Innholdsfortegnelse for 24/07/2021 i Amateur Photographer

There is no such thing as ‘perfect colour’ in photography because colour is subjective to an extent. (Though you probably wouldn’t be happy with green-tinted skin tones, unless you’re Shrek.) All cameras come with a variety of tools to fine-tune the colours they produce to your liking, and these vary from one brand to another. This week we offer a guide to how to do this with all the most popular brands. Also, with the Olympics finally getting under way, we talk to Sam Mellish about his photo project documenting the struggles of British athletes to stay fit during the pandemic. Meanwhile we tell the incredible and moving true story of Wilhelm Brasse, who survived the horrors of Auschwitz thanks to his skills as a photographer. Finally we take a…

25 July 1998 The cover of the 1998 Summer Special answered so many questions you didn’t even know you wanted to ask. Which is the world’s most visited beach? (Coney Island, New York, apparently.) And how many times were you photographed by CCTV today? That question was one that I investigated myself when AP decided that surveillance cameras were one kind of camera that we did not want to see more of. On my daily 45-minute commute to the AP office I was captured by at least 78 CCTV cameras that I was aware of. Remember this was 23 years ago – I think it’s fair to say that AP lost that battle! On the other hand we were quite happy to see more APS cameras in the world, and…

1 Use the supplied USB cable to connect the camera to your computer and power up the camera. 2 Start EOS Utility on your computer. If necessary, confirm the camera model. 3 Select ‘Camera settings/ Remote shooting’. 4 Click on the red camera icon followed by ‘Picture Style’. 5 Select one of the ‘User Def.’ options from the menu followed by ‘Register User Defined style’. 6 Click on the ‘File Open’ icon. 7 Find and select the Picture Style file you previously created or downloaded then click on ‘OK’ to transfer it to your camera.…

OLYMPUS cameras have an excellent reputation for the colours that they produce. They excel with natural hues. However, there’s a selection of Picture Modes and Art Filters available to tailor the results to your preferences. The Picture Modes are the usual JPEG-processing modes with profiles that can be applied to raw files or not as you prefer at the processing stage. The Art Filters, however, are a little different. They are only applied to JPEGs and if you shoot raw and JPEG files simultaneously, you get a ‘clean’ raw file as well as the JPEG with the filter. There are 15 types of Art Filter available but several of them have two or three variations. In addition, there are a few effects that can be applied such as Soft Focus,…

All the camera manufacturers allow you to set a specific white balance setting either by dialing in a Kelvin value or by photographing a neutral subject to calibrate the camera’s custom value. The basic principle is the same for all cameras, with the exception of Canon that requires the image to be shot before selecting the custom white balance setting control. The rest employ a very similar procedure to Sony, explained here: 1. Open the main or Function menu and navigate to ‘White Balance’. 2. Scroll down to the Custom Settings and if there’s a ‘Set’ option, select that. Alternatively, pick one of the available custom settings and scroll right to highlight ‘Set’ before pressing the button at the centre of the navigation pad. 3. Ensuring that your white or…

Born on 3 December 1917 in Zywiec – then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but which became Polish after the First World War, Wilhelm Brasse is probably not a name many of us are familiar with. Yet this man, held in Auschwitz as a political prisoner, left behind a legacy of huge importance. Without him, it’s unlikely we’d have the photographic evidence of some of the worst atrocities carried out at the Nazi’s most infamous death camp. Brasse’s father’s family were Austrian, but his mother was Polish. His uncle ran a photography studio in the city of Katowice, where Brasse learned the skills that would one day save his life. Arrested for refusing to swear loyalty to Hitler and enlist in the Wehrmacht, Brasse’s insistence that he was Polish saw…

DESPITE not having optical stabilisation built-in, at £699 the Sigma 105mm F2.8 DG DN Macro Art is almost twice the price of the 105mm F2.8 Macro EX DG OS HSM. That’s a significant slice of cash, which might be enough to convince some photographers to use the older optic with an adapter for their mirrorless camera. However, the newer model is an excellent lens that’s capable of delivering superb results, while also being weather-sealed. The addition of an aperture ring is a particularly nice touch. I find it connects me more closely with my photography than a camera dial, and it seems especially appropriate for macro photography. However, it’s good that there’s the option to use the camera’s dial as some photographers may not be happy to change their way…

‘Horse Football’ being played by Berlin police at their training camp in Spandau. Horse football is also known as ‘equine soccer’ or ‘hoofball’ and is described as a mix between football and polo. All of the riders play on horseback, with two goal posts placed at opposite ends of the playing field. The ball used is a large inflated ball, with typical team sizes of two or three players per squad. A match can vary in length, but typically only lasts for two halves of 10-15 minutes each. 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.…

A new law in Norway could see social media influencers fined or imprisoned if they don’t clearly state that images used in advertisements have been edited. The country’s Ministry of Children and Family Affairs has designed a label that would need to be added to sponsored posts in Norway when a person’s shape, size or skin has been altered. The King of Norway, Harald V, will decide when the law comes into effect.…

I am 70 now and would characterise myself as an average photographer who has had an enduring interest in photography except that my active photography has waxed and waned over the years. In my teens I was an admirer of the photography in National Geographic, particularly how their photographers were able to convey the essence of a country, peoples and culture in a few images. My interest carried on into the 1970s and I was an avid reader of articles in Amateur Photographer. But over the past 50 years my interest in actually carrying a camera and taking pictures has not been consistent. Mostly restricted to when I have been abroad on holiday and then mostly ‘snapshots’ of what I see before me. In 2019 I discovered the benefits of…

AS IT’S a film manufacturer it makes sense that Fujifilm has based its cameras’ colour modes on its past and present film emulsions and traditional processes. Fujifilm has a total of 19 Film Simulation modes but only the Fujifilm GFX100S has all of them. The Fujifilm X-T4, X-S10 and X-E4 have 18: Provia/Standard, Velvia/Vivid,Astia/Soft, Classic Chrome, Pro Neg.Hi, Pro Neg.Std, Classic Neg, Eterna/Cinema, Eterna Bleach Bypass, Black&White, Black&White+Ye Filter, Black&White+R Filter, Black&White+G filter, Sepia, Acros, Acros +Ye Filter, Acros +R Filter, Acros +G Filter. The additional mode brought by the GFX100S is Nostalgic Negative. Each of these Film Simulation modes gives JPEGs a different look, but the results can be further customised using the usual Tone Curve Color (Highlights and Shadows), Sharpness and Clarity settings as well as the more…

IN ADDITION to a collection of Photo Styles, Panasonic’s Lumix cameras have a collection of Filters that can be used to give JPEGs a particular appearance. They haven’t really captured the imagination in the same way as Olympus’s Art Filters and there aren’t as many options or as much control, but they’re a handy way of creating more interesting images in-camera. To select a filter effect, navigate to ‘Filter Settings’ in the camera’s main menu, highlight it and press the Menu/Set button. Then scroll down to ‘Set’ to see the range of filter effects available. As you scroll through the options, the camera shows a preview on the screen or in the viewfinder so you can pick the one that works best with the scene. If you’re shooting raw and…

What advice would Sam Mellish give to other photographers wanting to do their own personal project? Here are his six top tips: 1 Take your time. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day, so be patient and allow the project to develop. 2 Allow your project to grow organically. Let the idea develop in your mind before you begin shooting. This will only strengthen your end result. 3 Set yourself a goal. Ask yourself how and where you want this work to be seen. Is it for a magazine, social media, an exhibition or a book? 4 Be focused but flexible. Before each shoot, have one or two images in mind that you would like to capture, but be flexible enough to allow changes in the process. 5 Get close…

There is no getting round the fact that this is an expensive lens, although put up against full-frame equivalents like the Canon 200-400mm f/4, it’s a steal. But Olympus also recently introduced a more budget-friendly alternative, the M.Zuiko Digital ED 100-400mm f/5-6.3 IS. I borrowed a copy for the purposes of this article and given the £1,099 price, it’s surprisingly sharp at both ends and can produce some fantastic images in good light. There is also the M.Zuiko Digital ED 300mm f/4 IS Pro at £2,249, which was my go-to lens for three years. This is an amazing wildlife lens that takes the 1.4x and 2x teleconverters, and is both compact and lightweight.…

Lens quality has been prized ever since photographers discovered that it could make a visible difference to their pictures. Today, many companies can produce very sharp lenses. Optical manufacturing isn’t a difficult business, and it’s straightforward to purchase equipment that will grind, polish and coat lenses to the most demanding standards without requiring especially skilled operators. This has been the case for a long time, meaning that the pre-eminence of the Japanese and German industries was not determined by their ability to shape glass. Instead, it was based on design. In the vanguard of German lens manufacturers was Zeiss, which had the service of scientists who established many of the most effective lens design patterns. It also invested heavily in computing. Designing a lens involves calculating the paths of light…

There can be no doubt that the ongoing conflict in Palestine and the Middle East is highly political and so dangerously contentious it’s hard to talk about it in public. The question of who is in the right and who’s in the wrong is difficult to broach, and the lines between aggressor and victim are muddied by actions on all sides, historical sensitivities and the propaganda fired at the world from all angles. Media channels dance delicate fairy-steps on egg shells as they report the latest developments. And the foreign policy of civilised nations struggles to take decisive action while at the same time condemning the outcomes of a situation they have created and events that they take insufficient action to prevent. A discussion here about whose fault all this…

AP picture of the week Zebra Butt by Melanie Sharp Canon EOS 90D, EF70-300mm lens, 1/1250sec at f/5.6, ISO 400 ‘With travel restrictions still very much in place for most places in the world I find it is a perfect time to visit our wonderful zoos and conservation parks here at home,’ says Melanie, who lives in North Wales. ‘I’m extremely lucky to have quite a few not far away including the incredible Chester Zoo. I try to visit at least one of them every week. As soon as I saw the zebra facing away from me I did a little internal happy dance, as I knew exactly what I wanted from the shot and had been waiting for it forever – the rear end. The symmetry, the simple lines,…

PANASONIC has released the world’s first telephoto zoom lens with an ultra-fast f/1.7 maximum aperture, the DG Vario-Summilux 25-50mm F1.7 Asph. Designed for use on Micro Four Thirds cameras, it offers a 50-100mm equivalent focal-length range. It complements the firm’s existing 10-25mm f/1.7 standard zoom with near-identical dimensions and the same control layout. Optically the lens employs 16 elements in 11 groups, including 1 aspherical, 1 ultra-high refractive (UHR) and 3 extra-low dispersion (ED) glass elements. Together, these are designed to deliver fine detail across the entire frame, even at f/1.7, while minimising colour fringing from chromatic aberration. A 9-bladed aperture promises attractively blurred backgrounds. In terms of design, the lens sports both an aperture ring and a focus ring that can be pulled towards the camera to engage manual…

THE COLOURS produced by Canon’s cameras are generally popular and its automatic white balance systems are very good. Canon calls its in-camera colour profiles ‘Picture Styles’ and the most recent cameras feature Auto, Standard, Portrait, Landscape, Fine Detail, Neutral, Faithful, Monochrome and User Defined Picture Styles, which are selected via the main or Quick menu. The Auto setting uses the camera’s Scene Detection system that analyses shooting conditions automatically, considering aspects such as a subject’s face, brightness, colour, movement, contrast and focus distance to tailor the contrast, colour tone, sharpness, and saturation to suit the scene. It’s programmed to make colours look vivid, especially blue skies, greenery, and sunsets. There are also three User Defined settings. When any of these are selected, you can select one of the standard Picture…

NIKON calls its main colour controls ‘Picture Controls’ and in addition to the Auto, Standard, Neutral, Vivid, Monochrome, Portrait, Landscape and Flat options that have been around for ages and that are broadly like those offered by other camera manufacturers, more-recent cameras have a collection of 20 Creative Picture Controls. These are called things like Morning, Somber and Bleached. Bleached is favourite of mine, but there are some options that can help to create an interesting image from a photogenic scene when the light is less than perfect. The Creative Picture Controls also dovetail nicely with Nikon’s SnapBridge technology that enables files to be shared automatically to a paired smartphone. It can really liven up your Instagram grid. If you shoot raw files, it’s possible to process your images in-camera…

WITH Creative Styles, Picture Effects and Picture Profiles, it’s easy to get confused about the colour and contrast controls offered by Sony Alpha cameras. Creative Styles are aimed at photographers, and the settings are ‘baked-in’ to JPEGs but can be applied to raw files post-capture. They can also be used for video if you want to get it all done in camera and not get involved with grading. Conversely, although they can be applied to stills, Picture Profiles are intended for use with video. Whereas Creative Styles give you sub-setting control over contrast, saturation and sharpness, with Picture Profiles you’re dealing with aspects such as black level, gamma, black gamma, knee, colour mode, saturation, colour phase, colour depth and detail. As well as enabling a video to have a particular…

So Victor Blackman, an accomplished photographer, said he found it difficult to do justice to a glamorous model outdoors, that models are not ‘objects’ but people with feelings and that it is very hard to photograph people sensitively and make them look their best. I agree. To succeed at photographing people, the photographer first and foremost needs to develop people skills. Secondly is the ability to see light on the human face, whether in a studio or on location, and it is surprising how many photographers lack this skill. Photoshop will not enhance a badly lit and/or an awkward-looking subject. Perhaps for these reasons, rarely is a portrait of any kind entered into a camera club competition. Landscapes dominate. It is extremely uncommon for a well-crafted portrait to achieve any…