Innholdsfortegnelse for 1/16/2024 i Amateur Photographer

FRANÇOISE Bornet (née Delbart), who was immortalised in Robert Doisneau’s iconic photograph ‘The Kiss’, has died at the age of 93. Doisneau had spotted Bornet and her then boyfriend, Jacques Carteaud, in a Left Bank café and asked them to stage an ‘impromptu’ kiss outside the Paris City Hall as part of a commission for Life magazine. There was a lot of legal controversy about the identity of the couple, which was only settled when Bornet produced a print signed by Doisneau (she sold it in 2005 for €155,000). Jacques Carteaud, meanwhile, died in 2006.…

NIKON has confirmed more details of its efforts to develop technology to prove the authenticity of photographs, as AI-generated imagery becomes more widespread. This is based on the same C2PA (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity) framework as is being used by Sony, Leica and other organisations (see c2pa.org/membership). Nikon has teamed up with the Agence France-Press (AFP) press agency to incorporate image authentication within photojournalists’ workflow, including electronic watermarking, directly within the camera system. ‘This means that even if the metadata that is compliant with C2PA specifications is accidentally deleted, the correlation with the original image can still be determined,’ said Nikon.…

Vintage quick fixes With the arrival of the digital imaging revolution, we might have thought we’d left behind all the flaws, unpredictability and weaknesses of analogue films and processes. And so we did – but it turns out we miss them, and we want them back. Not everyone feels that way of course, and there will be plenty of photographers who are pleased that photography has become scientific, repeatable and accurate. But there will be plenty more amongst us who miss the particular ‘look’ of our favourite films. Photography is not just about accurate and literal renderings, but creating moods and emotions too, and while most analogue films lacked the spectral and tonal accuracy we take for granted now, they added their own ‘patina’ or character, which is what we’ve…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Live view and macro photography Live view (and I assume here that your discerning readers will have loaded the incomparable qDslrDashboard at qDslrDashboard.info, which will give them all its functions from a phone or tablet but with a larger screen) is absolutely essential for tripod macro photography if you own a manual focus rather than an automatic focus lens. Manual lens focusing stacking through your camera’s software is, alas, not possible and focus peaking, though extremely helpful, gets nowhere near the accuracy that’s provided by live view when its magnification is set to 200%. It is then very easy to set your own focus points and, allowing a five-second delay from touching the screen to the camera taking the picture, I found that success is pretty…

There are so many creative directions to choose for photos that it’s easy to get lost in a sea of possibilities. But whatever you go on to do with your images, there is a set of basic image fixes that are an ideal starting point, whether or not you go on to do anything else. There is a difference between creative styles and enhancements, and things that clearly just need fixing. This article is about those basic fixes, why they matter and how to do them. They centre on exposure, contrast and tones, colour (though that can also be a creative choice), geometry, such as image straightening and converging verticals, and clearing up any sensor spots, flaws or unwanted objects. You don’t need to do all of these things to…

Testbench COLOUR CALIBRATION When it comes to editing your images, one of the most difficult things to get to grips with is the concept of colour management. The idea here is that by creating and using colour profiles for your monitor and other devices, you’ll be able to get predictable colour rendition throughout your entire workflow. In other words, what you see on your computer screen will accurately reflect the colours that are present in your image files, and will in turn be closely matched when you come to make a print. It’s difficult to argue that this doesn’t sound like a good idea. However, the question is, do you actually need to do this? Some people will, of course, tell you it’s absolutely essential. But the hardware required is…

7 DAYS A week in photography £20, Thames & Hudson, softcover, 224 pages, ISBN: 9780500297896 It wasn’t so long ago that colour photography was seen as trashy, the preserve of holiday makers and home-snappers. Black & white meanwhile was seen as the appropriate choice for artists, serious photographers, reporters and more. Of course, things have changed quite a bit – though perhaps less so in the art world – but it’s still a debate that draws plenty of attention today. One early advocate of colour photography was the noted street and documentary photographer, Joel Meyerowitz, who has been pointing his lens at the changing shape of American society for nearly 60 years. In the US, switching to colour at a time when the gallerists held black & white in…

SPLIT TONING When I was asked to write a few words on my processing style, I immediately said yes. I quite enjoy writing. It exercises the brain. Although I don’t very often write anything that could even remotely be described as technical. Where would I start on an article that had that sort of slant? And I guess the beginning is a good place. My brief was to talk about split toning, so the first question is not how, but why. When I first took up photography it was a stress break from my work, which at the time was in a serious crime unit examining paedophiles’ computers. That work involved sitting in front of a computer screen for up to 60 hours a week – some weeks it was…

Testbench SOFTWARE ROUND-UP Photo editing is a hugely important part of most digital photographers’ workflows – and that means it’s important to pick the best photo-editing software for you. While you might have been led to believe that photo editing starts and ends with Adobe’s Photoshop and Lightroom, in truth there are loads of great tools worth considering for photo editing, and depending on your needs, some of them might be better suited to you than others. At AP we’ve extensively used many different photo-editing programs, and all of our writers and photographers have their preferred editing workflows. This piece is a run-through of the best photo-editing software we’ve used and tested, with options for different operating systems and budgets. We’ve split this guide up into sections, covering the best…

Paula Wilks, London About Paula Paula is an analytics/data science professional with artistic hobbies – music and, of course, photography. See more on Instagram @saxtraction How did you get into photography? In 2017 I started carrying an old compact camera around with me to motivate me to walk more. The purpose of my walks quickly became taking photographs. What do you love about photography? Searching for compositions helps you to appreciate the surrounding beauty. A lot of the photos I take need patience, so I have to slow down, take my time and be in the moment – it’s a great de-stresser. Where do you find inspiration? The SheClicks website; and to get me in the mood for shooting I listen to the SheClicks podcasts while driving to a location.…

Testbench LENS TEST Often bundled in as part of a kit package with a Nikon DX mirrorless body and 16-50mm lens, the Nikkor Z DX 50-250mm f/4.5-6.3 VR gives scope to shoot lots of different subjects with your Nikon APS-C camera, including sports, wildlife, portraits, macro, landscapes and much more besides. On its own it has a retail price of £379, but we’ve found it for sale at under £300 in plenty of places. As part of a kit with DX cameras, it generally adds about £100-£150 to the overall price, depending on which model you choose. As it’s to be used with a DX sensor, the equivalent focal length is 75-375mm, which is the longest available from Nikon’s line-up of Z-mount DX lenses. Longer lenses are available which are…

IF YOU’RE lacking motivation in January, why not enter a competition? Two major contests are now open for entries. First up is Astronomy Photographer of the Year, organised by the Royal Observatory Greenwich. The 16th competition is seeking entries across eight categories – Skyscapes (including landscape and cityscape images of twilight and the night sky); Aurorae; People and Space (nightscapes including a human element); Our Sun; Our Moon; Planets, Comets and Asteroids; Stars and Nebulae; and Galaxies. Up to ten images can be entered for each category. There are also separate prizes for Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year (under 16s) plus The Sir Patrick Moore Prize for Best Newcomer and The Annie Maunder Prize for Image Innovation. The Patrick Moore award is aimed at anyone who’s taken up astronomy…

PANASONIC has revealed a remarkably small and lightweight lens for close-up shooting, the Lumix S 100mm F2.8 Macro. At just 82mm long and a mere 298g, it’s about half the weight of comparable optics, and two-thirds of the length. Yet it’s still capable of delivering life-size magnification at its minimum focus distance of 20.4cm. With its short telephoto focal length, the lens should also be a good choice for portrait photography. Key features include dust- and splash-resistant construction for worry-free outdoor use, along with freeze-proofing to -10°C. The aperture is made up of 9 curved blades for attractive bokeh. The autofocus system employs a new Dual Phase Linear Motor, which Panasonic says is key to the prime lens’s svelte dimensions. Promised benefits include silent focusing during video recording and minimal…

When I first started using Photoshop seriously while still shooting medium format film and scanning my transparencies in 2005, knowing that digital photography was overtaking analogue, Photoshop CS2 was the current version of the software which was launched that same year. It was a huge upgrade from Photoshop 7, which is what I used to muddle my way around at university where film still reigned supreme compared to what digital cameras could produce in terms of image quality and file size. The CS2 version of Photoshop and Creative Suite CS2 marked a turning point with the launch of Adobe Bridge, which was digital asset management software, which, for photographers, provided a place where you could organise, view, rate and open raw files in Adobe Camera Raw and other file types…

Testbench LAPTOPS FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS It has been a while since a dedicated desktop computer was essential for photo editing, with even the most basic laptop or tablet now powerful enough to edit a few photos. Laptops provide photographers with a portable option for editing on the go and can save needing a dedicated desk and workspace at home. However, when it comes to editing hundreds of images or managing a photo library with thousands of files, you will need a laptop that can handle labour-intensive tasks with ease. Before we look at some of the best laptops you can buy for photo editing, let’s walk through the key features photographers should be looking for. Almost every single component of the computer matters here, including the screen, processor, graphics card,…

● £200 ● mobilepixels.us If you use a laptop for editing your images, you may well find yourself frustrated by a lack of screen real estate. One solution is to add a portable monitor. The Mobile Pixels Duex Max is a 14.1in LCD screen that clips onto your laptop and slides out to one side for use. This could be particularly handy when desk space is limited (most other similar devices have their own stands). To make this work, first you have to stick four circular magnets onto the lid of your laptop, using a positioning template that comes in the box. The magnets fix in place firmly, so I never felt the monitor might be at risk of falling off. But they aren’t exactly pretty, and I can’t imagine…