Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 6 i Canon Photography The Complete Manual

Sunrise goes through some particular phases, each with its own quality of light. Pre-dawn is usually cooler in tone, with lower dynamic range and soft shadows but the clouds will normally start lighting up before the sun actually gets to the horizon. The minutes before sunrise are generally more orange/ yellow in tone and shadows become more obvious. Then, once the sun is a couple of degrees above the horizon, you get long shadows that reveal detail in the landscape, crisp highlights and a marked increase in contrast.…

“Turn snaps and video clips into something far more wonderful: images and footage that you are proud of and want the world to see.” Take more creative control of your photography with a range of digital cameras for enthusiasts that are as easy to use as you need them to be, with image quality that is sure to impress. Turn snaps and video clips into something far more wonderful: images and footage that you are proud of and want the world to see. Use high-end techniques such as shallow depth of field to create differential focus and draw your viewer's eye to your subject. Make your images distinctive with the use of creative filter effects that can all be done in-camera with the touch of a button. Take command of…

Like the other major camera manufacturers, Canon has been leaning heavily into the development of its mirrorless models. Since the introduction of the first mirrorless EOS models, the EOS R in 2018, the R-system has grown significantly, and now includes 12 camera models, ranging from the entry-level EOS R100 to the amazing EOS R1 professional camera. While the R-system hasn't replaced the conventional reflex-mirror cameras in Canon's EOS range, it is now close to equalling the number of available models. Mirrorless cameras offer many advantages over conventional SLRs, including lighter weight, superior performance, and more versatile video recording modes. Several cameras in the R series offer high-speed electronic shutters capable of 1/8,000th of a second, while others can shoot professional quality 6K video at 60fps. The power of Canon's back-illuminated…

Don't be a fair weather photographer. You don't always need a stunning sunrise or glorious sunny day to undertake a photography session. Sometimes, a grey day can give up the goods as well as any sunny day. It's just a case of approaching it from a different angle. If it is a lacklustre day, the shadows will be flat or non-existent and there will be very little contrast compared to a bright day. Make the most of form and texture instead. Also, perhaps you could shoot with the intent of doing a mono conversion such as the examples seen here.…

The main difference between a well taken snapshot and a truly artistic photograph is simply a matter of composition. By changing the focal length, the angle and the position of the camera, the photographer can change the relative positions and sizes of objects in the frame to produce a more visually pleasing effect. Learning to do this is mostly a matter of practice and experimentation, but there are a number of simple tips and rules-of-thumb that can help you to take better pictures. The first and most important thing to remember is to take your time. Look at the scene in the viewfinder or on your monitor and try to see it not as simply a view but instead to imagine it as a finished print. Ask yourself if there's…

The shutter of your camera is simply a mechanical barrier that prevents light from entering the camera until it is needed, controlling when and for how long light is allowed in to expose the sensor. The latest digital cameras have high-speed electro-mechanical shutters capable of timing exposures with an accuracy measured in fractions of a millisecond. Along with the aperture setting and the sensitivity control, shutter speed is one of the three ways that photographic exposure is adjusted. When a picture is taken, the shutter is opened for a precisely measured amount of time allowing light to pass through. The duration of the exposure is set either automatically by the camera's light meter or manually by the photographer. The wider the range of available shutter speeds, the greater the creative…

The focal length of your lens, in other words how much you zoom in on your subject, also has a large effect on depth of field. Short focal lengths have much greater depth of field than longer focal lengths. This is one reason why, when taking a portrait shot, it's a good idea to step back a bit and zoom in rather than using a wide angle lens up close. In optics, particularly as it relates to film and photography, depth of field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image. Although a lens can precisely focus at only one distance at a time, the decrease in sharpness is gradual on each side of the focused distance, so…

Anyone who has owned a digital camera for a while will be familiar with the concept of image noise. It's that grainy distortion that spoils pictures shot in low light conditions with high ISO settings. What is image noise, where does it come from and what can be done to prevent it? All electronic devices generate noise. The background hiss of a radio, the sound of an overamplified electric guitar, or the interference on a badly tuned television, all of these things are electronic noise, and so is the noise seen in a digital photograph. This noise comes from a variety of sources. Some of it is generated by imperfections in the electronic components, or as a by-product of their normal operation. For instance, capacitors generate a small amount of…

Bounce flash Diffused flash 1. BOUNCE FLASH, as the name implies, is a method used to divert the light coming from the flash head upwards onto a ceiling using a piece of white card; as it bounces off the card and onto the ceiling, the patch of illumination becomes larger. A larger light source creates softer shadows and you will need more power since the light has to travel much further than before. 2. DIFFUSED FLASH uses a piece of translucent material in front of the flash head. The larger the material, the better, since you are trying to make the tiny pop up flash unit's light source larger by illuminating the diffuser, which in turn illuminates your subject. You will need more power as some of the light output…

The word panorama means ‘an unbroken view of the whole region surrounding an observer’. In more simple terms, it means a photograph containing a wide view. A vertorama is simply a panorama that is shot in a vertical orientation. It all came about in the 1700s when artists would paint a horizontal image that encircled an entire room. These wide, expansive views are much prized by landscape photographers who strive to capture entire vistas to give the viewer of the final image a sense of the scale of the scene that was visible to them whilst they were there. Conveying all this ‘bigness’ would normally require the use of wide angle lenses. These lenses have short focal lengths of around 14mm to 24mm and can capture an angle of view…

Although there is no real right and wrong to shooting landscapes, there are a few tips that can elevate your shots and have them stand out against the general background noise of countless dull shots. First of all, take time to research your possible shooting destination if you have not been there before. Just Googling the location you want to shoot will call up all sorts of information. Most of it may be useless to you, but you can guarantee that there will be examples of other photographs taken there. The experiences of other photographers in this location will give you the heads-up as to whether it is an easy or dicult place to reach. There may be tips concerning local by-laws and the best nearby parking spots etc. There…

Digital SLR systems offer the greatest versatility of any photographic system, and represent the best compromise between quality and portability. The best CSC systems are still some way behind, but are catching up fast. There are lenses and other accessories available to suit every type of photography, both amateur and professional. It is worth being aware that top quality Canon DSLR lenses command top prices. This photographer is using a very specialist lens to get this wide-angle photo of a bride and groom. The extreme nature of the distortion this lens gives you is apparent in the visible curvature of the building and the wide angle of view makes for a creative image. The kind of lens that can do this is called a fisheye. Whereas most lenses are trying…

High Dynamic Range, or HDR, imaging is a technique that has become very popular over the past few years, particularly for landscape photography. It's actually quite easy to do, and some of the latest cameras will actually do it automatically. You simply shoot three or more copies of the same image at different exposure settings, so that over a series of photos you capture highlight, shadow and mid-tone details. You then combine these shots into one image that compresses the full range of tones so that there are no burned-out highlights or dark shadows. The most recent versions of Adobe Photoshop have an automated function that can do this for you. There are also a number of third-party applications that function in the same way, but it doesn't work with everything…

If you seek something easy to use but still powerful, sleek and stylish, then Canon's range of compact cameras is where you can find your perfect device. Canon's innovative technologies are the backbone of the PowerShot and IXUS range of compact digital cameras that take you to the next level of shooting and sharing beautiful photos and HD quality movies. From the ultra-compact, to the versatile and affordable, you will no doubt find something that suits your pocket and your lifestyle. Here is just a sample of the digital compact camera range, that will get you inspired and ready to share your precious memories. Canon PowerShot ZOOM £289/$382/€342 A pocket-sized zoom monocular with stills and HD video. ■ 1/3-inch CMOS sensor ■ 12.1MP effective resolution ■ Full HD video recording…

Now you can enjoy ultimate image quality from APS-C and full-frame high-performance sensors. Delve deeper into the fascinating world of photography, try out new ideas and tackle new projects. You have world leading imaging technology at your fingertips, so it's time to raise your game and shoot like you never thought possible before. The EOS system really helps you as you explore new compositions, locations and effects. Whether APS-C or moving up to full-frame, you can enjoy amazing levels of performance and image quality. You can shoot with ambient low light thanks to high ISO capability; or track and capture the action with faster and more accurate autofocus precision. Thanks to HD video capture built in to your EOS camera, you can be just as creative with your movies as you…

Canon lenses are renowned for their optical abilities and the vast range available. Whether you are teaming an EOS M camera with a portable and lightweight EF-M lens or attaching a super-telephoto lens to one of their latest professional DSLRs, you can be sure there is something to suit everyone's needs. Lenses have many different functions and abilities that allow you as a photographer to frame, compose and capture exactly what you need for the job in hand. If you want a cheap prime lens, with very shallow depth of field due to its large maximum aperture for some portrait work, then you have some great choices. If you need a more exotic tilt-shift lens for architectural photography, then there is a lens for you too. If sport and wildlife…

Of the three main controls common to nearly all cameras, shutter speed, focus and aperture, it is aperture adjustment that is the least well understood. This is because it not only helps to control exposure, but also affects something called Depth of Field. Understanding the effects of aperture size is a vital skill for any keen photographer. At least there's nothing mysterious about the name. The aperture is literally a hole through which light passes after it enters the lens. The diameter of this hole can be altered, allowing a greater or smaller amount of light to pass through on its way to the sensor. In the early days of photography, aperture was adjusted by slotting cards with different sized holes cut in them into the body of the camera…

When you look at, for example, a sheet of white paper, your brain adjusts what you see so that it matches what you are expecting to see. However your digital camera doesn't have any expectations, and the colour that it “sees” is the actual colour present in the scene. ‘White’ light visible to humans can actually vary in colour from reddish orange to greenishblue. This variation is usually described as a temperature range, with warm being the red end and cold at the blue end, and is usually measured in degrees Kelvin using a colour meter. Confusingly, the higher the colour temperature, the cooler the tone and vice versa. We perceive various shades of white light illuminating a scene as neutral, a clever trick performed by our brains to maintain…

“If you love to shoot landscapes, but often find that the exposures never seem to give the results you expect, don't worry.” For many, stepping out from behind their cameraphone and shooting with a DSLR, can be a big deal. Make no mistake, cameraphones are amazing, for what they are, but for us, there is nothing to match working with a DSLR and getting immersed in the process of attaining the best exposure of your subject. If you love to shoot landscapes, but often find that the exposures never seem to give the results you expect, don't worry. Landscapes can be a bit tricky to meter correctly and you will often fall prey to the behaviour of the camera's metering system in different lighting conditions. It is very likely that the scene…

Photographers have a phrase, the “golden hour”, which refers to the first and last hours of light in the day, but particularly the special light one only sees at dawn. To capture a shot like the one on this page requires not only precise control of exposure, but also the dedication and patience to wake up while it's still dark and get set up to take the photo before the sun rises. Since that beautiful morning mist depends on the weather conditions, you might have to try several mornings in a row to get a shot this good. You have to be really committed to your art to go above and beyond! As for the technical aspects of the shot, the photographer has used a medium wide focal length of…

Macro photography is the capture of tiny objects and organisms on your camera sensor at life-size or greater using a specialist lens or other equipment. In the case of shooting with a full-frame DSLR, a macro image of 1:1 means that if you had an old 35mm negative measuring 36 x 24mm, at its closest focusing distance, you would be able to fill your camera's viewfinder with that negative and photograph it. For a DSLR owner, the most obvious route into macro photography is to buy a macro lens. If budget is no consideration, then full-frame macro lenses with image stabilisation are a great choice. There are more pocket friendly lenses for 100mm full-frame and 40mm crop-sensor models. Macro lenses offer the best optical quality, but if you are on…

Whether it's the lure of bright city lights, barren moorland bathed in moonlight or a tumbledown barn in the country under a starry sky, night-time photography is a big draw for many photographers. It can be challenging, it can be very frustrating and timeconsuming, but once you get the bug for it and get those first few ‘wow!’ images under your belt, it's a hard habit to break. There are a lot of photographers who find the whole process very relaxing. As you are normally dealing with much longer exposures than usual and having to carefully compose and focus your shots, it forces you to slow it all down and take a much more considered approach. After all, if you set up a ten-minute exposure and the end result is…

As your photography skills increase and you delve deeper into the techniques available, you are very likely to encounter words like Neutral Density Filter, Graduated Filter and Polarising Filter. Filters, in this case, are not the kind of effects you add in Instagram at the touch of a button, these are physical items that are attached to your lens to alter the incoming light that is hitting your camera's sensor. Don't think of these filters as somehow being old-fashioned and just opt to do it all in post, filters are still a very relevant aspect of your photography skills and techniques and that's why we wanted to introduce a few of them to you and give you an idea of what they can do. The idea of shooting a well-balanced…

“The most vital part of your camera is also the most delicate. If your lens is damaged then all your pictures will suffer.” Like any item of complex technology, your digital camera will only keep working at peak efficiency if you look after it. Of all the abuse that a camera can suffer, perhaps the most pernicious is dirt. From dust on the lens to grubby fingerprints all over the LCD monitor, dirt can seriously impair the operation of your camera. Of course, you can't chuck your camera in the sink with the washing up (you can, but don't expect it to work afterward), so just how should you keep it clean? Lens cleaning The most vital part of your camera is also the most delicate. If your lens is…

If you're serious about your photography then sooner or later you're going to want a digital SLR. Despite all the improvements in advanced compact, super-zoom or compact system camera design, in terms of image quality, performance and creative versatility the digital SLR still beats almost every other type of camera hands down. There are some top-end pro cameras costing tens of thousands of pounds which can take better pictures, but frankly if you're considering one of those then you're reading the wrong book. The acronym “SLR” stands for “single lens reflex”. The “single lens” part is to differentiate them from the twin-lens cameras that were popular in the 1960s, while the “reflex” part refers to the reflex mirror, an angled movable mirror that sits in front of the sensor and…

If you are a self-confessed selfie addict and love to share photos with your friends and loved ones, then you need something that is stylish, portable, and can give you instant results with the minimum of fuss. For every special moment that needs to be captured, you can have a camera and printer small enough to fit in your pocket and with such a compact system, it has never been easier to shoot and print on the go. Canon offers several options that range from 2-in-1 models with cameras and printers built in, to the option to use a portable printer that connects to your mobile devices for on-the-spot image capture and printing, just when you need it. “For every special moment that needs to be captured, you can have…

Bring the light and take a step further in the world of creative photography; as you develop your skills as a photographer, you will discover the benefits of being in control of your own lighting to really express your creative vision. Using your own lighting equipment is how you elevate your work above those who shoot with ambient light. Using your own lighting schemes allows you to produce a distinctive look that cannot be achieved any other way. Whenever you are using a flash to simply fill in dark shadows on a bright day or using a multiple light setup to bring life to a dark setting, the Canon Speedlite range of flashes will give you all the creative control you need. Use them mounted to the hot-shoe of your…

All but the most basic budget compact cameras have a selection of shooting modes, usually chosen by a dial on the top or back of the camera. Easy-to-use, mainly automatic cameras in the range will only have a few shooting modes, while the more sophisticated cameras such as the EOS DSLRs may have as many as a dozen, including manual exposure options and user-programmable special settings. As newer models appear in the range or older models are updated, the shooting modes available will be revised and possibly expanded. Shown on this spread are some of the most often used modes selected from the mode dial on the top of the camera. Auto DOF Mode: As you focus on your subject, the camera will use the other focus points to measure…

AF-A AUTO-SERVO AF The camera decides which focusing mode to use and can work to best effect if your camera has a larger number of AF points. It will assess the scene based on its content and use all the AF points to focus the shot. AF-S SINGLE-SERVO AF You can lock the focus by half-pressing the shutter release button. This allows you to select a focus point and recompose the shot. It is good for simple static subjects where you can focus once and know your subject is not going to move. AF-C CONTINUOUS-SERVO AF This time, when you press the shutter button halfway, it starts to track and continually focus on the subject beneath the selected AF point. This mode is good for tracking a moving subject such…

Explaining exactly why altering the size of the lens aperture alters the depth of field is a little complicated, but a few simple diagrams should help to shed some light on the matter. For a start, let's clear up some popular misconceptions about the difference between focus and sharpness. This is a highly simplified diagram of the arrangement of lens, aperture and sensor inside a modern digital camera. In this first diagram, three subjects at different distances from the camera lens are represented by the red, green and blue dots. The lens is focused on the green spot, so light from it passes through the aperture and the lens and appears sharply focused on the sensor. Light from the red and blue spots also passes through the aperture and lens,…

Landscape photography is one of those genres where sharpness is everything. Wide angle shots of amazing vistas usually require front to back sharpness in your scene to maintain all the detail that was present. The viewer of the final photograph will appreciate the image more if their eye is able to take in all that detail. It will make the photograph ‘live’ for them. Nothing ruins a shot more than the image being fuzzy and blurry when you need it to be tack sharp. The problem, however, is that in many cases in landscape photography you have a foreground element as well as a distant object that you want to be in as sharp a focus as possible at the same time. Shooting with a wide angle lens and setting…

It is a fair bet that your camera has a pop up flash. This is a small flash unit that sits on the top of your camera and, if you are using it in automatic mode, you may have encountered situations where it has suddenly popped up as you were about to take a photo. This tiny flash draws its power from your camera's battery and as such it has limited power and range so as not to totally drain your battery. A pop up flash usually has a range of about .5m up to 5m. Anything further out and you will not be able to light your subject properly as you won't have the range or power. Full disclosure Let's be honest at the outset and say that the…

There is often a misconception among budding photographers that landscape photography is something of an easy option when deciding on a subject to capture. Sometimes it only takes a twenty minute drive to transport you from your local town and put you among the marvels and beauty of the natural world. While it is certainly true that the natural world is very accessible, it can be another thing altogether to create memorable landscape images. It isn't just a case of arriving at a destination, firing up your DSLR and snapping away like a mad thing. The skills you may have that enable you to operate your camera are quite distinct from those that allow you to envision a beautifully composed image within the landscape you currently find yourself. Both are…

This mist-like waterfall effect is very popular and looks great when it's done right. It looks challenging, but in fact it's very easy to set up. All you need is a tripod and any camera with manual shutter speed control. The hardest part is finding a stream or river that has a nice photogenic waterfall or some rapids. Use your common sense and always exercise caution around fast-moving water; it may be deeper than it looks, with strong currents. It's best to take this sort of photo on a day that's bright, but not too sunny, because it's easy to burn out highlights on a longer exposure. A calm day is best, because you don't want any trees or plants waving about in the wind and being blurred too. Set…

Since we have just discussed how to photograph women, it seems only right to pass on a few tips about how you can photograph men and produce great portraits. The general rules for men are slightly different in approach than those of women. As with women, if your male subject is not an experienced model, then they are likely to turn to you for guidance and you can help them out by knowing some of the basics and hopefully give them some confidence in front of the camera to get your shots looking next-level awesome. Angles and lines The first major difference to be aware of when photographing the fellas is that you actually want to be able to emphasise lines, angles and strong, rigid, shapes. Curves on men are…

“Large focal length lenses will demand higher shutter speeds and a good tripod.” Careful control of depth of field by adjusting aperture and focal length is one of the most striking creative techniques available to the photographer, and you don't need any special equipment to do it, just your camera and a zoom lens. For this insect image, the photographer has used a 100mm, fast macro lens with a large maximum aperture of f2.8. This has resulted in a narrow depth of field, but by carefully focusing on the creature's body the effect of this narrow plane of focus is to isolate the insect against what could otherwise be a distracting background of the green leaves and grass both behind, and in front of, the subject. One consideration to bear…