Innholdsfortegnelse for 08/11/2022 i Amateur Photographer

When mirrorless cameras were invented, the original format was Micro Four Thirds and the point was to produce smaller, lighter cameras. Over the years the sensors, and the cameras, have got bigger but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re better. The fact is that every sensor format has its own benefits and drawbacks, and the best choice for you will depend on your priorities and the subjects you shoot. This week we run through the pros and cons of each one. We also talk to Queen legend Brian May, explore Adobe’s latest colourisation filters, look back at some of Canon’s more unconventional innovations and test the 40MP Fujifilm X-H2. We’ve also managed to squeeze in a sneak peek at two exciting new cameras from Canon and Sony. Connect with us @EMAIL…

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE It’s no easy thing for photographers to come up with a unique personal visual style that is immediately identifiable but Jake Hicks has achieved that. He is internationally renowned for his beautifully lit fashion and beauty pictures using coloured gels. You’d think that he would be an easy convert to the world of coloured LED lighting – why faff about with sheets of gels and gaffer tape when you can just dial in the colour you want? But until recently this wasn’t the case. ‘I found them very underpowered and expensive for what they did,’ he recalls. There was no way of adding modifiers, and the quality of the light itself was not very nice – whites tended to have an ugly green tinge.’ When Jake was initially…

The art of hand-colouring photographs dates back to the early days of black & white printing, and was particularly popular during the mid to late Victorian periods. Yet, handcolouring black & white photographs has remained in fashion right up to the current day, especially among digital artists restoring old photographs. Back in the 1980s, I worked as a full-time assistant to the photographer James Wedge. His studio included a retouching desk where he was able to retouch and handcolour his black & white prints (see the book Painted Ladies by James Wedge). I remember how long it would take to retouch each photograph. Plus, it was not uncommon for a small mistake to ruin a photo and James would have to start from scratch with a new print. Today’s retouch…

● £150 ● tiffen.com/pages/lowel FOR MANY photographers, LED-based continuous lighting has now overtaken flash as the first choice for supplementary illumination. Not only can you see the effects in real time, but usually you can also adjust both the brightness and colour temperature to complement your subject. As with flash, while small battery-powered on-camera units are available, you’ll get nicer results from larger lights. Billed as ‘The first production light attractive enough to hide in plain sight’, the Lowel Ego LED is a large, square bi-colour mains-powered unit that’s designed to be just at home as a desk lamp as it is illuminating a still-life photo or a video call. This is, in fact, a rather clever design. Its main housing is a softbox approximately 40cm square and 9cm deep…

Photo Critique In 2007 I travelled to Grutas Park, Lithuania, a sculpture park of over 80 monuments to Soviet heroes and an exposition of other Soviet ideological relics from the times of the Lithuanian SSR. It was founded in 2001 by heavyweight-champion turned mushroom-magnate Viliumas Malinauskas, who acquired the statues from across the country after they were torn down and dumped following the fall of communism and declaration of independence in March 1990. Malinauskas has preserved key memorabilia from an important (and for most, tragic) era of the country’s history and done it in an informative and educative way. Along with the statues, the collection includes a small museum and Soviet community library, military and civilian machinery from Soviet times. I highly recommend the audio tour which had the descriptions…

At a glance £4,000 body only ■ 61MP full-frame sensor ■ 693-point AF ■ AI subject recognition ■ ISO 100-32,000 (standard) ■ 10fps shooting ■ 8K 24fps video Processor A new AI processing unit brings Sony’s most sophisticated subject recognition autofocus yet. Viewfinder The A7R V inherits the superb 9.44m-dot, 0.9x magnification EVF previously used by the A7S III and A1. Multi-angle Sony’s 4-axis multi-angle LCD combines an up/down tilting mechanism with a fully articulating side hinge. Uprated IS Significantly enhanced 5-axis in-body stabilisation is now rated for up to 8 stops shake reduction – up from 5.5 stops. SINCE the original Alpha 7R appeared in 2013, Sony’s ‘R’ series cameras have been popular with landscape and studio photographers for whom capturing the maximum detail is paramount. Despite being over…

7daysA week in photography AP picture of the week Cinematic Morning by Natalia Zmyslowska Canon EOS R, Sigma 35mm F1.4 DG HSM | Art, 1/125sec at f/1.5, ISO 200 ‘Quiet chatter in the early morning woke me up in my hotel room in London. It was cloudy and moody outside. Windows on the other side of the road made me feel like I’m being watched. All of that gave me a feeling of being a character in a film, and I wanted to capture that moment forever.’ Website: itsmenatalie.com Instagram and Twitter: @heya_natalie #appicoftheweekWin! 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…

Testbench CAMERA TEST At a glance £1,899 body only £2,299 with 16-80mm lens ● 40MP APS-C BSI X-Trans CMOS sensor ● ISO 125-12,800 (extends to ISO 64-51,200) ● Up to 20fps shooting (with 1.3x crop), 15fps without crop ● 8K 30P video recording ● 5.76m-dot OLED EVF ● 3in, 1.62m-dot vari-angle LCD Back in May, Fujifilm launched the X-H2S, a high-speed 26.2MP mirrorless model capable of shooting at 40fps. At the time, the firm promised that it would introduce a 40MP version of the camera in September. True to its word, Fujifilm has now revealed the Fujifilm X-H2, which places a 40MP back-illuminated sensor into the same body design. Strikingly, this high-resolution model costs rather less than its high-speed sibling, at £1,899 body-only (compared to £2,499), or £2,299 in a…

LAUNCHED 1912 PRICE AT LAUNCH £7 10s (£7.50) GUIDE PRICE NOW £100-150 Initially made by the American Folmer & Schwing company, the Speed Graphic became the camera of choice for war correspondents and press photographers throughout World War I, then through 20 years of peace and again through most of World War II. After that, it was used by press photographers well into the 1950s. Production continued until the end of the 1960s, by which time the company had become Graflex. The version reviewed here is a Pacemaker Speed Graphic in its 2¼x3¼in size, launched in 1947. Other Pacemaker versions included 3¼x4¼in and 5x4in film sizes. It takes cut film, still available in 5x4in sizes from places like Analogue Wonderland. Individual sheets are loaded (in the dark, of course) into…

At a glance £2,780 body only £3,130 with RF 24-105mm F4-7.1 £4,000 with RF 24-105mm F4 L ■ 24.2MP full-frame sensor ■ ISO 100-102,400(standard) ■ Up to 40fps shooting ■ 4K 60p video recording Controls There’s a new photo/video mode switch on the top left, with the power switch migrating to the other side. Hot shoe Canon has included its new multi-function shoe, which accepts the new EL-5 flash and various digital audio accessories. 4K 60p The EOS R6 is the only camera in its class that can capture 4K video at 60fps from the full sensor width, oversampled from 6K. Sensor Canon has used a new 24MP sensor, but it’s not of the stacked CMOS type like the one in the EOS R3. IT’S ONLY a shade over two…

The physical size of the sensor is a very important consideration when you’re selecting a camera. As well as the cost implications (larger sensors cost more than smaller ones), it has an impact on the size and weight of the camera body, and the lenses you mount on it. That in turn affects how keen you are to carry the kit and where you want to use it. But that’s not all: the sensor size influences the quality and nature of the results that you get and you may need to use different settings with different formats to get the images that you want. Over the next few pages, we help you make an informed choice about the right camera format for you and your photography, with case studies from…

LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY Despite being twice the size of Germany, it’s perhaps fair to say that for most of us, our knowledge of Ukraine was relatively limited before the start of Russia’s illegal war in February of this year. With over 44 million residents, the country has been in turmoil ever since, and we’re now sadly very used to daily reports and imagery from the beleaguered nation. Understandably, its residents are keen to show a different side of Ukraine. A Ukraine which is as beautifully ordinary as any other European country that we might associate with gorgeous landscapes. A new book, The Beauty of Ukraine, features the photographs of Yevhen Samuchenko and the words of Lucia Bondar. The book is an illustrated love letter to their homeland, created in the darkest…

Olympus Tough TG-6 ● £399 ● 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. Reviewed…