Innholdsfortegnelse for 27/03/2021 i Amateur Photographer

Most of us spend our time trying to shoehorn fragments of life into a rectangle with an aspect ratio of 3:2 or 4:3. But some subjects cry out for a wider stage, and not just landscapes. Remember that virtually all movies are shot in widescreen. This week John Wade looks at creating panoramas both digitally, by stitching, and using the wonderful variety of panoramic film cameras. We also investigate the growing cottage industry of manufacturing unusual and interesting cameras using the relatively new technology of 3D printing. It’s common for film shooters to scan their negs and print digitally, but it’s less common the other way around: shooting digitally and printing in a wet darkroom. Matt Walkley tells us why he works this way. Also we test Sony’s new flagship,…

HOT ON the heels of its premium FE 35mm F1.4 GM, Sony has introduced another high-end prime lens. The FE 50mm F1.2 GM is clearly something of a statement optic which rebuts the notion that Sony’s relatively narrow-diameter E-mount might be limited in its ability to support large-aperture primes. The lens is also smaller, lighter and less expensive than its Canon and Nikon equivalents. Indeed at 87mm in diameter, 108mm in length and 778g, the 50mm f/1.2 is only slightly larger than Sony’s existing Zeiss-badged FE 50mm F1.4 ZA, while weighing exactly the same. Optically it employs 14 elements in 10 groups, including 3 advanced aspherical (AA) elements that aim to deliver high cross-frame resolution even at maximum aperture, while suppressing chromatic aberration and producing attractive background blur free of…

Dogs: The Human Animals by Vincent Lagrange £25, TeNeues, hardback, 176 pages, ISBN: 9783961713042 Few books bring as much delight to the AP team as those about our canine companions. In Dogs: The Human Animals by Vincent Lagrange, we get a beautiful and charming set of pooch portraits that reflect our own human emotions and characteristics onto myriad different species. The shots themselves are taken in front of neutral backgrounds, allowing the characters and details of the dogs to really sing from the page. They are wonderfully lit and each image leaves you with something to return to – particularly on a grey lockdown day. Other animals have appeared in The Human Animals series, but it’s arguably only dogs with which we share such a special bond, and as such,…

ASA (Acrylic Styrene Acrylonitrile) and ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene). Two common plastic filaments used in 3D printing. They are available in numerous colours, supplied as a long strip around a spool, and are heated to melting point during the printing process. CAD (Computer Aided Design). The files required for generating both 2D and 3D modelling. Various CAD software programmes can be used and the designs for printing are saved and supplied as .stl files or other formats. FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling). This is the most commonly used method of 3D printing at consumer level. It is an ‘additive’ process where a thermoplastic filament, such as ASA, is heated to melting point and ‘printed’ or extruded, layer by layer to create a solid object. PETG (Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol). A popular filament…

Connectors The left side of the body hosts ethernet, PC flash sync, headphone, microphone, HDMI, USB-C and micro USB ports. The latter accepts an electronic cable release, while USB-C can be used to power the camera or charge the battery. Vertical grip The Alpha 1 accepts the same £399 VG-C4EM grip as the A7R IV, A7S III and A9 II, which holds two batteries for double the stamina and provides a duplicate set of controls for portrait-format shooting. Power Sony’s familiar NP-FZ100 Li-ion battery promises 430 shots per charge with the EVF, or 530 using the LCD. White balance A new light-source sensor positioned on the front of the body beside the AF illuminator promises more accurate automatic white balance. Touchscreen Like the A7S III, the Alpha 1 now has…

AP: Tell us a little about your photography background TH: I have always had an appreciation for photography. But my journey in photography began one day in 2014 when I bought a camera to start sharing the amazing views I was experiencing daily as a Senior First Officer flying the Airbus A321 for Monarch Airlines. I wanted to share the sunrises, sunsets and stunning views that I was so lucky to experience. I must admit I had no idea what I was doing back then, but after many failed attempts and a steep learning curve, I began to find my style and learned what I enjoyed shooting. My photography kit and skill set very quickly expanded into motorsport as well as aviation, which is when I discovered Fujifilm and my…

Market Daffs by Bert Hardy A woman holding a large bunch of daffodils at Covent Garden Market, London. This image was originally featured in the story ‘Spring Comes to Covent Garden’, published in the Picture Post in 1950. There are many different types of daffodil, with many of them having charming names such as the ‘Petit Four’, ‘New Baby’, ‘Red Devon’, ‘Tahiti’ and even the ‘Sir Winston Churchill’. 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 digital age. Explore it at www.gettyimages.com.…

IT’S BEEN a tough time for camera retailers, to put it mildly, and a testament to their resilience and the loyalty of customers that, thankfully, most seem to have survived relatively unscathed. One bit of good news comes from Wex Photo Video, which has announced that it is opening a new 3,000 sq ft store in Leeds. The store, set to open ‘late spring’ this year, will be located in Moor Allerton District Centre. This is an established retail park, which includes big-name tenants such as Sainsbury’s, Argos and Homebase and is approximately four miles north of Leeds city centre, with 230 free parking spaces. ‘The last year has been challenging but we remain in a strong position and online sales have held up well,’ said CEO Louis Wahl, shown.…

31 March 2001 EDITORS love a pun and 20 years ago this week AP’s cover featured some fairly risqué ones. As Features Editor I presented a ten-page profile of Gered Mankowitz, who was celebrating 40 years in the business. Best known for that Hendrix portrait, he also shot many other classic images, including Kate Bush’s Lionheart cover and portraits of everyone from Harry Secombe to Oasis. Today, looking barely a day older, he’s on the selection panel for AP’s Greatest Album Covers series. This 2001 issue also saw the continuation of our series recreating images from the book Hollywood Portraits, by the late Roger Hicks. Too cheap to hire a model, we press-ganged our sub-editor Breandan Maguire to stand in for Cary Grant – he had successfully stood in for…

The Animal Photojournalism feature in AP 30 January is one of the most moving I’ve ever read in the pages of AP – and I’ve been a reader for about 40 years. The article was brilliant, it superbly highlighted the cause of animal photojournalism and the dedication and bravery of the photographers. For me though, there is an underlying message in the feature – of the power of photojournalism. Many years ago I read an article by the great Eamonn McCabe about the lack of print space allocated to raw photojournalism. Printed pictures and reports that are often, by the very nature of their subjects, shocking, are not seen so much in print as they once were. Of course, there is a whole world of good photography features on the…

The crops shown below are taken from the area outlined above in red Sony’s new 50MP sensor follows on from its other recent designs in delivering superb output. At low ISOs it combines exceptional levels of detail with impressive dynamic range, while its high-ISO noise control is also praiseworthy. You need to stick to ISO 400 or lower to see the full benefit of its remarkable resolution, with the finest detail starting to blur away once the sensitivity is raised higher. Go beyond ISO 3200 and shadow detail starts to disappear, but even so, I’d be happy using up to ISO 32,000 as a matter of course. The extended ISO 51,200 and 102,400 settings aren’t great, but still deliver recognisable images. RAW ISO 100 RAW ISO 25,600 RAW ISO 3200…

● £140 ● www.syrp.co/uk-en SYRP HAS gained a strong reputation for its motion control devices, which allow users to take precise control of camera movement wirelessly using the free and intuitive Syrp app. The company’s latest release is different in that it has no influence on camera movement. Instead, it’s aimed at those looking for advanced time-lapse functionality, as well as live control of key exposure settings when shooting stills or video. The small black disc slides onto your camera’s hot shoe with the power button facing the rear. It lacks a lock, but shouldn’t slip off unless it receives a knock. To take advanced remote control, which includes firing the shutter, start/stopping video, adjusting ISO, aperture and shutter speed as well as programming time-lapse sequences, you’re required to plug…

Cameras Cameras come in three types: DSLRs with optical viewfinders, mirrorless models with electronic viewing, and compact cameras with non-interchangeable lenses AMOST all serious photographers prefer to use cameras with interchangeable lenses, as this gives the greatest degree of creative flexibility. At one time, this meant digital single-lens-reflex (DSLR) cameras, but these have now been joined by mirrorless cameras that use electronic viewfinders. The latest models are true alternatives to DSLRs, offering the same image quality and creative options. Camera manufacturers offer a range of options, from simple, relatively inexpensive beginner-friendly designs, to sophisticated professional models. In the middle of the range you’ll find enthusiast cameras with more advanced control layouts. Meanwhile the term ‘compact’ refers to cameras with built-in lenses, regardless of their size. Many offer excellent image quality…

Do you remember slow news days? When there wasn’t much going on, so newspapers resorted to wacky features and the funny photos stashed in the bottom drawer of the picture editor’s desk. They seem a distant memory now. The period when frivolous news stories appeared in the papers while MPs took their break has been known as the ‘Silly Season’ since the early 1860s, but any week in which not much else was happening might prompt a flurry of humorous human-interest stories to pop up. There’s not much to laugh at in dispatches at the moment, and very often it seems there is far more bad news to be broken than can comfortably be accommodated in a newspaper or a 35-minute slot on TV. So many pressing and immediate issues…

AP picture of the week The Forth Rail Bridge by Paul Mills Canon EOS 5D Mark III, 24-70mm F2.8L II @ 24mm, 30 sec at f/9 ‘I enjoy landscape photography that includes man-made objects and was looking forward to shooting the Forth Rail Bridge – a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Scotland’s great icons,’ says Paul. ‘At the time the image was taken, I was living in Aberdeen and decided to stay in North Queensferry overnight (approx. two hours’ drive) so that I could shoot the Forth Rail Bridge at both sunset and sunrise. It was foggy for both sunset and sunrise, but the fog was lit up by the bridge lighting making for a pleasing image.’ Paul’s atmospheric shot is imbued with an air of tranquility and…

Sensor 50.1MP CMOS, 35.9 x 24.0mm Output size 8640 x 5760 Focal length mag 1x Lens mount Sony E Shutter speeds 1/8000sec – 30sec (mechanical); 1/32,000sec – 30sec (electronic) Sensitivity ISO 100-32,000 (standard), ISO 50-102,400 (extended) Exposure modes PASM, Movie, S+Q Metering Multi, centre-weighted, spot, average, highlight Exposure comp +/-5EV in 0.3EV steps Cont. shooting 30fps Screen 3in, 1.44m-dot tilting touchscreen Viewfinder 9.44m-dot, 0.9x magnification AF points 759 phase-detection Video 8K up to 30fps, 4K up to 120fps External mic 3.5mm stereo Memory card 2x UHS-II SD / CFexpress A Power NP-FZ100 Li-ion Battery life 430 (EVF), 530 (LCD) Dimensions 128.9x96.9x80.8mm Weight 737g incl battery & card…