Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2021 i N-Photo: the Nikon magazine

Creation ROBIN WILLIAMS For the competition’s overall winning image, Robin captured this macro shot of the golden reproductive parts of a white lotus flower head – which was ready for pollination; this plant can use thermoregulation – to self-heat the flowers to aid in fertilization. The sacred lotus is a rhizomatous aquatic perennial and is a ‘living fossil’ dating to pre-history. Camera: Nikon D850 Lens: 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 Exposure: 1/500 sec, f/16, ISO800 Rainbows ALBERT CEOLAN Albert photographed these two rainbows in San Pellegrino, Trentino, Italy, which had appeared as colourful rays of hope emerging from the treeline. These contrast delightfully with the dark, moody clouds that ominously coat the skyline of the Italian wilderness. Camera: Nikon D3 Lens: 28-70mm f/2.8 Exposure: 1/125 sec, f/10, ISO200 Summer in The Dolomites LUKA…

If you’re interested in product photography but don’t have a home studio, consider lifestyle product photography instead. This niche genre is used to capture products in the real world. Such images might depict an object surrounded by relevant props (a gold bracelet draped across a marble surface, next to a white flower head), or an object being used (a hand holding a glass of champagne, with a gold bracelet on the wrist). Lifestyle images are particularly popular on Instagram, with brands such as @daisy_jewellery and @watchgecko using them to display their products. This style of photography suits almost any object, but we chose to use a watch. Not only are watches commonplace items, but there’s one for almost every occasion you can think of. If you have a dress watch…

Light painting is a wonderful way to make the ordinary look extraordinary, and you don’t necessarily need to travel far to create photos that look out-of-this-world. In this project we’ll show you how to get set up to shoot eye-catching light-painted photos in your own garden after dark. You don’t need any special bits of kit for this, you probably have everything you need in your house. If it’s miserable weather or you don’t have a suitable garden, you could easily set this up indoors in a dark room with a pot plant or any other interesting-looking objects you like. The technique for light painting is simple: we fix our camera to a tripod and set up a long exposure, then open the shutter and move a torch around the…

I have been using objects as a means of expression in my work for the past 10 years. I’m interested in their symbolism, and a random connection of elements that have a prior lack of relation, in order to suggest an emotional message. My work revolves around intuition and ideas, surrealism, and the world of the subconscious and dreams. Above all, it is deeply irreverent, seeking to transform and stamp objects with new identities, challenging the obvious, and focusing attention on the extraordinariness of ordinary life. The most important part of my creative process is how the ideas arise, whether looking for a specific image or in the realization of a project, but it all begins through observation, from experiences or from what may concern me. Having many objects or…

MISSION: Conceptualize and shoot an imaginative series of surreal macro photographs PHOTOGRAPHER: Matteo Trentin LOCATION: Levico Terme, Trento, Italy KIT USED: Nikon D7100, Sigma 150mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM Macro, tripod, LED panels, focus rail FACEBOOK: bit.ly/3pXCbdb INSTAGRAM: @matteotrentinph WEBSITE: www.mtrentin83.wixsite.com/tinyworld I fell in love with macro photography because it didn’t seem real to me that I could capture close-up details I would never notice with the naked eye. I began to research flowers and plants, and then moved onto insects – the real protagonists of these marvellous miniature worlds. I learned various techniques by myself, with the help of the web, and broadened my horizons further by experimenting out in the field. This project was a product of experimentation. Spit-spot macro shots The images I have selected are…

Capture One Express is a free image-editing program that contains many features of the more powerful Pro version, and has everything you need to process your Nikon Raw files. The interface has four main areas: Tool Tabs & Tools; Image Viewer; Image Browser; and Toolbar and cursor tools. The interface layout is customizable, and the ‘View’ menu has further options to create your own personal workspace, where you can hide or move tools. Frequently used tools are located in Tool Tabs; each tab is split into a pinned and scrollable area of tools, individual tools can be easily moved between each space. To choose images to edit, use the Image Browser to show the available photos from the current collection. Use the Image Viewer to show the currently selected photo…

Lab tests explained Sharpness A chart with multiple sharp boundaries is photographed, the extent of blur at the centre, mid and edges showing how many line widths per picture height the lens can resolve. Simply put, the bigger the numbers the sharper the lens. Fringing Chromatic aberration is visible as purple or green fringing around high-contrast boundaries, caused by different wavelengths being focused on different areas of the sensor. The larger the number, the worse the score. Distortion A lens that bulges towards the edges of the frame produces barrel distortion, shown as a negative score. Pincushion distortion produces a positive score. A score of zero indicates no distortion. Our awards in a nutshell The best performance, design and value A product that gives you more for your money The…

There are two reasons you might want a Nikon Z 50mm f/1.2 S: faster shutter speeds and a tighter depth of field. For anything else, there’s no point lugging around a big, heavy chunk of glass that’s nearly three times the weight of the Nikon Z 50mm f/1.8 S and costs four to five times the price, depending on where in the world you live. Make no mistake, Nikon’s f/1.8 lens might look pretty basic, but it delivers superb sharpness, negligible colour fringing and distortion, and is a top performer in every manner. So, the question is, how much do you really need an extra 1.33 stops of aperture width? Key features The biggest selling point of this lens is unquestionably its f/1.2 rating. The optical path is quite complex…

£359/$379 A fully manual Z-mount lens Unlike the majority of high-tech lenses for Nikon’s Z-mount mirrorless cameras, this Samyang is a manual affair. As such, you need to set the aperture and focus distance using the lens’s onboard control rings, and there’s no electronic comms with the camera body. A drawback of this is that no lens-related EXIF info can be captured and stored within image files. On the plus side, the 14mm focal length and f/2.8 aperture make the lens a prime candidate for astrophotography. Handling is good, with a silky-smooth action to the long-throw focus ring. The construction feels solid and includes weather-seals. High-quality glass includes aspherical, hybrid-aspherical, ED (Extra-low Dispersion) and HR (High Refractive index) elements. Performance Sharpness is great across the image frame, even when shooting…

£1099/$1299 The second gen of Tamron’s ultra-wide zoom Unique in this group, the Tamron sports an optical stabilizer or ‘Vibration Compensation’ system. Moreover, it’s an upgraded version in the G2 edition of the lens, with increased 4.5-stop effectiveness. Useful when shooting at dusk or indoors, but of zero benefit for long exposures, where it’s best turned off. There’s little change in the optical line-up, although the G2 gains an extra anti-glare coating and a more durable fluorine coating on the front element. As usual, the fixed hood protects the bulbous front element and there’s no filter thread. The Tamron has a large zoom ring at the front and a small focus ring at the rear. Performance Like the Sigma 14-24mm zoom, the Tamron delivers little barrel distortion and vignetting at…

£1479/$1747 Still going strong after more than a decade With its ultra-wide zoom range and fast, constant-aperture design, this FX format F-mount lens was a world-first when it was launched back in 2008. It’s become something of a legend in its own lifetime, but struggles to retain its crown against new Sigma and Tamron pretenders to the throne. The Nikon matches the Sigma zoom lens on test for max viewing angle and is wider than the Tamron. Optical highlights include two ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements and Nano Crystal Coat. A rubber weather-seal is featured on the mounting plate, but the lens lacks weather-seals or a keep-clean fluorine coating on the front element. Performance Centre-sharpness is excellent but corner-sharpness at the shortest focal length and widest aperture lags behind that of…

Photography competitions aren’t for everyone, but from camera clubs to the world stage and everything in between, there’s no denying they are a huge part of the photography industry. I’ve helped judge a couple of minor competitions and although pouring over entries is hugely inspirational, choosing winners can feel like an insurmountable task. Art – funnily enough – isn’t an exact science. In it to win it There’s no universal rule book for judging a photograph. Different people have different ideas as to what constitutes a winning image, and those ideas might change from genre to genre or even mood. Perhaps technique should take precedence… or maybe creativity… or difficulty… Then there are ethical considerations. At what point does an image become exploitative? At what point does editing become unfair?…

The days are getting that little bit longer, the weather that little bit more clement… spring has most definitely sprung! The months ahead promise a plethora of opportunities to get outdoors with your Nikon, aided by the expectation of lockdown easing, and with that in mind Ross Hoddinott shares his top spring nature shooting advice in our lead feature. Of course, this issue has been put together under firm pandemic restrictions, so our Apprentice is a little different: Instagrammer Louise Carey goes solo to show how you can take terrific self-portraits with a few outfit changes, props, a tripod and the self-timer mode. We’re also delighted to announce the return of our sorely missed Nikopedia section, where you’ll learn everything there is to know about autofocus. We also explain how…

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We’ve become used to all manner of limitations over the past year. Faraway trips have been few and far between, and for many of us a daily walk has provided the only opportunity to head out with the camera and capture a few landscapes. If you’re lucky enough to live in a national park you’re probably surrounded with stunning scenery, but for the rest of us there’s no need to get disheartened. Every trip into the countryside is ripe with opportunity, you just have to look beyond your camera settings, identify promising scenes and look for the compositional cues mentioned here. Being a landscape photographer, I find myself more in tune with the elements and landscapes around me. I am always keeping an eye on what the weather is doing,…

The Pen tool may not be the easiest to master, but it offers a level of control that few other tools can match. It’s ideal for tracing around objects with hard, curved edges, like the campervan we’re using here. In this project we’ll explain how it works, and show you how to transform a mundane car park shot into a vibrant cut-out. By tracing around the car with the tool we can conform precisely to the outline of the shape. This is where the Pen tool proves its worth. It has many other uses too, however, from making smooth, intricate shapes to creating all kinds of designs. Working with the Pen tool takes time to master, but is well worth it and, with experience, it will soon become second nature.…

Engage Live View Switch to Live View on a DSLR by pressing the LV button. Mirrorless Nikons effectively always use Live View, both on the rear LCD or the viewfinder. Compose the shot Compose the image on the rear LCD. Use the multi-selector to move the red focus box around your image to the area of image you want to be in sharp detail. Zoom in Press the ‘+ magnifying glass’ button to zoom into the image and magnify that part of the image. Further presses of ‘+’ zoom in further. Focus manually Switch to manual focus and slowly rotate the focus ring until the image springs into sharp focus; the in-focus area will reflect the actual depth of field. Zoom back out Press the ‘- magnifying glass’ button to…

Q I’m frustrated that the images from my D7200 generally look quite dark and gloomy, whether I’m shooting landscapes, portraits, or interiors. What am I doing wrong? Lene Herman A Nikon’s ‘Matrix’ metering mode usually does a good job in most situations, but don’t be afraid to use a little positive exposure compensation if you want brighter results. Active D-Lighting can also be useful for increasing overall brightness without blowing highlights (where bright areas wash out to white). It’s also worth checking that ‘Picture Control’ is set to Standard rather than Neutral or Flat. You can set it to Vivid or Landscape for punchier images. For best control over your images, it really pays to shoot in Raw quality mode. You can then use Nikon’s free Capture NX-D or another…

1. Floral Princess BY WAYNE KLIEWER This is an impressive photograph, but it’s the set design that really pushes this image into the stratosphere. The flowers are beautifully arranged and the subject’s magnificent dress fits the princess narrative perfectly. Each flower is real and it’s incredible to think that this setup had to be put together and photographed quickly before the freshly cut blooms began to wilt. Camera: Nikon D850 Lens: 24-70mm f/2.8 Exposure: 1/200 sec, f/11, ISO200 2. Queen of Darkness BY SANZIANA RACHITEANU We are immediately drawn to the painterly style, the costume, muted colour palette and interesting pose, but it’s the composition that really makes this creative portrait shine. The use of negative space in the left portion of the frame contrasts the right portion’s classic painting…

Capture One 21 for Nikon £199/$199 www.captureone.com Capture One does pretty much everything Lightroom does, but with more advanced processing and local adjustment tools, and the latest version brings speed and workflow improvements as well as some interesting new tools. A new Speed Edit mode offers rapid editing adjustments for single images or across multiple photos without the need for individual slider adjustments – just hotkeys and scroll, drag or arrow keys. It has also added a Dehaze tool, which is designed to cut through atmospheric haze by automatically adjusting a ‘matrix’ of contrast, saturation and other adjustments. On the organizational side, the image import process is faster, with better selection tools and high-resolution thumbnails. You can import photos from more than one folder at a time, and once images…

Most of us have felt very limited in our photography as of late, unable to get out and about to the kind of places that we love to visit. An upside is that you can shoot millions of miles into the distance, from your very own backyard, just by setting your sights on the night sky. Even so, light is arguably the most important raw material for photography, so things get a bit tricky when there’s very little to play with. Naturally, shooting outdoors in the middle of the night is particularly challenging, even when the subject in question is the Milky Way on a clear, star-studded evening. To make matters worse, the night sky is not only very dimly lit, but it’s also very large and constantly moving. For…

£559/$549 This night owl even has fluorescent markings Designed in Switzerland and built in Korea, the Irix 15mm is available in Firefly and Blackstone options. They’re optically identical but the Blackstone has a magnesium alloy casing, four weather-seals, and fluorescent engraved markings for easy reading under very dull lighting. As a manual-focus lens, the focus ring has a typically smooth and precise operation with long rotational travel. It comes complete with a focus distance scale that includes markers for depth of field and hyperfocal distance at various apertures. A secondary ring enables you to lock the focus ring at any position. Another nice touch is that you can fine-tune the focus ring so that the distance scale is calibrated to your camera body. Performance Image quality is excellent, with minimal…

£1129/$1199 It leads the way for a wide-angle F-mount zoom This Sigma lens matches the competing Nikon F-mount zoom for maximum viewing angle and aperture, while undercutting it for price. Sigma also makes a wider 12-24mm Art zoom, but that one has a slower aperture rating of f/4 that’s less ideal for astrophotography. Build quality and handling are excellent in both Sigmas on test but the zoom gains a full set of weather-seals, whereas the prime lens only has a sealed mounting plate. Again, the front element has a keep-clean fluorine coating. Both lenses are compatible with Sigma’s optional USB Dock for fine-tuning, customization and applying firmware updates. Performance Even when shooting at the shortest focal length with the widest aperture, the lens delivers excellent sharpness right across the frame,…

£2499/$2397 It’s very pricey but typically fabulous The 14-24mm is bristling with features, including a tertiary customizable control ring, a customizable Lens-Function button and a multifunction OLED display. Optical highlights include four ED elements, both Nano Crystal Coat and ARNEO coatings, all built into a tough and weather-sealed casing. It comes with two hoods, one with a 112mm filter attachment thread. AF is driven by a stepping motor, which is super-fast yet near silent in operation. There’s no optical image stabilization, the lens instead relying on the high-performance sensor-shift stabilizers of full-frame Z-series cameras. Performance Lab-test scores for centre-sharpness are by far the best of any lens in this group. In real-world shooting, rather than for relatively small, close-range test charts, sharpness is similarly scintillating out to the edges and…

If you aspire to become a pro photographer, want to expand your existing business, or simply learn a new technique, interior photography is an extremely useful genre to master and it doesn’t require much kit. The first step is to find an inviting, clutter-free subject. If your own abode isn’t suitable, consider offering to photograph a friend’s house or, if your portfolio is up to scratch, try approaching a holiday home and offer them the shots you take in return. We photographed the stunning Burghope Cottage in Wiltshire (www.burghopecottage.co.uk) and captured every image with a Nikon D800, AF-S 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5G ED and a Manfrotto Element MII tripod. Only natural light was used. That means no ambient indoor lighting and no specialist photography lighting. Good indoor photos are evenly lit to…

If you’ve always found Photoshop to be a tricky program to master, then here’s some good news for you: it’s getting easier. Over the past couple of years we’ve seen a raft of new tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI). They employ machine learning to analyse image content and can carry out a lot of the heavy lifting for you. Tools like Select Subject, Sky Replacement and Skin Smoothing can be put to use in all kinds of projects. In this project we’ll explore these three helpful commands while crafting a moody composite portrait. We’ll kick things off by using Skin Smoothing, which is found amongst Photoshop’s new Neural Filter command. When subjects are lit strongly from the side, like our example above, the direction of the light tends to…

Although based in New York, where baseball, basketball and even pinball are better known than rugby, you can be sure Claire Thomas will find somewhere in the Big Apple to watch her beloved Wales in the Six Nations. A life in photojournalism may have taken the girl out of the Welsh Valleys, but you can’t take the Valleys out of the girl. “I really enjoy watching the rugby,” she declares. “Wherever I go I try to watch it. Even when I was in Mongolia in October 2019, I wasn’t going to miss the match, and we found a pub that was showing it.” A pub? In Mongolia? Showing the rugby? I sound incredulous, but the excitement in Claire’s voice is simply irresistible. “Yep! We were in the capital city (Ulan…

MISSION: Take at least one photo every single day throughout 2020. That’s 365 photos in one year! PHOTOGRAPHER: Ian Dawson LOCATION: Bodø, Norway KIT USED: Nikon D5300, AF-S DX 35mm f/1.8G, DX Micro 40mm f/2.8G, Sigma 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3 DC Macro OS HSM C WEBSITE: www.ianspages.com I retired at the beginning of 2020 and decided I would fill my free time by attempting a 365 project. That meant capturing at least one photo every day throughout the whole year. One photo per day – how hard can it be? But it’s a big commitment, and one I had tried and given up on before. I found it too difficult to find the time while I was still working. This time around there were still days when I was wondering what to…

What is focus peaking? Focus peaking helps you focus accurately while at the same time showing the area of acceptable sharpness within your image. Focus peaking acts as a manual focus assist and is activated when you switch the lens or camera to manual focus (providing your camera supports focus peaking). Activate the function To enable focus peaking on a DSLR, you’ll need to be in Live View mode. Press the ‘i’ button and navigate the menu on the right-hand side until you see ‘Peaking’. On a Z series, focus peaking can be found within the Custom Settings menu and the ‘d Shooting/display’ menu under ‘Peaking Highlights’. Set the sensitivity to 2 and then choose a peaking colour. Generally, red or blue stand out well. Focus the image As you…

Q I can’t justify spending £1800 on the latest Nikon AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8E lens. How would a secondhand ‘G’ version of the lens compare? Gary Heath Matthew recommends… A The main advantage of the latest ‘E’ version of the lens is that it adds optical Vibration Reduction, lacking in the older ‘G’ lens, but they’re both fully pro-grade lenses. Nikon AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED A PROFESSIONAL STANDARD ZOOM WORKHORSE RELEASED: 2007 PRICE NEW: £1499/$1597 SECONDHAND PRICE: ‘Excellent’ £620/$840 ‘Good’ £545/$740 Although the ‘E’ version of Nikon’s top 24-70mm standard zoom for full-frame DSLRs was launched in 2015, the older ‘G’ edition is still available to buy new. It’s around £300/$500 less expensive than the ‘E’ edition, which adds VR and an electromagnetically controlled diaphragm. On the plus side, the ‘G’…

Choosing the best monitor is important. It’s not just about your own viewing satisfaction. It’s crucial that you get a proper rendition of the detail, colour and contrast in your shots. When editing, you only have what you see on the screen – and if your monitor isn’t up to the job, you can easily end up correcting the monitor’s faults when your photos are perfectly fine. In this guide we’ve picked some of the best monitors on the market that prioritize resolution, colour accuracy, brightness consistency and contrast to display your work. While you can pick up monitors for a couple of hundred quid, the monitors we’re looking at here are high-end, high-performance models that are designed for precision work. Key considerations When it comes to size, you might…

To take in a generous portion of the Milky Way and avoid the further difficulty of stitching multiple images together, you’ll need a wide-angle prime or zoom lens. A focal length of around 10-14mm is ideal on an APS-C or ‘DX’ format camera (see ‘DX options’), or around 14-20mm on a full-frame body. You’ll also need a wide aperture for sucking in as much light as possible. This avoids the need to send your camera’s ISO setting into the stratosphere. Compared with standard and short telephoto lenses, wide-angle optics require relatively large-diameter elements, especially when the design includes a fairly fast aperture rating. This can make them expensive to manufacture, particularly if you add the complexity of a zoom facility, rather than sticking to a fixed focal length. We recommend…

£899/$729 One of Samyang’s premium manual primes From Korean manufacturer Samyang’s stable of premium ‘XP’ manual-focus prime lenses, this 14mm f/2.4 is the best fit for astrophotography. Quality, high-tech glass is neatly wrapped up in a really solid casing with sublime handling. The rubberized manual focus ring gives a very assured grip and has an unusually long rotational travel with a particularly fluid feel. This enables focusing with extreme precision. One minus point is that there’s no weather-seal ring on the mounting plate to guard against the ingress of dust and moisture. But if you’re shooting the Milky Way, you’ll need clear, dry and dust-free conditions. Performance Image quality for astrophotography when shooting at the widest aperture is better than from the Irix 15mm and Sigma 14mm prime lenses on…

£1349/$1599 A go-faster lens in every way This Sigma prime lens is a full f-stop faster than the Irix 15mm and Samyang 14mm F-mount lenses on test. And whereas the other two are manual-focus lenses, the Sigma adds super-speedy ring-type ultrasonic AF. The wide aperture comes at a price, however, not only because the large-diameter elements are more expensive to manufacture, but also because they result in a comparatively big and heavy build. The ultra-wide viewing angle and fast aperture are a winning combination for capturing the night sky with minimal star-trailing. Performance Image quality is fabulous even when shooting wide open, at least in terms of sharpness, contrast, colour rendition and the absence of spherical and lateral chromatic aberrations. However, there’s noticeable coma and astigmatism towards the corners of…

With a generous viewing angle and superb image quality at its widest aperture setting, the Samyang XP 14mm f/2.4 manual-focus lens ticks all the right boxes. The Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art is a whole f-stop faster, but coma and astigmatism are noticeable towards the corners of the image frame. That said, the Sigma gives negligible aberrations when its aperture is narrowed to f/2.5. The Irix 15mm f/2.4 fares less well, giving similar ‘wide open’ coma and astigmatism to the Sigma, despite its narrower max aperture. For F-mount zoom lenses designed for full-frame DSLRs, the Sigma 14-24mm f/2.8 DG HSM Art leads the field, with best-in-class image quality and overall performance, along with fab build quality. The Tamron SP 15-30mm f/2.8 Di VC USD G2 comes in second whereas…