Innholdsfortegnelse for 27/11/2021 i Amateur Photographer

There has long been a healthy trade in used film cameras and lenses, as the best examples have always held their value. The pre-loved digital business is booming too, particularly as the big makers increasingly focus on premium priced, high-end mirrorless cameras and lenses. Not everyone needs this kind of firepower, or has several grand lying around in spare change. Our cover feature this week is all about getting the best deal when buying or selling second-hand, while the rest of the issue is packed with other essential money-making and saving tips – including generating income from stock libraries, and how to shoot products to sell on eBay. Hardware highlights include a review of Sony’s FE 70-200mm f/2.8 II, the iPhone 13 Pro and a field test of a real…

FILTER maker Kase has announced a 100mm holder system in which everything fits together magnetically. It’s being offered as an alternative to the firm’s excellent, but more conventionally designed, Kase Wolverine K9 holder. The new ‘Armour’ system is designed to work with full-frame lenses as wide as 14mm without vignetting. The holder accepts a rear-mounted 95mm polariser and more unusually, 95mm circular ND filters in front. This is said to allow a lighter overall weight and a light-tight design. Two rectangular filters, 150x100mm or 100x100mm, can be added using magnetic metal frames designed to take conventional 2mm-thick glass filters. Prices start at £269 for the Kase Armour Holder Kit 100mm system. See bit.ly/kasearmor.…

CANON has announced a number of firmware updates for the EOS R5 (firmware v1.50), EOS R6 (firmware v1.50) and EOS-1D X Mark III (firmware v1.60) boosting AF performance and options as well as adding other enhancements. The firmware update improves subject detection and tracking, enabling the EOS R5 and EOS R6 to track cars and bikes. Face and eye detection has been improved allowing detection even when the subject is wearing a mask, and body detection has been added. You’ll also be able to set a custom white balance in live view. Other changes include updated FTP operation, to avoid accidental image transfer. Lens support has been improved, with the EOS R5 supporting the RF 5.2mm f2.8L Dual Fisheye lens, and full-time manual focus is available with the RF 70-200mm…

Stock photography has long played an important role in photographers’ revenue streams thanks to its ability to generate passive income from images. But where the stock industry was once lucrative to the point where some photographers could make a comfortable living from stock photography alone, this is unfortunately no longer the case. Digital photography and the ability for almost anyone to sign-up to some stock libraries have flooded the market with images, which has in part driven down the royalties photographers receive; it’s a simple case of supply and demand. But that’s not to say that the larger libraries such as Adobe Stock, Alamy, iStock, Getty, Shutterstock and many more are redundant since they can all provide that all-important passive income, albeit a modest one. So, while you may not…

Whilst it’s easy to read the manufacturer’s website, and be impressed by how good a lens sounds, there’s always a level of doubt. However, that isn’t justified in this situation, as the Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II simply performs exceptionally well, producing sharp images at both ends of the zoom range. There’s beautiful bokeh on offer, as well as crisp detail and sharpness. Combined with a fast and reliable focus system, you get impressive shots time after time. The lens offers additional controls and features, including an aperture ring, additional switches for aperture click, direct manual focus (DMF), and more. Yet with a new optical design, it gives a noticeably lighter overall weight. Weather-sealing ensures the lens is usable in a variety of shooting conditions, whether that’s in…

Flying Car by FPG A ConvAirCar, Model 118 flying car during a test-flight in California in November 1947. The hybrid vehicle was designed by Theodore P Hall for the Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Company of San Diego, California. Just two prototypes were built and flown – the second being rebuilt from the damaged first one. The ConvAirCar was designed to be used by mainstream consumers, following the post-war aviation boom, but after its early problems, enthusiasm for the project quickly waned and it never went into further production. 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…

NOTTINGHAM-based online camera shop LensFayre has launched a disposable 35mm camera called the Snap LF-35M (see above). The camera body is made from a thermostatic plastic that can easily be melted down and re-used; if you return the camera to LensFayre, the company will safely recycle it and give you a 10% discount voucher for further purchases. The camera, which can be easily customised via replaceable stickers, features a 28mm f/8 fixed lens, a 1/120sec shutter speed, built-in flash, 1x AA battery power source and a weight of just 110g. It costs £38. LensFayre was set up by freelance photographers and creatives Alecia Barnes and Dan Giannopoulos. See www.lensfayre.com.…

It all started with AP’s Portrait Special (27 July 2021). In the opening 7 Days section all four ‘portraits’ were of models: people booked purely to be the human in the shot. Later, the feature Natural Light Portraiture declared the first job to be ‘finding a model’, paid or unpaid. Perhaps that would be about searching out individual personality? Hardly, it turned out – although ‘you have to show a bit of interest in the model’. Had I been wrong all these years, in assuming that portraiture is about capturing the particular character of an individual? About who they are? I went to the authoritative Grove Dictionary of Art and found that, while allowing that ‘portrait’ is a complicated concept, Grove’s ‘serviceable definition’ is an image ‘in which the artist…

Don’t crop in too tightly Leave space for the magazine ‘furniture’ – masthead, coverlines and any graphic devices that we use to describe what’s in the issue. Busy images that have lots of detail are generally unsuitable as they make superimposed text tricky to read. Shoot portrait-format pictures While it’s not unheard of for us to use a section of a landscape-format image, your chances are improved by shooting in the upright format. Make eye contact If you’re submitting a portrait, ensure good eye contact, with the subject looking directly into the lens. Make sure the eyes are pin-sharp. Provide plenty of options Try various angles and subject placements, with the main focal point to the left, the right and centre, to give the art editor lots of options for…

Earlier this year we ran a competition with cottages.com, the UK’s leading provider of self-catering holiday properties and luxury homes, to win one of five fantastic UK breaks up to the value of £2,500 and a GoPro bundle. The competition, called Viewfinder, featured five categories – Classic Countryside, City Break Sights, Capturing the Coast, Sunscape Scenes and Wild Walks – which gave fans of landscape and scenic photography a lot of creative scope. The judging panel comprised AP editor Nigel Atherton, well-known travel writer and broadcaster Simon Calder, and Paul Evans from cottages.com. The results are now in – see below for full details of the category winners. Classic Countryside Nikon Z 50 with 16-50mm lens Andrew Kennedy from Northampton wins this category, with an image of the Milky Way…

Four AAA batteries, flax seeds, oat milk, a tub of Prime Gelato and a watermelon are on the receipt from my last trip to the corner shop, Park Local Express (PLE). It sells organic products, vegan products, gluten-free products, dairy-free products and frozen products. When I first moved into the area over 25 years ago, it mainly sold cigarettes, cow’s milk, sliced white bread, two-litre bottles of cider and packets of brightly coloured sweets high in additives. My world became more localised during the global coronavirus pandemic and my visits to PLE more crucial and frequent. They always had my favourite toilet roll in stock, not like the supermarkets that threaten its existence. PLE has adapted to the needs of local residents and remained relevant to survive. Corner shops have…

Reflection of the City by Alan and Tam Greenwell Yashica Electro GTN35 using Ilford HP5+ at f/8 Alan says, ‘My autistic son Tam and I go on a lot of photo walks around the city centre of Newcastle and this building was one that caught our eye. It contrasts the modern glass building against the historical terraced streets of the city.’ Find Alan on Flickr at www.flickr.com/photos/193686344@N04. AP picture of the week Bokeh Portrait by Ben Lewis Canon EOS 90D, Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 Art lens, 1/1250sec at f/1.8, ISO 500 ‘I started photography about a year ago and take portrait shots in my spare time – I am loving it. This photograph was taken when I visited Uphill in Weston-super-Mare with Georgina Hartgen,’ says Ben. ‘We tried many different poses…

27 November 1911 THE GRAND neo-classical interior featuring on this week’s cover was none other than the Reception Hall of the brand new Kodak building on Kingsway, London. Designed by John James Burnet, it was one of the seven wonders of the photographic world, judging by AP’s enthusiasm about it. ‘So ubiquitous has the Kodak become that it has taken its place in the language as being practically synonymous with “camera”, a fact evidenced by more than one dictionary. Messrs. Kodak would be the last to suggest that they were responsible for all the cameras in use today, although an inspection of the palatial new building which has sprung up in Kingsway might give rise to the idea. It is surely a sign of the times, and a corollary of…

I recently bought the latest Landscape Photographer of the Year book and decided to check on the statistics on mirrorless camera usage versus the good old DSLR. So of the images in the book, six were taken by drones, 78 by DSLRs, 58 by mirrorless cameras and one by a phone. This further breaks down as 50 images taken with a Nikon, 42 images with a Canon, 23 with a Sony, 16 with a Fujifilm, and two each by Pentax and Olympus, with Leica, Panasonic and Apple each accounting for one image. Last time I did this research, about eight years ago, Canon ruled the world with only Nikon anywhere close – so times are changing. On the lens front, 18 images were taken with a prime lens and the…

Aperture UK www.apertureuk.com In-house repair service for film cameras and lenses, specialising in repairs to all mechanical cameras, but especially Leica, Hasselblad, Rollei and Nikon. What is your favourite camera to repair? ‘Nikon, Hasselblad and Leica, but especially the Nikon F2.’ Kriton Krimitsos (camera technician) Camera Museum www.cameramuseum.uk Camera shop, gallery, coffee shop and in-house repair service, specialising in analogue Hasselblad, Rolleiflex, Leica, Nikon (and other similar models). How do you approach a repair job? ‘It’s a bit like surgery: first you need to identify the problem and then you need to work out what parts you need to fix it!’ Adrian Tang (co-founder) The Classic Camera theclassiccamera.com Rangefinder and mirrorless camera specialists offering repair options for mechanical cameras, lenses and optical devices, plus digital repairs through individual manufacturers. Camera…

Paul Evans (cottages.com) ‘Our aim when launching Viewfinder was to give people the chance to preserve a moment in time during what will forever be remembered as the year of the staycation – and boy, did they deliver! Every single corner of these fantastic isles seems to have been captured as part of this competition and it just goes to show why the UK continues to be such an attractive holiday destination, particularly for those of us fortunate enough to already live here!’ Simon Calder ‘Judging this photographic competition was a huge pleasure. The overall standard was incredibly high and it was lovely to be taken on a tour of the UK through so many high-quality images. It really reminds us that an award-winning picture does not need to be…

ALTHOUGH not dramatically different, the image quality from iPhone 13 Pro is better than that from the iPhone 12 Pro as the contrast is managed slightly better so there’s less of an ‘HDR look’ to some shots. The new Cinematic mode can work well, but it needs to be used with care as any mistakes in the selection of the subject and the transition to blur are more obvious in a moving image than they are in a still. However, it’s an interesting development that I’m sure will improve with time. When shooting stills, the iPhone 13 Pro does a great job of identifying the subject and focusing on it quickly even in very low light. It also manages to create natural-looking shallow depth of field effects in many instances,…