Innholdsfortegnelse for 05/07/2022 i Amateur Photographer

Macro became very popular during the lockdowns as people became ‘gods of small things’ around their house and garden, and this shows no sign of waning. In our macro special we push beyond the obvious subjects and techniques, sharing alternative approaches, the best budget accessories and lighting, and how to take outstanding shots on your smartphone, while we also have Andy Westlake’s review of the tiny full-frame Laowa 85mm f/5.6 2x Ultra Macro APO. Top portrait photographer Rankin gets in on the act too, revealing his characteristically quirky approach to close-ups during the lockdown. If you’re attracted to macro, never assume it’s expensive, as we also round up the best secondhand macro lenses – essential reading for these straitened times. Enjoy the issue and don’t forget to subscribe. Geoff Harris,…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Jimmy Forsyth The late Jimmy Forsyth was one of the North East’s best-known documentary photographers. His pictures of the now long-gone Scotswood community and other West End working-class areas in Newcastle just bristle with the cold stark atmosphere of the times in which they were taken. Jimmy was more interested in picture content than in the camera he used to capture them. Many of his shots may be a bit awry technically, but they’re a superb reminder of an era now passed into history. I once chatted to Jimmy in Newcastle’s Grainger Market in 1988 where he was using an old Ilford Sportsman camera as well as a Russian Lubitel TLR. To him, getting the shot was all that counted and he told me he had…

Adopt a beginner’s mind If we adopt a childlike curiosity, even the most commonplace objects and scenes reveal their photographic potential. Marvel at your subject’s colour, shape and texture, look at the way the light emphasises its form, consider the positive and negative space. Embrace uncertainty If we embrace uncertainty, we can find mystery and fascination in the familiar. Think like an explorer: go down a street you’ve never been down, open a drawer and photograph the first thing you see. In other words, welcome the unexpected. Meditate on an object Spend 20 minutes observing your subject – even if it appears static. Observe the way that light and shade reveal its contours and texture. Look with a sense of awe and astonishment. Don’t take any pictures to begin with,…

With the results of Round 4 in, APOY veteran Marco Tagliarino has jumped not only into the top ten but also into first place with his atmospheric image, demonstrating just how fluid the leaderboard is from round to round. There are plenty of other photographers hot on his heels, though, and we anticipate a lot of changes to the top ten in the coming rounds. The Young APOY leaderboard is equally tight, and we expect to see an increasing separation between those on joint points as the competition continues. There are still plenty of points to be won and six rounds to go, so those clubs that are pursuing Launceston Camera Club are still in with a very good chance.…

‘For this stunning macro photograph, the choice is our razor-sharp ultraHD photo print under glossy acrylic. The lightweight, shatterproof material enhances the look and really brings out the colours and depth. The award-winning photo paper supports the sharpness of the butterflies and flower in the foreground of the subject. In this picture we do not need a frame, we want to open the view to the sides to stimulate the imagination of the viewer.’ Jan-Ole Schmidt, Product Manager, WhiteWall.com…

RANKIN Born in Scotland in 1966, Rankin is a photographer, magazine publisher (including Hunger and Dazed & Confused) and filmmaker. Arguably best known for his celebrity portraits he has photographed everyone from The Queen to Madonna and has shot many music videos, including for Rita Ora and Miley Cyrus. He has had over 40 books of his work published and his commercial clients have included Rolls-Royce, M&S, Hugo Boss and Guinness. He has an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society. www.rankinphoto.co.uk…

Macro lens All the images in the Plant Scars series were captured using a hired Fujinon XF 80mm f/2.8 R LM OIS WR Macro lens. This hefty bit of glass offers 1:1 (life-size) magnification and has a minimum focusing distance of 25cm. Tripod Leaves with the most interesting marks and scars always seem to be in the most inaccessible places. To give you more flexibility, try using a tripod with a central column that can be positioned at 90°. I use a Manfrotto 190CXPRO4. Tweezers When you’re shooting close-up subjects, any dirt, stray leaves or fine threads can be distracting. If you want to save yourself valuable time on the computer, use a set of tweezers to tidy things up while still on location. Kneeling pad Some of the best…

There are a few smartphones which offer dedicated macro functionality, while others can be used for close-ups so long as you use them in a specific way. Here we’ve included three of the best smartphones you can currently pick up – the iPhone 13 Pro, the Google Pixel 6 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra (which was the recent winner of Smartphone of the Year at the AP Awards). Shooting exactly the same macro scene with each of the smartphones reveals how each of them copes with close-up shooting, giving you an idea of whether or not you might want to add it to your wishlist.…

For many years, Gil Wizen has been a leading practitioner of a photographic technique that places living species of fauna and flora against a clean white background, then backlit by remote flash. This was the signature style of the Meet Your Neighbours project developed in 2009 by the acclaimed nature photographers Niall Benvie and Clay Bolt. ‘It started as a global photography project to help people connect with the nature around them,’ says Gil. ‘Another nice part of this project is that because there is a uniformity of style – everything is against a white background, there’s no shadow, everything is backlit – you could use these photos to create either composites or snapshots of the biodiversity in a certain area.’ Gil says this type of image is ideal for…

Round six Close-ups The magic of macro photography is that it gives us a view of the world we never normally see. The intricacies and beauty of a butterfly wing or the alien-like features of a spider come alive when viewed close-up. But it’s not just natural subjects – you can look almost anywhere and at anything for inspiration. Good technique is crucial in this round, and it’s vital to get the focusing spot on, because a millimetre can make the difference between a shot that’s rejected and a winner. Your guest judge Your guest judge for Round Six, Close-Ups, is Tracy Calder. Tracy has more than 20 years of experience in the photo magazine industry. In 2018 she co-founded Close-up Photographer of the Year – an international…

THE LAOWA 85mm f/5.6 2x Ultra Macro APO is a great example of what can be done when designers use their imagination to break away from existing conventions of what lenses should look like. We often tout small optics as being one of the big attractions of APS-C and Micro Four Thirds systems, but Venus Optics has demonstrated that it’s also possible to build compact designs for full frame, simply by using a smaller maximum aperture. This approach does, however, result in some practical limitations. This lens isn’t best suited to a certain style of selective-focus shooting with artfully blurred foregrounds and backgrounds, and neither will it sensibly double up as a portrait lens. In these cases, a conventional f/2.8 optic would be a better choice. Instead, it’s a specialist…

TREASURES FROM THE HULTON ARCHIVE Straw Boaters by Fox Photos A big pile of straw boaters being carried by an employee at a hatters. Boaters became popular during the late 19th and early 20th century, and were derived from the hats that were originally worn by the gondoliers in Venice, Italy. Boaters were worn by both men and women – with the designer, Coco Chanel, making them particularly fashionable during the early 1900s. 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 it at www.gettyimages.com.…

Photographic artist Jennifer McKinnon spends much of the year searching the streets in and around Atlanta for dumpsters. These unsightly waste containers can be found lurking behind shopping malls, sitting on construction sites and blocking people’s driveways. At first, she was attracted to them due to their unusual (and aesthetically pleasing) markings – a result of natural and unnatural weathering – but over time she came to realise that her images could be used to highlight the impact that waste and consumption has on the natural world. Her early ‘dumpster abstracts’ have instant graphic appeal: bands of colour sweep across the frame giving them the air of contemporary paintings. But in recent months she has been focusing more on digital composites – layering multiple abstracts in one image. ‘Think collage,…

● Close-up and Macro Photography by Robert Thompson ● Conscious Creativity by Philippa Stanton ● Digital Macro & Close-up Photography (revised and expanded) by Ross Hoddinott ● The Little Book of Contemplative Photography: Seeing with Wonder, Respect, and Humility by Howard Zehr ● Mastering Macro Photography by David Taylor ● The Mindful Photographer by Sophie Howarth ● The Photographer’s Playbook by Jason Fulford and Gregory Halpern ● The Practice of Contemporary Photography: Seeing the World with Fresh Eyes by Andy Karr and Michael Wood ● Stop, Look, Breathe, Create by Wendy Ann Greenhalgh ● The Tao of Photography: Seeing Beyond Seeing by Philippe L Gross…

In fifth place, Inge Schuster shot her unusual and atmospheric forest scene using a Canon EF 20mm f/2.8 USM – a lens that was launched in 1992 but has never been updated. Weighing 405g, with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 and a 25cm closest-focusing distance, it’s a versatile optic. And although it’s autofocus, it has instant manual override. The metal mount keeps it sturdy. This unusual lens is available at MPB for £274 in excellent condition. Peter Henry, who was awarded ninth place, took his ethereal shot at the long end of a Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II. This fast-aperture telephoto zoom has Vibration Reduction, which allows handheld shooting at 3.5 stops slower than normal, as well as fast, quiet autofocus. It displays excellent edge-to-edge sharpness and boasts a…

Andrew is a wildlife and landscape photographer whose photos regularly appear in the national media. He is an OM System Ambassador. Follow his work on @andrewfusekpeters Sometimes you don’t have to go far to capture something amazing. I was sitting in my garden on a warm September day watching the butterflies nectaring on my wife’s flowers. A painted lady was flying between Verbena Bonariensis and I had recently starting photographing butterflies in flight using the Olympus 60 raw frames per second burst pro-capture feature. One set of pictures had several frames in perfect focus, which I then layer-masked in Photoshop to show a time-lapse sequence over about 1/20th of a second. Once I had a decent TIFF file to work with, I brought it back into Lightroom to bring the…

1 ‘If you’re doing macro, choose the format that suits you. I would always recommend full-frame 35mm over medium format because of the size of the sensor. It’s smaller and, therefore, your depth of field is longer. You can be shooting at f/11 and get quite a lot in focus. When I look at macro images they often have this very shallow depth of field… but I find that quite unattractive to look at. I like my depth of field to be really long. I’ve always liked my photographs to be super-sharp, so 35mm definitely works well, unless you’re prepared to do longer exposures in medium format.’ 2 ‘Use daylight. I loved the daylight. When I came back from lockdown I did some stuff with flash, and it…

Ruben Perez Novo lives in A Coruña, part of Galicia in north-west Spain. He is a full-time naval mechanic who has been working in shipyards for more than 20 years, specialising in propulsion and navigation systems. He calls photography a ‘hobby that I enjoy whenever work and family allow it. It is the perfect excuse to go out and enjoy nature’. He has been placed in numerous photography competitions, including the Nature Photographer of the Year and Close-up Photographer of the Year.…

1 Look beyond photography. While I was researching the Plant Scars project, I looked at books on writing, calligraphy and even Islamic tiles. 2 Consider the link. The images in your series need to be linked by more than subject matter. It might be colour, technique, style or just a feeling, but the link needs to be obvious. 3 Get physical. When you’re choosing or sequencing images, it helps to print them out, move them around and live with them. 4 Define the purpose. Some competitions ask you to submit a statement of intent. You might have no intention of sharing your work, but it can help you to define the purpose, aims and objectives of your project. 5 It’s okay to change your mind.…

The camera club award Do you belong to a camera club? You can accumulate points for your society when you enter APOY, and after all the ten rounds are complete, the one with the most points will win a voucher for £500 to spend at MPB. The club might want to spend it on gear for use by members, or even run its own in-house competition with the prize going to the most successful photographer. It’s entirely up to the winning group to decide. The Young POTY award For the second time, we are adding a Young Photographer of the Year category to APOY, in order to encourage our up-and-coming snappers. Entrants should be 21 years old or younger by the competition’s final closing date of 4 November 2022. All…

A macro lens is the easiest way to get close to your subject and if you scan the second-hand listings of retailers such as CameraWorld, London Camera Exchange, Park Cameras and Wex Photo Video, or search what’s available from a dedicated second-hand dealer like MPB.com, you’ll soon see that you don’t have to buy new. In fact, whether you’re looking for a macro lens to mount on an old DSLR or the latest mirrorless camera, there are many great optics available second-hand. In this round-up we’ve included some of our favourites and, unless stated, quoted prices for them in excellent or nearly new condition. However, you can save even more money if you’re happy to go for one that’s showing a few signs of wear. Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM…

Benro’s Tablepod Flex is a small table-top tripod with an unusually versatile design. It’s perhaps primarily designed for content creators who use a smartphone to shoot video just as much as stills. But it should be equally interesting for those looking for a lightweight, versatile support when they don’t want to carry a full-size tripod. Uniquely, hidden inside each hollow carbon-fibre leg is another flexible arm, which can either be swapped into place on the central ‘spider’, or screwed onto the end of the leg via the threaded rubber foot. They can then be used to secure a camera to a handy branch or railing, assuming there’s such a thing where you want to set up. Those bendy arms have another function too, as they can be screwed into sockets…

AF Nikon AF lenses driven from cameraAF-S Nikon lenses with Silent Wave MotorAF-P Nikon lenses with stepper motorsAL Pentax lenses with aspheric elementsAPD Fujifilm lenses with apodisation elementsAPO Sigma Apochromatic lensesASPH Aspherical elementsAW Pentax all-weather lensesCS Samyang lenses for APS-C cropped sensorsD Nikon lenses that communicate distance infoDA Pentax lenses optimised for APS-C-sized sensorsDC Nikon defocus-control portrait lenses DC Sigma’s lenses for APS-C digitalDG Sigma’s designation for full-frame lensesDi Tamron lenses for full-frame sensorsDi-II Tamron lenses designed for APS-C DSLRsDi-III Tamron lenses for mirrorless camerasDN Sigma’s lenses for mirrorless camerasDO Canon diffractive optical element lensesDT Sony lenses for APS-C-sized sensorsDX Nikon’s lenses for DX-format digitalDS Canon’s Defocus Smoothing technologyE Nikon lenses with electronic aperturesE Sony lenses for APS-C mirrorless ED Extra-low Dispersion elementsEF Canon’s lenses for full-frame DSLRsEF-S Canon’s lenses…

Where Have All The Flowers Gone Martin Parr Foundation, Paintworks, Bristol Until 10 July This series of naked portraits by artist and photographer Tom Hunter were taken in the summers of 2017 and 2019 during the Glastonbury Festival. Using a makeshift photobooth, Tom asked the festival-goers to reimagine the liberation of the first Summer of Love in the late 1960s and embrace the freedom of nudity. You can view a selection of the portraits at the Martin Parr Foundation; timed to coincide with this year’s Glastonbury Festival. Tom will also be at the festival, shooting a new series which will be incorporated into the exhibition. Also on display are images taken by Tom’s mother Sheelagh Hunter using a Box Brownie at the famous Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 –…

Tracy is a photographer, writer and former editor of Outdoor Photography magazine. In 2018 she co-founded Close-up Photographer of the Year (CUPOTY) – an annual competition celebrating close-up, macro and micro photography. Earlier this year she was awarded a Gold medal from the RHS for her Plant Scars series. Her work has been exhibited at The Photographers’ Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and Saatchi Gallery. To see more visit Instagram@tracy_calder_photo and www.cupoty.com…

Round Four Landscapes Traditionally, landscape is the most popular genre among amateur photographers, and it’s easy to understand why. It’s a great excuse for getting out to the mountains, moors, forests and coast, and, when things come together, the pleasure of witnessing a few moments of stunning light – usually at the beginning or end of the day – can’t be beaten. In many ways, the photography is an adjunct to the overall experience! The ‘classic’ landscape photograph – shot with a wideangle lens, and with a distinct foreground, mid and background – is still the tried-and-tested approach to the subject, and with good reason. But increasingly we are seeing different perspectives, be that shooting in flatter light, at the long end of a telephoto zoom, or in…

Mike Martin UK 10pts Olympus OM-D E-M1, 7-14mm at 8mm, 1/500sec at f/8, ISO 200 Mike is a member of Bristol Photographic Society, and he chose it from the dropdown menu when he uploaded his image – winning his club ten points in the process. By shooting into the light, Mike has brought out the texture and shape of the trees, while also capturing more distant detail to give the image context. Converting to black & white means the viewer can concentrate on the tones and formation of the trees, without the distraction of colour. Composing so that the slight hump in the horizon falls between two of the trees was a good decision, too. As with last year, the camera club that accumulates the most points wins a £500…

1 Masking the butterflies I want to work on the butterflies, using Create New Mask and Select Subject. I clicked on Subtract, chose Brush and brushed out the flower, so my adjustments would only affect the butterflies. To bring them out, I increased Highlights, Whites, Texture and Clarity. 2 Masking the background I created a new mask, selected Subject, ticked invert and now my mask covered the background. I clicked Subtract and Brush and covered the proboscis and antennae of each butterfly. Then I decreased Texture, Clarity and Sharpness to give a smoother backdrop. 3 Final colour adjustments To bring out the colours a bit more I added small adjustments to the overall picture using Temperature, Vibrance and Saturation. On my colour-calibrated monitor, it was starting to look pretty good…

You’d normally expect Rankin to be shooting fashion, celebrity portraits or commercial projects, but the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown led him down a very different path. Forced to stay away from his London studio, at his house in Suffolk, he turned his lens to flowers. He reveals, ‘I’d been trying to do flowers for so long and was really drawn to them. Like most photographers I’m obsessed by flowers – the beauty of nature is something that you just can’t not love as a photographer.’ Rankin adds, ‘[In the past] I almost gave up on it because I just couldn’t crack getting into flowers. I ended up trying to put jeopardy into pictures and having them in vases, leaning on the side of tables, just about to fall off. Then lockdown…

Tracy Calder is a former AP staffer who co-founded Close-up Photographer of the Year (CUPOTY) in 2018 – an annual competition celebrating close-up, macro and micro photography. Her work has been exhibited at The Photographers’ Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and Saatchi Gallery. To see more visit Instagram @tracy_calder_photo and www.cupoty.com As a writer and storyteller, I’ve always been interested in language. Looking at how signs, symbols, drawings and alphabets have helped us to communicate with each over the centuries is a source of great fascination to me. If you look at the pictorial ‘writing’ used by the ancient Egyptians – drawings of feathers, eyes, beetles, trees, lotus flowers etc – these codes for speech and thought seem a million miles away from our modern-day language. But if you look…

Your smartphone is probably not the first thing that you think of when it comes to taking close-up photographs. Indeed, within the pages of the rest of this magazine you’ll find us advocating for all manner of specialist equipment. But what if you could achieve stunning results using just the smartphone in your pocket, giving you the option to grab close-ups while out and about wherever you are? Many of the recently announced smartphones have a dedicated macro shooting capability, therefore allowing you to get super-close to your subject and capture fine detail. There are other ways to achieve good results too, when capturing macro with your smartphone. Using the smartphone’s telephoto lens is one way to get good results, while there are also additional add-ons, loupes and lenses that…

Born in Israel and now based in Canada, Gil is a naturalist and photographer who developed a great affection for small creatures from a young age. Gil started taking photos of animals and plants aged 14 on his first SLR film camera, an Olympus. He studied biology and qualified as an entomologist. A science communicator, he’s involved in creating public educational programmes, and his photos have been published in magazines, newspapers, books and broadcast media. Gil is also a prolific contributor to international research publications in the fields of entomology, taxonomy and geosciences. gilwizen.com…

Take your pick from MPB’s huge catalogue of used gear The winner of each round of APOY 2022 receives a £500 voucher to spend on anything at MPB. Close-up fans might want to put the voucher towards a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 L Macro IS USM lens. It has a true macro magnification ratio of 1:1, meaning the object you are photographing is the same size as on your camera sensor. It’s equally good for portraiture and macro, and MPB sells it for between £514 and £704 in like-new condition. The sturdy, weather-sealed Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro is also well worth consideration. It also has a magnification ratio of 1:1 and is a great choice for portraiture. It’s available in Nikon, Canon FE and Sony A fits, ranging…

Legendary photojournalist John Downing, arguably best known for his black & white photographs once remarked: ‘Two things photograph better in colour, blood and fire.’ I would also make a case for flags. I’m currently watching the war unfold in Ukraine. The Ukrainian flag, made up of equally sized bands of blue and yellow, are a constant ripple across TV and social media screens. The flag’s origins date from the 12th century; when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union it was outlawed. Ukraine has celebrated Flag Day since 2004. Flags are historical, celebratory, poignant and political; raised in victory, tattooed onto flesh, wrapped around sports stars, draped over coffins and burnt in rage. In b&w or colour, they make for great images and a photographer should never walk past one…