Innholdsfortegnelse for 28/06/2022 i Amateur Photographer

It’s sometimes easy to forget that mass-market autofocus has only been around since the 1980s, so far has it come. Indeed, the latest mirrorless camera autofocus systems almost need a manual to themselves, such is the level of sophistication and, at times, complexity. This issue Angela Nicholson has put together a guide to getting the most from the latest AF systems, with insights from some top photographers. Don’t miss our definitive review of the Canon EOS R3, too, a mirrorless powerhouse which takes AF to a whole new level. Clever technology aside, photography is about people and their creativity, and nobody should be deterred through any kind of disability. So this issue we also look at the fantastic work done by the Disabled Photographers’ Society, including gear adaptations. Do get…

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, so that they can print their image any way they like! Simply go to myFUJIFILM.co.uk, select what you want, then enter your given voucher code at checkout. The voucher is valid for 6 months and can be used in multiple transactions. No monetary eligibility or exchange. Need help using your code? Contact myfujifilm_uk@fujifilm.com *NOTE: PRIZE APPLIES TO UK RESIDENTS ONLY…

ADOBE has unveiled major updates to its Photoshop, Lightroom and Lightroom Classic Creative Cloud apps, with new features and benefits for photographers. The updates deliver new editing and usability enhancements to Photoshop on the web (beta), and leverage Adobe Sensei AI and machine learning to help to simplify and streamline complex workflows for creatives, especially when working across desktop, web and mobile. The AI-powered additions to Photoshop include Neural Filters, which use machine learning to help speed up your editing for tasks such as colourising black & white images, changing a subject’s expression or make-up transfers. Photoshop on the web now has editing features such as Curves, Refine Edge, Dodge and Burn and Smart Objects conversion (to aid non-destructive editing). Adobe also unveiled a Photo Restoration Neural Filter that helps…

DXO HAS announced Nik Collection 5, the latest version of its eight-strong suite of image editing plug-ins. Nik Collection 5 includes major upgrades and redesigns to the Nik Color Efex and Analog Efex plug-ins. These include new and better user interfaces, two colour selectivity sliders and more powerful local adjustments. Color Efex and Analog Efex also include new ways to edit images. The Perspective Efex plug-in has also been updated. It includes support for 20 new cameras and 60 new lenses. Nik Collection 5 now comes with DxO PhotoLab 5 Essential, which means you get a full raw editor on top of the plug-in suite. Nik Collection 5 is available for £135 (Windows or Mac). Users of Nik Collection 4 can upgrade for £69.…

1 Don’t enter at the last minute. It’s hard to judge work when you’re in a rush. Plus, websites crash, forms might require more information than you have to hand, and life can sometimes get in the way of submitting your work. 2 If your picture was taken on a phone, bear in mind that there might be a minimum file size for exhibition/book purposes. FPOTY has a mobile phone category, so look out for this. 3 Submit the largest file/ print allowed. If the rules state ‘maximum size print 8x10in’ then make sure you send 8x10in. 4 Unless it’s a requirement, do not include watermarks on your images. It’s tempting to think this will protect your work, but most competitions are judged anonymously and it’s just annoying. 5 FPOTY…

While the EOS R3 may not offer as high a pixel count as some of its peers, it still delivers crisp, highly detailed files. There’s barely any visible noise or loss of detail at ISO 3200, and it’s only when you hike the sensitivity to ISO 12,800 that fine detail obviously starts to blur away. But I’d still be entirely happy shooting at ISO 25,600, while even ISO 51,200 isn’t out of the question when it’s necessary to get the shot. However, ISO 102,400 is decidedly ropey, and I’d avoid the extended ISO 204,800 setting, if at all possible. I got the best high-ISO results using the AI-based noise reduction in DxO PureRAW.…

● £79; £119 (Docz2 kit) ● 3leggedthing.com 3 Legged Thing’s Punks line represents the more affordable end of the firm’s range, but that doesn’t mean it skimps on quality. The Trent 2.0 monopod is a case in point. This sturdy four-section model extends to a remarkable 2 metres, yet only costs £79. Thanks to its magnesium alloy construction it’s also much lighter than you’d expect, at 728g. At this point, it’s perfectly reasonable to question why you’d ever need such a sizeable stick. I’m around 6 feet tall, which means that I can usually work quite comfortably with a 1.5m monopod. So most of the time, I’d happily use Trent 2.0 without even extending its final leg section. But that extra length means that not only does this monopod cater…

Olympus Tough TG-6 ● £369 ● www.olympus.co.uk Olympus’s Tough compacts have habitually won our underwater camera group tests, and this latest model is still the best of its type. It’s waterproof to 15m, shockproof against a 2.4m drop, crushproof and freezeproof. The 25-100mm equivalent lens is paired with a 12MP sensor, and viewing is via a 3in LCD. This is also one of the few rugged cameras that can record raw files. Panasonic LX100 II ● £749 ● www.panasonic.com/uk A high-end compact for creative photography, the LX100 II is based around a 24-75mm equivalent f/1.7-2.8 lens and a 17MP Four Thirds sensor that features a true multi aspect-ratio design. It also boasts a full range of traditional analogue control dials, and the corner-mounted viewfinder is complemented by touchscreen LCD. ★★★★…

Wimbledon Fence by H F Davis Chauffeurs watching the tennis at the All-England Club at Wimbledon, London, through holes in the fence. This year, the Wimbledon tournament runs from 27 June until 10 July and is the 135th edition of the tournament. 2022 also marks 100 years of Centre Court in its current location at Church Road in Wimbledon. An exhibition dedicated to Centre Court is currently on display in the club grounds. This year’s tournament marks the first time that games are planned to take place across all 14 of the scheduled two weeks, with the introduction of play on the middle Sunday to the permanent schedule. The Getty Images Hulton Archive is one of the world’s great cultural resources. Tracing its origins to the founding of the London…

VENUS Optics has announced the Laowa 90mm f/2.8 2x Ultra-Macro APO lens, which is specially designed for full-frame mirrorless cameras. It’s the eighth Laowa 2:1 magnification macro lens and comes three years after Venus Optics launched its award-winning 100mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO lens. The new 90mm lens has inherited the same 2:1 maximum magnification and apochromatic design, but it’s smaller in size than its 100mm sibling. The 90mm f/2.8 comes in Canon RF, Nikon Z, Sony E and L mounts, measures 74x120mm and weighs 619g. It accepts 67mm filters and has a minimum focusing distance of 20.5cm. In addition, the lens is engineered with three extra-low dispersion elements, which are designed to suppress longitudinal and lateral chromatic aberration across in-focus and out-of-focus areas. The Laowa 90mm f/2.8 2x…

St Ives Photographic Club St Ives, Cambridgeshire Meets: The Free Church, Market Hill, St Ives, Cambridgeshire, PE27 5AL. Indoor meetings normally held at the St Ives Free Church on Tuesday evenings, meeting at 7:30pm for an 8pm start, from September to April, together with an active summer programme of outdoor events. Membership: Membership costs just £35 per year and a reduced rate of £10 for students in full-time education with a current student card. The club also has the option of E-membership at a reduced rate of £10 per year for members who cannot attend the club on a regular basis. E-membership allows members access to the newsletter; member’s area of the website and Facebook group; free entry to the first winter meeting of the year and entrance to the…

Disability can strike at any time, but it doesn’t mean the end of photographic aspirations. In some cases it can trigger the beginning. At the forefront of helping photographers with a range of physical and mental challenges is the Disabled Photographers’ Society (DPS), a charity formed in 1968 to help make photography accessible to everyone. The DPS is run by a team of volunteers, many of whom are disabled photographers themselves, and offers individual members adaptations, equipment, support and advice. They loan equipment free at the point of need and enable opportunities to meet like-minded (and bodied) people through exhibitions, competitions, social media and the charity’s quarterly magazine, In Focus. The DPS also runs an Electronic Portfolio Group, where members can submit digital images and then receive feedback, support and…

IT’S TEMPTING to compare the Canon EOS R3 to the Nikon Z 9 and Sony Alpha 1, and then dismiss it on the basis of resolution. Why spend the best part of £6,000 on a 24MP camera, when you could get double the pixel count elsewhere? But judging a camera, and particularly a specialist one, by its resolution alone is like judging a car purely by its top speed. What you really need is enough to get the job done, at which point other attributes become equally, if not more important. Which is a roundabout way of saying that, if 24MP is enough to get the job done, the Canon EOS R3 is an intoxicatingly brilliant camera to shoot with. It boasts one of the most sophisticated autofocus systems around,…

I’ve recently written several articles on the function of autofocus from a technical point of view, mainly in the context of mirrorless versus DSLR systems. In short, DSLRs operate using advanced optics assisted by computer algorithms, whilst their mirrorless counterparts are based on sophisticated algorithms assisted by optics. DSLR AF systems have been continuously developed from the original phase-detect system invented by Honeywell in 1975. In those days, the available processing power was minuscule, so all of the heavy lifting was done by optics. Over the years, SLR AF systems have gained increased accuracy and the number of focus points has proliferated, but the basic working principle remained the same. The zenith of this development were systems such as those found in the Nikon D5, D6, and the Canon EOS-1D…

Before I write about this picture and project I feel I should offer you an apology and explain how I am commissioned. I am usually sent a link by my lovely commissioning editor asking if I would like to write about a certain project/book/image. Often it is something current, sometimes from an exhibition. In this case the email asked if I would like to write about the book The Mennonites by Larry Towell published by Gost in May 2022… Now, dear readers, this is where the apology comes in. I’d looked at some pictures, liked them, but have to admit (to my shame) that I had not heard of Larry Towell and had presumed (again to my shame) that this was a recent project. Now, when I say I had…

AP picture of the week Summer Storm Over Happisburgh Lighthouse by Steve Gray Fujifilm X-T30, Fujinon XF 16-80mm F4 R OIS WR at 16mm, 1/8sec at f/9, ISO 80 Steve tells us, ‘I took this at Happisburgh Lighthouse on the North Norfolk coast. There was a storm heading over the Norfolk coast and it looked like it would break around sunset. The weather after a storm and rain always bring great light and interesting skies so I headed to the coast. This shot was taken right after a sudden shower, and the sun breaking through the storm clouds that had just passed over gave off this amazing light. I also wanted to make sure that I captured the movement in the barley to show the impact of the wind.’ Instagram:…

TAMRON has announced its 17-70mm F2.8 Di III-A VC RXD is now available for Fujifilm X-mount APS-C mirrorless cameras. The lens was launched in 2021 in a Sony E-mount version. On Fujifilm X-series APS-C cameras the lens offers a 4.1x zoom range (equivalent to 25.5-105mm) at a constant wide f/2.8 aperture. Its vibration compensation (VC) mechanism is optimised for stills and video, and it includes Tamron’s proprietary Rapid eXtra-silent stepping Drive (RXD) motor for quick and near-silent autofocus, with full-time manual override capability. The lens is expected in dealers from mid-July at £829.99.…

When I was in art school, back in the late ’80s, I came into contact with the work of Caspar David Friedrich. He was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter who was known for placing contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or gothic ruins. His primary interest was the contemplation of nature. This approach made such an impression on me that I started to introduce human elements into my landscape photography. At the time, very few landscape photographers did this, but it turns out that I was ahead of my time – scroll through Instagram and you’ll see that this has become the norm. Including a human or a wildlife element gives scale to the landscape. Photographers often forget that viewers may not always know the…

AP: Tell us about your photography background LA: I’ve always taken photos, starting with a Kodak Instamatic as a child, but buying my first Canon DSLR in 2006 really ignited my love of photography. Teaching myself how to use the camera, as well as the necessary processing skills, was a steep learning curve. But living in Cornwall close to many beautiful beaches really inspired me to persevere, and the coast is where I am happiest making work. I like to create a sense of space in my images and I’m fascinated by huge clouds and reflections as well as more abstract close-ups of boats. I exhibit my work in Cornwall and have been part of the Landscape Photographer of the Year touring exhibitions. I am also part of a gallery…