by a Canon 580EX II Speedlite to…

Church of St Thomas à Becket, Kent Marshall’s oils and Faber-Castell watercolour pencils This is an image on 12x16in Ilford Multigrade Art 300 paper, and before hand colouring I spotted it with SpotPens, although any spotting dye would do. Don’t use watercolours as they may lift or smear, and make sure you work quickly otherwise it’s harder to blend colours. 1 Blending the blue First I coloured the sky using a wad of cotton wool, spreading and blending simultaneously, using the same blue for the water. 2 Green in front of church Next came the broad area of green, this time on a cotton bud. You can just about see how I made small circular motions to spread and blend the colour. 3 Colouring the church The church itself required…

Having read Keith Massey's letter Image appropriation (AP 31 October) and Richard Sibley's reply, I believe we haven't learnt that the freedoms gained by sharing on the internet also carry responsibility. It seems we expect to access and download our media free of charge – the recorded music business has been irrevocably damaged by ‘free' downloading and streaming, and we know how Taylor Swift publicly attacked the launch of Apple Music where artists were to receive no payment while Apple built its market base. We also know that films can often be accessed illegally, and I don't believe the makers of those millions of mini movies on YouTube are contributing royalties to the original creators of copyrighted imagery and background music. Photography is also susceptible to the same challenges: remuneration…

‘I DON’T believe that “good kit” is a recipe for success,’ Damian insists. ‘A good photographer can consistently produce rich, impactful images on all manner of cameras, regardless of the cost. I’ve always shopped around a lot when getting together my kit and frequently buy second-hand. The only types of photographers who should feel threatened by the emergence of better tech in the hands of amateurs are the ones who believe in the myth that good kit equals good images.’ Damian currently shoots with a Nikon D800, an upgrade from his Canon EOS 7D. ‘I’ve always pursued wider tonal range and resolution with each upgrade through the years,’ he says. ‘I used to manually stitch several exposures to achieve larger files, but now I’m more than happy with my D800’s…

Enhancing the sunset colours BY WORKING during the golden hour, Alf Bailey has managed to capture the lovely sunset colours hitting the concrete groynes. The original photograph is a little dark and the exposure could have been increased. However, I expect Alf was trying not to lose any cloud detail, so exposed more for the sky. There was a lot of intricate texture and soft detail that needed to be emphasised here. I was able to do this by adding lots of Clarity. At the same time, increasing the Tone contrast and adding Vibrance helped boost the colour contrast. 1 Basic panel adjustments First, I opened the raw file and adjusted the Exposure slider, increasing the brightness by 1 stop. Using the Highlights slider, I darkened the light tones to…

Resolution The 15mm gives decent results in our Applied Imaging MTF tests, here on the full-frame Canon EOS 5D Mark III. Wide open at f/4 it’s pretty sharp in the centre, but the corners lag some way behind. They improve on stopping down, though, with the sharpest overall results at f/8. Stopping down further results in progressive diffraction softening, with f/32 generally best avoided unless extended depth of field is paramount. Shading With the lens’s small optical unit and wide view, it’s no great surprise to see quite strong vignetting at f/4, with 1.8EV fall off in illumination at the corners on full frame. This diminishes on stopping down, and by f/8 it drops to below 1EV, which is unlikely to be troublesome in practical use. Curvilinear distortion Not unusually…

Resolution Resolution is pretty good at all aperture settings and, while of course corners and the centre get better as we close down, I was pleased with the amount of detail gathered at f/1.8. The best overall aperture is f/4, with the corners catching up by f/8, but sharpness tails off from f/11. It is interesting to see that wide-open resolution is better than when the lens is fully closed. Shading Shading is quite visible at the widest couple of settings on this lens, but that is to be expected. It is rather nice, in fact, so long as you aren’t being scientific. There’s a maximum of 1.2EV fall-off of brightness in the corners at f/1.8, which diminishes progressively on stopping down. Most of us will consider it gone by…

1 iPhone 6 I use an assortment of Canon cameras for big commercial jobs, but we’re selling more and more micro content shoots for our clients. I’m shooting stills and video, editing and posting on the fly. Therefore, there’s no better all-in-one device than the iPhone. 2 Sunblock Due to the nature of the work I’m doing at the moment, I’m shooting throughout south-east Asia, and at a variety of resorts. That means I’m always out in the sun. I’m extremely pasty and I burn instantly, so this is a must. 3 LifeProof Waterproof Case Often I’m in pools, in the ocean, sailing at sea or being crushed by waves, so it’s absolutely imperative that my phone is kept waterproof. I love this little device because it allows me access…

About 1,500 years ago, a Slavic tribe settled around what is now called the river Spree in eastern Germany. They were known variously as Sorbs, Wends and Lusatians, and today they are an official minority nation living in Brandenburg and Saxony. Their Wendish language is reminiscent of both Czech and Polish, and may have been one of the foundations of Yiddish. Their traditions are strong and fiercely guarded, with traditional costumes still widely worn on Sundays as well as for weddings and religious or other festivals. Of course, you have to be careful with the word ‘tradition’: this picture evokes the 17th and 18th centuries, but probably pre-Christian influences mean that young girls play an important part in several ancient Sorbian customs and ceremonies. Until Les Rencontres d’Arles photography festival…