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

Kebabiyana DEBDATTA CHAKRABORTY Overall winner (and winner, Street Food) Khayam Chowk is an alleyway in Srinagar, India. In the evening, charcoal ovens are lit by vendors, and the aroma and smoke of wazwan kebabs turn this street into a food-lover’s paradise. Camera: Nikon D750 Lens: 16-35mm f/4 Exposure: 1/100 sec, f/8, ISO450 Food Processing JOYJIT DAS Winner, Young (15-17) Eid, the holiday that marks the end of Ramadan in the Muslim calendar, lies ahead, so a boy is working on drying raw semai in the sun. These fine noodles form the basis of traditional sweet puddings. Camera: Nikon D7100 Exposure: 1/200 sec, f/7.1, ISO140 Blood Orange Madeleines CAROLIN STROTHE Winner, Food Stylist Award Inspired by Marcel Proust’s literary use of madeleines, these tasty treats celebrate spring with blood oranges, home-made…

1 FOLLOW THE LAW Before you start any nature project, it’s essential to familiarize yourself with the laws on nature photography laid out in the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981. All animals are protected from cruelty from a welfare and moral standpoint; this act goes further and sets out different categories and levels of protection for wildlife. Rare birds, for example, are in Schedule One of the Act. It includes around a hundred species, and states that it is a criminal offence to “intentionally or recklessly disturb the bird while it is at or near its nest and including dependant young”. Fortunately, photography is permissible but it is controlled by a system of licensing. Check government websites for more details and how to apply for a photography licence. 2 KNOW…

When it comes to photographing flying birds in practice, some things never change 13 BIRDS IN FLIGHT The efficiency of autofocus systems on many of the latest Nikon cameras continues to amaze, as do the permutations of settings to be found in the menus that control it all. When it comes to photographing flying birds in practice, however, some things never change. To get a feel for how your camera performs with different settings in real life, a visit to a duck pond in a public park should provide enough opportunities to try it out. In addition, switch off the image stabilizer on the lens if you are using a shutter speed that is adequate to avoid camera-shake, because that can affect autofocus performance on some systems. Other tips include…

Some scenes are so iconic that they can be reduced down to simple blocks of colour and still remain instantly recognizable. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is a case in point. In this project we’ll look at how to transform the flowing lines of a building photograph into a series of graphic shapes, just like creating a minimalist painting. The same technique can be used on all kinds of photos, although it tends to work best on buildings. So if you have a photo of your own in mind, why not give it try? There are two stages. First we’ll transform our photo into a pencil sketch using a clever combination of layer blending modes and blur filters. This gives us a fine degree of control over the look of…

1 Sturdy tripod The camera needs to be perfectly still for several minutes, so a tripod is a must. We need to remain in place for a while, so set up in a spot that won’t get in the way of passersby or other photographers. If a tripod isn’t practical (or permitted) in the location you’re visiting, you could use a wall or your bag. 2 Neutral-density filter A 16-stop ND filter like our Formatt-Hitech Firecrest stretches your exposure times to minutes, or even hours. In bright sunshine, a 1/500 sec shutter speed becomes two minutes 11 seconds (compared to just two seconds with a 10-stop ND): a good length for blurring clouds and removing passers by. 3 People and vehicles One of the benefits of shooting long exposures in…

Play with settings By default, the AE-L/AF-L button locks both the exposure and the focus. But you can change the camera settings so that it only locks the exposure. Frame the shot First, frame your shot to include only the areas you want correctly exposed. Do this by turning the camera or zooming in, then holding down the button. Choose an area Let’s say we want to expose for the stained glass windows. Zoom in so they fill the frame, then hold down the AE-L/AF-L button. Rinse and repeat Keep holding the AE-L/AF-L button (you’ll see the AE-L symbol in the viewfinder) to reframe and take the shot. Pick your spot This leaves the rest of the shot too dark. For a different result, try framing the scene to include…

Worth £53/$69! Free for N-Photo readers Windows only CutOut 7 makes it easy to cut elements from images with crisp, clean edges, and transpose them into different settings. This clever program has a number of tools to make separating subjects from backgrounds easy. Chromakey Matting is designed for subjects shot against clean ‘bluescreen’ or ‘greenscreen’ backgrounds, and transforming these into transparent areas in a click. However, most subjects aren’t shot against such ideal conditions, and so, to get rid of more complex backgrounds, there’s the Inside/Outside Edge Matting tool. In a nutshell, you trace two lines – one inside your subject, the other outside – and the program does the rest, intelligently analysing the region between the two paths and deciding which bits belong to the subject or background. Finally,…

Q Do you have any plans to review Viltrox DX format Z-mount lenses? It looks like there are some interesting options in the line-up, and I’m wondering they’re of good quality… Esa Rahiala A We’ll be publishing a full review in a forthcoming issue, but I’ve actually just bought the Viltrox AF 23mm f/1.4 Z to use with my Z fc. I’ve been very impressed so far. It’s one of a trio of compact, affordable yet high-quality f/1.4 autofocus prime lenses from Viltrox: the others have 33mm and 56mm focal lengths. As such, the range gives classic effective focal lengths of about 35mm, 50mm and 85mm in full-frame terms. Build quality and handling are very good. The lenses feature fast, near-silent stepping motor autofocus systems and de-clicked aperture control rings.…

1. Pretty Pastels BY TONYNORTH This beautiful group of cyclamens is a composite. The flowers were photographed individually on a lightbox and combined in Photoshop, using the Multiply blending mode to create the semitransparent effect. We love the pastel colours, the placement of the flowers at different heights to balance the frame, and how the rule of odds has been used to perfect the composition. Camera: Nikon D500 Lens: 105mm f/2.8 Exposure: 1/6 sec, f/16, ISO160 2. Flower of Cactus BY MURVEL48 The Nikon Z 7’s built-in focus shift function was put to good use while photographing this incredibly detailed flower head. A whopping 30 images were combined in post-production to achieve front-to-back sharpness. We also like what appears to be some very tasteful colour popping, which really highlights the…

Nikon Z 30 From £699/$TBA www.nikon.co.uk Nikon’s first dedicated vlogging camera is designed to run rings around the video capabilities of smartphones, without compromising on ease of use. Images weren’t available at the time of writing, so you’ll have to take our word for it when we tell you that the lack of a viewfinder is what really sets this body apart from its Z-mount counterparts. With no optional-extra EVF replacement, the Z 30’s video-first mantra is abundantly clear. Other physical additions intended to woo vloggers are a much bigger record button, a chunky grip for handheld shooting, and a proper vari-angle screen that automatically switches to Self-Portrait Mode when flipped out for selfie-style vlogging. Nikon tells us the DX-format 20.88Mp CMOS sensor is very similar to the Z 50’s.…

£199/$199 https://nisioptics.co.uk NiSi’s latest square filter system holder and polarizer combo is simple to fit and colour cast-free NiSi has established itself as one of the most-trusted brands in filter systems, with many top-name pros swearing by them – thanks to their True Color optical glass, which promises cast-free images through even the highest-density filters. The backbone of the system is the holderand-polarizer combo, which has recently been updated to this V7 incarnation. The kit includes a three-slot holder for square filters with a recess into which fits an 82mm adaptor ring. It’s secured by pulling out a retaining clip, which is then locked in place with a twist – this is one of the chief design changes over the previous V6 holder, which has a separate retaining clip and…

When it comes to wildlife, few photographers are as prolific as Laurie Campbell, and this issue he shares his decades of experience shooting birds and mammals throughout the British Isles. Our apprentice turns his attention to altogether smaller critters, as he undertakes a macro masterclass, photographing incredible close-ups of butterflies and bugs in West Country nature reserves. In our interview we quiz Finnish outdoors photographer Eeva Mäkinen about her breathtakingly beautiful landscapes and images of their inhabitants in and around the Arctic Circle. In our Big Test, we try carbon-fibre tripods that combine stupendous strength with a lightweight build. And while we’re aware we’re in a cost-of-living crisis, we couldn’t resist bringing you our thoughts on Nikon’s amazing (but eye-wateringly expensive) two-in-one 400mm f/2.8 prime that turns into a 560mm…

GIFT WORTH £67! Great reasons to subscribe now! ✔ Lowepro Nova 160 AW II bag This timeless camera shoulder bag provides premium protection from the elements for a DSLR or mirrorless with attached standard lens, plus 1-2 additional lenses and flash ✔ Free online videos Each issue, you’ll receive access to our fantastic photo project videos ✔ Great savings Get a rolling six-monthly subscription at the discounted prices below – you just pay every six months. Choose from these three options… Option 1 Digital subscription £27.50 every six months (no gift) • 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 Print subscription £28 every…

5 APPRECIATING ANIMAL SENSES Compared with humans, all wildlife will have one or more of their senses that are far more developed than any of ours. You need to take this into account to stand any chance of getting close, even if you’re using a hide. For wildlife, having more acute senses is essential: their very survival may depend on it. With mammals, it’s usually their senses of smell and hearing that are most acute, while for birds it’s eyesight and hearing. For mammals that spend much of their lives in water, such as otters and seals, it’s said that their eyesight isn’t as important; but when they are on land, it’s safer to assume that it’s as at least as good as ours. With birds, and raptors in particular,…

This month the good ship N-Photo blasted off into an uncharted area of East Sussex for a sci-fi-themed portrait shoot, courtesy of The Creativity Hub (see www.creativityhubevents.com for upcoming events). As we photographed a series of futuristic scenes – which wouldn’t look out of place in a Philip K Dick novel – we had some of the very best lighting kit Rotolight has to offer at our disposal. Most exciting of all were the lighting outfit’s new AEOS 2 and NEO 3 LED panels. These both provide continuous lighting (which we used) and high-speed RGB flash, making them ideal solutions for film-makers and photographers alike. Each light can be controlled via a neat little touchscreen and a pair of command wheels, allowing you to cycle through a whopping 2500 digital…

FREE! 15 water reflection effects If you want to give an image a brand-new look, this cool technique may be right up your street – or down your river! It effectively ‘floods’ the foreground of any scene with a computergenerated water reflection effect, making it look like the scene is photographed from a low angle on a body of water. All you have to do is choose the baseline of the source picture, and this becomes the ‘waterline’ in the new, flooded image. Take care to choose a horizontal line that could actually be a waterline – and for a convincing result, avoid anything breaking this line that would stand out as inappropriate when reflected. The technique will work on all kinds of images, from still-life shots and full-length portraits…

Take a test shot Before you attach the filter, take a test shot to work out a normal exposure of the scene. Use whatever exposure settings you’re comfortable with – a good option is Aperture Priority with ISO100, aperture f/8. This is a good time to experiment with compositions and fine-tune your framing. Lock the focus The filter is almost opaque: once it is in place, you won’t be able to focus or compose. Get the focus correct now, then switch the lens to manual focus to prevent it from hunting. Fit the filter, making sure not to nudge the tripod out of place, and block the viewfinder to stop light leaks. Using a 16-stopper A 16-stop filter is suited to daylight conditions with bright skies. 16 stops is overkill…

Summer has arrived early in Kuusamo, a small town in Finland’s northeast, close to the Russian border. Here, the winters are long and bitterly cold, but the attractions of snowcovered trees, frozen lakes and the Northern Lights make it a popular destination for landscape photographers from the world over. It’s 8pm on 1 June when I speak to Eeva Mäkinen, who is sitting outside, listening to the local birdsong near the lakeside where she lives. “It’s a beautiful evening here,” she says happily. “The summer came around one and a half weeks early. Usually this time of the year we might still have some ice on the lakes, but now as I’m sitting on our own lake shore, the trees have leaves already and it’s really summery, 20 degrees!” Eeva…

External controls The location of the metering mode control depends on the Nikon you’re using. On the D850, it’s a button on top of the camera, while on the older D800, it’s a dial mounted around the AE-L/AF-L button. Information display On beginner-friendly models such as the D3500, as well as Z-series cameras, you change the metering pattern using the on-screen interface. First, press the ‘i’ button on the back of the camera to activate the interface. Metering mode icon Now use the multi-selector to highlight the metering mode icon in the menu, or tap it if your camera has a touch-screen. It will display an icon showing the currently selected metering mode. Press the OK button… Mode choice You can now pick which metering mode you want to use…

Spot metering mode is great for precise exposure readings, and can be a godsend when you’re shooting in tricky light. But the skill lies in deciding which part of the scene to take the reading from in the first place. Practice makes perfect! 1 CHOOSE A HIGH-CONTRAST SUBJECT TO SHOOT This picture of a lizard against a dark background is a good example, because there’s a big brightness difference. The camera doesn’t know which area needs to be correctly exposed – only you do! There are two solutions… 2 SET THE AF POINT The first option is to select the AF point that corresponds to the part of the picture you want to be exposed correctly. Remember that the AF point is where the spot reading will be taken from.…

Q I’ve been given a used D5100 camera body. What would you suggest as a suitable second-hand standard zoom? Harry Simmons A Matthew recommends… I’d look no further than the Nikon AF-S DX 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR II. Its retractable design makes it remarkably small and light, ideally suited to the compact D5100. Nikon AF-S DX 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6G VR II SMALL BUT MIGHTY, THIS IS AN OFTEN OVERLOOKED STANDARD ZOOM THAT’S MORE THAN WORTH THE MONEY RELEASED: 2014 PRICE NEW: £250/$250 SECONDHAND PRICE: ‘Excellent’ £85/$129 ‘Good’ £75/$98 The VR II was the last of the AF-S editions of the lens, before Nikon switched to an AF-P (Pulse stepping motor) autofocus system, which is incompatible with the D5100 and other older DSLRs. It’s unfeasibly small for a standard zoom, weighing a…

£13,500/$14,000 Sell your car and buy a Nikon Z 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S telephoto lens instead, says Matthew Richards. It’s worth it! The Nikon Z 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S adds genuine clout to the Z-system telephoto line-up. Lenses with built-in teleconverters to extend the focal length are rare, but not unique. Nikon already makes the AF-S 180-400mm f/4E ED VR TC1.4 F-mount super-telephoto zoom with a built-in teleconverter. This prime lens follows suit, combining a native 400mm f/2.8 configuration with a 1.4x extender that gives you 560mm at f/4. Not only is the internal teleconverter much quicker to add into or take out of the equation with a simple flip of a lever, it’s also designed specifically to match the optical characteristics of this particular lens. Key features…

For most photographers, the perfect tripod should offer solid support for shots free of camera-shake; a lofty maximum operating height for maximum versatility; and a design that fold downs reasonably small for stowing away. In addition, your tripod shouldn’t be overly heavy: after all, nobody wants to lug around more weight than they need to. Big, heavy tripods often feel a bit of a chore to use, and end up being left at home, where they’re no use at all. At the other end of the scale, lightweight tripods are often disappointingly short and comparatively flimsy, prone to swaying around in a breeze. For material gains, carbon-fibre has distinct advantages over aluminium. It’s impressively rigid yet lighter in weight, to the extent that most full-sized carbon tripod kits (including head)…

THE PRO NAME: Ross Hoddinott CAMERA: Nikon Z 7II Cornwall-based Ross is a multi-awardwinning wildlife, landscape and macro photographer. He received his first camera at the tender age of nine and turned pro at just 18. Since then, he’s been a regular in the photography press, worked with clients such as the National Trust and Kew Gardens, led a plethora of workshops, and written best-selling photography books. If anyone knows how to find and photograph insects, it’s Ross. For more see: www.rosshoddinott.co.uk THE APPRENTICE NAME: Matthew Barber CAMERA: Nikon D5500 Matthew lives in Bedfordshire and picked up photography as a relaxing outlet from the hustle and bustle of day-to-day life. While some consider photography an expensive hobby, Matthew has proven you can capture cracking close-ups with just a few extension…

It was the brilliant nature photographer Danny Green who first coined the phrase that wildlife photography had become “the new golf”. I feel sure that Danny was referring to the massive surge in the popularity in photographing wildlife that seemed to begin when the advent of digital capture coincided with the time when technologies such as autofocus lenses were starting to get serious. When I started out in the mid-1970s – and at the risk of trotting out the old “When I were a lad” sentiment, akin to the ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch from Monty Python – any genre that involved photographing action was a craft. Imagine, for example, using manual-focus lenses and ISO64 slide film, then having to wait until processed film came back from the lab to see if that…

Choosing which lenses we need is dictated by the subject. A common thread for wildlife centres around long lenses 9 CAMERAS Looking at current trends, mirrorless camera sales are overtaking those of DSLRs. It’s quite a seismic change, particularly for those with so much invested in F-mount lenses. But then, the FTZ adaptor allows many of these older lenses to be attached to the latest Z-series Nikons, albeit with the occasional loss of some functionality. And what of mirrorless cameras themselves? Well, they’re a no-brainer really, for the following reasons, in order of importance for photographing wildlife: better autofocus, silent operation, in-body stabilization, less weight, and sharper lenses. Whether everyone needs to switch is less clear. I have a Nikon Z 9 on order, but I don’t need that many…

Famous locations like the Colosseum in Rome are both easy and difficult to photograph. Easy because – well, look at it: it’s incredible. Difficult because this site attracts people by the thousands every day, so it’s hard to find an angle that isn’t swarming with people. This is where a strong neutraldensity filter can be a huge asset. It allows us to take minutes-long exposures, which means that people moving through the frame don’t register in the image. What’s more, it can create lovely motion blur in the clouds, which serves both as an eye-catching visual and an visual metaphor for how this grand structure has stood for millennia while activity buzzes all around. But how strong is strong? 10 stops is a popular strength, but sometimes this just isn’t…

1 Correct noise The camera sensor heats up during a long exposure, causing increased noise and hot pixels. You can use Lightroom’s noise reduction tools to reduce this, but a better option is DxO’s PureRaw, a plugin that can automatically fix an astonishing level of noise and produce a better Raw file. 2 Fix colour casts Strong ND filters will invariably leave the image looking slightly cool. In Lightroom, grab the White Balance eyedropper and click on a neutral point (like the path here) to fix colour casts. Sometimes light can leak in and give edges a magenta cast. This can be fixed with a Radial Filter, set to reduce magenta tint. 3 Combine frames Long exposures can be tricky to get right in changeable conditions, so you may need…

Digital cameras can only register a limited range of tones, and can’t see the range of brightness the human eye can. This presents a problem in high-contrast scenes, where you have dark shadows and bright highlights – when you’re photographing on a sunny day or capturing nightscapes, for example. In these situations, it might not matter which metering mode you choose – you’ll lose detail from the highlights or the shadows. Unless you change your shot, the best exposure needs to be a compromise: how you decide which areas you want to preserve details in will depend on which parts of the scene are the most important. Shooting outdoors, it’s generally a better idea to ensure that the scene highlights aren’t blown out. You can then rescue the detail in…

You shouldn’t always expect to find a metering mode that will give you an ideal exposure for a picture. It’s often essential to use exposure compensation to override the meter reading and get the result you want. You’ll need compensation most frequently when your shot doesn’t conform to the mid-grey average that all the metering modes assume. An obvious example would be a scene that’s made up mostly of light tones, such as a snowy landscape or bulbs of garlic on a white backdrop, as shown here. You might need to dial in one or two stops (+1 or +2EV) of compensation. With subjects that are dark, negative compensation will be needed.…

1 Control icons These icons (from left to right) enable you to adjust the display scale of your image, save the image, activate the Image Assistant, display image info, create a new layer from an image, or print the image. 2 Histogram & zoom Displays the histogram graph of the current layer. The percentage amount on the right denotes the zoom level of the main image window. Clicking directly on this number will allow you to change it. 3 Editing tools Here you will find various selection tools for specifying regions of the photograph for editing, in addition to various other useful editing tools. The ‘?’ icon, above, opens up the program manual. 4 Editing functions Matting, Transform, Lighting, Color and Enhancement functions are subdivided into different editing components and…

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…

£1640/$1649 https://uk.jackery.com Keep your camera charged and post-production workflow up and running while you’re off-grid From landscapes to wildlife, a lot of the photographs we love to take are outside. If you’re on an extended trip outdoors, keeping your camera powered up can be a real problem – and coming home from a long road trip can mean having to wade through thousands of images on your return. If only there was a way to top up your electronics and keep your post-processing workflow under control in the wilds… The Solar Generator 1000 combines a 1000-watt rechargeable Explorer power station and a pair of Solar Sage solar panels, each rated at 100 watts, to recharge it from the sun’s rays. You can also charge it via the mains or from…