Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2022 i N-Photo: the Nikon magazine

Photographing the Indian Holi Festival in March 2020, Covid seemed like a distant concern. The UK had just had its first cases of the virus and news reports were full of toilet roll shortages, but life in India was continuing as normal. While crowded events were being cancelled in the UK, in the ancient city of Mathura, thousands of pilgrims seemed intent on slathering me with brightly coloured paint. I flew home with some trepidation, a bottle of Old Monk rum and two bottles of super-strength Indian hand sanitizer. Naively, I hoped it would all be over in a few weeks: it wasn’t! I don’t think anyone imagined at that time that, two years on, we would only now be looking at some of the most photogenic parts of the world opening…

Back in March Nikon invited us to London’s Lee Valley VeloPark – the cycling venue for the 2012 Olympics – to photograph breakdancing, BMX freestyle and, of course, cyclists navigating the incredible velodrome. Armed with a Z 6II and a brand-new Z 9, we were able to make full use of the very best camera equipment Nikon has to offer. But while the Big N’s latest bodies boast incredible low-light capabilities and its most advanced AF systems to date, they don’t take the photographs for you. High-end camera kit is constantly pushing boundaries further than ever before and redefining expectations, but the basic ingredients required to capture a good action shot haven’t really changed… Images need to be sharp and subjects need to be in focus, shutter speeds have to…

FREE! 16 STARBURST BRUSHES Whether you use them on a candle flame, a setting sun or a street lamp, starburst effects are a great way to add atmosphere to any shot that has light sources in the frame. They occur naturally under the right conditions when you use a medium to narrow aperture, but when the effect is stored as a brush, you can use them to enhance images quickly. This issue, we have a kit with 16 effects, and they’re simple to install and use. First, copy the Starburst Effects. abr file to your computer. To get them into Photoshop, open the Brushes panel (Window> Brushes) and click on the flyout (the four-line icon in the top-right). Select Import Brushes, then navigate to where you put the file. Once…

Camera: Nikon D5 Lens: 400mm f/2.8 Exposure: 1/3200 sec, f/7.1, ISO1600 By his own admission, Chris McLennan was spending too much time away from home. After all, during his 30-year professional career he’s delivered commercial projects and led intrepid photo tours in 60 countries. But when the pandemic hit, his busy schedule didn’t just let up, it stalled completely. With the global travel and tourism industry brought to its knees, the pro had no choice but to hunker down and diversify his photography business. Living in his native New Zealand’s stunning South Island helped and he was soon offering local photography tours and homestay weekends at his remote, picturesque residence. Roughly two years later and overseas travel is back on the agenda. Commercial budgets are gradually loosening and photography globetrotters…

1. Nikon is making memory cards but are they any good? Nikon is now making its own CFexpress Type B memory cards – are they worth picking up? Nikon has just announced that it is producing its own line of memory cards: the Nikon MC-CF660 CFexpress Type B. With so many brands hopping on the (what seems to be, at least) future dominant memory format, what does Nikon’s card have to offer? https://bit.ly/3jPAKf5 2. Earth-shattering Nikon Z 9 update The latest firmware update for the Nikon Z 9 well and truly cements its place in the professional video world. If there’s ever been a firmware update to get excited about, it’s this. The flagship camera was already an absolute beast with astonishing 8K 30p video capabilities, but this recent update…

We delve deep inside a Nikon camera to show exactly how the shutter system works, and how it can control exposure so accurately… 1 Focal plane Nikon cameras use a vertical-travel focal plane shutter. ‘Focal plane’ indicates that it’s located just in front of your camera’s sensor. 2 Twin blinds The shutter mechanism is made up of two ultra-thin blinds that move up and down. One opens to start the exposure, the second follows to close it. 3 Motor Though it’s controlled electronically, the shutter itself is mechanical, with its own motor for firing and cocking the blinds. On a DSLR, a separate motor is used to raise the mirror just before the shutter fires. 4 Longevity The expected life of the mechanism varies from model to model. The D6’s…

Worth £53/$69! Free forN-Photo readers Pressing the shutter button is only the start of the process of creating a photograph. Editing the image to bring the best out of it is arguably the most time-consuming part. But it needn’t be that way, and Color Projects 5 aims to make transforming your images into stunning photographs easy. There are dozens of ways in which you can process an image depending on the effect you want to achieve, and this clever program instantly processes an image in 160 different ways, each with a unique look. There are presets specifically designed to enhance landscapes, portraits and architecture, or give your images a seasonal look, or transform photographs into paintings. You can simply pick the one you like and export the image, job done! But…

1. Inside Out BY JAZ72 This month’s winner was chosen for its unique concept and technical proficiency. Not only are the interior and exterior exposures balanced perfectly, but the ornate Gothic architecture contrasts beautifully against the minimalist modern building. The two children provide additional interest and encourage the viewer to follow their gaze out towards the magnificent cathedral. Camera: Nikon D500 Lens: 11-20mm f/2.8 Exposure: 1/320 sec, f/8, ISO500 2. Chicago Lights BY MUHAMMAD AL-QATAM This shot was captured from the 360 CHICAGO Observation Deck during blue hour. Shooting just after sunset meant it was late enough for the city to be lit up and early enough for the remaining ambient light to illuminate the buildings. The result is an immensely detailed image with very little clipping. Tripods were banned…

A circular polarizer is one of the most useful accessories to have in your camera bag and has several possible effects on your photos. At certain angles it will darken blue skies, as well as appear to saturate other colours within a scene. It will also help to reduce unwanted glare from shiny surfaces, and even remove reflections. Polarizers have long been a popular filter for travel photographers who want to deepen beautiful blues skies. This is best achieved when the sun is at 90 degrees to the lens, as you’ll find that when the sun is directly in front or behind you, there will be little or no effect! The removal or reduction of reflections can also be a powerful photographic trick. Again, travel photographers like to remove the reflection…

Could it be that we’re finally able to venture into the wider world again? After two years of lockdowns – and false starts aplenty – travel restrictions are easing the world over, enabling us to explore – and shoot – far-flung exotic locations. Travel pro Steve Davey reckons there’s never been a better time to hone your skills before the tourist hordes are back… This issue’s apprentice heads to the studio of midwife-turned-mother-and-baby photographer Tianna J-Williams to capture enchanting portraits of expectant mums in a maternity masterclass. In our interview, we speak with New Zealander Chris McLennan, who tells how he ventured from the South Island to become one of the world’s foremost commercial travel and adventure photographers. In our Gear section, we review and rate the astonishing Z 28-75mm…

Tianna says… Hair and makeup takes up to two hours (one for just the latter). Gabriele (@infogabrielemua) is the makeup artist I work with for the majority of my clients and she knows exactly what I like. Some people decide to have their makeup done elsewhere and if this happens I ask them to limit the intensity of the contouring. Bold makeup is very popular on Instagram and TikTok, but while it looks good in ambient lighting conditions, it’s less suitable in the studio. This is because the lighting does the contouring for you – it’s carefully shaped to add definition to the face and can be enhanced further by dodging and burning in post.…

The Winter of the Lake MIMMO SALIERNO Special prize: The Snow & Ice Award Mimmo captured this absolutely beautiful snow-covered morning at Lake Laceno, Italy. It makes you want to reach for your thickest coat! Camera: Nikon D5 Lens: 70-200mm f/2.8 Exposure: 1/500 sec, f/11, ISO1250 The Kiss TOM PUTT Tom found himself in Perth, Western Australia, with a few days to spare, so took to the air to capture a different perspective of the nearby mines. The complex design from the run-off reminded him of two figures embracing. Camera: Nikon Z 7 Lens: 24-70mm f/4 Exposure: 1/1500 sec, f/4.8, ISO200 Enlightened J FRITZ RUMPF The interconnectedness of light and dark reminds Fritz of the delicate balance of enjoying the landscape while following local regulations so as to not damage…

When photographing landscapes, it’s desirable to have a perfectly level horizon. Most tripods have a number of bubble levels to help you straighten your shooting platform, and Nikon cameras that feature a built in virtual horizon display in Live View mode make it easier than ever – at least for shooting a single frame. But when shooting a panorama, you’ll inevitably find that what was level in one orientation becomes increasingly off kilter as you pan the tripod head to shoot the individual segments for stitching. It’s a problem that becomes exacerbated when shooting on an uneven surface, as getting the tripod even close to being level becomes a real juggling act of adjusting the length of all three tripod legs. This is the issue we were faced with when…

We’re all used to seeing portraits with lovely background bokeh, but what about a different kind of blur? Motion blur can give your portraits a dynamic sense of speed and blur the surroundings into gorgeous silky streaks. In this project we’ll look at how it’s done. First we’ll explain how to shoot subjects in moving cars to capture both stunning blurred trails of light and a sharp subject in a single frame, then we’ll explore a few other methods for shooting beautiful motion blurred backgrounds. This can be something of a balancing act in terms of our camera settings. We need to slow our shutter speed down to a length that will allow for the moving parts of the scene to become blurred, while at the same time keeping it…

Q Somebody recommended the old version of the Nikon 80-400mm VR to me. Is it a good secondhand buy? Alan Laithwaite A Matthew recommends… We’re featuring the newer version of the lens in this month’s big test of supertelephoto zooms, but the original edition is typically a much less expensive secondhand buy. Nikon AF 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D IF-ED VR IF BLAZING AUTOFOCUS SPEED ISN’T ON YOUR LIST OF ‘MUST-HAVES’, THIS IS A CLASSIC LENS RELEASED: 2000 PRICE NEW: £649/$599 SECONDHAND PRICE: ‘Excellent’ £449/$495 ‘Good’ £395/$425 Vibration Reduction has revolutionized handheld shooting and this lens kicked off the whole VR era as Nikon’s first ever stabilized lens. Although designed for 35mm film cameras, it’s compatible with all FX digital bodies, as well as up-market DX cameras. But as an AF rather than AF-S or AF-P…

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 often times when we can’t get as close as we’d like. If you’re shooting anything from small timid birds to planes at an air show, from athletes to motor sports, or wildlife on safari, you’ll need a lens that really covers the distance. A super-telephoto lens will get you there, and a zoom beats a prime for flexibility when your movements are limited. That’s especially true if you’re confined to a hide for photographing wildlife, or in a spectators’ area at a sporting event. A super-telephoto zoom can also come in handy for photographing candid portraits at events, so you can be unobtrusive and pick people out from a distance, while also blurring the background with a fairly tight depth of field. They can even offer a creative…

THE PRO NAME: Tianna J-Williams CAMERA: Nikon Z 6II Ex-midwife Tianna used to deliver babies, but nowadays she spends most of her time delivering bespoke maternity shoots for newborns and mums-to-be. She started out photographing her baby girl, but when unpredictable shifts and long hours kept them apart she left the NHS and opened for business. Five years to the day and she’s won numerous awards and is a Nikon Europe Z Creator. Both Marie and the clients are in good hands: www.tiannajwilliamsphotography.co.uk THE APPRENTICE NAME: Marie Ainge CAMERA: Nikon D7200 A milestone birthday prompted Leicestershire-based Marie to sell her kayaking kit and raise the funds to buy her first camera, a Nikon D3400. Lockdown provided her with the opportunity to explore her newfound hobby and she’s since tried her…

You’d be forgiven for thinking that using a tripod is a sure-fire way to capture shake-free shots. But even when your Nikon’s securely locked in place it’s still possible to end up with images that aren’t tack-sharp. This is because even the slightest vibrations can cause camera shake. A good starting point is to turn off a lens’s Vibration Reduction, because image stabilization has been known to compensate for movement that doesn’t exist when the camera is stationary. If you want to be really thorough you could extend this to the in-body VR present in some Z cameras, although we’ve yet to experience any adverse effects by leaving it on. Perhaps the easiest way to introduce unwanted movement is by physically pressing the shutter button. Even if you have a…

If you want to make composite images by combining photos, or bring in things like graphics and text, then one of the biggest challenges is in making it look like the separate elements belong together. Affinity’s Displace filter can be very useful in this regard. It allows you to distort the shape of an image or detail so that it conforms to the shapes on the image underneath. So it lets us replicate the texture or surface undulations of one image onto another. This allows us to add a pattern to our subject’s dress. The filter skews the pattern so that the leaves look as if they’re curving around the folds in the fabric, rather than just added on top. You can use the same technique to combine all sorts…

Your Nikon’s shutter controls how long the sensor is exposed to light for. It uses a pair of ‘curtains’, or ‘blinds’, to do this (see page 82). The first opens to start the exposure, and the second closes to end it. At slower speeds, both curtains are open for some of the exposure. At faster speeds (anything above the ‘flash sync speed’ of 1/200 sec or 1/250 sec) the second curtain begins to close before the first has completed its travel. This means that the sensor is effectively exposed to light through a moving slit. At the start of each exposure, the first curtain is fully closed and the second fully open. They are reset to this position by the camera at the end of every exposure, ready for the…

Your Nikon gives you great control over the way moving subjects will appear. This assignment will help you explore that potential. For the exercise, we recommend using a tripod to eliminate camera movement. You’ll also need a willing (and reasonably fit!) volunteer to run or cycle past you several times at a consistent speed. In the examples here, the rider was travelling at about 30km/h (20mph). 1 Use Shutter Priority (S) mode and set an ISO of 400. Set the release mode to Continuous (C) or Continuous High-speed (Ch). Set the focus mode to Continuous-servo AF (AF-C). 2 Set the shutterspeed to 1/4000 sec. This will show as 4000. If the aperture readout changes to ‘Lo’, increase the ISO. Get your volunteer to move past you, and take some shots as they…

1 Control icons In addition to enabling you to start and save your project and exporting your final image, there are options for Raw editing, viewing a histogram, creating images for exposure bracketing and much more. 2 Image preview The image is displayed in the main window with all the presets and additional options applied. You can instantly switch between a before-and-after view by simply right-clicking on the image. 3 Display icons Control how the main image preview is displayed. As well as the degree of zoom, you can determine whether processing is carried out in real time and on a smaller image preview, for quicker calculations. 4 Processing presets To keep things manageable the 160 presets are subdivided into groups, ranging from subtle Natural, Landscape and Portrait treatments to more outlandish Drawings, Surreal…

Nikon Z 800mm f/6.3 VR S £6299/$6497 www.nikon.co.uk At over six grand, A the Nikon Z 800mm f/6.3 VR S is certainly not a budget lens, but the key point here is that it’s little more than one-third of the price of the Nikon 800mm f/5.6E FL ED VR F-mount DSLR lens. So while some (including us) have questioned the f/6.3 maximum aperture, that’s thrown into sharp focus (sorry) by the new lens’s price point. That’s not all. By using the advantages of the Nikon Z lens mount and incorporating a Phase Fresnel (PF) lens element, Nikon has made the Nikon Z 800mm f/6.3 VR S an incredible 2.3kg lighter and 16 per cent shorter than the DSLR lens. Nikon says that this makes the new Z-mount 800mm a practical…

The Nikon Z 28-75mm f/2.8 is a fascinating proposition. Technically it doesn’t quite qualify as a trinity lens, falling just outside the traditional 24-70mm focal length configuration, yet it boasts a constant f/2.8 aperture and near S-lens performance. Obviously the Nikon Z 28-75mm f/2.8 is a little longer but not quite as wide as the trinity sibling it will be compared to, the Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S, but it has a significant trick up its sleeve: it’s about half the price. Getting trinity trappings in a lens like this, with everything from the constant fast aperture to weather sealing, means that this is one of the best Nikon Z lenses for professionals and enthusiasts alike. Indeed, we tested it on the Nikon Z 9 under some very challenging indoor…

It was really inspiring to find out that this month’s Apprentice pro Tianna J-Williams (page 6) first picked up a camera when her daughter was born and quickly worked up the confidence to quit a successful medical career and start a photography business. Five years later and the studio is thriving, she’s won numerous awards and is a Nikon Z creator. Tianna is still a young woman, but with an extremely busy career and a baby girl at home, she had every opportunity to put obstacles in the way and avoid following her passion. It was equally inspiring to see Marie’s enthusiasm (Tianna’s apprentice) who, following a milestone birthday, decided to buy her first camera and is now giving photography her all. There’s always room to bloom It can…