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

Meet Jo-Anne McArthur, the voice and photographer for the invisible animals of our world See page 92 ¡Hola! We all love a weekend getaway, and with that in mind I hopped over to Barcelona to see the sights and experience the culture that this buzzing city has to offer. I had my Nikon in hand, of course, and show you how to return from a break with images that document your travels, rather than the usual holiday snaps. Elsewhere this issue our Apprentice goes on a wildlife shoot with a difference – using props and hidden treats he manages to capture the cutest critter shots imaginable. While in our interview hot seat, Jo-anne McArthur’s photographs of animals are of a very different variety; her disturbing and thought-provoking portfolio highlights their…

Current Affairs & News Shortlist Rohingya Refugees Kevin Frayer, China A Rohingya refugee boy frantic for help cries as he climbs on a truck allotting aid for a local NGO near a refugee camp on September 20, 2017 in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. More than half a million Rohingya refugees have flooded into Bangladesh to flee an offensive by Myanmar’s military that the United Nations has called “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” Nikon D810, 24-70mm f/2.8, 1/1000 sec, f/8, ISO1250 Sport Shortlist Body Kick Paul Lukin, Thailand After five decades and countless epic battles within it’s walls, the Lumpinee Muay Thai stadium held its final event and was later demolished. The stadium, which is the Thai Boxing equivalent to Madison Square Garden, was considered sacred ground, where every aspiring fighter…

Clone out distractions One of Barcelona’s best-known landmarks is Gaudí’s Sagrada Família – a huge cathedral that’s been well over 100 years in the making – so far. Unfortunately, it’s still a long way from completion – and its towering spires are surrounded by even taller cranes. Shooting against a clear blue sky, it’s fairly straightforward to get rid of them in Photoshop for an uncluttered view. But the real question is: should you? Try all the angles Shooting the same subject from multiple angles can tell a greater story than a single shot. This communications tower became a symbol of Barcelona’s 1992 Olympic Games. We tried shooting from afar, using other structures as foreground interest, from below, and backlit with the sun atop the spire… Zoom with your feet…

Going underground Even something as seemingly mundane as the metro subway that gets you around the city can be worth photographing. Aim for a central composition with walls and floor meeting in the corners of the frame for a stark and moody shot. Shooting columns A city such as Barcelona is full of monuments to the great and the good, such as the statue of Christopher Columbus perched high atop a column that sits between Las Ramblas and the harbour. But composing for tall, thin objects can be tricky – shoot level and it’ll be surrounded by too much sky. Try shooting at an angle, with the column acting as a leading line from one corner to fill the frame and maximize impact. Capture your lunch After pounding the pavements…

WATCH THE VIDEO The mission • Shoot and edit a surreal levitating portrait Time • Half a day Skill level • Beginner • Intermediate • Advanced Kit needed • Stepladder • Tripod Although this shot looks rather complex, it’s actually relatively simple to piece together. A bit like a jigsaw we need to go one piece at a time and then methodically stick them together. This photograph is composed of several pictures taken in sequence. There are only really two sections to this shoot: taking a picture, and masking sections of it later on in Photoshop. Firstly, with the Nikon on a tripod we compose our scene and dial in our settings before taking a test shot with the model standing in place. Some adjustments can then be made to…

The mission •Combine a readymade 3D building with your photos for an architectural composite Time •30 minutes Skill level •Beginner •Intermediate •Advanced Kit needed •Photoshop CC Although it may be viewed primarily as a photo-editing program, Photoshop has all kinds of tools that cater for other uses too. Not least are the 3D tools. Photoshop offers a wide array of tools that let us manipulate 3D shapes and composite them into our 2D photos. Master a few fundamental skills and you’ll be able to create 3D composite scenes like this – useful if you want to create a fantastical street scene. It’s also handy if you’re planning on helping plan and build some sort of grand architectural project! Photoshop’s 3D modelling tools are fairly limited compared to dedicated 3D software…

EXPOSURE 1/400 sec, f/5.6, ISO800 LENS 70-200mm f/2.8 Introduction Rising early with the midsummer sun, Dave and Geert began their day preparing seeds and nuts for the squirrels. They baited several feeding stations outside Geert’s home and set up a few shooting scenes for the squirrels to climb over. They gathered lots of props and set them up on a surface before setting up the Nikon and shooting all day long. Technique assessment CHOOSE YOUR APERTURE Geert says… Of the three points in the exposure triangle, I like to start with aperture. I asked Dave to set up his D750 to shoot the squirrels in the cloudy conditions we were presented with and he opted for a wide aperture of f/2.8. I suggested he move to f/5.6 not only because…

EXPOSURE 1/320 sec, f/5, ISO1250 LENS 70-200mm f/2.8 Pro’s killer kit The extra bits Geert says… Some of my most valuable equipment, aside from my Nikon, is my drill and glue. The drill is used any time I need to prop up a new scene, I just make a hole in my worktop and slot in the wire or a bit of wooden dowelling. I sometimes use the glue to hold lighter objects in place, or hide nuts in awkward positions if I think of a particularly creative shot to attempt. Flashgun Flashguns output a high volume of light over a short burst period – much faster than the fastest shutter speed on your camera. Using a flashgun on subjects that aren’t too fearful means that you can freeze their…

As an animal activist, Jo-Anne McArthur is used to trespassing, often in darkness, to photograph the ‘invisible’ animals confined in laboratories, slaughterhouses, industrial-scale farms and zoos. But after 20 years of overcoming all manner of obstacles restricting publication, her images – and the issues they raise – are gaining a rapidly growing audience, as well as some critical recognition… What was your reason for choosing to photograph captive animals? As photojournalists we are always trying to find our story, something unique that we can do. I had interned at Magnum in London and Larry Towell was my mentor and I was waxing lyrical to him one day about going to Afghanistan, and he basically laughed at me: ‘That’s so not you! Do what you love, do what you know.’ So,…

Heading off for a long weekend break (or week in the sun) offers some great opportunities for the photographer. You’ll encounter a myriad of sights and sounds, and be immersed in the culture. The art of travel photography is documenting these experiences with your images to give viewers a taste of what it’s actually like at the destination. So how do you balance getting some great travel shots while enjoying your weekend away? First of all, you’ll want to travel light. While it’s tempting to pack your entire collection of lenses, a filter for every eventuality and that full-size aluminium tripod, walking around hot city streets laden like a packhorse isn’t much fun. You can get away with a couple of lenses, and if you do bring a (lightweight) tripod,…

It’s stylish, comfortable to carry, and easy to store my kit and access my Nikon DSLR so I can be ready to shoot quickly Adam Waring Editor Your new Vanguard camera bag • Dual purpose photo bag or daily bag • Zippered front and top compartments • Dual memory card pockets • Storage sleeve for 9in tablet or 11in ultrabook • Rain cover Great reasons to subscribe now! Vanguard Havana 36 bag Discreetly carry your Nikon DSLR and two additional lenses, plus laptop/tablet, drinks bottle and more Great savings Subscribe from only £60 and receive 13 issues a year, plus this stylish bag Free Video Disc Each issue, you’ll receive a Video Disc packed with fantastic photo projects Option 1: Regular subscription £60 13 issues of the print edition of…

The mission • Identify how tripod heads function, and which you might need for different shooting scenarios Time • One hour Skill level • Beginner • Intermediate • Advanced Kit needed • Tripod legs and head Following on from last issue’s project on setting your tripod up correctly, in this tutorial we’ll be covering the basics of tripod head use and the different kinds you might run into. A tripod, as most people think of it, has two main sections: the legs and the head. The legs spread out and elevate the mount for your Nikon, but the head is responsible for the movement of the DSLR once it’s fixed to the legs. This is an integral part of the tripod that you won’t want to skip on, because this…

WATCH THE VIDEO The mission • Create a sequence photograph to capture moments of action Time • One hour Skill level • Beginner • Intermediate • Advanced Kit needed • Tripod • Cable release (optional) • Reflector (optional) As much as it’s about skill, perseverance and downright nerve, skateboarding is also about creativity – which is something we photographers can relate to. Both pursuits rely on a combination of imagination and technique – just as a skater chooses the right line and strives for perfect execution, a photographer chooses the camera angle and considers the best way to capture the moment. Perhaps this is why the best skate photography has a visual poetry to it that most other action sports can’t match. Or maybe it’s because the motion of a…

EXPOSURE 1/320 sec, f/5.6, ISO800 LENS 70-200mm f/2.8 Our Apprentice says… After shooting for a while, I realized that no matter how much you dress a scene and encourage behaviour, there’s no accounting for the randomness of wildlife. I found I had to shoot whatever poses they gave me, and that’s what I did for my second Hot Shot. I had picked some fireweed from Geert’s garden and we made an archway that slotted into some moss he had on the shooting table. My hope was to capture a squirrel as it poked its head through the archway, but, as you can see, it had other plans… But I like this shot as it shows the cheeky nature of the animals. Expert insight Single-point AF Geert says… I always shoot…

EXPOSURE 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO1000 LENS 70-200mm f/2.8 Expert insight The composite Geert says… I make most of my images in real-life – by that I mean there’s minimal image manipulation, as I’m no Photoshop wizard. If it looks like a squirrel is playing guitar, that’s because it’s positioned as such in the photo. However, to make an image like this, we’re unlikely to find the shot with a person standing so close to the bait. Therefore, Dave took two separate shots and stitched them together in Photoshop. To make a simple edit like this, go to File>Load Files Into Stack… then navigate to the two images and click OK. Head to Edit>Auto Align and add a layer mask and use the Brush tool to paint the person back into…

While shooting on holiday you may not always have time to carefully consider your composition – especially if you’re photographing unpredictable subjects, such as children or animals. This can result in badly composed pictures. Take our walkthrough’s start image as an example. The horizon is slightly tilted, so the shot looks off-kilter. The child is a little lost in the frame as we didn’t have time to zoom in for a closer snap. There’s also some nasty sensor spots noticeable in the clear blue sky. Thanks to Capture NX-D’s tools we can recompose a somewhat disappointing shot to overcome common compositional problems. We’ll demonstrate how to counteract the tilted horizon with the Straighten tool. We’ll reposition the child to comply with the composition aesthetics used by classical artists, courtesy of…

The Corners comprises of 48 colour photos of East End street corners shot between 2009 and 2017. It’s about nothing, but the subject matter is a document of a place and a time. I was keen to make a simple documentary series that was non-thematic, other than the fact that is was using the street corner as a point of reference. What was interesting to me was it was metaphor for collisions, departures, meetings and mystery – we’re never really sure what’s around the corner. People meet on these corners, so they represent a point of meeting. I thought it would be a useful way of studying contemporary London and the issues that we’re talking about these days. Issues like immigration and Brexit, but without being too overt about that.…

Look no further than the Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8E FL ED VR, if you want the best 70-200mm f/2.8 lens on the planet. It’s got all the features you could ever possibly need, a rock-solid construction, and delivers spectacular image quality. That’s all well and good if you happen to have around £2800/$2800 burning a hole in your pocket. Tamron’s 70-200mm G2 (Generation 2) lens goes toe-to-toe with the Nikon in every area of build and performance and for less than half the price. A complete revamp of Tamron’s original 70-200mm VC lens, the G2’s optical path has been optimized to deliver greater sharpness and contrast, with a major reduction in colour fringing. Even the nano-lens structure eBAND (Extended Bandwidth & Angular-Dependency) coating has been refined to further resist ghosting…

Map out your trip To get the most of holiday destinations, it pays to plan ahead and know where you’re going to be at what time of day. The narrow streets of the old town offers shade from the midday sun and is great for banishing contrast, while locations offering views over the sprawling metropolis are superb for city scenes. Tourist maps will show you the main landmarks worth photographing, and tourist buses can be a good way to get around as they’ll have stops close to the top spots. Where to focus for sharp city scenes If your entire scene is far away then focusing on the closet building should get everything in focus, all the way to the horizon. However, if there is something close to the camera…

WATCH THE VIDEO The mission • Take your first steps in Shutter Priority mode Time • One hour Skill level • Beginner • Intermediate • Advanced Kit needed • Tripod When we talk about the length of an exposure, or shutter speed, we’re referring to the time between the camera’s shutter opening and closing. The shutter mechanism sits in front of the image sensor and is made up of two ‘curtains’. Before you take a shot, one curtain is open, raised above the sensor, while the other is closed, blocking the sensor. As you press the shutter release button the first curtain (covering the sensor) opens, exposing the sensor to light, followed by the second curtain closing, blocking the sensor again. So when we talk about a ‘one second exposure’,…

The mission • Use Lightroom’s profiles feature to tone a photo Time • 30 minutes Skill level • Beginner • Intermediate • Advanced Kit needed • Lightroom a recent update to Lightroom saw the introduction of a new feature that has the potential to change the way you edit your photos for good. Profiles allow you to kick-start your image editing by offering a series of tonal starting points that can be applied with a single click. Some, like the ‘Adobe Raw’ profiles, are optimized to suit different types of Raw photos like landscapes or portraits. Others, like the rather cool Vintage profile we used on our image here, act more like Instagram filters and retro toning treatments. Profiles are not a new feature, they were previously found tucked away…

LETTER OF THE MONTH Strapped for cash I absolutely love my Black Rapid sling strap and have used it to support my Nikon for a number of years. But there was one niggle that stopped me from enjoying it – every single time I wanted to use a tripod I had to unscrew the strap to then screw in the tripod base plate – and vice versa – which feels like needless faffing around. Black Rapid do a screw with a loop on it that solves this, but it’s £21 and you still have to fiddle with the plastic cover on the clip, which is no good at all. So for under £10 (yes, I’m tight!) I bought the SmallRig DSLR switching plate from amazon.co.uk, which allows both the tripod…

Nikon AF-S 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR £TBA/$TBA www.europe-nikon.com Nikon has announced it’s working on a new 500mm FX lens. Designed to be smaller and lighter than other lenses of the same focal length. Nikon claims that the new lens will be compact enough for easy handheld use in a variety of shooting scenarios, from capturing fast-moving sports subjects to wildlife. The secret to this size and weight reduction is the inclusion of Nikon’s Phase Fresnel (PF) lens element, as used in the AF-S 300mm f/4E PF ED VR (pictured). This helped make that lens the world’s lightest 300mm prime with autofocus and full frame sensor coverage. The purpose of a PF element is to reduce chromatic aberrations. First impressions_ If the size and weight reduction of Nikon’s Phase Fresnel-equipped…

Most of Nikon’s DX format (APS-C) and FX (full-frame) SLRs are available as complete kits, comprising a body and a standard zoom lens. Kit lenses tend to be compact and lightweight yet have pretty good performance. For example, the latest versions of the DX format 18-55mm zooms are available with either ultrasonic or stepping-motor autofocus systems and feature a retractable design to shrink stowage space. However, they’re not particularly robust and a current kit option for the D3400 camera doesn’t even feature VR (Vibration Reduction). The DX format 18-140mm VR feels better built but still lacks basic features like a focus distance scale. The contenders DX FORMAT SIGMA 17-50mm f/2.8 EX DC OS HSM £330/$370 SIGMA 17-70mm f/2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM | C £350/$500 TAMRON SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8…

Jargon buster ELECTRONIC DIAPHRAGM CONTROL Increasingly used in Nikon and independently manufactured lenses, the aperture is controlled by an electromagnetically driven diaphragm, rather than a mechanical lever. OPTICAL STABILIZATION This is an in-lens feature that senses and counteracts vibrations or ‘camera-shake’. Rival systems include Nikon VR (Vibration Reduction), Sigma OS (Optical Stabilizer) and Tamron VC (Vibration Compensation).…

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