Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2016 i N-Photo: the Nikon magazine

Get even more out of N-Photo Facebook Join 289,000 Nikon nuts who ‘Like’ us on Facebook www.facebook.com/nphotomag Weekly newsletter News, techniques and offers emailed to you every Friday. Sign up at www.bit.ly/nphoto_news Twitter Follow our tweets and keep up to date with all things #Nikon www.twitter.com/nphotomag PhotoClub e-learning Learn online with our new online video training courses www.digitalcameraworld.com About the cover Title Erosion Location Jökulsárlón Ice Beach, southern Iceland Photographer Lorenzo Nadalini Camera Nikon D800 Lens Nikon 12-24mm f/2.8 Exposure 0.6 sec, f/18, ISO50 Web 500px.com/lorenzonadalini Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us, happy birthday N-Photo... happy birthday to us! Yes, that’s right, this issue marks N-Photo’s 5th birthday, and we’ve got you, our loyal readers, to thank for the fact that N-Photo continues to go from strength to…

(you’ll actually use!) Nikon recently launched its SnapBridge app for iPhones and iPads, following the debut of its Android version in the spring. SnapBridge is set to become a standard feature of new Nikon cameras, blending wireless tethering (the ability to control your camera from a smartphone or tablet) with automatic image downloading. It’s early days, but the technology has bags of potential. Obviously it’s not the only smartphone app that can make a difference to your photography, though, so we thought we’d provide a round-up of this and other apps that make it easier to plan, shoot, edit and share your pictures, whether you’re at home or out and about. Photography apps aren’t all about face-swapping and adding ‘vintage’ filter effects. These are tools in the same way that…

TYPE: Weather app BY: Lakehorn FORMAT: iOS only (iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) PRICE: £2.99/$3.99 Top tip If you’re not sure where the weather station closest to your location is, tap Nearby Stations, then tap the first entry in the list, and scroll down to Show on Map to see each station represented by a pin What the app does If you’ve had enough of bog-standard symbol-based weather apps, try AeroWeather Pro for size. It’s aimed primarily at pilots, as it brings together information from airports and weather radars, but it’s the convenience of being able to access multiple webcams that makes this a good choice for outdoor photographers. The free version lacks this feature, so it’s definitely worth stumping up the cash for the pro version. When to use it Whether you’re…

TYPE: Photo editing app BY: Visual Supply Company FORMAT: iOS (iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch), Android PRICE: Free What the app does It’s fair to say that app stores are awash with photo editing and Instagram-like filter apps, but VSCO remains a firm favourite of many people thanks to its clean, elegant interface and intuitive controls. VSCO is big on film-like presets, but also makes it easy to achieve subtle enhancements using its manual sliders. When to use it Trying out different styles and looks for your photos is a fun part of the learning experience in photography, and this app enables you to experiment easily with a range of treatments. While you can, of course, use your smart device’s camera to take photos from within the app, if you’ve already imported some…

TYPE: Photojournalism app BY: Thomson Reuters FORMAT: iOS (iPad) PRICE: Free What the app does We used to turn to The Guardian Eyewitness app for our regular dose of photographic inspiration. Now this standalone app is no more (the content having been absorbed into The Guardian app), we’ve cast our net wider, and The Wider Image from the world’s biggest news agency makes for a deeper photography experience, delivering photo stories from around the globe. When to use it While there’s a sprinkling of insight from the photographers throughout the app, this is more of an inspirational showcase to remind us of the power that photography has to bring perspective and insight to the big new stories. The app is updated in concert with Reuters’ The Wider Image website, which…

The mission • To create a portrait with text Time • 30 minutes Skill level • Beginner • Intermediate • Advanced Kit needed • Photoshop Text and images are sometimes hard to pair together well. We’ve all seen the typical work of novice designers, where a black box is simply laid over the image and white or coloured text placed on top. But there’s another way to team the two – and we don’t need to be professional designers to do it. By using some basic tools in Photoshop, we can make our text wrap around the subject’s face in a portrait and double up on creative content. A photograph will punch through the distorted text in the final image. Once you’ve done it, you can apply this technique to…

Nikon School 13 December, London Capture low-light cityscapes in London 28 January, London Shoot stylish urban wedding photos 18 February, Scotland Capture winter wildlife in the Cairngorms 20 February, Devon Shoot steam trains by day and night 9 March, Surrey Get up close to native British animals 10 March, Andover Photograph over 150 birds of prey www.nikon.co.uk/training…

We’re now into the seventh month of our year-long photography contest, which features a different theme each month, with all shortlisted images being put forward for the coveted title of N-Photo Photographer of the Year. The theme we set last issue was ‘street photography’, and as you’ll see from the photos on the following pages, the standard remains sky-high. If you feel inspired by these images, our next themes are ‘cityscapes’ and ‘food and drink’. Enter or vote for your favourite photos at www.photocrowd.com/contests The prize for our monthly competition is a £100 voucher from online printing specialists WhiteWall, while the Crowd Vote winner will receive a bundle of Nikon photography guides. The overall N-Photo Photographer of the Year will win a Nikon D500, and a metre-wide acrylic print of…

After splashing out big bucks on your Nikon kit, it makes sense to keep it safe when you’re on the go. A regular camera shoulder bag or backpack will offer good protection against light knocks and bumps, but to survive more serious rough and tumble – or the assault course endured by checked-in airport baggage – something stronger is in order. Hard cases offer the best possible protection for your gear, short of locking it in a safe, and they’re still relatively portable. Most hard cases are waterproof to at least one metre (3.3ft), so they will easily withstand a downpour or a dunk in a stream, and many are also marketed as crushproof. This can mean that they’ve been tested to various military standards, but in layman’s terms, a…

In association wilkinson cameras www.wilkinson.co.uk Most products featured in this guide are available at competitive prices from Wilkinson Cameras. Just enter the item code provided in the item description at www.wilkinson.co.uk to find the product you're interested in. N-Photo readers can get up to 10% off selected items – enter the discount code provided at checkout. Offers end 31 December 2016 and are available to UK residents only. Save up to 10% HIGH-QUALITY STOCKING FILL RS THAT WON’T BREAK THE BANK LENSPEN ORIGINAL Eliminate dust and smudges from your lenses quickly and safely. £9.99/$14.95 www.wilkinson.co.uk Enter 85517 50 PATHS TO CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY The brilliant new book from N-Photo’s very own Michael Freeman. £16.58/$17.50 www.wilkinson.co.uk Enter 101379 THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S EPHEMERIS APP As recommended in this issue’s feature! (see page 16 for…

Gary Bailey PAGE 52 Professional motorsport photographer Gary helps this issue’s Apprentice shoot the thrills and spills of motocross. George Turner PAGE 62 Braving the ‘suicide hide’, George captured stunning photos of wild brown bears in their natural environment. Roger Bamber PAGE 93 Roger reveals how a chance encounter prompted him to reflect on one of the most formative photos of his career. Seb Rogers PAGE 94 Seb’s love of mountain biking has helped him to become one of the most sought-after cycling photographers in the UK. Mark Seymour PAGE 102 Mark tells the moving story behind his series of images that document his father’s battle with Alzheimer’s. Joe McNally PAGE 130 Joe marvels at how magical images can be found in the most unpromising places – if you keep…

TYPE: Location planning app BY: PhotoPills FORMAT: iOS only (iPhone/iPad/iPod touch – no AR view in the latter) PRICE: £7.99/$9.99 What the app does This all-round app aims to get you in the right place at the right time, enabling you to predict when and where the sun or the moon or the milky way will appear at your location. As well as plotting your position on a map, one of the big selling points of PhotoPills is its use of a 3D Augmented Reality (AR) overlay on your phone’s display to help you to find the optimum framing, visualise the depth of field through a scene and more. When to use it Although it can’t arrange the perfect weather for you, PhotoPills can do pretty much everything else to…

TYPE: Remote release BY: Triggertrap FORMAT: iOS (iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch), Android PRICE: Free (Dongle costs £29.99/$37) What the app does The Triggertrap app offers a whole range of conventional, creative and quirky ways to fire your Nikon camera remotely. While the app itself is free, you’ll need to fork out around £30/$37 for the mobile dongle kit that’s required to connect your camera and your smart device. With this kit, one end plugs into the camera’s cable release port and the other goes into the headphone socket on your phone or tablet. When to use it While you can, of course, use Triggertrap to fire a tripod-mounted camera hands-free for sharper shots, it also enables you to take photos that would otherwise require more expensive kit to realise. For instance, using…

TYPE: Organiser app BY: Evernote FORMAT: iOS (iPhone/iPad/iPod touch), Android PRICE: Free (basic package) Top tip To access your notes and notebooks when you’re offline, you’ll need to subscribe to Evernote Plus, which costs £29.99/$34.99 for a year What the app does This app helps you to stay organised when you’re doing research for a photo shoot. You can keep everything arranged here in electronic notebooks, to which you can add your own photos, notes, web images and even entire web pages. You can do all of this on the desktop version, then sync this to your mobile device, or vice versa. The free Evernote Basic offering syncs on up to two devices, while the subscriptionbased Plus and Premium versions give you syncing on unlimited devices and a larger monthly…

TYPE: Social media app BY: Instagram FORMAT: iOS (iPhone/iPad/iPod touch), Android PRICE: Free What the app does You know what this one is, right? This summer, Instagram announced that it now hosts more than half a billion users, with an average of 95 million photos and videos being posted each day. So if you don’t use Instagram, chances are that you know at least five photographers who do. You can upload photos, apply one of Instagram’s ready-made filters and effects to it, and share it within seconds. It’s the simplicity that wins here out here, since it’s easy to follow your friends’ photos, as well as professional photographers and (should you wish to) favourite celebrities. When to use it Use Instagram any time that you want to share a photo…

THE PRO... NAME Gary Bailey CAMERA Nikon D810 An award-winning motorsport photographer, Gary has been working trackside for more than 17 years. His work has been published in a host of UK and European motorcycle magazines, including Ride, Performance Bike, MC Folket (Sweden) and Motocykl (Poland), as well as in The Daily Telegraph and Nikon Pro magazine. To see more of Gary’s work visit www.picman.co.uk THE APRRENTICE... NAME Tony Stores CAMERA Nikon D750 Tony used to work in Airbus’s qualitycontrol department and has ridden motorbikes for many years. He has been shooting since he was just 10 years old, but now he’s retired he has more time to devote to his photography. Tony loves to shoot aviation and motorsport, and has come armed with his Nikon D750 and a variety…

Here’s how our photo competition works: n A theme is set each issue by the N-Photo team. We’ll tell you about it in the magazine, but because of the way our deadline falls, the easiest way to see when a new theme launches is to check our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/nphotomag n Visit www.photocrowd/contests.com to enter. n Images are judged by the N-Photo team. Your fellow N-Photo readers are also able to vote for their favourite image over on Photocrowd. n The Judges’ Vote winner will receive a WhiteWall voucher worth £100, while the Crowd Vote winner will receive a bundle of photography guides. £100 WHITEWALL VOUCHER!…

I’m planning on buying my first Nikon SLR but can’t decide between the D3400 and D5500. Which would you recommend for a beginner? Tim Jeffries, via email JASON SAYS... The recently launched D3400 (£409/$498 with 18-55mm kit lens) is very beginner-friendly, not least because – like the D3300 – it boasts an interactive Guide mode to help you learn. But apart from the addition of Bluetooth, not much has changed from the D3300, which has the same image sensor and processor, and is currently £70 cheaper (in the UK) when bought with the same kit lens. The D5500 is more advanced, but despite not having a Guide mode, it’s arguably more intuitive to use, and its pivoting screen is a real boon when it comes to adjusting settings and menu…

Nikon KeyMission 360 £499, $499 www.nikon.com To get noticed in the competitive action camera world, you need to do something special. Luckily, Nikon’s KeyMission 360 really does offer something different to GoPro. Featuring two 180-degree lenses, front and back, the KeyMission combines the video images from the two sensors in-body to produce a 4K UHD visual with a full 360-degree field of view. This footage can then be viewed back through the companion app, VR goggles, or uploaded to Nikon Image Space or YouTube. Meeting the action camera requirements of being tough, the camera is waterproof down to 30m, shockproof to 2m and is designed to withstand harsh environments of -10ºC to 40ºC (14ºF to 104ºF). A large button on top starts and stops recording, and a smaller one on…

WWW.JOEMCNALLY.COM Following a recent job in Montana, Big Sky Country, I returned to New York City to teach two workshops in the concrete jungle. There are no big, open skies in the city, just masses of big buildings, all comprised of unfeeling steel and cold glass. You wouldn’t think the pic above would be, well, available in the Big Apple. But, waiting for my Nat Geo Expeditions group to show up at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, I turned andsaw a sprinkler, spraying into backlit trees. I’ve been to the Redwoods a couple of times and this came damn close. Okay, I exaggerate. Those trees are bigger. But such a sylvan scene, in the heart of the city? Made me smile. And of course, this was just after teaching for…

TYPE: Location planning app BY: Crookneck Consulting FORMAT: iOS (iPhone/iPad/iPod touch), Android PRICE: £6.99/$8.99 (iOS) £4.08/$4.99 (Android) What the app does Like PhotoPills, The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE) is an app that gives you the edge when planning your outdoor photography shoots. Although PhotoPills is currently our go-to app for this kind of thing, it isn’t available for Android devices. As a result, TPE remains the number one choice for people with non-Apple devices. Even so, it’s a close contest between the two apps on iOS, as there are features that each offers that the other doesn’t. For example, unlike PhotoPills, TPE includes Google Maps, which some people prefer. When to use it TPE enables you to plan your landscapes and other outdoor shots well in advance, calculating the moonrise/moonset and…

TYPE: Photo editing app BY: Adobe FORMAT: iOS (iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch), Android PRICE: Free What the app does The Lightroom mobile app enables you to import photos from Lightroom CC on your desktop, edit preview versions of your RAW files when you’re on the go, then sync them back with your main collection. It’s free, but you need to be a paid-up subscriber to the Adobe CC Photography Plan to be able to take advantage of this. The Lightroom app also gives you the option to take photos from within the app. When to use it The mobile version of Lightroom is perfect for those moments where you want to play around with RAW editing on the move. It’s also a convenient way of importing your photos to your smart device,…

TYPE: Wireless image transfer & remote control BY: Nikon FORMAT: iOS (iPhone/iPad/iPod touch), Android PRICE: Free What the app does SnapBridge is Nikon’s latest app, designed to pair with a SnapBridge-compatible Nikon camera via Bluetooth to download pictures from your memory card to your device. You can also take photos remotely (if the camera has Wi-Fi), with the Live View feed displayed on your mobile device. Currently SnapBridge is compatible with the Nikon D500 and D3400, along with some Coolpix cameras and the KeyMission 80. Nikon’s older Wireless Mobile Utility app does a similar wireless tethering job for earlier Wi-Fi cameras, but without alwayson Bluetooth downloading. When to use it SnapBridge is designed to be used all of the time; it’s always ready to download in the background via a…

LETTER OF THE MONTH Keeping an open mind Your reply to a letter in the September issue of N-Photo mentioned that the Nikon AF-S 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR produces images with soft edges and fringing. I agree: my D810’s megapixels chew it up and spit out the pieces, but don’t dismiss this lens. I use one with my [DX-format] D5500 and it gives me a great holiday/hiking combo (42-450mm) that’s much lighter than the D810 and a number of lenses. Does the little camera look out of balance? Yes, but you get used to it. Editing software takes care of leftover fringing and of course you don’t use the edges. Nikon no longer appears to worry about fringing even in higher-end lenses, preferring to let in-camera software deal with it.…