Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2015 i N-Photo: the Nikon magazine

01 Mystic Forest Mark Gray, Australia First Place, Trees, Woods & Forests I discovered this stunning location purely by accident. I was running a group photography workshop, and while driving back down Mount Buffalo in Victoria we entered thick fog with amazing soft light streaming through. I was back in the area a few weeks later and was greeted with almost identical conditions. I nailed this shot just before the fog lifted, using a polariser to take the glare out of the stream and foliage. www.markgray.com.au Nikon D800e, Nikon AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8G ED, 1/4 sec, f/16, ISO100, circular polariser 02 Is She Local? Carolyne Barber, UK New Shoots award for emerging talent “These beautiful damselflies brighten up our summer with their graceful structure, their colours and their expressive faces. Early…

Portraits are typically shot on a short to medium telephoto lens at a wide aperture in order to make the subject stand out clearly from the background. The combination of a longer focal length lens and a very wide aperture means that depth of field is much more limited than when shooting landscapes with a wide-angle lens. Because of this focusing needs to be very precise. The band of focus may be just a few centimetres deep when taking a close-up portrait, so it’s important that the subject is sharp where it matters. The crucial part of any portrait is the eyes, so at least one eye needs to be sharp, no matter what. As long as this is the case, it almost doesn’t matter if nothing else within the…

KITBAG Fast telephoto primes are eye-wateringly expensive. While most of us can’t stretch to a 300mm f/2.8, hiring one for a big event is an option. ■ In sport photography it’s important to try to maximise the visual impact of every image you take. One way of achieving this is by reducing the depth of field to an absolute minimum, which means that your lens and aperture choice are crucial. A fast (wide aperture) prime telephoto lens such as a 300mm f/2.8 will not only give you the best possible optical quality, it will also give you the tiny amount of depth of field you’re looking for. Unlike most lenses, they are designed to work at their best wide open at f/2.8, giving crisp, sharp images and throwing anything in…

THE MISSION ■ Go to one location and try to capture six different compositions TIME NEEDED ■ One to two hours SKILL LEVEL ■ Anyone can do it ■ Some tricky aspects ■ Advanced technique KIT NEEDED ■ Nikon D-SLR ■ Tripod NEXT ISSUE… We reveal six fresh ideas for macro photography When it comes to composing a landscape photo there are a multitude of rules we’re instructed to follow. There’s the rule of thirds, which states that we should place interesting objects on the ‘third’ lines within the frame. Then there’s the ‘foreground interest’ rule, which has us all scrambling around to find an attractive rock or plant to include in the foreground of our shot. We must also keep our horizons straight, eliminate ‘dead space’, and avoid placing…

THE MISSION ■ To shoot a sequence of landscape images, then combine them into a single frame TIME NEEDED ■ Two hours SKILL LEVEL ■ Anyone can do it ■ Some tricky aspects ■ Advanced technique KIT NEEDED ■ Nikon D-SLR ■ Tripod ■ Photoshop CS5 or above NEXT ISSUE… Learn how to shoot and process a stunning day-to-night panorama Imagine capturing a succession of passing moments within a single frame. Well, in this month’s Big Project we show you how to do just that, by creating an amazing ‘time stack’. To do this we set up our camera just as we would for a time-lapse, so that it captured frames at regular intervals to record the movement of clouds. Typically a sequence like this would then be combined into…

PROJECT INFO MISSION To take great photos of real people in real light, in their environments PHOTOGRAPHER Kevin MacAulay Age 44 LOCATION Ontario, Canada KIT Nikon D750, Nikon 24-120mm f/4G VR, Nikon 70-300mm f/4-5.6G VR, Nikon 50mm f/1.8D, Nikon SB-700 Speedlight WEB www.kaptured memories.ca My interest in photography began in high school, when I was chosen to be a yearbook photographer. I joined the military, and in 1990 I began my photographic training at the Canadian Forces School of Aerospace Technology and Engineering as a Photographic Technician. My first issued 35mm camera was the Nikon FM2. I loved that camera! As photography progressed into the digital era the military began to use the Kodak and Nikon DCS line of digital cameras. After being promoted to the rank of Sergeant in 2007 I was chosen to…

Don McCullin has been taking hard-hitting news photos since the late 1950s. We asked him about his tough early years, the development of his technique, why he’s sick and tired of his most famous war image, and why he wants to be remembered more for his landscapes... To start at the beginning, we wondered if your talent for expressing yourself visually may have arisen as a result of you suffering from dyslexia as a child? I’ve always struggled to read, and I miss things; it’s a bloody nuisance, but I don’t believe that quitting or surrendering to a disability is the right thing to do. Always fight the things that handicap you in life. And I am certain that one half of my brain is open to visual arts, as…

THE CONTENDERS 1 Velbon Sherpa 5370D kit (comes with PH-157Q three-way head) £120, $180 2 Benro A2970F Versatile Transformer + BH2-M ball head £145, $225 3 Slik Pro 700DX kit (comes with three-way pan head) £170, $170 4 Sirui ET-2004 kit (comes with E-20 ball head) £190, $200 5 Manfrotto MK190XPRO3-BH kit (comes with 496RC2 ball head) £245, $300 6 Benro C2970F Versatile Transformer + BH2-M ball head £245, $420 7 Induro AT214 Alloy 8M + BHD1 ball head £250, $310 8 Manfrotto MT055CXPRO3 + 498RC2 ball head £415, $620 9 Sirui N-3204X + K-30X ball head £475, $605 10 Gitzo GT3542XLS Series 3 6X Systematic + GH3780QD ball head £1115, $1530 EQUIPMENT KNOW-HOW FEATURES TO LOOK FOR … Check out the finer points of tripod design before making your…

1 NIKON D800 (Superseded by Nikon D810, £2350, $3000) ■ What’s it for? This is my main body for shooting feature images, covers and portraits, although I also use the D4 a lot. It delivers superb image quality in a small body, as well as fantastic video imagery. ■ Plus points When handled well, the D800 easily rivals medium-format digital backs. ■ Minus marks It’s pretty unforgiving if you ‘spray and pray’, as 36 megapixels will show up a lot of mistakes. 2 NIKON AF-S 24-70MM F/2.8G ED FX (£1230, $1687) ■ What’s it for? I probably shoot 70 per cent of my work on it. It’s got fantastic optical quality, and is incredibly well built – I’ve had it repaired three times, but that’s due to my being an…

“This is an image of four soldiers attached to the 173rd Airborne, Battle Company, carrying the body of Sergeant Rougle through the Abas Ghar ridgeline, about an hour after we were ambushed by the Taliban,” explains Pulitzer Prizewinning photojournalist Lynsey Addario. “Three members of the Scout team were shot at almost point-blank range, and Rougle was killed. As a photographer who has covered war for 15 years, I still find it difficult to capture the drama of combat, and the toll of war. Lynsey Addario Photojournalist Lynsey Addario regularly shoots for a range of prestigious titles, including The New York Times, National Geographic and Time. She has covered many conflicts. Awards include the MacArthur Fellowship in 2009 and the Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for International Reporting. Lynsey is speaking at…

If a picture isn’t focused properly then it’s usually destined for the trash, irrespective of how well exposed it is, or how great the subject might be (with the exception of a genuine shot of the Loch Ness monster, perhaps!). In other words, focus isn’t simply important, it’s fundamental to the success of each and every image you take. But ‘being in focus’ means different things for different genres; what may be applicable for shooting sport might not be so relevant for capturing a pin-sharp macro image. On the face of it, focus is a simple concept to understand: the subject is either in focus or it isn’t. But actually there’s a lot more to it than that. The amount of your subject that’s in focus is dictated by a…

KITBAG Long lenses are heavy, so some sort of support is usually essential. If using a tripod, use a ball head, or better still a gimbal head, to maximise freedom of movement. Wildlife photography has many similarities to both portraiture and sport photography, and there is a lot of cross-over in their respective focusing techniques. Like portraits, most wildlife images tend be taken at wide apertures using a mid to long telephoto lens. The use of a wide aperture has the effect of blurring out the background in a very similar way to when shooting people, but the result is even more pronounced because of the longer lens. In addition, a wide aperture enables a fast shutter speed to be set, which helps to eliminate blur caused by both camera…

Quick tip Lighting a face from above is the most natural angle even when the subject is lying down, so position the light above eye level THE MISSION ■ Capture customised catchlights in your subject’s eyes TIME NEEDED ■ 30 minutes SKILL LEVEL ■ Anyone can do it ■ Some tricky aspects ■ Advanced technique KIT NEEDED ■ Wire coathanger ■ LED fairy lights ■ Sticky tape ■ Macro or zoom lens NEXT ISSUE… Mirror magic for location portraits It’s often said that eyes are the most important feature in a portrait. Whenever you’re shooting portraits, you should always be looking for ways to draw attention to them. One way we can do this is by making sure they have catchlights. These are the tiny reflected highlights we see in…

Your photos, your stories, your letters Come on in! How far do you have to go to find a subject you’re passionate about photographing? This issue’s reader stories are from one lucky photographer who’s surrounded by wildlife, one who drove for hours to find a stunning landscape, and one who ventured into the Arctic Circle for his art! Why not write in and tell us where your photography has taken you? INSIDE OVER TO YOU … WE WANT YOUR STORIES, PICTURES AND LETTERS! SEND THEM TO : N-Photo Magazine Fture Publishing Ltd Quay House The Ambury Bath, UK BA1 1UA Or drop us a line at: mail@nphotomag.com www.facebook.com/nphotomag www.twitter.com/nphotomag PROJECT INFO MISSION To capture Florida’s amazing birds and wildlife PHOTOGRAPHER Daniel Moll AGE 36 LOCATION Florida, USA KIT Nikon D300, Nikon D7000,…

We reserve the right to edit any queries for clarity or brevity. You can also write to us at N-Photo Magazine, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA, UK ■ Keep your copies of N-Photo neat and tidy with our bespoke binder. Each stores a year’s worth of your favourite photo magazine – and costs from £9.99! Order yours today at… www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/n-photo-binder * Star Letter BEWARE OF THE FISH Since I live in Australia, I have only just recieved my copy of issue 40 and I was horrified at the photo of the box jellyfish. It’s a beautiful photo, but given that the photographer is from Spain and the photo taken in South Africa, he can probably be forgiven for not knowing these creatures are deadly. There are a number of species…

This is a high-contrast, high-dynamic-range scene where the lighting is divided sharply between sunlight and shadow. The exposure is efficient, meaning that it’s as bright as it can be without clipping any highlights, so the RAW processor has the maximum amount of information to work on. The highlights need to be darkened, and the shadow areas brightened, while maintaining contrast and enhancing the glow on walls and pavements in the shadow areas. There are two different ways of handling this, and both need the extra data stored in a RAW file. One way is to rely on the Highlight and Shadow recovery sliders, which are very sophisticated. The problem with these, as you can see from the version below, is that the result looks a bit flat. It lacks richness,…

JARGON BUSTER Key terms explained KELVIN The Kelvin (K) scale is named after Lord Kelvin, a 19th-century British physicist. A Kelvin is a unit of measure for temperature, and in photography it’s used to describe the colour of different light sources, and of natural light at different times of the day. COLOUR CAST Colour casts are tints of cool blue or warm orange that need to be corrected in order to create more faithful colours. If two photographers shoot the same scene at the same time with identical cameras, the colours in the resulting photos can look quite different. One camera’s shots might feature a cool, blue colour cast, while the other camera could capture warmer-looking colours. These discrepancies in colour can occur because different white balance settings were used.…

SPECIFICATIONS Sensor 24.2-million-pixel DX-format CMOS Crop factor 1.5x Memory 1 x SD/HC/XC Viewfinder Eye-level optical pentamirror viewfinder, 95% field of view Video resolution Full HD (1920x1080) at 60, 50, 30, 25 or 24p ISO range 100-25600 Autofocus points 39 Max burst rate 5fps LCD screen 3.2-inch, 1,037,000-dot vari-angle touch-sensitive TFT-LCD Shutter speeds 1/4000 sec - 30 secs, bulb, time Weight 420g (body only) Dimensions 124x97x70mm Power supply Li-ion EN-EL14a battery D-SLR Nikon D5500 £709, $996 (with 18-55mm kit lens) www.nikon.com Nikon generally replaces its entry-level models every year, so it’s no surprise to see the D5500, which sits above the D3300, making its debut in 2015. As we’ve seen with other recent additions to the Nikon line-up, however, the new model offers an incremental upgrade, rather than a complete overhaul.…

Maruia Falls, Nelson National Park, New Zealand My favourite waterfall image, made up of eight shots stitched together. I like the range of detail, from the main falls to the smaller cascades. Buachaille Etive Falls, Glencoe, Scotland A view of the falls with Buachaille Etive Mor in the background. These are easily the most photographed falls in the UK, and justifiably so. Pontneddfechan Falls, Brecon Beacons, South Wales This shot really captures the power of the water. With its reliance on texture and colour, it’s more interpretive than your standard waterfall image.…

KITBAG Smartphone apps like Field Tools are an easy way to calculate hyperfocal distance, and if you always carry your phone, you’ll never forget the calculator! The aim when shooting most landscape images is to record all parts of the scene in sharp focus, from the furthest hills to the closest foreground objects. This is usually achieved by stopping down (in other words, reducing the size of) the aperture, to f/16 for example. This in turn increases depth of field to bring everything into focus from front to back. (Avoid using your lens’s smallest apertures, though, as this can result in a softening of image detail– see Step by Step.) However, the depth of field in an image is also affected by two other factors: the focal length of the…

DON’T MISS OUT! Subscribe today from just £19.99 See page 38 Every digit al issue has links for watching all our video tutorials! ISSUE 43 ▪ Master core Nikon skills ▪ Try street photography ▪ Capture light trails at home ▪ Set up a simple home studio ISSUE 42 ▪ 15 projects for 2015 ▪ Exposure made easy ▪ Seascape masterclass ▪ Editing software tested ISSUE 41 ▪ 101 Nikon Secrets ▪ Sub-£1000 Nikons ▪ Child portrait masterclass ▪ Festive photo projects ISSUE 40 ▪ RAW vs JPEG ▪ Five nightscape projects ▪ 2015’s best wildlife images ▪ FX-format primes on test ISSUE 39 ▪ Ways to make cash with your Nikon ▪ Superzooms on test ▪ Nikon D750 review ISSUE 38 ▪ Weddings masterclass ▪ Five killer combo shots…

TEACH YOURSELF LIGHTROOM PART 3 THE MISSION ■ To assign your name to your photos TIME NEEDED ■ Ten minutes SKILL LEVEL ■ Anyone can do it ■ Some tricky aspects ■ Advanced technique KIT NEEDED ■ Lightroom 5 NEXT ISSUE… Organise your photos for a faster workflow It’s common practice to share your digital photos as electronic copies. You might do this by emailing them to clients, posting them on your Facebook page or presenting them in an online gallery. Once you’ve shared a photo you can’t control where it ends up, because it’s easy for others to make an electronic copy. This can lead to scenarios where your work is shared and/or published without you being credited or paid for it. As the creator of the image, you…

THE MISSION ■ Turn friends or family into comic book characters TIME NEEDED ■ 15 minutes SKILL LEVEL ■ Anyone can do it ■ Some tricky aspects ■ Advanced technique KIT NEEDED ■ Photoshop CC or CS NEXT ISSUE… Discover a different way to use HDR… One way to create an eye-catching image is to give a photograph a stylised artistic makeover. A portrait shot against a plain background is perfect for this. By using Photoshop’s filters you can simplify the colours and tones in the picture to make them look as though they were drawn and inked by a comic book artist. This technique, which is essentially done using filters, is an effective way to produce things such as creative profile pictures to represent you on social media sites,…

PROJECT INFO MISSION To document the spectacular rolling hills of America’s Palouse region PHOTOGRAPHER Claude Robidoux AGE 40 LOCATION British Columbia, Canada KIT Nikon D610, Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8, Nikon 50mm f/1.8G, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR II, Nikon TC-17E, Nikon SB-910, Nikon SB-700 WEB www.robidoux. photography A few years ago I heard of the Palouse through a photographer I had met in a gallery. I had no idea what or where it was, so when I got home I researched it on the internet, and after looking online at images of the region other photographers had taken, and knew I had to go there. The Palouse is roughly an eight-hour drive from my town, and being a father of two young daughters and working on the railroads away from home I…

There will never be universal agreement on the best order to use tools when processing, not least because there are so many, but you won’t go far wrong with the following. Software engineers generally design the windows on the assumption that users will start at the top and work downward, but there’s no compulsion. The way shown here starts off like that, but backtracks once or twice. 1 Under Lens Corrections, check Color and lens Profile. Color is always worth correcting, but treat the lens profile according to your taste: distortion correction can sometimes lose some of the image near corners, and may eliminate a look you want to retain. Similarly, vignetting is sometimes a good thing. 2 Use the Crop Tool and Straighten Tool if necessary. 3 Tweak colour…

FREE VIDEO DISC! Learn all this in the next set of Nikon Skills… ■ Six fresh ideas for stunning macro shots this spring ■ How to get up close without a macro lens ■ HDR as it should be done! ■ Stunning day-to-night panoramas ■ And much more… Plus all this… ■ Michael Freeman steers a course through the exposure triangle ■ We take an in-depth look at the best super-telephoto zoom lenses ■ Nature pro Paul Harcourt Davies shares the secrets of his success ISSUE 45 | ON SALE THURSDAY 9 APRIL 2015…