Innholdsfortegnelse for 17/05/2022 i Amateur Photographer

It’s easy to think of light painting as being a rather arcane art involving lots of faff and pricey gear, but as this week’s cover feature shows, you can apply it effectively to landscapes and portraits, even shots of kids – often using accessories bought from a pound store. The fun starts on page 14 – check it out if you’ve never thought light painting is for you. If you’re a dog lover (and how could anyone not be?) you’ll enjoy our gallery of wonderful images of Bruce Weber’s dogs, from his latest book. Other highlights of this varied issue include an-depth test of Nikon’s sharp, versatile 100-400mm lens for Z series, a look at the Hasselblad-tuned OnePlus 10 Pro smartphone and Bob Mazzer’s entertaining local documentary project. If you…

LEICA has admitted it raised prices on ‘a select number of items’ in April. Leica Camera UK’s managing director, Jason Heward, told Amateur Photographer, ‘We managed to keep price increases to a minimum and have absorbed most of the impact of the escalating costs of components and materials. We aren’t planning a further increase yet and will still do all we can to absorb ever-increasing manufacturing costs.’ Heward added, ‘Any company that sources materials in such a volatile market needs a degree of flexibility on future pricing. We stay true to offering the finest products whose value should be measured by their quality and longevity.’…

NEW RESEARCH from MPB – the world’s largest online platform to buy, sell and trade used photo and video kit – has revealed the UK population is sitting on over £19 billion worth of unused photographic equipment. More than half (53%) of UK adults have at least one unused camera in their home, with 22% having two or more. Over two-fifths of UK adults still have other photo equipment, such as lenses, lying around unused. The average value of the UK’s unused camera kit is £293.50, the survey revealed. This means the entire country is sitting on over £19 billion worth of cameras and camera accessories that they don’t even use. Only 37% of consumers have sold an old piece of tech in the past ten years, with 73% admitting…

Previously in this series on British photographic heritage, I have looked at studios, societies and brands. However, I thought it would be fitting to also consider shops and retail, and in particular, a London business which has been owned by the same family for close to 100 years. I have been a customer at Process Supplies in Mount Pleasant, Clerkenwell, since the late 1980s. It stocks an extensive catalogue of photographic papers, films and chemistry in addition to digital papers and inks, archival storage materials and a comprehensive range of studio and darkroom essentials and accessories. A family affair I was interested to find out more about the shop’s history and how it has remained a family business for so long. I got the chance recently to sit down with…

THE MAIN camera can give great-looking images, with lots of detail and good colour reproduction and dynamic range. There are also plenty of modes for more-advanced photographers to play with. This makes it a real shame that the ultra-wide camera doesn’t offer as impressive results. The 3.3x telephoto camera performs well with an f/2.4 aperture and OIS, but at 8MP it’s low in resolution. It’s worth noting that the colour reproduction differs not only between the cameras you use, but also the mode. If this could be resolved, we could be on to a real winner here, as there is so much to like about the OnePlus 10 Pro as a smartphone. The cameras all seem to be susceptible to lens flare as well, and there are times when HDR…

With Ukraine being in the public eye at the moment, I thought I’d revisit a Ukrainian camera from my collection. It was made at the Arsenal Factory in Kiev, which was formed in Soviet times, but continued production after Ukraine became independent. This particular specimen was made in 2002, well past the end of the Soviet era. It must have been intended for the export market, as the words ‘Made in Ukraine’ in English are moulded into the base of the plastic body. The original box however was definitely for domestic use, everything is in Cyrillic, and the price in roubles is printed on it. The box also contains an instruction manual and various certificates bearing official rubber stamps – and as an afterthought, a crudely translated, and even more…

Gyles Brandreth Setting Records by Evening Standard The British broadcaster and writer Gyles Brandreth during his successful world-record attempt for the longest after-dinner speech at the Mayfair Hotel in London. The Guinness Book of Records feat was made in aid of charity, with the finished speech lasting some 4 hours, 19 minutes and 34 seconds. Since then, Brandreth has set further records for the longest after-dinner speech – standing at 11 hours, and then 12 and a half hours. Here’s hoping editor Nigel Atherton doesn’t get any ideas to smash the record at the next Amateur Photographer Awards. 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…

VANGUARD has expanded its Alta Sky Collection of camera bags with the addition of the top-of-the-range Alta Sky 68 backpack, which can carry an 800mm telephoto lens, plus seven other lenses. The Alta Sky 68 is specifically designed to carry a super-telephoto lens up to an 800mm f/5.6, attached to a pro DSLR or full-frame mirrorless camera body, along with up to seven additional lenses (or personal kit). The backpack can also accommodate a 16in laptop and an 11in tablet, meaning photographers can check whether they’ve captured their perfect shot or can even edit their shots on the go. The Alta Sky 68 backpack is available now at £259.99.…

9 May 1998 Remember when photographers lived in terror of their films being ruined by X-ray machines? Like burglary, spiders and plane crashes, the fear was always out of proportion to the actual risk but AP got a lot of mileage out of the topic, including on the cover of the Film Supplement that came free with this issue. A stark example of real risk was found in our feature about the perils that photojournalists face in the world’s danger zones. The accompanying league table showed that over the previous decade, Algeria was the world’s most dangerous place to be a journalist, with 60 killed doing their job. Ukraine has taken over that dubious distinction in 2022, but in the past ten years over 500 journalists have been killed around…

WITH the original Z-series cameras not being hugely suited to fast-moving subjects such as wildlife and sport, it perhaps was no surprise to see longer focal length lenses taking a while to be available for the native mount. As the cameras have continued to improve apace, particularly with the incredible Z 9, it makes complete sense for those longer focal lengths to start appearing. Professional users are likely to be drawn to the prohibitively expensive prime lenses, but for those of us with more staid budgets, lenses such as this offer a good compromise between performance and affordability. Although it would be unfair to claim this is a ‘cheap’ lens, for the versatility across multiple subjects that you can access with it, in terms of value for money it can…

AP: Tell us about your photography background GC: Photography for me began back in 2010. My stepfather handed down his old Canon EOS 400D and this immediately sparked my love for photographing the landscape. Living in Devon and Cornwall there’s no shortage of places to go, but as my passion for the outdoors grew more with each outing, I started travelling further afield to locations in Scotland, The Lake District, Northumberland and Snowdonia. Regular road trips over a couple of years gave me enough knowledge to start leading small workshops for online friends in the photography community. I’ve since become an ambassador for Kase Filters as well as for Vanguard tripods and bags. This allows me to provide clients with essential kit for these trips that they may not have…

AP picture of the week Spring Duckling by Mark Stacey Nikon Z 50, Sigma 600mm Contemporary at 400mm, 1/1000sec at f/6, ISO 3200 ‘Ducks are such an underrated and beautiful bird and their babies are, in my opinion, the cutest around. I came across this little one being fed on my walk to work and had to stop to photograph it (my camera is with me all the time),’ Mark tells us. ‘I always try to get at eye level and so I ended up dirtying my work clothes as well as being late. But it was worth it.’ Instagram: @markstacey_wildlife #appicoftheweek Win! To congratulate the AP Pic of the Week winner, Fujifilm is giving the winner a £25 voucher* to spend on any photo prints or gifts at myFUJIFILM.co.uk,…

FREELANCE US photojournalist Paula Bronstein is the 2022 recipient of the eighth annual Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award. The award recognises women photojournalists who exhibit extraordinary courage and humanity in reporting from areas of instability, oppression and conflict. It was created in honour of the German photojournalist, Anja Niedringhaus, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2014. Bronstein’s winning portfolio highlighted afflictions affecting communities across Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover in 2021, how war upends the life of the elderly in Ukraine and the migration of the Rohingya out of Myanmar to Bangladesh.…

Robert Doisneau A new book brings us an impressive overview on Doisneau’s life and work Readers’ favourite lenses We asked, you answered – which lenses do AP readers love and why? Sony 24-70mm F2.8 GM II Does Sony’s re-mastered standard zoom set new standards? On sale every Tuesday CONTENT FOR NEXT WEEK’S ISSUE MAY BE SUBJECT TO CHANGE…

While the shop is in the same location, and even the telephone number ends the same, this price list from the late 1920s shows a very different range of products used by the printing industry to create plates for the reproduction of photographs in printed ink. Among the listings for Collodion, Hypo Crystals, Photo Transfer Inks, Silver Nitrate and Caustic Soda is the curiously named Dragon’s Blood. Instead of being an ingredient for Alchemy (Clerkenwell has such legends), it is in fact a bright red plant resin used in photo engraving as a resist to protect unused parts of the printing plate when etched in acid.…

● £99 ● https://rode.com/ At a glance Supercardioid polar pattern 20Hz-20KHz frequency response 171 x 21.6mm 33g (89g with shock mount) Rode has updated its original VideoMic Go with some of the features seen on the more advanced VideoMic NTG to create the VideoMic Go II, but it’s also designed to be very easy to use. It comes supplied with a Rode SC14 cable, which is compatible with the 3.5mm TRS microphone ports in most modern cameras, but it can also be connected to a smartphone or computer via USB. There are no external controls on the unit and as it’s host-powered, it’s ready to use as soon as it’s connected to a camera. The recording level is adjusted via the camera’s menu, just like the on-board mic. Other features…

My father, an English teacher, spent a good part of his life trying to interest half-awake teenagers in the fictional adventures of George and Lennie, Polonius, Brutus, the Pardoner and the Lady of Shalott. For pleasure he read history and biography, maintaining that real life is better than anything writers can imagine. I have recently begun to examine and unpick the influence my parents had, and still have, on my thinking, attitudes and prejudices. This is giving me an awareness of which ideas are inherited, which are my own and which are a cocktail of the two. The principle that real life is more interesting than fiction is one belief I can now identify as genetically transmitted. People and real-life have always been the main focus of my lens. Everyone…