Innholdsfortegnelse for 6/27/2023 i Amateur Photographer

Lens designers invest a huge amount of time and money trying to achieve optical perfection in their design and manufacturing processes, so it may seem perverse to choose to use lenses that are technically ‘sub-par’, whether by design or due to age. But there’s a lot of fun to be had doing just that, and exploring the characteristics of these optics to give your images a different look and feel, as we find out this week. In contrast we review two very different cutting-edge cameras which are anything but ‘sub-par’, the Panasonic Lumix S5IIX and the Sony ZV-1 Mark II. Finally we offer inspiration in the form of some stunning wildlife images and present a profile of the pioneering woman portrait photographer, Yevonde. This week’s cover image of a wild…

7 daysA week in photography AP picture of the week Gorgeous Curves by Shivji Joshi Nikon D7200, Nikkor 16-80 mm at 58mm, 1/160sec at f/10, ISO 400 ‘I have been doing desert landscape photography since early 1970s and I never think of it as barren land. Instead, I visualise the curves and contours of desert land as feminine grace. The photo was taken in the Thar Desert of Jaisalmer in directional golden light half an hour after sunrise. Directional light creates depth and the shadows enhance the contours. The frame was converted into black & white in Photoshop.’ Instagram: @shivji.joshiwww.shivji.photography #appicoftheweek Win! The AP Pic of the Week winner currently wins an annual subscription to Skylum Luminar Neo, worth £99. Designed for photographers of all skill levels, Luminar Neo is…

Trying to borrow a bull’s head and a rubber snake for a photo shoot in 1930s London must have been challenging, but Yevonde was a resourceful woman. ‘In her autobiography there are hilarious accounts of the sourcing of some of her props,’ says Clare Freestone, curator of photography at the National Portrait Gallery. ‘There’s a great account of her session with Dolly Campbell, posing as Niobe [the daughter of Tantalus in Greek mythology]. Yevonde realised that in Hollywood films people used glycerine to mimic tears, but when she used it on Dolly it mixed with her mascara and caused her to cry. Her response was simply to rush the focus and capture a shot of “the utmost sorrow and pain”. All for the sake of art.’ Born Yevonde Philone Cumbers…

IN ASSOCIATION WITH 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. 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…

A RARE 1936 Leica 250 GG Reporter made the biggest money at the 42nd Leitz Photographica Auction held in Vienna this month, selling for €900,000 (£767,945). This unusual-looking camera can hold 10 metres of film, enabling 250 35mm images to be taken, and only 92 were made. The GG Reporter also has a MOOEV electric motor drive, which enabled it to be used for aerial reconnaissance. ‘Most of them [were] permanently installed in the infamous STUKA dive bombers,’ said the auctioneers. ‘Many… were lost in the air battles, and only around 16 examples are known to exist today.’ The example sold at auction had the camera’s serial number on the motordrive, which is extremely rare. Another auction highlight was a Leica M3 black paint ‘First Batch black dial,’ which went…

WEX Photo Video has opened its 14th retail store, this time in Nottingham. Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and filmmaker Daniel Etter officially opened the store on 23 June. It features a new seminar zone for live demonstrations of camera kit and other events, and also offers equipment repair and maintenance services. As the store is within walking distance from the city’s two universities, student discounts will be available with an offer of 10% off certain brands. The address is 103-107 Carrington Street, Nottingham, NG1 7FE.…

Molly Hollman Molly Hollman specialises in flower, garden and wildlife photography. In 2019 she was awarded a lifetime achievement bar by the Guild of Photographers and her work has been highly placed in numerous competitions including Garden Photographer of the Year, Close-up Photographer of the Year and the RHS Photography competition. Last year she released her first book, Creative Flower and Plant Photography, which has received rave reviews. To find out more, visit www.mollyhollman.myportfolio.com. Vintage lenses to try What do you like about vintage lenses? Vintage lenses often have qualities that modern lenses lack, such as interesting colour casts, bokeh and – usually – very solid build quality. I’ve never been interested in the look of a lens; for me it’s all about function (and results) over fashion. What was…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Learning about light A 22-year-old son of a friend recently graduated with a degree in film-making. He expressed an interest to learn about photography when I told him that I was a retired photographer. We arranged a lesson on portraiture, to teach him about the characteristics of light on the human face. As the lesson was a freebie, with no model, we improvised by using myself in order for David to see light and shade on a human face, plus I took photographs of David with his own camera for him to study at home. I demonstrated the various qualities of outdoor lighting then illustrated different methods of only using window lighting, inside my living room and finished with seeing the various effects of an ordinary…

Photographic competitions can be good, bad or indifferent, depending on how you use them. There are thousands to choose from, from scores of countries. It’s enough to make your head swim. I always enter the Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year. In the online group I run (www.two-photographers.com) it is the one competition we encourage all our members to think about submitting to. There is often much spluttering and muttering when we start discussing it, as the majority of members are a long way from being dedicated food photographers. This to me is the whole point of these well-run and well-respected awards. Alongside a strong panel of judges from the world of photography and publishing, there is such a wide variety of categories – from The Politics of Food,…

ADOBE used the recent Adobe Max Event in London to announce Firefly for Illustrator, which integrates the company’s AI model into the popular graphics design tool. Firefly for Illustrator harnesses AI to enable designers to streamline their work and explore the Generative Recolour tool, which is still at beta stage. Scott Belsky, Adobe’s chief strategy officer and EVP for Design and Emerging Products, also demonstrated the new Generative Fill feature in Photoshop, which enables AI-generated imagery to be added to an existing photograph, and the new intelligent text-based video editing tools in Premiere Pro. Belsky went on to discuss the impact of AI on the creative industries, and Adobe’s plans to safeguard the use of this fast-growing new technology. As he explained, Content Credentials is a developing feature embedded in…

FILM photography retailer Analogue Wonderland has acquired the SilverPan Film Lab in Bristol. It gives Analogue Wonderland its first ‘true’ retail location while also enabling it to offer a greater range of in-house developing chemistries and services. Analogue Wonderland already has an in-house lab called the WonderLab, but demand for C-41 colour and B&W proved to be much greater than expected, according to the company. See analoguewonderland.co.uk…