Innholdsfortegnelse for 11/21/2023 i Amateur Photographer

We don’t upgrade our cameras and lenses every day, or even every year, but most of us regularly enhance our kit, and by extension our photography, with some sort of accessory. The world of accessories is vast, and includes bags, tripods, lights, filters, straps and memory cards, and this week’s annual Accessories Special is dedicated to them. If family members are asking you what you would like for Christmas and you’re stuck for a reply, I suggest you start by turning to page 57 for inspiration. Also, don’t miss our exclusive, behind-the-scenes tour of the Billingham bag factory on page 14, and do watch our fascinating video of our visit by pointing your phone camera at the QR code on page 14, or going to our YouTube channel (details on…

Sony has revealed a large-aperture telephoto prime lens designed for subjects such as sports, wildlife and news photography. The new Sony FE 300mm F2.8 GM II weighs in at just 1,470g, which is over 800g lighter than DSLR equivalents. The firm says it’s achieved this weight reduction by using magnesium alloy construction for the barrel, along with an optical design that places most of the lens elements towards the rear. This layout is also said to result in improved balance and handling. As usual for its premium G Master primes, Sony claims the lens combines high levels of cross-frame sharpness with attractively defocused backgrounds, aided by an 11-blade aperture. Optically it employs 20 elements in 16 groups, including 1 extra-low dispersion (ED) glass element and 2 Super-ED elements to suppress…

£60, Thames & Hudson, hardcover, 352 pages, ISBN: 9780500545577 They say it takes 10,000 hours to master your craft. Photographing or painting nearly every day for 60 years must have seen Saul Leiter become a master many times over. It doesn’t take much flicking through this book to realise that that most definitely is true. Celebrated now for his novel use of colour during a time when most still revered monochrome (see also William Eggleston – right), Leiter has become best known for his evocative pictures of New York in the 1950s and 1960s. Although it has perhaps become a bit of a cliché to focus on mid-century New York pictures, these are so special that it’s easy to forget how many examples of this time period we see so…

Landscapes Geared head Composition, in my opinion, is the most important aspect of landscape photography, so for those of us who use a tripod, the right tripod head is crucial. Ball heads are quick and easy to use but geared heads, which are adjusted by turning three knobs (one for each axis) although slower in use (and often heavier), are ideal for landscapes as they are precise as well as accurate. I use the Arca Swiss P0 Hybrid head which is a combination of the two. It has a ball head for quickly composing the image and two geared adjustments for fine-tuning the composition and levelling the horizon. The panoramic adjustment is at the top so once the camera is levelled, panoramas are a doddle with no need to fiddle…

NiSi Clever Cleaner for square filters ● £7 ● www.nisioptics.co.uk If you’re a regular user of square filters, you’ll know how it easy it is to get them covered in fingerprints from sliding them into the holder and removing them after use. This handy device springs open to reveal a rectangular felt cleaning pad, to help keep their surfaces clean and in perfect condition. Packed up it measures just 8x4x1.5cm, so it will slip easily into your camera bag. VSGO Tumbler air blower ● £19 ● www.vsgophoto.com Bulb air blowers are invaluable for keeping your camera’s sensor clean of dust, which will otherwise leave unsightly blobs on your images. This 10cm tall version is a particularly fine example. It filters the air that it draws into the bulb and employs…

Testbench CAMERA TEST When Fujifilm introduced its GFX medium-format mirrorless system in 2016, the aim was to deliver cameras that surpassed the image quality achievable using full-frame models. But while it’s fair to say that the original GFX 50S and the later GFX 100 succeeded on those terms, they lagged behind when it came to autofocus and shooting speed. With the new GFX100 II, the firm has worked hard on closing that gap to make the camera more of an all-rounder. As its name suggests, the GFX100 II is a replacement for the GFX100 from 2019, rather than the smaller, more affordable GFX100S that appeared in 2021. It brings significant updates over both, including a new sensor and the addition of subject-detection autofocus, powered by the firm’s latest X-Processor 5.…

ANDY WESTLAKE Technical Editor Andy brings us a first look of the A9 III, conducts our big test, and has your 2023 Xmas gift list! HOLLIE LATHAM HUCKER Technique Editor Hollie talks to six pros who reveal their best five pieces of photo kit NIGEL ATHERTON Editor Nigel visits the Billingham factory to see how their iconic camera bags are made JAMES ABBOTT The top pro explains the various types of tripod heads and suggests options for all budgets JON STAPLEY Camera straps are not all much of a muchness. Jon Stapley’s guide will help you pick the best one for you AILSA MCWHINNIE Our APOY co-ordinator reveals the top ten images from APOY Round Nine, Action…

7 daysA week in photography AP picture of the week Textured Sands, Harris by Adele Warner-Tate Nikon Z 7, Nikon Z 24-70mm f4, 25sec at f/13, ISO 64 ‘During our time visiting the Outer Hebrides this year I have been fascinated by the incredible patterns on the beach. The image was taken after heavy rainfall the day before. Water running down from the hills created a stream which channelled through the sands making its way down into the sea, which I found incredibly beautiful.’ Website: www.warner-tatephotography.comInstagram: @adele_warner_tateYouTube: Warner-Tate Photography #appicoftheweek Win! The AP Pic of the Week winner currently wins a large Wandrd X1 Crossbody Bag* worth £99.99! This versatile bag is ideal for carrying smaller items including phone, wallet, keys, lens caps, filters, notebooks, even a Kindle. Made from…

Round Nine Action Action is one of the trickier rounds in APOY to judge, perhaps because it has the potential to encompass so many subjects. In many ways it’s almost an open round in terms of genre, where anything goes – within reason. Everything from sports to wildlife to street photography can make a great action shot, but imbuing the image with imagination and creativity is where the challenge lies. We want to see more than just great panning technique coupled with an ultra-fast shutter speed. As with every round in APOY, we want something memorable that fuses technical skill and originality – be that shooting from an unusual angle, a treatment of a subject that we may not have seen very often, or glorious light that lifts a shot…

App stores are awash with photography apps, but which ones are really worth downloading? Photography apps can be powerful tools, helping you to plan and carry out your shoots, and then make the most of images you’ve captured. They’re equally handy both for images shot on your phone, and those copied over from your camera using its Wi-Fi app. However, there’s no point clogging up your smartphone with apps that can’t cut it. This feature rounds up the apps that we’d recommend to save you time. Some will help you capture images in a new way, while others will unlock the door to creative editing. But all are worth hitting the download button for. PhotoPills ● Price: £10.99 Paid-for apps need to offer a huge amount of value to compete…

Photo Critique Having been ejected abruptly from my teaching job in 2010 (I was 69, but refused to believe it), I ended up for two years in Edinburgh ‘resting’. I sought out David Williams, who ran the degree course in photography at the College of Art, as I thought his Pictures from No Man’s Land(1984), documenting the local posh St Margaret’s School for Girls, was at that time, when photographic monographs were quite rare, one of the best books I had seen by a British photographer. But I didn’t have a copy. And on meeting him, I found out that he didn’t have a spare copy tucked away somewhere. Taking on a project He said candidly in his book on his life’s work, Dreaming Difference: ‘It’s difficult to overstate my…

Billingham bags have come a long way since newlywed founders Ros and and Martin Billingham started making fishing bags out of their spare bedroom to make ends meet. Their current factory in Cradley Heath in the West Midlands is a fascinating mix of high-tech automation and hand-made craftsmanship. The company currently employs around 45 people, many of whom have been with the company for decades. Not only does Billingham design and make its own camera bags, the company also uses 3D CAD to create all its own jigs and many of its own tools that are used to create the templates, giving the company total control of their product development from design and prototyping all the way through to finished product. ‘Primarily this helps us make better products,’ says Harry…

LETTER OF THE WEEK A vested interest in Billingham I enjoyed your recent enthralling article on the history of Billingham Bags and their humble beginnings. I have a couple of Billingham bags and love their products. I am also the proud owner of the Billingham Photo Vest that was produced in a limited number, and found it odd that the Photo Vest was omitted from the feature. The Photo Vest is an amazing piece of tailoring – it has 16 pockets and can hold two full-size professional DSLRs in the front pockets, and it is made in a way that feels like a camera bag on your body. I can carry a full day’s kit with me to an event. Everything I need, from batteries to a blower brush, is…

1901 Fotografi HCB leather ● £41.95 ● 1901fotografi.co.uk You might not have come across this one before. The 1901 Fotografi HCB is the brainchild of a British photographer named Mark Lewis, and the aim is to provide a simple, functional strap that gives photographers everything they need – and nothing they don’t. The ‘HCB’ moniker is a hat-tip to the pioneer of street photography himself, Henri Cartier-Bresson, reflecting the commitment to using only what’s necessary. Constructed from top-quality leather from Italy or the US, and tanned using environmentally friendly processes, the 1901 Fotografi HCB is a robust, portable and stylish strap that particularly suits retro-styled cameras – your Leicas, your Fujifilms, etc. The standard version is 115cm long, though you can pay a little extra (£4) to get one in…

Tech Talk In my previous article, I discussed the impact of designing glass elements into phone camera lenses. Here I’ll look at another phone lens conundrum, that of ‘telephoto’ lenses. Again, we start with the absolute limit on a lens’s resolution capability, which is the diffraction limit provided by the 5mm entrance pupil (aperture) diameter, that’s dictated by the slimness requirements of a phone. The angular resolution limit of 0.008° is calculated from that entrance pupil and the wavelength of the visible light. In practice, the smallest total angle of view from such a lens is about 10° if we want to produce 1k pixel image, regardless of sensor size. This corresponds to a ‘full-frame’ focal length of 200mm, which is usefully ‘long’, but not ever going to pull in…