Innholdsfortegnelse for 5/7/24 i Amateur Photographer

£70, Nazraeli Press, hardback, 104 pages, ISBN 978-1-59005-595-3 For Todd Hido, ‘Photography is a medium that tells us the truth, but, like memory, some parts are fuzzy and some parts are sharp.’ Based in the San Francisco Bay area, the 55-year-old photographer has published 17 books in his 25-year career and his work has been exhibited internationally. The first half of Hido’s career was focused on photographing the American suburbs and understanding his place within them, in books such as House Hunting (2001) and A Road Divided (2010). In more recent years, he has ventured away from locations to which he is personally connected. He photographs while on long solitary drives and his pictures show anonymous places that could have been photographed at any time in the recent past –…

As a photographer my phone is important to me. It’s nowhere near replacing my mirrorless cameras or DSLRs, but there are many cases when it is my camera. I’ve had images taken on phone that have been published in the UK press, so it’s important that any phone I use meets the high standards I need. At the recent Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, I got to try out the TECNO PHANTOM V Fold. On first impressions, the phone stands up well against any of its competitors. The handset is sleek, feels well made, and is a similar weight to other fold phones. Furthermore, the fold opens smoothly, and the crease is not visible when you are working on the open screen. For only £850 or so on eBay,…

As American photographer Peter van Agtmael (born 1981) explains: ‘There’s something that’s inherently awkward about the interview process and being asked the questions and talking the whole time. ‘I always feel awkward, like shit, am I talking too much and I haven’t even started talking. You can see my neurosis on full display.’ Perhaps it’s necessary for the 2003 Yale University graduate, who has a degree in history, to be this way to produce the photographs he does. His latest book, Look at the USA (Thames & Hudson) is fuelled by ideology, insecurity, ambition and a deep fascination with war. Peter began with documenting America’s war in Iraq in 2006, a photographic odyssey that would span nearly two decades. The work grew from a deep need to understand and peel…

James Billings, Swaffham, Norfolk BEST BUY: Mamiya C330 with 80mm and 135mm lenses, £340 from eBay I liked the idea of a TLR as they look quite distinctive and offer more control than the simple box cameras we had in the house. A bit of research suggested the Mamiya C330 was a good option as it provided interchangeable lenses along with a lower price than Rolleiflex and so on. Scouring eBay, I eventually spotted one that sounded in good working condition and came with two lenses (most came only with one). After some well-timed mouse clicks, I won! I’ve enjoyed the slow pace of using it so far, and the image quality is superb. Looking forward to experimenting more with it! www.ebay.co.ukInstagram @james_billings Anthony Young, North Dorset BEST BUY: Fujifilm…

Testbench ACCESSORY TEST The Huion Kamvas Pro 16 2.5K is what’s known as a Pen Display. Rather than it being a blank tablet that detects your pen motions and transfers them, like a mouse, to the screen of your computer, a pen display actually shows your working window, so you can use the pen directly on the image. Visiting an old friend a couple of months ago I admired his collection of graphics tablets and remembered how long it had been since I’d used mine. He’s an illustrator, so the use-case seemed a little more obvious than for a photographer, but it bothered me that so many photographers have/use these devices and perhaps I was missing out. Right on cue Huion messaged me to see if I’d like to review…

● £70 ● www.shiftcam.com There’s no denying that the latest smartphones are genuinely useful photographic tools, which are often capable of doing things that conventional cameras cannot. But even the best of them are a horrible shape to shoot with. Enter the ShiftCam SnapGrip – a magnetic clip-on handgrip with a built-in shutter button, that’s designed to make your phone much more secure to hold. With its MagSafe connector, the SnapGrip fits directly onto most iPhones since the 12-series. It can also be used with Android devices, but you’ll have to stick the supplied magnetic disc onto your phone or a case to make this work. One advantage of the magnetic design is that you can attach your phone onto the grip equally well in either portrait or landscape orientation.…

7 days A week in photography THIS dramatic picture of a tiger in the act of pouncing, taken by Anirudh Vanimisetty, is amongst the winners of a competition to secure a place in Remembering Tigers, the latest book in the Remembering Wildlife series. There are only around 5,500 tigers left in the wild and they are listed as ‘endangered’ by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). Sales of the book will fund protection projects. The money for publishing it was raised via Kickstarter. See bit.ly/tigerbook2…

Best known for his images of urban scenes in the city of Leeds, Peter Mitchell is a chronicler of a now largely-vanished world. Many of his images record buildings that had been part of the local scene for decades and were about to be demolished and disappear forever. They include characterful pubs and corner shops, factories and neglected, unloved blocks of 1930s flats and often include the people who lived and worked in them. Although he’s particularly drawn to photograph buildings, Peter’s work extends to other more unusual, quirky subjects and offbeat approaches. His 2015 book, for example, Some Thing Means Everything to Somebody, juxtaposed images of scarecrows with pictures of unrelated items of sentimental value to himself, including a door key, a quaint piece of pottery and a gas…

DIGITAL COMPACTSTechnique Should you buy a new compact point-and-shoot camera, or go for a secondhand model? If you’ve been on TikTok, Instagram, Etsy, or eBay recently, and seen any content on compact digital cameras, you might have come across this term: ‘Y2K Camera’ / ‘Y2K Digicam’ – but what does it mean? It’s supposed to be a term referring to early vintage digital cameras, made around the year 2000. Most listings are actually cameras from 2000-2010 (or later) – rather than earlier than 2000, as digital cameras from prior to the year 2000 were generally very early models, with low resolution, poor connectivity, old, outdated and difficult-to-work-with memory cards (remember Smartmedia?), and poor reliability too. If you do go for a ‘Y2K Camera’ expect to pay more for it (beware…

Chester Tugwell, West Sussex About Chester Excel trainer and YouTuber Chester particularly enjoys shooting landscapes in his local area. You can see more of his work at www.chestertugwell.com and on Instagram @chestertugwell Favourite subjects Landscapes. I live in a very rural area just outside the South Downs National Park. Like many landscape photographers, I like photographing in misty conditions. My favourite time of the year to photograph is December and January, when frost and early morning mists are more likely to occur. How did you get into photography? It was after I went to an exhibition in the 1990s in Brighton by Mark Power called The Shipping Forecast. I haven’t adopted Power’s photographic style, but for some reason, that exhibition ignited my interest in photography. What do you love about…

Seven years ago, Fujifilm released the X100F – the fourth member in the company’s appealing X100-series of fixed-lens compacts. It featured a number of improvements over the X100T from 2014, many of which debuted on the X-Pro2, while maintaining the stunning design and 35mm equivalent f/2 lens with analogue dial-led operation. A third-generation 24.3MP X-Trans CMOS III sensor provided an ISO 200-12,800 range (expandable to ISO 100-51,200), with burst shooting up to 8fps. Its 91-point autofocus system and joystick AF control were superior to the X100T and it benefited from the larger NP-W126S battery. There’s a built-in 3-stop ND filter, a superb suite of film simulation modes and a fixed 1.04m-dot LCD. You also get a hybrid viewfinder that allows you to switch between optical and electronic views. What we…

RECENTLY we described DxO Labs as ‘ever industrious’ and the firm has been hard at it again, releasing the latest Nik Collection, version 7. Nik Collection includes Silver Efex, still regarded as the gold standard for black & white editing by many, along with other constituent programs (or plug-ins, as they are also compatible with Photoshop, Lightroom, Affinity Photo, and DxO PhotoLab). The main updates apply to Nik Color Efex. This now features an extended HSL (Hue Saturation Luminance) filter for extending colour range selections, along with a new Vibrancy slider. Dynamic Filters now enable you to stack and reorder filters and create local adjustments, and you can access Nik Viveza plug-ins as filters from within Color Efex to simplify your workflow (Viveza helps with tone and colour correction and…

THE WINNERS of the 2024 Color Photography Awards have been announced by Refocus, a New York-based photography competition and creative community website. First prize in the Professional category went to Laura Zalenga for an intriguing self-portrait, taken in her bathroom with a wideangle lens. In the nonprofessional category, top honours went to Asep Setiawan for a charming image of Balinese kids hanging out with their friends before bedtime. This year’s competition attracted entrants from 60 countries, with the judges including such luminaries as Aaron St Clair, director of editorial content at Shutterstock. See the full list of winners at refocus-awards.com/contests/winners/color…

TechniqueFUJIFILM X100 SERIES Incredibly, despite mirrorless cameras from Panasonic, Samsung and Sony, and DSLRs such as the Canon EOS 60D, Nikon D7000, Pentax K-5 and Sigma SD1 being announced at Photokina 2010, the largest photographic trade show at the time, it was a compact camera from Fujifilm that got the most attention. Of course, the Fujifilm FinePix X100 was no run-of-the-mill compact camera with a tiny sensor and an underwhelming lens. No, it had a CMOS sensor sized to match the chips in the most popular DSLRs of the time. And while many compact cameras of the day lacked a viewfinder, alongside its 2.8in screen the Fujifilm FinePix X100 had a hybrid viewfinder that combined an optical viewfinder with an electronic finder to give users additional choice when composing their…

GuruShots, the organisers of the world’s greatest photography games and communities, recently challenged its users to send in their best images on the theme of Tell a Story. Amateur Photographer is partnering with GuruShots and we are now pleased to publish the 18 highest ranked photographs by those who entered. Also, remember that you can view every single image that made it into the Top 500 at amateurphotographer.com For more inspiring challenges to improve your photo skills and stay motivated, see gurushots.com…

Video in consumer cameras had well and truly come of age. A decade ago 4K capture was the talk of the town, but now top-end cameras can shoot in 8K, and the used camera market is awash with affordable 4K cameras. There has never been a better time to get started recording video, whether it is to capture family events, holidays, adventures or just to start your own YouTube channel. Over the following pages we have rounded up the used cameras and kits that we think will enable you to create your budget-friendly video set-up. Of course, there isn’t room to cover every available product or every detail, so use this guide as the starting point to find out more online, including on our website at amateurphotographer.com or on our…

TestbenchIN THE FIELD As a trainee Scuba diver in the 1970s, I often hankered after a waterproof camera to record my adventures, first in cold winter swimming pools and later in even colder open water dives around the British and Norwegian coasts. I had all sorts of ideas about building a Perspex case for a small 35mm Rollei camera, but I soon discovered this was way beyond my technical skills. Then, one of the trainers – a professional diver – introduced me to his Nikonos waterproof camera. I’d seen them on television, as one of the standard bits of gear on Sunday evening wildlife documentaries, but I’d never handled one. As soon as I did so, I was hooked. It took me a long time to get hold of one,…

Fro Rojas As I ventured into my photography career some years back, transitioning from film to digital, I looked for a camera that could replicate the nostalgic allure of film but in a digital landscape. Fujifilm’s X100 series, particularly the F model, became my camera of choice. Its fixed lens and its smaller body size streamlined my workflow, freeing me from lens changes and enabling a singular focus on capturing moments with models and clients. I’ve always valued storytelling over technicalities, and the X100F perfectly encapsulated my vision. It was easy to use and its compact size enabled me to explore unconventional locations and possibilities inaccessible to larger body cameras. As a creative, I adapt to the available lighting, cherishing the nuances of natural illumination. Although the X100F had its…