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

GO-TO SETTINGS Chris says… I suggested Aurora set Aperture Priority mode and, instead of shooting wide open, she closed the aperture a little to ensure enough depth of field should she slightly miss focus. Upping the ISO to 400 or so ensures a fast shutter speed to avoid the risk of motion blur. SHOOTING SUN-STARS Chris says… With the sun so low on the horizon, it’s the ideal opportunity to include it in your landscape shots. For this, I suggested Aurora close down her aperture to f/16 as bright points of light take on the shape of the closeddown aperture blades, which makes for the most beautiful sun-stars! CONTINUOUS HIGH & AF Chris says… Always be ready to shoot in bursts to capture the unpredictable nature of wildlife. Set Continuous…

Chris says… The Arctic Circle is defined as the area within which the sun remains visible over a 24-hour period and so I encouraged Aurora to capture this image of the ‘almostsetting-sun’. Taken at 10:30pm, I had Aurora shoot on her D850 with a Nikon 20mm f/1.8 lens. The aim was to capture both the sun and its reflection on the water. Setting the aperture at f/16 helps to create a nice clean sun-star as the narrower aperture causes the area of high-contrast light to refract off the aperture blades within the lens. The 20mm prime is my favourite for this effect.…

Taha’a Island DANA ALLEN A school of Pacific double-saddle butterfly fish (Chaetodon ulietensis), along with many other aquatic species, rush by in a flurry of activity in an amazingly beautiful and delightfully crystal clear lagoon on the island of Taha’a, French Polynesia. Camera: Nikon D4 Lens: 14-24mm f/2.8 Exposure: 1/1000 sec, f/16, ISO800 Kamchatka RICHARD LI There are many salmon spawning in the lake under the Kamchatka volcano in July and August every year, which is the most delicious food for brown bears. Although we would think it is looking at the rather imposing volcano, this oddly human-like figure is actually looking for fish in the lake. Camera: Nikon D850 Lens: 70-200mm f/2.8 Exposure: 1/1000 sec, f/11, ISO720 Sunbathing YU SHEN In this apartment’s open-air pool, the girl swims while…

The Mission – Turn an unused room into your very own home studio Time – Two hours Skill level – Intermediate Kit needed – Home studio twin flash head kit – Backdrop – Backdrop support We may be seeing light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, but months of enforced lockdown, during long periods of which going outside was against the rules, has given photographers lots of challenges when confined between our own four walls. Just what do you shoot? It’s forced us to think creatively, and while many photographers have dabbled with a Speedlight, we went one further and set up our own home studio in a spare room – after all, we weren’t going to be receiving overnight guests for quite some time… There’s a little more…

The Mission – Shoot for intentional motion blur in wildlife photography Time – Two hours Skill level – Intermediate Kit needed – Long lens – Tripod – Gimbal head (optional) In wildlife photography the desire is usually to capture animals that are tack-sharp, but what if we try a different approach and aim for something more abstract instead? This is a technique we learned from UK-based wildlife photographer Ben Hall. The trick is to lower your shutter speed just enough to blur the movement of the animals, while still retaining areas of relative sharpness and legible shapes. The results can be stunning. Sure, things won’t be pin-sharp, but in its place you get a wonderful sense of natural speed and motion in the image. You could try this technique out…

1 Shutter speed control Typically our shutter speed needs to be around 1/80-1/20 sec. The right setting will depend on the speed of the subject, and you’ll need to adapt as you shoot. If it’s a bird in flight use a faster speed, but if it’s stationary on the water while flapping its wings then you can drop to a slower speed. Shoot in Raw A perfect exposure can be tough to achieve when the subject is moving around and backdrops are changing. Setting your camera to shoot Raws gives you a safety net, as they hold more tonal info in the highlights and shadows, so you’ll be more able to rescue exposure mishaps afterwards. Use high-speed drive There’s an element of luck here in that the motion blur and…

Camera: Nikon D500 Lens: 300mm f/4 Exposure: 1/5000 sec, f/4, ISO250 MISSION: Capture decisive moments, and convey the action-packed nature of rugby and hurling PHOTOGRAPHER: Ivan O’Riordan LOCATION: Limerick, Ireland KIT USED: Nikon D500, D700, D3, AF-S 300mm f/4E PF ED VR, 70-200mm f/2.8E FL ED VR WEBSITE: www.ivanoriordan.com I was 50 before I took any serious interest in photography and started to take photos at Limerick Lawn Tennis Club. My basic tuition came from photography magazines and making mistakes. Around 15 years ago, I started taking photos from the terraces at Munster Rugby matches. I eventually submitted photos to the supporters’ club and was accepted as an accredited photographer. This enabled me to operate pitchside for about four matches per season, which was a great thrill. Over the years,…

Subject distance Don’t stand your subject too close. The pop-up flash has a guide number of around 12m, but you can always increase the ISO for greater range. Manual exposure Use P (Program Auto) mode if you are working quickly, but for best results use M (Manual) mode if you want more control over the ambient light levels. Pop the flash Once you have the ambient light exposure you want for a wellexposed background, activate your pop-up flash by pressing its button and then take a shot. What the FEC? If your subject its bleached out (or too dark), use Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC) controls to adjust the power of the flash output, as required. Balance the flash The actual setting will be dependant on how far away your subject…

Where to get Nikon NX Studio FREE DOWNLOAD! – NX Studio software offers a suite of tools for viewing, processing and editing. It combines the photo-and-video-viewing features of ViewNX-i with the retouch tools of Capture NX-D. Download the software completely free from: http://bit.ly/nxstudio NX Studio is a new free software application from Nikon that allows you to edit still images and movies. NX Studio replaces both ViewNX-i and Capture NX-D and incorporates the main functionality from both applications into a single easy-to-use free application. When you install NX Studio it will replace ViewNX-i, if already installed. NX Studio supports all Nikon DSLRs released since the D1. The NX Studio interface has been redesigned to include an easier-to-use, modern UI with the convenience of using a single application to attain good…

If all your photographs are fast filling your computer’s storage space – or you need to keep your digital portfolio portable – then it might be time to invest in a portable SSD. A conventional portable hard disk drive still offers the most bytes for your buck, but for top transfer speeds, a solid state drive – SSD – is a must. Transferring information to a bank of memory chips is far faster than writing this information to a spinning disc of magnetic material will ever be. SSDs are also far more robust. With no moving parts, there’s no mechanical wear and tear to worry about, or get damaged in the case of dropping the drive. They’re also far less power-hungry, and are usually powered via the host computer’s USB…

Available as the TS6350 series in the UK and the TS8320 in the USA, this multi-function printer is available in a black or white finish. Typical of Canon five-ink printers from down the years, it has an oversized pigment-based black cartridge for crisp, rich black text, while photo printing is based on dye-based cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks. A built-in scanner enables simple photocopying, driven by onboard controls that include push-buttons clustered around a 1.44-inch OLED display. Replacement cartridges are available in standard, XL and XXL options, the last of which gives the best economy, although a full set costs around £100/$125. Performance Print speeds are quick, matching those of the pricier PIXMA TS8350/8320. As with older Canon five-ink printers, this model produces realistic photo output, with vibrant yet…

Epson ‘EcoTank’ printers come with high-volume ink tanks, which you can replenish with bottled ink. The ET-7700 is supplied with two sets of high-capacity ink bottles, sufficient for up to 14,000 mono documents and 3400 6x4-inch photos. Ink levels are easy to keep track of, with the tanks being positioned behind viewing windows in the front panel. Scanning, copying and printing from memory cards are based on a pushbutton interface with a 2.7-inch screen, rather than a touchscreen. Wi-Fi and Ethernet are built in, along with a USB 2.0 interface. Large and small internal paper cassettes are supplemented by a rear single sheet feeder. Performance Photo print speeds are pretty pedestrian, especially compared with the Canon A4 printers on test, which use a similar combination of dye and pigment ink…

Although it’s a pigmentbased printer, the PRO-300 delivers superblooking output on glossy as well as matte and fine art media. This is enabled by the ‘chroma optimizer’ cartridge, which smooths out the finish when printing on glossy photo paper. Media handling is very good, with a rear-mounted upright paper feeder and a horizontal manual feeder, more ideal for fine art and thicker media, while also enabling panoramic printing up to almost a metre in length. Unlike Canon’s previous pigment-based printers, the PRO-300 enables borderless output on matte and fine art media, instead of just on glossy, semi-gloss and lustre photo papers. Performance The new 10-cartridge LUCIA PRO ink system delivers a wide gamut (colour space) with rich, vivid colour rendition, as well as high-fidelity black-and-white photo printing with amazingly deep…

For top-quality photo output with the utmost versatility, the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 is an outright winner. It makes excellent use of its pigment-based inks to deliver spectacular quality on matte and fine art media, for both colour and mono images, while its chroma optimizer enables smooth output on glossy paper with minimal bronzing. That said, the Canon PIXMA PRO-200 dye-based printer wins out for an ultra-smooth finish on glossy paper. Going larger to an A2/17-inch printer, the pigment-based Epson SureColor P900 is great for colour and mono prints on wideranging media but is less convincing than the Canon PRO-300 on glossy paper, and is comparatively lacking in smoothness. Even so, the upsized print capability is particularly impressive considering that the Epson is about the same size and weight as the…

You don’t have to travel halfway around the globe to get stunning images of wildlife. From back-garden birds to fauna in local fields, Tom Mason shows you how to capture fabulous shots of furry and feathered friends within a stone’s throw of where you reside. But travelling halfway around the world is exactly what this issue’s Apprentice did when she met pro photographer Chris McLennan on an expedition to photograph polar bears and the epic wilderness of the Arctic (for full disclosure, before the limits of lockdown) and came back with truly jaw-dropping shots. In our Gear section, we take a look at eight photo-quality printers for producing wall-hanging artworks of A4, A3 or even A2 in size, to really show off your photos at their very best. We also…

Chris says… The polar regions in summer are blessed with 24 hours of daylight and a golden sun that is low on the horizon all day long, effectively stretching the coveted ‘golden hour’ for several hours. On the beautiful calm nights, many hours can be spent out on the bow of the ship photographing birds under the low sun; these images were shot at 1am. I used Continuous AF and Continuous Highspeed shooting in Aperture Priority mode as the birds can quickly fly across various lighting scenarios. I expanded to 25 focus points to make it easier to track the guillemots against the silky water.…

Great reasons to subscribe now! Lowepro Tahoe 150 camera backpack ✔ The Lowepro Tahoe 150 offers a customizable, well-padded main compartment, and roomy front pocket that offers plenty of storage for a day’s worth of gear ✔ Great savings Subscribe for 12 months and get your issues delivered to your door, plus this great Lowepro backpack worth £66.95 ✔ Free online videos Each issue, you’ll receive access to our fantastic photo project videos Option 1 Quarterly digital subscription (no gift) £12.50 • 13 issues of N-Photo digital edition• Apple Newsstand edition for iOS devices• Pocketmags edition for Android users• Receive the same videos, project files and ebook editions that come with the print mag Option 2 Annual print subscription £54 • 13 issues of N-Photo print edition delivered• Delivery to…

The Mission – Capture a simple still life that resembles classic paintings Time – One hour Skill level – Intermediate Kit needed – Props – Backdrop – Tripod Still life is arguably one of the most accessible genres of photography. If you’ve got a camera and a tripod, you can capture stunning still life images. It’s also a great discipline if you’re new to photography or simply want to brush up on your core skills, because there’s really nowhere to hide. The understated nature of items such as flowers and fruit means you’re not going to wow the viewer with the subject alone. How you arrange and light your subject is paramount and, since you’re working in a controlled environment, anything that isn’t tack-sharp and perfectly composed simply won’t do.…

The Mission – Make a compilation layout with shapes then add your photos Time – 20 minutes Skill level – Beginner Kit needed – Affinity Photo One of the best ways to show off a series of photos is as a compilation like this. It works especially well for portraits, as it gives you the opportunity to show a range of expressions, crops and angles. Compilations are great for printing out large and displaying on the wall. A series like this will work brilliantly as a canvas or wooden block, but even if you plan to print out each photo individually and put it in a multi-mount frame, the technique shown here can still be very valuable for working out the balance and cropping of your various portraits. There’s real…

1 Location It’s fairly easy to find places where you’ll be guaranteed a variety of birds to photograph. Large lakes, wetland reserves and nature reserves are ideal. Birds and other wildlife are usually most active around sunrise and sunset, so the start or end of the day is the best time to head out with your camera in hand. 2 Tripod This project is all about striking a balance between motion blur and sharpness, so a tripod is essential, either for keeping the camera still to capture subject blur, or tracking the subject for panning blur. It also helps to take the weight of heavy lenses. A beanbag can also come in handy if you want to shoot from a very low position. 3 Bird activity The real joy –…

1. Bunny Sitting FRANK HATCHER The expression on this bunny is absolutely priceless and makes for an alluring capture. Frank says that he loved the golden lighting that bathed the rabbit. 2. Solitary HIREN VEKARIA Hiren’s photo demonstrates a delightful use of colours as the pink flamingo contrasts so well with the muted green hues of the background vegetation. 3. Philly 2K16 WILLIAM TROSTEL We love the geometry that William’s picture captures! The tall buildings’ heavenly straight lines guide the viewer’s eye towards the brooding sky.…

The pop-up flash on the camera (if yours has one) is a good place to start with flash, but to get creative with light a dedicated Speedlight is required. On-camera Speedlights are more powerful and allow you control over the direction and quality of light. The ability to angle the flash upwards or swivel the head around gives you the chance to bounce the light off the ceiling or adjacent walls. Light modifiers On-camera Speedlights give you access to a range of light modifiers, shapers and diffusers, which can be used for a wide range of creative effects. They are great to use as a large fill light to eradicate shadows, even on the brightest of days. How far can your flash reach? Guide number (GN) refers to the maximum…

Q The ‘back button’ autofocus isn’t working on my D7500 and the viewfinder shows AE-L instead of focus indication. The word ‘FLICKER’ also sometimes flashes in bottom right-hand corner. Brian Rankin A The AE-L/AF-L ‘back button’ on the D7500 – as well as a number of other Nikon cameras – locks the auto-exposure and autofocus settings by default. You’ll need to change its function in the Controls section of the Custom Settings Menu. Scroll down to position ‘f1’ Custom Controls Assignment and you can change the functions of various controls. These include swapping the action of the AE-L/AF-L button to AF-ON. AF should now be activated by pressing the back button. The D7500 has a ‘Flicker reduction indicator’ option, available near the bottom of the Photo Shooting Menu. When enabled,…

1. Humpback Breach BY DWAYNE TOWLES This photograph of a breaching humpback in the Bahía de Banderas is the image everybody wants to come home with when they go whale watching. The timing is impeccable as the humpback was captured at the very peak of its breach and the image is tack-sharp too. A second breaching humpback is visible on the left-hand side, which provides both additional interest and depth. Camera: Nikon D7500 Lens: 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 Exposure: 1/1600 sec, f/9, ISO400 2. Into the Light BY STEVE JAMES What were the chances of photographing this stag precisely within a small patch of golden light? Steve sat and waited for the fallow deer to move into the light, and used quick reflexes to capture the image just before two children inadvertently…

NEW GEAR 98 Fresh Nikon finds The latest and greatest Nikon kit that’ll have you champing at the bit REVIEW 102 Skylum Luminar AI Is Skylum’s new AI-driven software the future of image-editing? HELP ME BUY… 100 SSD drives We take a look at five superslick, portable SSD storage solutions BIG TEST TEST 104 Photo printers Embrace physical media with one of these top-notch inkjet printers 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…

Luminar AI is designed to take the drudge out of photo editing, handling all the previously technical and time-consuming tasks of selecting and masking and manual sliders with its own automated machine-learning AI. It’s not trying to tempt photographers away from software they love. Instead, it’s aiming at what Skylum thinks is a much wider market of photographers and content creators who simply want beautiful images without the fuss. Skylum has taken a bold step. It is ending development of Luminar 4 and taking its core technologies in a new direction. That may disappoint a lot of Luminar fans hoping for a more sophisticated and advanced Lightroom or Photoshop alternative. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen now. Key features Luminar AI is an all-in-one non-destructive photo cataloguing and…

REAR TRAY An additional rear input tray can be a time-saver, enabling you to easily add specialist media when you want to create photo prints. SCANNER Most A4/8.5-inch printers include a built-in scanner, which can be useful for standalone photocopying of documents and images, as well as for scanning media into your computer. CONTROL PANEL Touchscreens are increasingly being featured in ‘all-in-one’ printers, for intuitive and straightforward printing from memory cards, or standalone photocopying. DUAL-PURPOSE For mixed document and photo printing, an A4/8.5-inch printer is usually best. Epson’s A3/11-inch XP-970 also works well. CONNECTIONS Pretty much every modern printer has a USB interface, and most add built-in Wi-Fi. Some also add Bluetooth and wired Ethernet connectivity. INTERNAL CASSETTE All A4 printers on test have one or two internal paper feed…

Bucking the trend of combining pigment and dye-based black inks for document and photo printing, the XP-8600 is a more conventional ‘photo’ printer. As such, it runs on six dye-based inks that include CMYK, plus photo cyan and photo magenta, to broaden the colour space. Drop for drop, ink costs about 10 times more than for the Epson EcoTank ET-7700 printer, although the XP-8600 is much less expensive to buy. There’s a 2.7-inch colour LCD, but this time it’s a touchscreen without a surrounding array of push-button controls. Printing from memory cards and photocopying is a little more intuitive, but the small touchscreen is a bit fiddly to use. Performance Epson six-ink photo printers are renowned for their vibrant looking output, and the XP-8600 is no exception – colour saturation…

If twice as big is twice as good, this Epson A3/11-inch photo printer beats its smaller XP-8600 A4/8.5-inch sibling. It delivers double the maximum print area but remains compact, lightweight and manageable. Unlike the other large-format printers on test, this Epson packs a built-in scanner, SD/HC/XC card slot and a PictBridge port, all brought together by a 4.3-inch touchscreen. That said, the scanner is A4/8.5-inch, so you can’t scan or photocopy large-format prints. As with Epson’s smaller XP-8600 A4 printer, the upsized XP-970 runs on six Claria Photo HD dye-based inks. Performance Photo print quality is near identical to that of the XP-8600. The smoothness of graduations in blue skies and the quality of skin tones are very good. Again, the ‘photo enhance’ option is best avoided if you’re after…

The Epson SureColor P700 A3+/13-inch printer (£679/$800) might seem an obvious fit for this group test, competing against the Canon PRO-200 and PRO-300 models. However, while the A2/17-inch P900 is more expensive, it gives relatively supersized output from a printer that’s only about the same size and weight as the Canon A3+/13-inch models, and its 50ml cartridges have twice the capacity of the Epson P700’s cartridges, resulting in big savings. Handling is excellent, with an extra pull-out feeder at the front, ideal for fine art media and thick poster board. It also allows for extra-long cut-sheet media, while a roll paper feeder is available as an extra, for £213/$249. As well as a colour touchscreen, the printer features a translucent top panel and interior LED lighting. Performance Print quality is…

Well, it’s official. The Nikon Z 9 is happening and it’s set to be released this year. If you’ve somehow managed to avoid the rumour mill, the Z 9 is the Big N’s long-awaited pro-grade mirrorless camera. It will represent the very top tier of Nikon’s camera line-up and, in a twist akin to an episode of Game of Thrones, will succeed the D6’s short reign as Nikon’s flagship body. Here’s what we know (at the time of writing). Expeed expectations Nikon has only announced the development of the Z 9, so we’ll have to wait for detailed specifications. What we do know is that the camera will boast a newly developed fullframe stacked CMOS sensor, a new imageprocessing engine and 8K video recording capabilities. That’s plenty to shout about…

THE PRO NAME: Chris McLennan CAMERAS: D850 & Z 7II New Zealander Chris is a professional travel photographer with 33 years’ experience whose work has seen him shooting for commercial clients in 60 countries and counting. He’s a Nikon New Zealand Ambassador, as well as a global ambassador for industry-leading brands Lowepro and Lexar. Chris heads photo expeditions to many exciting locations around the world, including Alaska, Svalbard, Papua New Guinea, USA, Tahiti, Solomon Islands, Mongolia, Botswana, Namibia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Uganda. See his work and expeditions at www.chrismclennanphotography.com Instagram: @chris_mclennan1 THE APPRENTICE NAME: Aurora Lampson CAMERAS: D850 & D810 Aurora is from California, USA, and works as a marketing and social media content producer for several global companies, including Lowepro. She has been studying photography for 10 years, starting…

Chris says… On a trip like this there are so many shooting scenarios and subjects that I take a full range of lenses, from 14mm all the way through to 550mm. I pack everything I can; you can guarantee that if you leave a lens at home it will be the one you wish that you had with you! It is also essential to have a very good sturdy backpack to protect your valuable gear. I choose (and helped to design) the Lowepro Protrekker 550.…

Tom Mason Pro wildlife photographer Tom has worked around the globe on wildlife assignments, but is just as happy photographing critters found much closer to home. www.tommasonphoto.com When it comes to the single piece of advice I’d give to wildlife photographers – be it those starting out, developing their craft, or just looking for a new challenge – it would be to get started on your very own local wildlife photography project! It doesn’t matter if it’s blue tits in the garden, frogs in the pond or the local street fox, find something close to home that you can work and develop photographically. Over the past few years I’ve had the luxury of working on a variety of international assignments, from watching elephants in the Okavango to camera trapping for jaguars…

The Mission – Use mirrors to capture creative portraits Time – One hour Skill level – Intermediate Kit needed – Glass cleaner – Mirrors – Tripod Reflections are a photographer’s best friend. They crop up in many genres of photography, whether it’s a building reflected in a puddle, neon lights reflected in a shop window or a product reflected on a sheet of acetate. And portraits are no different. In this project we’ve captured a series of indoor portraits using household mirrors. All you need is a willing model or the mind to shoot a self-portrait. We’ve shot images where the reflection is the main component of the photo and portraits where the reflection adds additional interest (see main image, right). While there’s no correct way to shoot portrait reflections,…

Get down low A low camera angle can be great for this technique, as it allows you to get down to eye level with the birds on the water. This makes it easier to isolate your subjects from the background, as the low angle enables you to push the background further away, making it simpler to blur out. Shoot in low sunlight Shooting in low sunlight like this adds to the atmosphere by creating pockets of light and shade. Low directional light will also help to bring out the colours in the feathers when lit from the front, or filters beautifully through the wings when shining from behind like this. The lower light levels also makes it easier to use slower shutter speeds. Watch for washing Keep an eye out…

Camera: Nikon D4S Lens: 14-24mm f/2.8 Exposure: 1/4 sec, f/18, ISO100 Einar Gudmann Profile • Einar Gudmann and his partner Gyda Henningsdóttir are among Iceland’s leading wildlife and landscape photographers.• Einar was born and raised in the north of the country, where he lives with Gyda, who is from the tiny island of Grimsey, situated on the Arctic Circle.• The couple are the authors of two photo books about their home: Iceland: Wild at Heart and Photographing Iceland.• Before teaming up as full-time professional photographers, both Einar and Gyda had successful careers: Gyda as a managing director of a fashion store and Einar as an advisor for the Environmental Agency of Iceland.• Last year, the couple launched their own YouTube channel and had a 113m2 print of Gyda’s image of…

I primarily shoot the Milky Way over landscapes in dark locations in Maine, New Hampshire and Canada. I like shooting around where I live in Maine – we have some of the darkest areas on the East Coast of the US, and growing up by the ocean I feel a special connection to the coast. Other locations photographed for my book Night Sky Photography include Utah and New Mexico, both of which provide some very dark skies and unique desert landscapes. My publisher initially approached me about writing the book in late 2018. I enjoy teaching, and this seemed like the perfect chance to get a detailed written guide of my techniques to a large audience. The book is also a great companion to my video tutorials and workshops. The…

Camera: Nikon D7500 Lens: 200-500mm f/5.6 Exposure: 1/800 sec, f/5.6, ISO500 MISSION: Embrace the outdoors. Photograph wildlife in its natural environment, in all weathers PHOTOGRAPHER: Carl Harris LOCATION: Redditch, Worcestershire KIT USED: Nikon D7500, Nikon AF-S 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR I started my photography journey with an online course, received as a birthday gift. This opened my eyes to the world of professional photography and gave me an immediate appreciation of the skill and dedication required to take a great photograph. I was hooked. I wanted to become a great amateur photographer and began to read as many books on photography as I could. Either before work or at the weekends, I would head outside and try a new technique or experiment with a new setting. As I felt my…

Neil Freeman Nikon Expert Neil is Training Manager at Nikon School, the official tutoring programme operated by Nikon UK, and runs a range of online and on-location courses to help you master your DSLR or mirrorless Nikon: https://nikonschool.co.uk…

e1 Flash sync speed Also known as Auto FP mode, this setting enables you to remove the flash speed limit on your camera. Set the camera to the highest shutter speed setting with Auto FP by it. On many cameras this is 1/200 (Auto FP). Set this once and there is no need to revisit this menu setting. e2 Flash shutter speed This option determines the slowest shutter speed available when using front or rear-curtain flash or red-eye reduction in P or A shooting modes. The default is 1/60 sec e3 Exposure comp. for flash Determines how the flash level works when exposure compensation is used. It’s not usually changed unless you have a specific creative intention in mind. Entire frame: Will adjust both the flash level and exposure compensation…

Manual flash A flashgun’s maximum power starts at 1/1 (full power), and can be dialled back to lower output settings, halving the power at each full stop (1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 and all the way down to 1/128 power). Manual flash is ideal when you want a consistent amount of power every time and is best used when working in predictable environments, such as a studio. Think of TTL as ‘Auto’ for flash. It works by firing a brief pre-flash as you press the shutter. The reflected light from the pre-flash travels back through the lens (hence TTL) and the camera calculates the exact amount of flash required to expose the scene correctly. The ‘full’ flash is then fired. This all takes a split second, so you only see one…

Q I’m after a high-quality but inexpensive portrait lens to use on my D7000. What would you recommend as a good used buy? Jon Stringer A Matthew recommends… I’d go for the Sigma 50mm lens that predates the current ‘Art’ version. It has an equally fast f/1.4 aperture rating and works really well for DX format portraiture. Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM THIS FAST, HIGH-QUALITY PRIME LENS FROM SIGMA IS A GREAT SECONDHAND BUY RELEASED: 2008 PRICE NEW: £380/$570 SECONDHAND PRICE: ‘Excellent’ £190/$280 ‘Good’ £120/$200 Combining an ‘effective’ focal length of 75mm on a DX format Nikon camera with a fast aperture of f/1.4, this lens enables a natural shooting distance for portraiture, along with a tight depth of field that’s ideal for blurring the background. It’s a bit…

Nikon Z 9 £TBA/$TBA www.nikon.co.uk Nikon has announced its new flagship camera, the Z 9 – a mirrorless camera featuring the Z mount, a full-frame stacked CMOS sensor and 8K video capability, plus an all-new processor, and which will be available this year. The Nikon Z 9 was revealed in a short development announcement, so full specs were not revealed. The official image reveals that It bears the ‘pro DSLR form factor’ of the Nikon D6, with a built-in vertical grip (and, presumably, an extra-large battery with increased capacity). What else can we tell from the image? It appears that the mode dial is replaced by a bank of buttons – the bracketing button is visible, there will likely also be buttons to cycle between PASM, metering and WB functions.…

Home printing has become a big deal over the past year, with so much ‘work from home’ going on. But printers aren’t just for workaday jobs like documents and spreadsheets. They can also turn digital shots into physical photos. Indeed, some of us feel like a digital photo only becomes ‘real’ when it’s printed onto a sheet of paper, rather than existing purely in the digital realm. We’re kicking off with four A4/8.5-inch models that are eminently suitable for creating mono and colour documents, while also working well as photo printers for outputting bordered or borderless glossy prints in popular sizes, including 4x6-inch, 5x7-inch, A4 and 8.5x11-inch. For many, they represent the perfect compromise, enabling a raft of home office duties while also delivering impressive photo quality output. The contenders…

Ink cartridges are the headline running cost of any printer. Some inkjet printers come with options for standard, XL and even XXL cartridges. Going for a higher-capacity option generally reduces the cost per print, and you won’t have to replace cartridges so often, but they’re more expensive. Canon MegaTank and Epson EcoTank printers have larger ink tanks, which are replenished from bottles. This can work out much cheaper for ink, but there’s a bigger up-front cost. It’s natural to think that printers with a larger number of cartridges will be more expensive to run, but the flip side is that you’ll use less of each colour. See the graphs in each of the following reviews to see the cost per millilitre of ink, using the largest-capacity cartridges available.…

Going literally one up on the PIXMA TS6350/6320 five-ink printer, also on test, this up-market model features an additional dye-based ink in ‘photo blue’ flavour. The idea is to extend the colour space as well as enabling smoother graduations in the likes of blue skies within photo prints. The printer itself is available in black, white or racy red, going by the UK model numbers of TS8350, TS8351 and TS8352 respectively. Other enhancements over its more budget-friendly sibling include a 4.3-inch colour touchscreen, a higherresolution 2400x4800dpi scanner, an SD/HC/XC memory card slot for standalone photo printing, and a tray for printing directly onto white-faced CD/DVD/Blu-ray discs. Both printers feature a motorized output tray, which extends automatically when printing. Performance Print quality in terms of colour rendition, tonal range and retention…

Canon’s PIXMA PRO-100S has long been our favourite A3+/13-inch pro-grade printer for creating photo prints on glossy paper. Running on eight dye-based inks, including black, grey and light grey, it delivered smooth glossy prints with immaculate colour rendition and good tonal expression for black-and-white photographs. A new range of inks aims for greater colour space, superior vibrancy and deeper reds, blues and blacks. Paper handling is intuitive, as in the PRO-300 on test, with an upright rear feeder and secondary manual feeder, which enables custom print lengths of up to 39 inches. There’s also a new 3-inch colour LCD screen and compatibility with Canon’s Professional Print & Layout software, as well as wideranging fine art media from the likes of Canson and Hahnemühle. Performance Printing is quick and, as is…