Innholdsfortegnelse for 4/11/2023 i Amateur Photographer

Photographers are almost uniquely gifted in being able to view the world in an abstract way and to see the beauty in the smallest details. This issue is dedicated to those small details, and to sharing advice and inspiration on getting great photos of them from leading experts in the genre. You’ll be amazed at how many great subjects you can find without leaving your home or garden. We look at software and lenses for macro shooters, and find out which smartphones are best for close-up work. Don’t forget to enter your own best macro photos into our Amateur Photographer of the Year contest – you could win a £1,000 voucher from MPB. Finally if you enjoyed this issue why not take out a subscription? You’ll find the details on…

SIGMA has announced three new lenses in its Contemporary series. Firstly, the Sigma 17mm F4 DG DN is a comparatively compact full-frame wideangle prime, featuring nine elements in eight groups, with two Special Low Dispersion (SLD) elements and three aspherical elements. It focuses as close as 12cm, which gives a 1:3.6 magnification ratio. The lens also features seven rounded diaphragm blades and takes 55m filters. Despite its all-metal construction, the lens should fit in your camera bag easily, as it weighs 225g and measures 64mm x 48.8mm. Key features of the Sigma 50mm F2 DG DN include 11 elements in nine groups – one SLD and three aspherical. It takes 58mm filters and the minimum focusing distance is 45cm. Physically it’s rather larger, weighing 350g and measuring 70mm x 68mm.…

7 daysA week in photography AP picture of the week Mellow Yellow by Lynn Saunders Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III, Lensbaby composer pro with Double Glass II optic and creative aperture disk, 1/40sec, ISO 200 ‘I’ve been a fan of Lensbaby for many years, the double glass being one of my favourite optics. I upgraded to the new Double Glass II. Using the optic wide open I inserted a creative aperture disk. I was thrilled with the soft, dreamy look of this image.’ Instagram: @lynns2020aywmc #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, so that they can print their image any way they like! Simply go to myFUJIFILM.co.uk, select…

Adobe Lightroom Combining image management with non-destructive editing, Lightroom is an intuitive program that excels at organising, managing and locating files. Some photographers use it for editing, but its main purpose is to help you make catalogues of images for specific projects. Professional photographers often use a combination of Lightroom (for their day-to-day workflows) and Photoshop (for detailed editing work). Lightroom is aimed purely at photographers, whereas Photoshop is used across other creative disciplines, such as graphic design. Alex Pansier Instagram: @alexpansierwww.alexpansier.com Why Alex likes Lightroom ‘I find Lightroom CC incredibly convenient for several reasons. Firstly, it stores everything securely in the cloud – it gives me peace of mind to know my photos are safe and accessible no matter where I am. Secondly, it offers just the right amount…

IN ASSOCIATION WITH Olympus Tough TG-6 ● £399 ● explore.omsystem.com 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. Reviewed Dec 2022 Ricoh GR III ● £949 ● ricohgr.eu/en-gb A favourite of street photographers, the GR III combines a 24MP APS-C sensor and a sharp 28mm equivalent f/2.8 lens in a slim, pocketable body. It offers sensitivities up to ISO 102,400 and 4fps shooting, while in-body image stabilisation helps keeps image sharp. Viewing is…

SONY has announced its latest vlogging camera, the ZV-E1. It includes a 12MP full-frame sensor previously seen in the firm’s video-specialist Sony Alpha A7S III and follows on from the interchangeable-lens, APS-C sensor Sony ZV-E10 and the fixed zoom Sony ZV-1. Like these, the ZV-E1 features a relatively compact body, with a fully articulated screen but no viewfinder, and simplified controls designed to be easy to use for non-expert users. However, it comes at a premium price, making the camera a curious mixture between top-quality imaging hardware and beginner-friendly features. Its 12MP full-frame BSI CMOS sensor offers a standard sensitivity range of ISO 80-102,400 and provides native 4K output without any pixel binning. It can shoot 4K 60p video using Sony’s S-Cinetone profile, in 10-bit, 4:2:2 colour, and with All-I…

THE MARILYN Stafford FotoReportage award, sponsored by Nikon for the fourth year running, is now open for entries. Marilyn Stafford, who died aged 97 in January, launched the award in 2017 to highlight women in photojournalism and give them the recognition they deserve. The 2023 competition is free to enter and seeks applications from all female photographers over 18, at any stage in their career, and of any nationality. Entries close at 5pm on 19 May and the top prize is £2,500. See www.marilynstaffordphotography.com/fotoaward…

FRANK Urban has been named the Scottish Nature Photographer of the Year 2022 for his image of a tiny spider in his garden. The shot, ‘Cucumber Green’, won the Scottish Wildlife Portrait category before being selected as the overall winner of the awards. ‘Frank’s image draws you into the miniature world of the spider,’ said judging panel member Niall Irvine. ‘It’s an excellent example of awareness of the proximity of nature in our immediate environment and an appreciation of its beauty.’ The Junior Scottish Nature Photographer of the Year prize was won by Jessie Morris for an image called ‘Rush Hour’, of gulls coming in to roost. Full details can be found at scottishnaturephotographyawards.com…

Tracy Calder Tracy Calder is a photographer, writer and former editor of Outdoor Photography magazine. In 2018 she co-founded Close-up Photographer of the Year (CUPOTY). Last year she was awarded a gold medal from the RHS for her Plant Scars series. Her work has been exhibited at The Photographers’ Gallery, National Portrait Gallery and Saatchi Gallery. To see more, visit Instagram @tracy_calder_photo and www.cupoty.com 1 Get creative Macro photography and shallow depth of field go hand in hand, but this needn’t be a problem if you approach the out-of-focus areas of your image with an air of curiosity and possibility. A wash of colour behind a plant can create a beautiful, painterly effect, for example. 2 Do the splits If, like me, you started out using a film SLR, you…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Praise for the X-S10 I simply had to write to you regarding Jessica Miller’s field test of the Fujifilm X-S10 in AP 28 March 2023 because her experience was so very similar to my own. I always enjoy the field test articles and find they tell me much more of what I really need than the more technical reviews. However, I already knew what a great camera the X-S10 is, and the lenses you used with it, and of course I fully agree with your assessment. Like you I was a confirmed and very happy Pentax user until very recently, ever since my Spotmatic in the late 1960s, when Pentax was at least as good as Nikon and Canon. But it all changed when my K-S2…

Photo Critique Okay… full disclosure. Photographer Joanna Maclennan is a close friend and business partner of mine. Together we run the online community www.two-photographers.com. It was started in a moment of blind panic when the pandemic first struck and we realised that, as two photographers who worked on location 90% of the time, we were not going to get any work for a while. In this, her second book, Living Wild: New Beginnings in the Great Outdoors, Joanna describes it thus: ‘More of us than ever are re-evaluating how and where we live, eschewing disposable culture for a simpler life. Living Wild tells the stories of people around the world who have made the leap into the unknown, offering an intimate glimpse into what it means to live closer to…

CANON has released significant firmware updates for its EOS R3 and EOS R5 full-frame mirrorless cameras. These include Panning Assist for the Canon EOS R3, which enables image stabilisation and subject blur correction on the fly. This improves the number of successful panning shots a photographer can capture, according to Canon, while enabling you to use shutter speeds up to two stops slower than previously possible, with the ability to retain sharp details. You can also pre-select up to ten faces, so these can be detected and tracked in-camera. For the EOS R5, the firmware updates enable you to use the in-body IS to replicate the effect of smaller pixels, delivering higher resolution images up to 400MP (the native resolution of the camera is 45MP). ‘Such precision is perfect for…

OM DIGITAL Solutions, which took over the Olympus camera and lens business in 2021, has opened a technology centre close to its current R&D base in Tokyo. The centre will provide ‘one-stop verification’ of processes involved in the planning, development and production of lenses. ‘(It) is an example of our long term commitment and investment in the OM System brand,’ said the president and CEO, Shigemi Sugimoto.…

7 daysA week in photography £25, Hoxton Mini Press, hardback, 320 pages, ISBN: 9781914314339 Now in its fifth edition, the long-running collaboration between Hoxton Mini Press, 1854 Media and the British Journal of Photography is becoming an annual must-buy for lovers of contemporary portraiture. The year 2022 was an interesting one for the world. With Covid lockdowns behind us, perhaps many of us appreciated our freedom more than ever. But, of course, for others, tumult was still the order of the day. War has returned to Europe, inflation is off the scale, and many of us are facing higher costs than ever. Britain today may feel like a nation in crisis – arguably more divided, unhappy and more ill at ease with its place in the world than ever before.…

In association with MPB Round One Black & White Always by far the most popular round of APOY, it takes a lot for an image to stand out in this category. The judges were looking for an imaginative approach combined with top-notch execution and processing, and – above all – a valid reason for the image being in black & white as opposed to colour. It takes a clear vision on the part of the photographer to create a powerful black & white image – standing in front of a scene and seeing how it would work when stripped of colour takes practice, but when it works the results can be powerful and memorable. The best part of this round is the sheer variety. Anything goes, so classic street…

Reducing a sauce takes time: you have to prepare the ingredients, heat the liquid and wait for the water to evaporate before you can add your seasoning. Your patience, however, will be rewarded with a concentrated liquor that’s full of flavour and character. It takes confidence to reduce something to what’s essential, and you have to trust that this stripping back will result in something full-bodied. In art, you can see this confident stripping back in the work of painters such as Agnes Martin, Piet Mondrian and Robert Ryman. In photography you can see it in work by Michael Kenna, Fan Ho and Hiroshi Sugimoto, among others. If you study the oeuvre of these artists, you’ll see that nothing is included by chance – everything in the frame adds to…

In association with MPB To enter, just visit www.amateurphotographer.com/apoy Round three Macro Macro requires a balance of technical and creative ability, while providing an insight into a world that is often impossible to appreciate with the naked eye. If photographing a living creature, take the time to study and understand its behaviour, so you don’t cause it distress. Ethics is crucial. And there’s no need to restrict yourself to plants or creatures. We also want to see impressionistic still-lifes and abstract landscapes. Anything goes, as long as it’s taken in close-up. Your guest judge Your guest judge for Round Three, Macro, 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 competition…

● £199 ● explore.omsystem.com/gb/en When the Olympus camera division split off to form OM Digital Solutions, the firm’s audio recording business was part of the deal. Its first product under the OM System brand, the LS-P5, is a successor to the Olympus LS-P4, but with an updated microphone designed to cope with louder sounds. It also benefits from enhanced smartphone remote control, along with other tweaks that make it a more practical device for capturing video soundtracks or making high-quality field recordings. Physically the new model looks much as before, with three microphones, a small square display, and the same button layout. Its Tresmic II system provides zoomable stereo output, ranging from a wide 180° soundstage to focusing narrowly in front of the device. You can record in qualities up…