Innholdsfortegnelse for 24/05/2022 i Amateur Photographer

However good your lens, there are some problems that can trouble even top-quality glass if you don’t know what to look out for. So this issue, we reveal how to make the most of your optics, with lots of practical tips that won’t involve much extra cost (if any). One of the joys of being a photographer in 2022 is that we can also use a wide range of older and more quirky lenses on the latest cameras via adapters, as you’ll see in our round-up of readers’ favourite lenses on page 32 – big thanks to everyone who took part and do keep letting us know what you love to use. We’ve got in-depth tests of some great new glass from Nikon, Sony and OM Digital Solutions, too, plus…

Adobe has added new ‘one-tap’ speed functionality and a variety of key editing features to the toolbox of its Photoshop on the iPad app, which brings it more in line with Photoshop Desktop. The app was launched in 2019, and updates include the addition of one-tap Content-Aware Fill, Remove Background, Subject Select and Auto-tone, Auto-Colour and Auto-Contrast. Content-Aware Fill can make distracting objects disappear, blend artifacts smoothly, remove unintended bystanders, and clear out artifacts and dust. Remove Background allows you to remove the background from any image non-destructively. You can swap out any background or place your subject within another image seamlessly. Select Subject can now identify photographs of people and automatically ‘perfectly select and refine the small details such as wisps of hair and edges of clothes’, while the…

THERE’S a lot to be said for a versatile everyday lens, and with this optic, Nikon gives us something that ticks a lot of the requisite boxes. The focal length is suitable for a good range of subjects, the design, weight and size is ideal for travel, the aperture is large and the price is relatively low. Of course, it’s also a compromise of a lens, which will make it less appealing to some, depending on their priorities. Most obviously, the 28mm wideangle end is limited compared to Nikon’s other Z-mount standard zooms, which all start at a usefully wider 24mm instead. Unlike Nikon’s S-line optics, it doesn’t benefit from separate manual focus and control rings, either. Although image quality is good, it doesn’t match up to the more expensive…

› £89-£189 › www.nisioptics.com Neutral-density filters are handy tools for photographers. By reducing the amount of light entering the lens, they allow the use of large apertures on bright days, or long exposure times to introduce motion blur. They’re also invaluable for videographers, enabling sufficiently slow shutter speeds to give a smooth rendition of movement. Compared to fixed-density alternatives, variable NDs promise to be particularly useful. By rotating the front section of the filter, they allow you to change their strength and achieve a target shutter speed without having to carry multiple filters. Variable NDs work by using two polarisers, one in front of the other. When they’re perfectly aligned, the density is at its minimum; rotate the front one and it successively increases. But this can come with unwanted…

Emmeline Pankhurst Arrested by Topical Press Agency Outside Buckingham Palace, the famous suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928) is arrested and carried away by Superintendent Rolfe at a march, organised by Pankhurst on 21 May 1914, to petition King George V. Just 200 women were part of the march, yet they were met by 2,000 police officers on arrival at the palace, some of which were on horseback. More than 60 people were arrested, and numerous women were injured. This image appeared in a Picture Post story from 1943 entitled, Suffragettes 25 Years After. 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…

Sony has unveiled its new Xperia 1 IV flagship smartphone, which boasts the world’s first true optical zoom lens in a smartphone camera. Alongside 16mm ultra-wideange and 24mm main cameras, it employs a 1.5x telephoto zoom with a focal-length range equivalent to 85-125mm, which should be ideal for taking pictures of people. The Xperia 1 IV is capable of 20fps high-speed shooting and has the same AF system as Sony’s latest Alpha cameras, including subject recognition, eye detection and subject tracking. 4K video recording is available at up to 120fps. The Sony Xperia 1 IV is available for sale from 16 June 2022 for £1,299.…

DJI has released its £639 48MP DJI Mini 3 Pro – its most powerful, lightweight and portable Mini camera drone thus far. Weighing less than 249g (to fall into the safest drone category in many countries), it has advanced features such as 4K video at 60fps, ActiveTrack, tri-directional obstacle sensing, 90° gimbal rotation to shoot high-quality vertical imaging for social media, and a minimum flight time of 34 minutes. Plus, the arms and propellers have been adjusted for more aerodynamic flight. It also features a completely enhanced imaging system which employs a 48MP 1/1.3in CMOS sensor, promising better image quality than its predecessor. It’s paired with a 24mm-equivalent f/1.7 lens.…

The next blockbuster film you see could well have been shot with a lens that’s spent a generation festering away at the back of someone’s cupboard. Lens rehousing, the practice of taking the glass out of old lenses and mounting it in new barrels, is becoming ever more popular, a trend driven by directors of photography on high-end TV dramas and movies who love the signature looks of old lenses. Features like their unique bokeh, shimmering flares or the lustre of period coatings and materials bestow added class on a production. At first it was just old movie lenses like Canon K35s and Cooke Speed Panchros that were treated to improved focusing mechanisms and new mounts. But increasingly, attention is turning to stills lenses. There are several reasons for this.…

Yes to video AP is a magazine aimed at photographers, but you can’t ignore the fact that almost all of the latest ‘stills cameras’ are also ‘video cameras’. Indeed, some are capable of capturing broadcast-quality video. To completely ignore the video capabilities of such cameras in your reviews would be most odd. As a significant and growing proportion of your readers are using modern cameras it strikes me that AP can’t ignore the needs of those readers who may be contemplating capturing video footage any more than it can afford to ignore the readers who like to use film. So, I expect to see articles on how to use modern cameras as either blogging tools or as family video recorders. And naturally, reviews of video editing software may also start…

A 24-70mm f/2.8 will always be one of the most popular lenses produced for any lens mount. It forms the staple of many kits for professionals, while for enthusiasts, it may well be the only lens they ever buy. It is an investment and a worry when a new lens promises to be smaller and lighter. As we know, thanks to the laws of physics, there are often compromises to get the lens there. Mirrorless cameras promised that we would have smaller and lighter lenses. Where chromatic aberrations, curvilinear distortions and vignetting were the foe of film shooters, the computational power of digital cameras can swipe them away. Combined with leaps in lens technology, this allows us to have impressive lenses in smaller and lighter shells than before. Purists might…

‘This project makes for uncomfortable viewing… which means it’s doing its job’ This picture, from the project The Fish That Never Swam by photographic artist, educator, activist and filmmaker Kirsty Mackay, is titled, ‘Wee John, pictured on the border between Drumchapel and Bearsden, where male life expectancy varies massively depending on which side of the divide you come from.’ As a whole, this project makes for uncomfortable viewing… which I guess it’s meant to and means, to me, that it’s doing its job. Kirsty describes it on her excellent and informative website thus: ‘It considers class and discrimination against working-class people. Combining first-person narratives with photographs, it takes Glasgow as a case study, looking at the root causes of the city’s poor health outcomes and lower life expectancy.’ This picture…

AP picture of the week Royal Pavilion under the Stars by Michael Steven Harris Nikon D750, Sky: at 35mm, 8 sec at f/11, ISO 2500; Pavilion: at 35mm, 4 sec at f/11, ISO 100 ‘Photographing Brighton’s Royal Pavilion at night had been on my “must-do” list for a long time, owing to the stunning Indian-influenced architecture and the beautiful way that it’s lit up at night,’ says Michael. ‘To add to the ambience of the image I decided to also capture the stars in the night sky above the Pavilion. I took two separate exposures and then blended them together in Photoshop, with further processing in Lightroom to minimise the light pollution and enhance the photo.’ www.michaelstevenharris.com, Instagram: @michaelstevenharris To congratulate the AP Pic of the Week winner, Fujifilm is…

Skylum has updated its Luminar Neo AI-driven photo-editing app (to version 1.0.6) with the addition of AI-powered masks that analyse all the elements in an image and automatically identify them as separate elements. The MaskAI feature removes the need to manually mask subjects and is said to be able to detect up to nine separate elements: people, skies, architecture, transportation, water, flora, mountains, natural ground and artificial ground. Skylum claims that as the AI learns it will be able to identify more elements within images. The Luminar Neo 1.0.6 update is available now from www.skylum.com.…

Chantal Macleod-Holdsworth cmacleodholdsworth.co.uk FAVOURITE LENS: Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 50mm f/2.8 USED ON: Nikon D7000 I love this old M42 screw-mount lens; it works very well on my Nikons for my pet photography and you can easily get adapters cheaply. The lens cost me about £40 in a private sale. There is an older version, the Zebra, which tends to be a bit more expensive at around £100, but it is well worth it. I have found you can often pick up M42 lenses at charity shops. The lens is manual-focus only and I tend to shoot at the widest aperture, which is my happy place. I particularly like the quality of the bokeh you get with this lens – it’s great for dog portraits and images of nature, flowers,…

IN MANY respects the OM System M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm F4 PRO delivers nicely on its promise. Like the 12-45mm f/4, it adapts the optical design of its larger, more expensive f/2.8 sibling to deliver lovely crisp images from a small, lightweight package. Indeed, it’s remarkably small for a 300mm equivalent lens with premium optics. You don’t even have to go searching for a sweet spot in terms of focal length and aperture, as it delivers plenty of detail at f/4. The real trick is not to stop down too far. There are, however, some compromises to accept in return for the compact size. Naturally the f/4 maximum aperture isn’t great for blurring backgrounds, while autofocus isn’t quite as good at keeping up with fast-moving subjects compared to more expensive…