Innholdsfortegnelse for 10/04/2021 i Amateur Photographer

After over a year in and out of lockdowns we are now gradually easing our way back to normality, but it will be a slow and careful journey and we’re still going to be spending a lot of our time at home for the foreseeable future. It’s lucky there is so much that we can photograph within our four walls – whether it’s the people we live with, our pets, the food in our kitchen or the objects in our drawers. And then there’s the endless range of subject matter to be found in your garden. You will be able to enjoy photographing many of these subjects using just natural light, but if you want to take things further we present a guide to some of the supplementary lighting options…

Mr Brice by Oliver Woodbury Fujifilm X-T2, XF 16mm f2.8, 1/60sec at f/2.8, ISO 400 ‘I work with the elderly in their homes, most of whom are housebound,’ explains Oliver. ‘With the pandemic at its peak I began a project taking photographs of Covid survivors. Mr Brice contracted pneumonia and coronavirus in January. This was taken a few weeks ago and shows the effects of someone who has survived all that has been thrown at him. He sees the lighter side of life, and he is never far from his budgie George or his jigsaw on his table. I shot in monochrome as I wished to keep some mystery about my subjects’ personal environment, but I also enjoy how it brings out the wisdom of my subjects.’ Scissors by Roy…

9 April 1941 The YMCA Snapshot from Home League was a scheme in which homesick soldiers could write in to request a photo of the family back home, and the YMCA would send the closest of its 11,000 volunteer amateur photographers to that soldier’s house and take the photo, which would then be sent on to them. The cover shot of this issue, entitled ‘A Soldier’s Folk’ was such a photo, taken by Helen Hinkley. She told AP about her bus journey into deepest Sussex to meet the parents of Private S, who requested the picture for himself and his brother. ‘Something really “homey” was what I wanted for those home-loving boys,’ she wrote, ‘and we got it in the living room. By the brightly glowing range, the kettle hospitably…

Round One Black & White Our black & white round always attracts a huge number of entries, and this year was no different, with more than 1,300 images submitted for judging. Our team of ten judges, which included AP editor Nigel Atherton, photographer Gavin Prest and Olivia Harris, Saturday picture editor at The Times, whittled entries down to the top ten you see here. To see more, including the 150-strong shortlist, and to enter, visit www.photocrowd.com. 1 Ian Bramham UK 100pts Nikon D800, 16-35mm at 16mm, 1/15sec at f/8, ISO 140 Guest judge Gavin Prest says: ‘This atmospheric image has been handled extremely well, particularly as it was shot in conditions that can be tricky. Despite its bright highlights and dark shadows, giving a very wide range for the camera’s…

As a starting point, I always shoot with quite an extreme colour temperature. And because I shoot long exposures, the warm, orange tones are exaggerated even more. I don’t like to do too much work in post. My subjects have to stay extremely still because I’m working with shutter speeds of around 1/2 to 3 seconds. I use a mirrorless Sony A77 II SLT camera and remote trigger to reduce any camera shake, even if it’s not me in the picture. Stillness is key. Sometimes, if I need additional light, I’ll use another device with a colour brought up from Google [image search] and place it out of sight. I have a tungsten light that I will place outside a window if needed. Start by eliminating all artificial light, so…

Hot shoe spirit level This nifty little spirit level clips into the hot shoe and allows you to instantly see if your camera alignment›is both vertically and horizontally›correct. Vinyl›backdrops Vinyl backgrounds are easy to store because they roll up, and they easily wipe clean for those essential drips and drizzles required for food photography. This one is called Latte Marble and comes from Capture By Lucy (www.capturebylucy.com). Rotolight NEO 2 This small LED light is perfect for fill lighting or boosting light in areas I want to stand out – to shine through liquids like olive oil or honey, for example.…

Westcott Ice Light 2 ● £549 ● www.fjwestcott.com If you’re after a portable, continuous light source that’s great for light painting or adding extra illumination to subjects, the Ice Light 2 comes highly recommended. It has simple controls, provides daylight-balanced light that’s wonderfully diffused and has sufficient power with 18-step dimming control. Barn doors (£60) can be purchased to control the spill of light and the rechargeable battery can be replaced with a spare (£70) if you’d like to use it for longer than an hour. Users have the option to control the Ice Light 2 wirelessly from an iPhone or iPad using Bluetooth technology via the Ice Light app. Ray Flash Universal Ringflash Adapter ● £99 ● www.ray-flash.com The Ray Flash Universal Ringflash Adapter is the perfect way to…

1 Download and apply With your image open in Photoshop go to Filter>Neural Filters, and click on Skin Smoothing. The first time you use it you’ll be prompted to download the Filter which will install automatically. Once active, simply drag the Blur slider to the right until the desired effect is achieved. Smoothness smooths out tones and is most realistic left close to the default setting. 2 Manual fine-tuning Set Output to New Layer and hit OK. You can now use the newly created Layer 0 with the skin smoothing effect as a retouching Layer to apply manual spotting. Use the Healing Brush tool to remove more-prominent blemishes by holding down the Alt key and left mouse clicking to sample skin close to the blemish, then left mouse click over…

Silver Sax Six by Fox Photos A female saxophone band, known as The Silver Sax Six, take advantage of the open air by rehearsing on the beach while on a tour of the south coast in April 1938. The tour included locations such as Margate. The leader of the group, seen on the left, is Nita Dalton. The image is one of the thousands in the Hulton Archive from Fox Photos, one of the great press agencies of Fleet Street’s golden age – a ‘stringer’ working for the agency is listed as having taken this photo, so we can’t say for sure exactly who took it. 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…

SOTHEBY’S Photographs department will mark its Golden Jubilee with a major auction from April 12-22, featuring famous images by some of the greatest names in photography. A big highlight is an archive of nearly 200 early photographs by William Fox Talbot (auction estimate US$300,000-500,000). Gifted in the 1840s to his half-sister, Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, this collection has been passed down through the family and comes to auction for the first time. Also coming to auction for the first time is Lee Miller’s ‘Nude’, dated to 1930 while the photographer was living in Paris. Another big name to be featured is Ansel Adams. An early print of his iconic 1941 image, ‘Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico’, is estimated to fetch an eye-watering US$500,000-700,000. Meanwhile an early print of Robert Frank’s ‘US…

Rhiannon Buckle From furry to scaly and everything in between, Rhiannon loves capturing the unique personalities of pets. Based in the studio, she uses a variety of lighting styles to capture fun moments. rhiannonbuckle. co.uk, @rhiannonbuckle_petphotography. Find the eye contact A portrait of a pet looking straight down the lens is powerful and engaging, but you need to get their attention. I have a treat pouch on my belt and I’ll continually reward them for good behaviour. For eye contact it helps to hold a treat directly on the top of the lens so they are focused there, but you don’t have to do this yourself, you can get the owner or someone else to guide them in the direction you want. As well as treats and toys, noises are…

Nigel Glasgow, London About Nigel Nigel is a tour manager, sound engineer and photographer. Favourite subjects Portraiture and night street photography. Through music, I’m very accustomed to working with people and creating, and this transfers well to portraiture. How did you get into photography? My job meant I never had the time to learn photography properly. During lockdown, when the live music industry came to a standstill, I used the time to delve into the art form, watching hours of YouTube videos. First camera A Pentax Z-1p, which was inherited from my grandfather, Raphael. What do you love about photography? Its ability to make something ordinary extraordinary. I love shooting places we see every day and making them exciting – not by using any fancy trickery, just by seeing them…

Romantic lifestyle Susan Grimes Based in North Carolina, US, Susan has been capturing family adventures since her three-year stay in the UK. An expert in composition and lifestyle photography, she is a primary instructor for the Click Photo School. www.instagram.com/susan.grimes, www. clickphotoschool.com/foundations-of-composition. Use all your tools Make it simple but make it powerful. All the elements included in the frame contribute to the story your image is telling. If they’re visible, then you’re saying these elements are important; include only elements that help tell a meaningful and visually interesting story. To do this, you need to use all the tools at your disposal: light, perspective, focal length and aperture choice. Leave only the most impactful details and make sure your subject stands out within the scene. Concentrate on avoiding distracting…

50mm prime lens My go-to lens for still-life photography is a Canon 50mm f/1.8 prime, as it doesn’t distort my composition in any way. It also gives me a good f-stop range, which enables me to experiment more with depth of field for creativity. Dimmable LED light If I want to control the light more, I use a Neewer Dimmable Professional LED Light with U Bracket and Barndoor fittings. It sits on a stand that I can adjust, and I can hang sheer white material over it to create the same effect as a softbox. Tripod Having your hands free makes it easier to adjust objects and lighting between shots. It also comes in handy for shots that require longer shutter speeds. I use a Manfrotto 190XPROB with Manfrotto 322RC2…

If you shoot portraits, it’s inevitable that at some point you’ll need to retouch them in one way or another. We’re not talking about plastic-looking skin which is still common in the advertising world, but rather it may simply be gentle skin smoothing and the removal of a blemish; something that isn’t a permanent fixture on your model’s face. Retouching portraits can be as simple or as complicated as you like, with varying degrees of intervention ranging from just the quick removal of the odd blemish to full skin smoothing using frequency separation retouching techniques. For those of you not familiar with the latter, it’s the skin smoothing technique favoured by professional retouchers and photographers. At a basic level, frequency separation is about splitting portraits into two frequencies: low frequency…

1 Apply a Template Load your images into the Catalog before selecting one to edit. When you click on the Templates tab, Luminar AI will suggest the Templates it thinks are most suitable based on the content of the image, or you can apply any of the other options below. For this image, no Template was applied because the same adjustments were applied to the images in each software option. 2 Work with Skin AI Once finished in the Templates section, click on the Edit tab where a list of controls will appear on the right. Expand Skin and check Skin Defects Removal before moving the Amount slider right until the desired skin smoothing is achieved, and then the same with the Shine Removal slider. The results of both sliders…

In my previous article, I discussed Sony’s stacked sensor technology and promised another article about how it’s used it in the new Alpha 1 camera. In the meantime, Nikon has issued a press release on its own stacked sensor technology, so I thought it would be timely to compare and contrast. Firstly, it’s worth saying a little about Nikon’s sensor operation. Although most Nikon cameras use Sony sensors, it also has the ability to design and produce its own. In this respect it acts as a ‘fabless’ company (like AMD), using commercial services to process its silicon wafers. This has a lot of advantages, but also some disadvantages, in that when it comes to new processes it is necessary to find a partner that can undertake them. Nikon is in…

‘His photos hint at something but never completely reveal what is going on’ Saul Leiter (American, 1923–2013) has been described as one of the most important early colour photographers of the 20th century. His images of New York’s hustle and bustle are, on the face of it, not about anything very much but are paradoxically alive with narrative and poetic possibilities. A photographer who became known for never being in a great hurry to make his photographs, Leiter never set out to capture anything in particular – ‘I simply looked at the world, not really prepared for anything,’ he once said – but managed time and again to create images that say so much about how we are as people and what it means to be alive. A master of…

SONY has had a busy start to the year expanding its lens lineup, and has now announced a set of affordable ultra-compact primes. The Sony FE 24mm F2.8 G, FE 40mm F2.5 G and FE 50mm F2.5 G all feature a design philosophy that bears a certain resemblance to Sigma’s I-series lenses, boasting an aperture ring and premium aluminium construction. Sony says the aim is to provide high optical quality in a compact, lightweight design, along with superb build quality and excellent operability. All three lenses are exactly the same size, at 60mm in diameter and 45mm in length, with weights varying from 162g to 174g. They feature selectable clicked or clickless aperture ring operation, an AF/MF switch, and a focus hold button on the side of the dust- and…

Do what gives you pleasure My weekly issue of Amateur Photographer has been a welcome gift during lockdown. In recent years, and in retirement, I decided to return to photography as a hobby. My initial thoughts were Canon or Nikon but my elder son introduced me to Fujifilm. Now I have an X-T4 as my main camera with a good range of excellent XF lenses and am delighted with the results. I also have a Panasonic Lumix LX100 II (for its excellent portability and features) and a Canon SX70 HS (its amazing zoom makes it my ‘go to’ camera for wildlife in the garden.) I truly believe that photography is very personal. You should do whatever gives you pleasure. I am a member of a local camera club. We meet…

THE WINNER of Round One of APOY is Ian Bramham, who receives a £500 voucher to spend on anything at MPB. From top-of-the-range digital medium-format camera bodies, to entry-level DSLRs, as well as the longest telephoto zooms and widest lenses, and useful accessories such as spare batteries and camera bags, MPB is a one-stop shop for used kit. For his winning image, Ian Bramham used the 36.8MP, FX-sensor Nikon D800. Currently, MPB has a number of D800 models in stock, in conditions that range from well used to good, with prices starting from £424 and going up to £649. The striking second-placed image, by Jim Cumming, was shot using a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM. This hugely versatile telephoto zoom, with f/2.8 aperture throughout its range, is in…

Food Donna Crous Donna is an award-winning professional›food photographer. From her home studio in Surrey she works with brands and PR agencies developing recipes, cooking, styling and creating imagery for food campaigns, social media, websites and print publications. She has worked on multiple›cookery books for local›and international publishers. Donna is a Nikon UK and Northern Europe Ambassador and a Rotolight Master of Light and enjoys sharing her knowledge via talks and workshops. Visit www.donnacrous.com or follow Donna on Instagram @donnacrous. Experiment with focus stacking When a greater depth of field is required, try focus stacking. Take a number of images of your scene or subject at different focus points then merge them together in Photoshop. Keep everything aligned Ensuring vertical and horizontal lines are perfect is essential for creating a…

Remote/wireless trigger When you’ve spent time building your set and perfecting the lighting, the last thing you want is to nudge the camera when taking the shot – especially if you’re using a long shutter speed or creating a composite. Honeycomb grids If you want to highlight a particular part of an image, or create a hard, narrow beam, then grids are great. They usually come in multi-packs – I use the 10° or 20° ones most, occasionally with coloured gels. Manfrotto Magic Arm – 244N This extension arm can be attached to most things with super clamps and will support the weight of a full-frame DSLR. I have used this on countless occasions to suspend lights off studio support beams when regular light stands would just get in the…

Graphics tablet Graphics tablets are much more comfortable to use than a mouse, especially over long periods of time, plus they provide finer control over editing tasks such as retouching. Using them takes a little getting used to, but it doesn’t take long. High-def wide gamut monitor Using a QHD (2560x1440px) or a UHD (3840x2160px) monitor allows you to see much more detail, and opting for a model covering 98-100% of the Adobe RGB 1998 colour space will show most or all colours available in a standard RGB workflow. Monitor calibration If your monitor isn’t displaying colours, brightness and contrast correctly, you’ll quickly run into the problem of making images look great on your computer but not on others or in print. Monitor calibration devices avoid this problem by ensuring…

1 Identify the face Open PortraitPro, click on Open Single Image and select your image for editing which will open up with the face, facial features and gender of the model automatically identified. Hover the mouse pointer over the face so the guides show up and make sure that they’re correctly placed on the face. You can click and drag them into a better position, if necessary, for more accurate results. 2 Tweak settings By default, most of the adjustments available will be applied at an amount calculated by the software. On the right-hand side of the interface, you can turn adjustments on or off, and expand them to reveal more controls for refined adjustments. For this image, only Skin Smoothing, Skin Lighting & Coloring and Eye were left on…