Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2018 i N-Photo: the Nikon magazine

Don’t miss our interview with wildlife photographer and Parkinson’s disease sufferer David Plummer See page 92 It takes light from the nearest star four years to reach us, and peering into the heavens is to look millennia into the past. Astronomy is a fascinating subject, and so is photographing it. So this issue master of darkness Ollie Taylor shows us how to shoot all things astral, from the Milky Way and star trails, to the moon, Northern Lights and all manner of night-sky phenomena. From the sky at night to the Isle of Skye, our Apprentice learns to photograph classic landscapes under the guidance of photo wizard Chris Rutter. We also hear the amazing story of how wildlife photographer David Plummer refused to let his suffering from Parkinson’s disease put…

The stars we see in the night sky are from our local galaxy – Andromeda. Our solar system is 26 thousand light years from the central galactic core, and from our view, individual stars within it become indiscernible – combining into a milky glow that gives the Milky Glow its name. These pinpricks of light are very faint, which makes photographing it particularly challenging. To capture the weak light you’ll need to be somewhere very, very dark as light pollution from cities and other artificial light sources will easily overpower it. And to capture the light you’ll need to set an exposure that floods your sensor with as much light as possible during the time that the shutter is open. THE 500 RULE The exposure time itself is limited due…

The Northern Lights – aurora borealis – are one of the most amazing spectacles that the night sky has to offer (those in the southern hemisphere get to see the Southern Lights – aurora australis – instead). They’re the result of charged particles from the sun colliding with gases in the earth’s atmosphere. The variation in colour is caused by different types of gas particles: the most common auroral colour, a pale yellowish-green, is produced by oxygen molecule collisions about 60 miles above the earth. Red auroras are created by oxygen, at heights of around 200 miles, while nitrogen produces blue or purplish-red aurora. Photographing auroras usually requires situating yourself at higher latitudes, closer to the poles. The strength of an aurora is measured by the Kp-index; rated from 0…

The mission • Learn how to shoot atmospheric night-time portraits by city light Time • 1 hour Skill level • Beginner • Intermediate • Advanced Kit needed • DSLR • Long lens • LED light (optional) • Light stand (optional) We often think of twilight as the most atmospheric part of the day for photography. However, after dark can also be a wonderful time to head out with the camera, especially in a busy urban setting. Coloured lighting from shop windows, passing traffic and neon signage can make for interesting and unique backdrops when shooting portraits. So in this project we’ll explore a few techniques for portraits after dark. We’ll begin by looking at how to use available lights around us, then we’ll go on to explain how to supplement…

The mission • Learn how to selectively sharpen a close-up image with the High Pass Filter Time • 10 minutes Skill level • Beginner • Intermediate • Advanced Kit needed • Photoshop CC There are plenty of techniques for sharpening your photos, but few are as effective as High Pass sharpening. This method makes use of Photoshop’s High Pass Filter, which separates an image into high frequency and low frequency detail. It effectively allows us to target the edges in an image – where light pixels meet darker pixels and apply contrast to them, resulting in crisper and sharper details. The High Pass technique is especially suitable for localized sharpening of specific areas of an image. If you think about it, when an image has out-of-focus, detail-less areas (as is…

Mission: To capture people performing on stage Photographer: Douglas Morley Location: British Columbia, Canada Kit: Nikon D610, 24-120mm f/4, 70-200mm f/2.8 My interest in shooting dance, and in particular ballet, came from my love of classical music. I don’t live far from the recently built Chilliwack Cultural Centre in British Columbia, which has an extremely good stage with gorgeous auditorium lighting. I was aware that Ballet Victoria from BC’s provincial capital would be visiting for a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. So I emailed both the ballet company and the Cultural Centre to ask for photography permission during rehearsals. There were strict protocols to adhere to: no flash no distractions etc (I’d done some homework already), and that I would submit any images to the ballet company for approval before publishing…

Yet another way of looking at the reveal is as a way of bringing two subjects together in the same frame. You could think of this as a time-based kind of juxtaposition, and as we’ll see in an upcoming Creative Path, juxtaposing two elements is one of the strongest and most useful ideas in all of photography. It usually calls for a little planning, like the last shot, because you’re consciously trying to make things happen in a certain order: start with one subject and temporarily ‘hide’ the second subject. Possible ways of doing this include not just making it small, but placing it eccentrically away from the centre, misleading the eye by using geometry and organization to direct attention elsewhere first. Here’s a short checklist of ways and means…

Kaiser R90 LED Ring Light WEB www.kaiser-fototechnik.de TYPE Constant (30x 3-chip LEDs) ANGLE OF COVERAGE 110 degrees VARIABLE POWER 0-100 per cent COLOUR TEMPERATURE 5500K ATTACHMENT THREAD 52-77mm DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 142x142x34mm POWER SOURCE Li-ion battery WEIGHT 300g PRICE £270/$375 Build The R90 ring light is based on an array of 30 high-performance triple-chip LEDs. They’re arranged in a ring and driven by a built-in rechargeable Li-ion battery, and the kit is supplied with a quick-charger and car charger cable, for charging on the go. Fitment The casing has a 77mm attachment thread, for screwing on to lenses with a matching filter thread. Adaptor rings are supplied, for attachment to lenses with a 52, 55, 58, 62, 67 or 72mm threads. The R90 also features a threaded socket, for mounting on…

One of the biggest draws of Nikon’s system cameras is you can get into almost any kind of photography, just by changing your lens. At one end of the scale, an ultra-wide lens enables you to squeeze vast landscapes into the image frame. At the other end, a macro lens fills the frame with the tiniest of objects. In fact, all of the macro lenses featured in this big test deliver full 1.0x or 1:1 magnification at their closest focus setting. But what does that actually mean? The idea is that at 1.0x magnification, an object will be reproduced on a camera’s image sensor at full life size. So, for example, something the size of a postage stamp will pretty much fill the whole image frame. This translates into enormous…

BEAUTIFUL GARDENS, 2ND PLACE Merriments John Glover, East Sussex, England, UK As the sun was rising over this late summer border at Merriments Garden and Nursery, one could almost feel the warmth and natural ebb of this fresh season reaching its zenith. Nikon D3X, Nikon 24-70mm, 1/10 sec, f/11, ISO100 WILDLIFE IN GARDEN, 1ST PLACE Female Blackbird Alan Price, Gwynedd, Wales, UK This female blackbird was on her way back to the nest, to supplement its construction with fresh, green vegetation. Nikon D7100, Nikon 300mm, 1/1250 sec, f/6.3, ISO3200 TREES WOODS FORESTS, 2ND PLACE Dinorwig Pattern Matthew Holland, Snowdonia National Park, Gwynedd, Wales, UK As we drove up to the disused Dinorwig Slate Quarry, the sun started to make an appearance. The light illuminated the blue and grey shades of…

Sometimes, you’re presented with something unexpected. A highly unusual and peculiar set of atmospheric circumstances come together to result in what can only be described as a phenomena. By their very nature, these more unusual phenomena are difficult to predict and plan for. It becomes more a case of being in the right place at the right time – but of course the more you’re out and about in the small hours, the more lucky you’re likely to be! Here are some of the phenomena and what causes them… ZODIACAL LIGHT Zodiacal light – or False Dawn – is a phenomenon of triangular light that emanates high into the atmosphere. These come from the direction of sunrise or sunset and can be caught during twilight and the first hours of…

The mission • To use a polarizer to capture detail in clouds Time • 30 minutes Skill level • Beginner • Intermediate • Advanced Kit needed • Polarizing filter Whether or not you’re into meteorology, learning how to photograph clouds will improve your landscape photography no end. The majority of landscape photographs have sky in them, so why not use a filter to improve the tone, detail and contrast? Gone are the days of yellow and red filters on the ends of our lenses – used to darken blue skies on black-and-white film – as we can easily emulate these options in-camera. In terms of physical filters, however, the polarizer is one of only a few left in the digital age that cannot be reproduced in-camera or on a computer.…

The mission • Undertake a newborn photo shoot in the home Time • Two hours Skill level • Beginner • Intermediate •Advanced Kit needed • Fast prime lens • Reflector • Blankets and beanbags If you’re lucky enough to have been asked to photograph newborn babies, then you’re in for a treat and a challenge. Newborn photography offers the chance to capture babies in their tiniest, sleepiest, most youthful state, and the results can be tear-jerkingly good. But great patience and a little luck are required – especially when shooting twins. Over the next few pages we’ll explain how to approach a shoot like this with advice on the right camera settings, the best lens choices and how to set up your own makeshift natural light studio. If you want…

YOUR PROJECTS CRITIQUED Every three months, I go to Akagera National park in Rwanda on a camping trip. I enjoy the outdoors and like to photograph the natural environment, including the wildlife. Early one morning, during my trip, I awoke with a plan of finding lions. They had recently been reintroduced after a 15-year absence from this park. After some searching I found a male lion, hidden on higher ground, amongst the tall grasses [1]. I managed to get down on a low angle, almost eye-to-eye with him. I felt the angle was definitely what helped me get the shot, but I struggled to capture his face and get his eyes sharp in the tall grass. If I were to take this photo again, it would’ve been nice to have…

There’s a time and a place for being clear and obvious, something photography can do brilliantly. It may even be what is required when all that is needed, is a record of events. However, most photographic advice one-liners head in the direction of ‘move in close’ and ‘keep it simple’ or ‘use a plain background’. You’ve seen a few in this series, and there’s a lot to praise about the idea of communicating the essence of a scene or situation directly and quickly. Being obvious, however, does have potential drawbacks – it feeds the glance-swipe habit that’s now embedded in most smartphone and tablet users. When a photograph gets read quickly, it’s also likely to be passed over hastily. This is because the viewer is not left with much to…

When shooting in Manual mode you may end up capturing images that are underexposed, like the photograph featured in this spread. Because we shot our pheasant using a telephoto lens there was a danger that the image would become blurred due to camera shake (which is exacerbated when the lens is fully zoomed in). By using a very fast shutter speed of 1/1000 sec we were able to capture a shot free of motion blur, but less light was able to enter the lens during this short exposure time. As a result we have an underexposed image. Fortunately it’s much easier to brighten up an underexposed shot than it is to reveal detail in a motion-blurred subject, so we prioritized using a fast shutter speed over a wide aperture. By…

Profile • Before becoming a professional wildlife photographer, David worked as a policeman in London’s East End – and the Caribbean! • David teaches photography on behalf of the Sussex Wildlife Trust and the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust. • A seasoned traveller, he also conducts tours for Steppes Travel to India, the Galapagos, Kenya and Rwanda. • David runs one-to-one badger photography courses at his 11-acre ancient woodland in West Sussex • For more of David’s work, davidplummerimages.co.uk Last September, David Plummer launched a book, with a title that every photographer can relate to: 7 Years of Camera Shake. However, the book title was not just a piece of whimsy about the difficulties of holding a camera still during slow exposures. Instead, it was a direct reference to his life-changing…

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Ollie Taylor Dorset-based Ollie is as an international award-winner landscape and nightscape photographer. He possesses a vast portfolio of images acquired over the past 14 years and boasts one of the largest landscape astrophotography portfolios in the UK. He pioneered the first landscape astrophotography workshops in In 2014, which he now runs in various locations throughout the UK and Europe. See www.ollietaylorphotography.com Many of us are fascinated with the vast enormity of the unknown – space! Who hasn’t paused for an instant to gaze at the stars, totally lost in awe, transfixed by a moment in time that seemed as if it lasted forever… But how do you capture these magical night-time vistas on your camera? Well, armed with your Nikon DSLR and tripod, and perhaps a Thermos full of…

The first thing you’ll need to know is when the moon will be in the night sky and ensure there are no obstructions hindering the field of view where you intend to position it rising. Use the PhotoPills app to plot out the exact time of the moonrise alongside its exact position; the app will also help you calculate the time of the moon passing over high landscape features such as mountains. While normally the presence of cloud spells the end of an astro shoot, the moon semi-obscured by a bank of cloud can lend the shot real atmosphere. MOON ROVER Remember, the moon moves fast, so quick shutter speeds of no more that two seconds are needed to capture its surface detail. It’s quite bright too, so you can…

The mission • Using the builtin AF-assist illuminator for accurate focusing Time • 30 minutes Skill level • Beginner • Intermediate • Advanced Kit needed • Nikon DSLR with AF-assist illuminator There was a time where we had to manually focus our lenses. And before that, in the very earliest days of photography, cameras had no control over focusing at all. You’d have to be more of a scientist than an artist to set up a shot, positioning the camera to focus it, but today we have it easy since the introduction of autofocus. Autofocus works as soon as you depress the shutter release button halfway (or use a button on the back of your Nikon, if set up). It analyses the scene in front of you and makes adjustments…

The mission • Using the Effects and Detail panels to save a hazy shot Time • An hour Skill level • Beginner • Intermediate • Advanced Kit needed • Lightroom CC 2018 The Effects and Detail panels are two features of Lightroom CC that, although not new, work together seamlessly to powerfully alter the final image. They combine a lot of useful but incremental adjustments that include changing contrast, sharpness and noise for a drastically different photograph. You might find these areas useful when working on a photo like ours here – something hazy, distant, lacking contrast or definition. Sometimes haze can enhance an image, but in this case we have two people towards the right of the frame we want to highlight. The mountains behind the subjects are covered…

THE PRO… NAME Chris Rutter CAMERA D800 Having pestered his parents for a manual rangefinder camera at the age of 10, then learning the ‘nuts and bolts’ of photography in a photographic degree, Chris has been taking photos for longer than he cares to admit. After around 15 years of shooting a huge variety of subjects, from portraits and wildlife to sports and cars for photography magazines, Chris moved to Skye in 2015 to concentrate on shooting landscape and nature images. He offers bespoke tuition on Skye and still regularly contributes to magazines, including N-Photo. See more of his work at chrisrutterphotography.com THE APPRENTICE… NAME Tantse Walter CAMERA D600 Since 2010 Tantse has been taking photography seriously, mainly shooting street photography and portraiture. She has the opportunity to travel with…

I’m going to the Arctic to photograph polar bears and other wildlife with my D7200 and Sigma 150-600mm lens. What’s the best autofocus mode to use? Roger Slennett JASON SAYS… If you or the animals are moving, it’s best to use AF-C (AutoFocus-Continuous) mode, which includes ‘predictive focus tracking’. This continues working while the reflex mirror is flipping up, right until the moment that the shutter opens. For erratically moving wildlife, try using AF-C with its Dynamic-area option, selecting either 9, 21 or 51 AF points to best suit the size and movement of the creatures. Larger numbers of AF points cover more of the frame for tracking, but there’s greater risk that autofocus might switch to a different object in the frame. Another option is 3D-tracking, which uses colour…

Lomography is full of surprises. This hipster retro specialist operates a regular production line of plastic lo-fi cameras, instant cameras, and quirky films in all kinds of formats and has helped relaunch classic lens types. The Neptune Convertible Art Lens System might seem like a random off-the-wall idea, but the design has its foundations in the history of lens design. Way back in 1840, optical pioneer Charles Chevalier presented a ‘convertible’ lens with an interchangeable barrel, an idea that Lomography has resurrected for the 21st century. The system consists of a base unit that attaches to the camera lens mount and a series of three additional lenses that attach to this base. The base contains some of the optical elements, the diaphragm and focus ring, while the add-on lenses provide…

WWW.JOEMCNALLY.COM Joe explains why you should delight in the window light One of the first questions I ask when talking with a prospective subject about the space they will be photographed in is: “Is it on the first floor?” They occasionally think this is odd, or, perhaps, that I am lazy and don’t want to walk my gear up flights of stairs. Not the case! I just want to know if the windows are within reach and I can light from outside. If the quality of existing light is too minimal, or the wrong direction, that is a problem I can fix, just by recreating, redirecting, or otherwise making window light happen. The above shot of Little Freddie King, ‘King of the Blues’, legendary guitarist, is done with a single…