Innholdsfortegnelse for 14/08/2021 i Amateur Photographer

Has there ever been such a great choice of lenses for the serious photographer? Whether you are looking for a brand-new lens for your mirrorless camera or DSLR, or interested in using a much older lens via an adapter, you really are spoiled for choice. In this issue we help you make the wisest decisions when it comes to ‘spending it on the glass’. Highlights include a major guide to using vintage lenses on mirrorless cameras (shop around and you can still find bargains) and the best lenses for video. We also focus on ‘quirkier’ lens options – testing tsar Andy Westlake looks at some tempting alternative optics, including ultra telephotos and macros, tilt-and-shift lenses, fisheyes and some funky creative options. Keep sharing your shots via our social media (see…

MANCHESTER-based photographer Catherine North (shown above) is writing a book and potentially a series of articles on photography and its effects on mood and well-being. She’s keen to include the experiences of active photographers of all ages and skill levels across the UK, and has put together an anonymous and confidential survey on the subject. It takes around 15 minutes to complete the multiple choice questions and the survey is open until 31 October 2021. See bit.ly/ mhphotosurvey.…

IN MORE competition news, AP has teamed up with cottages.com, a leading provider of UK self-catering holiday properties, to encourage photographers to send in their best shots of the British Isles. Prizes include a UK break (up to the value of £2,500) and a GoPro bundle. Judges include AP editor Nigel Atherton, eminent travel journalist Simon Calder, and Paul Evans from cottages.com. Nigel said, ‘I’ll be looking for pictures that demonstrate excellent technical skill and creative vision. I want to see images imbued with great atmosphere or that demonstrate originality – images that stand out from the hundreds of other competent record shots of a place.’ Open now, the competition is called Viewfinder and closes on 5 September. See www.cottages.com/viewfinder.…

Jupiter 11 135mm f/4 It looks like a rocket ship, but the Jupiter 11 135mm f/4 is certainly not a novelty lens – it offers amazing image quality, super sharpness and lovely warm colours. It’s also a great lens for video because the aperture ring doesn’t make a clicking sound. Helios 40 85mm f/1.5 Mathieu describes the Helios 40 85mm f/1.5 as the ‘legendary swirly bokeh king’ and it’s easy to see why. When used wide open this lens will create a swirly effect around your subject that will give your images an attractive dreamlike quality. It’s a great lens for portraits. Canon FD 50mm f/1.4 SSC The contrast and colours produced by the FD series are a big draw, but the Canon FD 50mm f/1.4 SSC deserves a special…

Hugo Begg’s winning photo in Young APOY, Architecture round, was taken in the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. ‘The image was taken looking upwards to the roof through the centre of the main spiral staircase on the ground floor, showing the spiral, upper floors, and roof in an abstract swirl,’ explains Hugo. ‘I’d seen some photos of this building while looking for interesting architecture in Melbourne and just had to photograph it for myself. The spiral staircase, in the main foyer, is quite eye-catching and walking underneath it revealed an interesting frame filled with more features of the building as I looked upwards.’ He waited for a mostly cloudy day so it would provide a more diffused light through the glass ceiling. ‘I wanted more of a flat…

If you use a mirrorless camera and would like to experiment with lens tilt for manipulating depth of field, mount adapters can be bought for the purpose for as little as £30 from Amazon and eBay. They work best with vintage lenses for 35mm film SLRs that have mechanical focus and aperture control, and provide a highly controllable means of either increasing depth-of-field for close-ups, or producing ‘fake miniature’ effects. More complex (and expensive) versions include both tilt and shift movements, but are harder to find.…

‘This wonderful image is virtually impossible to figure out and make sense of until reading the title or caption’ A few months ago I wrote about an image called ‘Biker Practising Yoga in Kensington Gardens, London, 1976’ by Patrick Ward. It’s a wonderful image in which a biker appears to have his head lodged in the ground after a nasty, albeit peculiar, biking accident. It doesn’t immediately make ‘sense’ what’s really going on and as a consequence has, to me at least, surreal undertones. I’ve loved that photograph for many years. And then I stumbled upon ‘Richard Kearton inside the Kearton’s taxidermy ox hide, 1890s’ in a proof copy of Gemma Padley’s new book about wildlife photography – just when I didn’t think ‘Biker Practising Yoga’ could be trumped for…

Trackside Allotment by Harry Todd LMS railway employees create a vegetable patch beside a railway track near Harrow during World War II. National Allotments Week this year is from 9 August until 15 August. Organised by the National Allotment Society (NAS), this year’s theme is ‘Plotting for the Future’, celebrating the contribution that allotments make to a sustainable future. Last year, it was reported that applications for council-run allotments soared. With one in eight of the UK population having no access to a garden, according to the NAS, or one in five in London, it’s easy to see why the various lockdowns stimulated the demand. 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…

LEE FILTERS has announced a LEE100 holder for Nikon’s Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S lens. Larger than the standard holder, and made from aluminium alloy, it features a compression system for secure placement on the lens barrel. It has been designed to minimise vignetting, with filters held in quick-change frames that let you continue to use existing 100x100mm standard and 100x150mm grad filters. The new holder uses the same interchangeable guide blocks as the standard LEE100 system. The holder kit comes with one square and one rectangular frame and costs £149.99.…

17 August 1977 This week in 1977 Elton John discovered who had stolen his sunglasses. While Editor Martin Hodder sought to disprove the adage ‘Never photograph a pretty girl in strong direct sunlight’, Allan Shriver was more interested in a body of a different kind. Hasselblad: a legend in its own time was his guide-cum-tribute to a camera that had been launched seven years previously and which was probably beyond the budgets of most AP readers: £690 with the 80mm standard lens and waist-level finder (£5,091 today). ‘The name Hasselblad has become synonymous with quality,’ he wrote, adding, ‘The manufacturers claim that it takes about one year to make each camera, and that each undergoes about 20,000 checks before it may be offered to a member of the public.’ Hasselblad…

Perfect 10 This is my first time writing to your mag after some 60 years. I have just been reading your article on the OM-D E-M10 Mark II and found it very interesting, a good read. Over the years I have used a variety of cameras but have now decided that my Olympus is about as good as it gets. I still use an OM-D E-M5 along with a Canon EOS 550D but the E-M10 Mark II is my go-to camera. It’s light, well made, and gives extremely good results so it is ideal for me. Thank you to all the team both past and present for making AP such a great and informative read all these years. Long may you reign. Terry Bussey Something different Well done for your…

At a glance £684-794 body only (used condition) ● 20.3MP Micro Four Thirds Live MOS sensor ● 12fps burst shooting ● 5-axis Dual I.S. II image stabiliser (effective to 6.5 stops) ● ISO 200-25,600 (100-25,600 extended) The Lumix G9 is a sound mirrorless camera with an impressive specification, including 4K video recording up to 60fps and a 3,680k-dot EVF. It backs this all up with an admirable performance out in the field. With so much to like and so little to fault, it’s hard to think of a reason why anyone after an insanely fast, lightweight and versatile camera working to a budget wouldn’t seriously consider the Lumix G9. What we said ‘The Panasonic Lumix G9 is more than just a master of speed. Like many cameras we’ve seen, it…

‘SNI is a new entity incorporated in the UK and dedicated to conserving the planet’s natural wonders. Its approach is holistic and targeted, committed to rigorously analysing needs and feasible interventions in areas of concern. To achieve this, it will assess likely outcomes and create or support donor-funded projects with designated results, time frames and accountabilities. Solutions in ecosystem restoration and maintenance must be sustainable and significant. ‘It is essential that everyone – children, parents, teachers, business leaders, politicians – understands the importance of nature, that the natural environment sustains all life. Equally, we must adopt a new convention that says we do not own nature, that land isn’t a commodity to be used as we please. Nature is something to be respected and nurtured, held in trust by each…

AP: Tell us a little about your photography background AD: I’ve been the Features Editor at Amateur Photographer for the past three years. Previously I’ve worked for other photography and technology magazines and websites. I’ve been interested in photography since I got my first camera aged 15, but I studied journalism at university. To this day, I continue to be amazed that I’m able to combine my hobby with my career to make a living. This year I have also started a new project and blog called Walks of 2021. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but started as a way to document the many, many lockdown walks I was carrying out. In Wales, we were restricted to walks which started and ended from your front door in the early part of 2021,…

LEICA has launched the Leica Lab programme, a series of courses run through its wider Leica Akademie with a focus on creative strategies for building a photographic narrative. Each lab runs for four weeks, and is taught both online and in person by industry experts with backgrounds in commissioning, shooting, editing and curating. The 2021 programme, running from September to November, includes labs on Narrative Portraiture and Landscape & Environment. Leica said the labs are ‘ideal for the professional or aspiring professional who would like to improve and add structure to personal projects or commercial work. Participants will be assigned a creative brief, providing inspiration for each workshop’s theme.’ Each lab costs £1,500 and you can find more details at bit.ly/newleicalab.…

THERE is something magical about the bokeh that vintage lenses produce. Many people don’t notice the background of an image, but to me it’s just as important as the foreground. Anamorphic vintage lenses create oval bokeh. It’s a subtle effect but it gives a cinematic feel with a sinister undertone. The Helios 44M 58mm produces swirly bokeh, leading to fantastical, ethereal images. Trioplan and Pentacon lenses add a soap bubble effect, which brings a playful look. Each lens has a different personality, and each lens has its own ‘flaws’. When the light hits the optics to create an image it produces blur and flare that changes the intensity of the colour and tone. I started using vintage lenses about three years ago after reading an article about creative bokeh. My…

It was good to see another slide copier, this time from Manuel Robles, in Inbox this week. Much more elaborate than my effort, published in AP’s 6 August 2011 issue. But I’m sure Manuel’s set-up works well. It will not have escaped your notice that a great resurgence in DIY has taken place during the pandemic lockdowns, with people discovering they have all sorts of new talents. I am old enough, aged 94, to remember the days of ‘make do and mend’ so grew up with the habit and made an eventual successful transition to DIY. As a reader of AP since 1947, I also remember that DIY articles often appeared in those early magazines, particularly in the post-war years when ex-war photographic items were converted. My scrapbook holds the…

Lensbaby may have started out with one simple bendy lens that had a plastic optic, but these days it offers an extensive array of lenses, optics and housings to enable a range of effects on just about any camera. They’re not for everyone, but there are legions of photographers who love them for their creative results. Lensbaby lenses produce four main effects called sweet, edge, velvet and swirl. Although some create more than one of these effects, most Lensbaby lenses or optics create just one and deciding which one you want is key to selecting the right Lensbaby. Lenses and optics Lensbaby makes two types of lenses: standalone lenses that are similar in design to ‘normal’ lenses, and the optic-swap system that comprises a separate housing or barrel and an…

While hiking in the mountainous jungle terrain of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda, Jonathan saw the picture potential of this jungle setting. ‘From the moment we saw the location, we began thinking, “imagine this with a gorilla!”’Luckily, the opportunity arose on another visit when he saw the gorilla heading down to the water’s edge. Having already imagined the scene, and camera ready, he composed the picture at the wide end of a 24-105mm zoom. ‘I wanted to capture the sense of this extraordinary piece of forest and to have a silverback sitting there, and to feel that he was just in his world and you weren’t unduly affecting his behaviour. It’s so important if you’re a photographer to capture a sense of where the animal lives. What is it’s…

With their vast angle of view and extreme curvature of lines that conventional lenses would draw as straight, fisheye lenses are not for the faint-heated. But this is exactly the kind of challenge that might get your creative juices flowing and inspire you to look at the world in different ways. If you’d like to experiment with this look, Samyang offers a broad range of affordable fisheyes for all types of camera, ranging from a 7.5mm f/3.5 for Micro Four Thirds for £249, to a full-frame 12mm f/2.8 for £399. Micro Four Thirds users can also experiment with the Olympus 9mm f/8 Body Cap Lens (£89), while Pentax DSLR users can play with the 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 zoom (£449). At the other end of the scale, Canon and Nikon both offer…