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

Heavenly Flamingos JUNJI TAKASAGO Winner, Natural Artistry Junji crept towards the preening group of Chilean flamingos. Framing their choreography within the reflected clouds, he fought back his altitude sickness to capture this scene. High in the Andes, Salar de Uyuni is the world’s largest salt pan. It is also one of Bolivia’s largest lithium mines, which threatens the future of these flamingos. We can help lower demand by recycling old electronics. Camera: Nikon Z 7 Lens: 80-400mm f/4-5.6 Exposure: 1/3200 sec, f/10, ISO800 Puff Perfect JOSÉ JUAN HERNÁNDEZ MARTINEZ Winner, Animal Portraits José arrived at the houbara’s courtship site at night. By the light of the moon, he dug himself a low hide. From this vantage point he caught the bird’s full puffed-out profile as it took a brief rest from…

The moon can be our worst enemy in many types of astrophotography shots, washing out our Milky Way or star trails images, or becoming a hindrance to our aurora-filled skies by flooding the landscape of snow with light and preventing us from being able to capture the full aurora. That said, a good photo of or with the moon can be exquisite. The most important thing to consider, when shooting the moon, is just how bright it is. The moon is a tricky subject. It will easily be clipped because it’s literally reflecting the light from the sun, however it isn’t bright enough to simply take a snapshot. We can usually overcome this by bracketing our exposures and creating an HDR image in post. Doing this with our Nikon camera…

The Mission – Learn to weather the on-track action and photograph rally cars Time – Three hours Skill level – Intermediate Kit needed – Wide-angle or telephoto zoom lens – Air blower – Lens cloth VIEW THE PROJECT VIDEOS ONLINE www.bit.ly/NPhoto144 Rally is arguably the most photogenic motorsport of all. Brightly liveried cars drifting round hairpin corners, kicking up plumes of dust, showers of gravel and lashings of mud and all against a beautiful rural backdrop is a sight to behold. But like most sports, it can also be incredibly challenging to photograph. Stages stretch for miles, so if you’re not ultra-familiar with the course, it can be difficult to know where to set up camp, and unlike circuit cars – glued to the same racing line on a smoothly…

The Mission – Combine two images of the same scene taken with different focal lengths Time – Two hours Skill level – Intermediate Kit needed – Camera – Wide-angle zoom lens – Tripod – Photoshop CC VIEW THE PROJECT VIDEOS ONLINE www.bit.ly/NPhoto144 One of the great joys of landscape photography is a scene with a combination of enticing foreground details and beautiful distant scenery. But composing this into a balanced frame can sometimes be a challenge. If we use a wide-angle lens to include the foreground details, the exaggerated perspective can make the backdrop disappointingly insignificant in the frame. Here, blurred water in the foreground plays an important part in the composition, but to capture it we needed to use a wide-angle lens. This in turn left the focal point…

Have you ever tried to do photography while travelling with a group of non-photographers? It can be a challenge as, just at the moment when the planets align and the conditions are perfect, other things tend to get in the way, such as eating and sleeping. As we know, landscape photography requires a lot of patience, especially when you have to wait for the weather to improve, and Ireland is a place that requires a lot of patience. I put this to the test on a recent trip around southern Ireland with three friends from Los Angeles. None of them had ever been before so it was a great opportunity to show them some of the best landscapes, historic sites and, of course, traditional Irish pubs. I didn’t want to…

FX lens on an FX body Naturally, there’s no problem here. The FX sensor is larger, but the image circle produced by FX lenses is big enough to cover it. If you have some old 35mm Nikon film camera lenses, those will match the FX format too. FX lens on an DX body This works fine too, though the larger image circle of the lens is partially wasted because the smaller DX sensor captures a smaller area in the centre. FX lenses are a good investment, though, if you might move up to the FX format in future. DX lens on an DX body It’s the perfect match. DX lenses produce an image circle just larger than the DX sensor size. If you need a wide-angle lens for your DX…

1 IMAGE QUALITY Full-frame photos tend to have better fine detail and dynamic range than images shot on a DX-format SLR. With the right subject and conditions, the quality advantage becomes obvious. 2 A SENSE OF DEPTH The shallower depth of field you get when shooting with full-frame cameras gives pictures a strong sense of depth. This can be a nuisance in landscape photography, when you want maximum depth of field. 3 LOW LIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY If the megapixels are the will deliver better results at high ISOs. The D6 and Z 9’s performance is staggering. You have to blow the images up a long way before ISO noise becomes visible.…

My girlfriend gave me a solid eye roll the other day as a package arrived at the door. “What’s that?” “It’s… a coat,” I answered, eagerly pulling my knife out and opening the box. “Another one?” was the reply, delivered with that killer look in her eyes. A fair response to my latest addition to what can only be described as an obsessive and extensive outdoor jacket collection. It’s true that I have quite a few coats these days, everything from my beaten-up daily smock to Arctic parkas and everything between. Soft-shells, hard-shells, Gore-Tex, down and synthetic insulators, I have a comprehensive range for almost any circumstance. Some are used every day, whilst others are rather specialist; each, however, with a place, purpose and, of course, a whole load of…

CHRISTMAS GIFT GUIDE 94 It’s a wrap Focus on the perfect present, from stocking fillers to high-end gifts REVIEW 98 Viltrox AF 23mm F1.4 Z This fast DX prime offers great value and is ideal for street shooting BIG TEST 100 Bag your favourite Plenty of pockets and pouches in our review of the latest camera packs 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…

Available in black or silver, the Viltrox AF 23mm F1.4 Z looks right at home on the Nikon Z fc, not least because it has an aperture ring that complements the camera’s hands-on approach to control dials and buttons. It’s one of a trio of f/1.4 lenses, the 23mm, 33mm and 56mm giving effective focal lengths of about 35mm, 50mm and 85mm respectively, in full-frame terms. These are classic focal lengths for street photography, landscape and architectural shooting, portraiture and more. Key features The widest-angle 23mm lens is typical of others in the trio in boasting a fast f/1.4 aperture rating. As such, it can deliver a tight depth of field, at least at fairly short focus distances, and enables fast shutter speeds for freezing motion even under low lighting…

With the days getting shorter and nights drawing in, it’s the perfect time of year to try your hand at astrophotography. Dave Williams shares his top advice for shooting the Northern Lights, Milky Way, star trails, moonscapes and night landscapes. Autumn is also in its full throes, so we took our apprentice to the Wimpole Estate in Cambridgeshire for a landscape masterclass under the expert guidance of Carmen Norman, showing how to best capture the beauty of autumnal colours. In our Big Test, we try out eight photo backpacks for size. Our Gear Section also hosts our annual Christmas Gift Guide, packed with ideas for Christmas gifts – be it for photographer family or friends, or simply treating yourself. Plus we rate the remarkable Viltrox AF 23mm F1.4 Z –…

“The best ISO will depend on the camera but most Nikons can deal easily with ISO3200 When we shoot towards the core of the Milky Way from the northern hemisphere, we need to shoot south. The core of the Milky Way will be visible in the summer, but we can still see other parts of the Milky Way all year round. Just as with the aurora, when we shoot the Milky Way we often want to take in as much of the sky as possible, so shooting with a wide lens is important. A good lens to use is the Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8. This lens is very wide and will allow us to include a lot of the night sky in the image and still give us enough room to…

Shooting a landscape at night is just like shooting a landscape during the day… but different! There are important elements of landscape photography that translate to shooting a landscape at night, including the use of depth to offer distinct foreground, middle-ground and background layers to attract the viewer into the scene. It’s also a great idea to include a subject in the scene for the same reason – it engages the viewer. Adding this interest will enhance our photo and the sky will serve to create even more of a hook to anyone that sees it. But what is the difference between a night landscape and the other types of photography we’ve discussed so far? Well, in the other types of photography we’ve talked about the sky itself being the…

The Mission – Understand your Nikon’s metering modes so you can achieve accurate exposures every time Time – 20 minutes Skill level – Beginner Kit needed – Nikon DSLR or mirrorless VIEW THE PROJECT VIDEOS ONLINE www.bit.ly/NPhoto144 You might not even realize that your Nikon possesses multiple different metering modes and even if you do, you might wonder why you should bother understanding them. After all, if you know one thing about metering, you’ll know that plenty of photographers use Matrix metering exclusively. It’s what every Nikon camera is set to by default after all… You can get by using just Matrix metering then, but you will eventually encounter a challenging lighting situation where the camera struggles to expose the scene correctly or simply isn’t able to replicate the creative…

The Mission – Repair and restore a ripped old print Time – 30 minutes Skill level – Intermediate Kit needed – Affinity Photo VIEW THE PROJECT VIDEOS ONLINE www.bit.ly/NPhoto144 There’s something deeply rewarding about restoring an old photo. It’s not just the chance to breathe new life into a damaged print, but also the joy of restoring an image that can go on to be cherished as a poignant memento for years to come. Affinity Photo offers an array of features for restoration work, from retouching tools like the Inpainting and Clone tools, to the excellent Dust and Scratches filter. While most restoration work won’t be as extreme as our terribly damaged photo here, even ravaged old prints like this example can be restored to their former glory with a…

Blend your focal lengths in Photoshop…

Harry Skeggs Profile ● London-based wildlife photographer Harry Skeggs has travelled to more than 100 countries photographing wildlife and wild landscapes across all seven continents.● Before taking up photography, he studied fine art and art history at Cambridge, with intentions of becoming a painter.● In 2016, he was a finalist in the National Geographic Photographer of the Year and a category winner in the Sunday Times Travel Photographer of the Year contests.● Since then, Harry’s work has been recognized with further accolades, including a gold award in the 2021 World Nature Photography Awards.● Harry is an ambassador of the Nikon Creators scheme and one of only two photographers represented by the Clarendon Fine Art group of galleries. skeggsphotography.com In preparing for this interview, I now know that I will never…

Camera: Nikon D810 Lens: 16-35mm f/4 Exposure: 0.7 secs, f/9, ISO64 MISSION: Capture the best landscapes the Alps have to offer during a five-day photo trip PHOTOGRAPHER: Pawel Zygmunt LOCATION: County Dublin, Ireland KIT USED: Nikon D810, AF-S 16-35mm f/4G ED VR, Sigma 100-400mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM WEBSITE: www.breakinglightpictures.com INSTAGRAM: @breaking_light_pictures I started my photographic journey a long time ago, but around seven years ago it became a really important part of my life. I blame Ireland, it’s such an amazing place to photograph that it would have been a sin not to get to know it. I travelled mostly along the Wild Atlantic Way. I didn’t think twice about upgrading my camera to do it justice, but I soon developed the urge to challenge myself elsewhere. Visiting the…

In theory, lenses will give the same depth of field on both FX and DX cameras, so why do FX cameras seem to yield so much less? Typically, you need to close down the aperture on an FX camera by about a stop and a third to get similar depth of field to the one you’d get from a DX-format camera. So why is this? It’s because you wouldn’t actually use the same lens on both. On the DX camera, the smaller sensor means that you’d use a shorter focal length lens to get the same angle of view. For example, if you use a 50mm lens on an FX camera, you’d need to use a 35mm lens on a DX camera – and the 35mm lens will yield much…

PROS Great ‘bokeh’ (shallow depth of field effects) – images have a sense of depth Larger photosites offer improved dynamic range and high-ISO performance Lenses deliver their ‘true’ focal length – no need to apply a focal factor Higher resolution from the bigger sensor area and more megapixels Bigger bodies for those with bigger hands! You can print pictures bigger and you have more leeway when cropping CONS Harder to get enough depth of field for those shots that need it You need the best lenses and best technique to properly exploit any advantage in quality Disproportionately expensive – the Z 50, for example, is 30 percent less than the Z 5 yet has very similar features Big file sizes can quickly fill your memory cards and place heavy demands…

1. Flying Typewriter BY SCENES BY SUSAN This kaleidoscopic image is a surreal composite created from multiple images of a vintage typewriter. The warped, diminishing rows of keys create a sense of infinite depth that draws the viewer into a mesmeric state. Dark shadows add atmosphere and the warm, sepia-like tones complement the vintage aesthetic. This isn’t just a great image, it’s a cleverly conceived concept. Camera: Nikon D5200 Lens: 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Exposure: 1/30 sec, f/4.8, ISO900 2. Drops BY JAZ72 These metallic orbs and strands might look otherworldly, but they were created using only hot glue and water. The melting glue stick was stretched across the top of a glass to create the fine strands and the vibrant, multi-coloured gradient was created by positioning an LED light beneath the…

Nikon cameras are great at shooting night-time photos. The sensor capability and performance has come on leaps and bounds versus older models, yet the Nikon D750 is still a great camera for shooting in the dark, despite being an eight-year-old body. As with most types of photography, astrophotography can be broken down into other elements, which all require the person standing behind the camera to put in some practice to hone the skills required to achieve the very best results. Some techniques we’ll go over in this article require more effort than others, but the reward will be great images. We’ll take a look at how to get the best out of our cameras and have a look at some post-processing techniques that will help to enhance our photos. Whichever type…

“Avoiding movement when shooting star trails will give a consistent image Now that we know about the 500-rule and how it allows us to shoot stars without motion, it’s time to break that rule. Star trail photos can look incredible when they’re done well, creating the appearance of a disc of stars. Shooting star trails requires longer exposure times than shooting a static sky. The most effective way is taking multiple images and stacking them in Adobe Photoshop. Shooting star trails in camera is possible, but it’s not going to give us a good contrast in the sky and can result in clipped areas of the image, particularly on the horizon. Even the planet’s dark sky sites will give us light pollution. Trail and error We can use a remote…

The Mission – Combine hiking and photography with a minimalist approach to your camera kit Time – One day Skill level – Beginner Kit needed – Standard zoom – Photoshop or similar editing software – Mini-tripod VIEWTHE PROJECT VIDEOS ONLINE www.bit.ly/NPhoto144 More often than not when heading off on a landscape shoot, we have a backpack laden with camera gear to carry. An ultra-wide, standard and (perhaps) telephoto lens, sturdy tripod and a pouch-full of filters are de rigueur. But when undertaking a lengthy hiking trip, essentials like additional layers of clothing, water reservoirs, energy-replenishing snacks and hiking poles take priority. And if you’re planning on walking mile upon mile up and down unforgiving mountainous terrain, the lighter the load the better. Another consideration when hiking is that the priority…

The Mission – Use your free Actions to prepare your photos for printing in A4 or A3 Time – 30 minutes Skill level – Intermediate Kit needed – Photoshop CC VIEW THE PROJECT VIDEOS ONLINE www.bit.ly/NPhoto144 Far too often, our best photos live on storage drives these days, and only seem to get out for an airing on a Facebook or Instagram post. This virtual existence seems at odds with the real-world nature of photography. Turning your photos into real, physical prints is an absolute joy – especially if you haven’t done it for a while. But letting an inkjet printer squirt your shot into the physical realm isn’t the way to do it. Sure, you’ll get a print-out – but you really want a considered print, carefully arranged and…

Shoot a vertical panorama TRY SHOOTING A SCENE IN SEGMENTS FROM THE GROUND BY YOUR FEET UPWARDS THEN STITCH THE FRAMES TOGETHER FOR A VERTICAL PANO If you’re struggling to include foreground details, distant scenery and sky in the same frame then, as well as focal length blends, you could also try shooting a vertical panorama. For this, use a tripod and take a series of horizontal frames. Start with the camera tilted down at your feet, then move it upwards incrementally while shooting until you’ve covered both foreground and distance. Overlap each by about half the frame, and refocus on the centre part of the image in each so that you record front-to-back sharpness. You can combine the frames using a panorama merging feature like the one in Lightroom/Camera…

This series is an insightful look into Japan’s national sport, sumo. Since little is known about the sport to the outside world, I decided to uncover and reveal aspects of what it’s like behind the scenes. I decided to document sumo for two reasons. Firstly, I was curious to know more about the industry, in particular the lifestyles of its rikishi (sumo wrestlers). Secondly, I noted that sumo had never been documented in this way before, so I wanted to bring something new to the market. The photographs were taken in short spells from 2015 to 2017. I mainly shot in Ryogoku, Tokyo, otherwise known as ‘Sumo Town’. This is where the majority of beya (sumo training stables) and the Kokugikan stadium are situated. I photographed the kids in their…

‘Full-frame’ is the term used to describe a camera with a sensor the same size as a 35mm film negative, measuring 36x24mm. Many DSLR and mirrorless cameras, however, use sensors measuring 24x16mm. This is close to the APS-C film format, which is why these are often referred to as ‘APS-C’ cameras. Nikon makes cameras in both sizes, but uses its own nomenclature. Its full-frame cameras are ‘FX’ format, and its APS-C cameras are ‘DX’. Originally almost all DSLRs used the smaller APS-C format. Sensor technology was in its infancy, and manufacturing large sensors was prohibitively expensive. Over recent years full-frame cameras have become less costly, and while Nikon’s D6 and Z 9 have hefty price tags, the D780 and Z 5 cost much less. They’re still not cheap, but they…

Q I want to trade in my D750 and 24-70mm f/2.8 for a Z 6II and get some lighter lenses. Would you recommend the Z 24-70mm, Z 28-75mm or Z 24-200mm? Michael Jack A The Z 6II will save a bit of size and difference. For a lightweight standard zoom, it’s a tough choice between the retractable Z 24-70mm f/4 S and the Z 28-75mm f/2.8. I’d go for the 24-70mm for all-round performance and image quality unless you really want the faster aperture of the 28-75mm and don’t mind sacrificing a little wide-angle coverage. I’m also a big fan of the Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR. Image quality is phenomenal for a ‘superzoom’ lens. There’s not much difference in weight between all three lenses, so it boils down to whether…

UNDER £50 The best Yuletide stocking fillers SanDisk Extreme PRO SD UHS-II USB-C Card Reader Unleash the speed of your UHS-II memory cards with this USB-C reader. £18/$21 www.westerndigital.com N-Photo Subscription Buy a 12-month subscription (13 issues) and get a free Lowepro Tahoe BP150 backpack worth £84 (see page 24). £49.99 www.magazinesdirect.com/lptahoe Peak Design Anchor Links These quick-release links are compatible with most standard neck straps so you can attach/detach your Nikon at speed. £21/$25 www.peakdesign.com Hähnel UniPal Extra Charger A smart universal charger for pretty much every make and model of camera battery, including Nikon, of course. £29/$49 www.hahnel.ie Joby GorillaFeet Tripod Feet Pimp your Joby GorillaPod with a fetching set of novelty GorillaFeet. Choose from duck feet and two sneaker variants. £18/$20 www.joby.com UNDER £100 Mid-range gifts for the…

The Nikon Z fc is my favourite Z camera, but although it’s an extremely capable device in its own right, I’m well aware that I am absolutely enchanted by its FM2-inspired, retro good looks. Those chunky machined-aluminium dials and silver, angular edges are undeniably charming, and when you add an aftermarket leather half-case into the mix, you can turn the hipster cool factor up to 11. When the Nikon Df – the Z fc’s spiritual predecessor – came out in 2013 with its similarly sexy design, I remember wondering why Nikon didn’t just lean into its past and ride the retro bandwagon for all it’s worth. After all, everyone loves the look of retro Nikons; they’re some of the coolest-looking cameras ever made. Back to the future The man responsible…