Innholdsfortegnelse for 9/2/25 i Amateur Photographer

I can bore for England on the joys of bird photography, but I’m very aware that it’s easy to get into a rut, shooting species in the same old predictable ways. So, I was fascinated to read the main feature this issue, which explores fresh, creative approaches to photographing birds in all their amazing diversity – turn to page 12 now. Check out my field test of the Olympus 300mm F4 IS Pro lens, too; it’s a wonderful lens for birding that won’t weigh down your arms or wallet. That’s enough about me, however – other big highlights this issue include a test of one of the best travel tripods we’ve ever seen, and a look back at the history of Ricoh. Indeed, Ricoh has just released the intriguing GR…

THE SIDE Gallery in Newcastle has launched a print sale called 50x50, featuring work from some top-name photographers at an affordable price. Contributors include Rankin, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Daniel Meadows and Homer Sykes. All profits from the sale go to the AmberSide Trust – the UK’s only arts organisation devoted to documentary film and photography centred on working-class life, from the North East and internationally. Each A4 print, produced by fine-art printers Beyond Print, costs a very reasonable £50. See shop.amber-online.com…

HASSELBLAD has launched the latest iteration of its medium-format mirrorless camera, the X2D II 100C. It comes with a number of major updates over its three-year-old predecessor, with the most striking being the additions of LiDAR assisted autofocus, and what Hasselblad is calling ‘end-to-end HDR’. In terms of the basic design and core spec, the X2D II is mostly unchanged. It places a 100MP BSI-CMOS sensor measuring 43.8x32.9mm in an SLR-shaped body, with a prominent handgrip and central viewfinder, and distinctively squared-off styling. There’s a large tilting touchscreen on the back. Notably, the X2D II is Hasselblad’s first camera to support continuous autofocus. This is aided by Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology that’s borrowed from parent company DJI. There are now 425 phase detection points, rather than 294, and…

When and why did you start taking photographs? Photography’s always been part of my life. Growing up, we documented everything – birthdays, everyday oddities, Christmas head-and-shoulders portraits. I had a camera before I stopped believing in Father Christmas. I remember taking ‘portraits’ of classmates on the last day of infant school and later, at a family friend’s wedding, photographing the photographer rather than the posed shots. That was more interesting to me. In my teens I used a Praktica EE2 and began learning about exposure and lenses, but the wait for film processing slowed my learning. Music ended up taking over – I studied it at university and fronted an indie band called Jubb & The Dirty Sleeves. Later, I was asked to model for a soil company campaign, shot…

Paul Roberts Lightroom with Photoshop for alignment and stacking when shooting macro/multi exposure. S!CAR!O @I_AM_S1CAR1O Typically Lightroom. I tried Luminar Neo and it was so-so. The AI tools results actually looked fake to me. I might try Topaz though for research’s sake. LOL Harri Rae Mine was Affinity but since changing to a Samsung, only Lightroom will read the raw files. Paul L’Heureux Hate sitting in front of a computer for anything. I usually shoot film in my pinhole camera so I don’t edit it. Thor Inge Slåttedalen @svimeslaaten ON1 and Nik collection. Jumped off the Adobe subscription wagon. Richard Krawiec My preference is Snapseed and Luminar on iPad. On my iMac I use Exposure X7, ON1 and Neo. Each one has their own distinctive strengths. Mike Mac Cattery Luminar…

GRAEME GREEN The wildlife photographer and writer talks to top bird photographers using creative techniques PETER DENCH Acting Features Ed Documentary photographer Peter speaks to Si Jubb, in our Emerging Photographer series JOHN WADE AP’s expert on vintage cameras recalls significant examples of Ricoh’s great versatility GEOFF HARRIS Deputy Editor Geoff field tests the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 300mm F4 IS Pro prime lens ANDY WESTLAKE Technical Editor Our chief reviewer tests a lightweight tripod from Heipi that’s packed with clever features JESSICA MILLER Dep Online Editor On page 40 Jessica picks great reader shots; and curates This week we asked on page 38…

AFTER a hiatus in 2024, the Environmental Photographer of the Year (EPOTY) competition – organised by the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management – is open for entries until 28 September. This free-to-enter competition is open to photographers of all ages anywhere in the world, with the overall winner getting a £1,000 cash prize and the four category winners each receiving £500. Full details at www.epoty.org…

Nigel Atherton, editor, chooses Slime fungi on log by David Lain, North Yorkshire Nikon Z 9, 1/200sec at ISO 64 Nigel says: ‘I love seeing pictures that are unlike anything I’ve seen before and this photo falls into that category for me. At first glance this looks like the contents of a box of those Belgian chocolates, with the truffle inside. But it’s a cruel deception because it’s actually a picture of mature slime fungi on a log. What’s more, according to the photographer, David Lain, they are only about 3mm tall, so you need sharp eyes to spot them. Which means there’s no danger of me ever taking a photo like this! ‘David got down low and very close with his Nikon Z9 to make them look a lot bigger…

● £328 ● heipivision.com Ever since Peak Design unveiled its ground-breaking Travel Tripod in 2019, other makers have followed with similar slim, space-saving designs. The Heipi W28S is one such offering, but it’s anything but a simple imitation. Instead, it’s built with a unique ‘three pillar’ centre column, which aims to provide increased stability while doing double duty as a mini ‘sub tripod’. Hence, the ‘3-in-1’ moniker; you can use either the main or sub tripods on their own, or combined together. Looking first at the main tripod, this employs 5-section carbon-fibre legs with clip-type locks. Each leg can be set to three different angles, while a large collar is used to adjust the height of the centre column/sub tripod. The sub tripod itself employs aluminium alloy legs, which can…

WIN! The AP Pic of the Week winner will receive a beautifully framed print of their winning image worth up to £100. If you Love it, Frame it! ThisPicture.com is an experienced, high-quality framing company with a unique, easy-to-use website. Build single or multi-image frames with a few clicks of your mouse and select from a wide range of frames, window mounts and glazing options. Each frame comes with a three-year guarantee and FREE P&P within the UK. Visit thispicture.co.uk Standing pretty in a sea of purple on the heath by Hang Ross Canon EOS R5, 24-105mm f/4, 1/125sec at f/5.6 ‘Grey skies all day. Then the sun broke through so I grabbed my kit and went for a stroll in one of my favourite areas of the New Forest…

Since his twenties, Australian-born photographer Adam Ferguson has spent much of his career photographing foreign lands and documenting zones of conflict. He gained recognition in 2009 as a photojournalist covering the Afghan war. However, in 2013, he made a conscious decision to turn his lens inward, and focus on his homeland – the vast, sparsely populated Australian outback. His work since has been widely exhibited and acclaimed, most recently earning second place in the Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize in 2024, which was exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery, where I first came across this image. Ferguson, like many non-indigenous Australians living in the outback, is descended from European settlers who came for pastoralism, during the colonial expansion in the 19th century. A time when the British crown declared the…

RICOH has announced the Ricoh GR IV, an update to the popular GR III compact. Key features include a 26MP APS-C CMOS sensor (a minor but still-significant resolution jump from the GR III’s 24MP), a 28mm equivalent f/2.8 lens, and an upgraded battery which has around 40% greater capacity than the cell in the GR III. The lens now includes 7 optical elements in 5 groups, incorporating glass-moulded aspherical lens elements and high-refraction, low-dispersion glass elements. Ricoh claims that this ‘delivers high-contrast, high-resolution images with edge-to-edge sharpness, while minimizing distortion and chromatic aberration.’ While the GR III offered 3-axis stabilisation, the GR IV features a 5-axis in-body image stabilisation system, offering up to 6 stops of shake compensation. Meanwhile, a Macro mode enables users to focus on objects and there’s…

Having body parts splattered across your camera isn’t an issue most portrait photographers have to contend with. But if you’re working with a wedge-tailed eagle, the largest eagle in Australia, normal studio etiquette isn’t guaranteed. ‘I’ve worked with birds of prey and sometimes they try to fly off,’ says Australian photographer Leila Jeffreys. ‘They’ll be feeding on treats throughout a shoot – it might be a bit of mouse – and they manage to flick it all over my equipment. With a wedge-tailed eagle I photographed, suddenly it was all over the camera. It can get pretty messy.’ Working with local zoos and rescue centres to photograph a wide range of birds (Moluccan cockatoo, Eastern grass owl…), there’s rarely a dull day for Jeffreys. ‘One time that was really fun…

It’s easy to forget some of the big names that once dominated the camera industry. Take Ricoh, for example. Launched in 1917 under the name Riken – an abbreviation of the Japanese for Institute for Physical and Chemical Research – the name was changed in 1963 to Ricoh Company Ltd. Today, Ricoh still maintains a range of digital cameras, with its cult-classic GR III line being direct descendants of the company’s R-series of 35mm film compact cameras. They in turn marked the end of an era that saw the introduction of folding cameras, subminiatures, single lens reflexes (SLRs), twin lens reflexes (TLRs), 35mm coupled rangefinder cameras, compacts, half-frame cameras, Instamatic-types, clockwork motor drive models, bridge cameras... even the world’s first SLR interchangeable autofocus lens. Ricoh produced literally hundreds of different…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Micro has scope Thank you for both Joshua Waller’s review of the OM System OM-5 Mark II and Gavin Stoker’s Viewpoint, both in AP 5 August. I agree with Gavin’s main points but he forgot to mention post processing. I routinely shoot macro at ISO 6400, with a Micro Four Thirds camera. Yes, the raw files are unusably noisy. But AI-based noise reduction software, (as tested by AP) turns them into clean and detailed images. Similarly, the raw files can fill an A3 print (and, if I have to crop in, modern AI based resizing software comes to the rescue). Yes, if we want the highest-quality raw files, then we should all be using medium format sensors. If quality is king, then it can be argued…