Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2023 i N-Photo: the Nikon magazine

Beautiful but Hostile Colours on Earth FAYZ KHAN Young Environmental Photographer of the Year Lesser flamingoes photographed over Lake Magadi and Lake Natron in the Southern Rift Valley, Kenya. The former single freshwater lake is now two highly concentrated salt pans, severely alkaline and toxic to most forms of life. But lesser flamingoes are an exception because of their biological makeup, and feed on the algae. The different colours show how the algae reacts to the differing alkaline levels. Camera: Nikon D850 Lens: 70-200mm f/2.8 Exposure: 1/8000 sec, f/4, ISO800 The Bitter Death of Birds MEHDI MOHEBI POUR Grand title winner Between 2019 and 2021, thousands of birds died in the Miankala lagoon due to lack of water and toxic contamination. This photo shows bodies being collected to prevent the…

Open a Raw file in Photoshop CC and it will automatically launch Adobe Camera Raw in its own plug-in window (see below). The first thing to do is correct any lens distortions, such as barrel distortion from wide-angle lenses or pincushion distortion from using a telephoto optic. You’ll also want to fix any vignetting in the corners and chromatic aberration, where bright purple or green colours appear in areas of strong contrast. It’s near-impossible for a lens to not have any chromatic aberration, though premium lenses do a better job at mitigating this. The last of the initial tweaks is to apply a crop, as there’s little point working on areas that will be cropped out. The ACR interface This is what you’ll see when you open a Raw file…

Noise reduction Head to the Detail panel and click on the dropdown arrow next to Noise Reduction, then zoom in on your photo to see any noise clearly. Dragging the Noise Reduction slider to the right will soften details – the more aggressive your noise reduction, the softer the details will become. Dial down graininess The standard Noise Reduction slider reduces the ‘graininess’ you see from using a high ISO. As the name suggests, dragging the Detail slider to the right will bring back some detail to reduce the softening effect of the noise reduction, and Contrast will boost the contrast. Banish chroma noise Chroma noise looks like colourful specks, and can be effectively targeted with the Color Noise Reduction slider, as well as Detail and Smoothness in the expanded…

There are several ways you can change the colours in your Raw images, from boosting the overall saturation to making your colours appear cooler or warmer with white balance adjustments. We’ll show you how to use the individual colour channels to take full control of your colours. Additionally, you can colour-grade your images, also called a split tone, where you assign a colour to the shadows and highlights for a cinematic look. Alternatively, you can work in mono. You’ll still have all of the raw colour channel data to play with, which will help with the black-and-white conversion. Here’s how to do it… White Balance and Tint In the Basic panel, you can tweak the White Balance slider to make the shot warmer or cooler. You can also change the…

The final step is to save your shots to lock in your edits and create a smaller, more manageable JPEG file. Click on your image thumbnail in the filmstrip, or hit Ctrl+A [PC] or Cmd+A [Mac] to select all of your images, then right-click on any image thumbnail and choose Save Image. In the Save options, set the destination to where you’d like the photos to be stored. To batch rename a group of shots you can set a custom filename and add sequential numbers, too – just be sure to add a two or three-digit serial number in the File Naming dropdown box. For example, you can create a batch of images called Landscape_01.jpg right through to Landscape_100.jpg. You can also add the date that the image was shot.…

The Mission – Capture a cinematic close-up of a toy Time – One hour Skill level – Intermediate Kit needed – Tripod – Macro or kit lens – LED lighting – Adobe CC VIEWTHE PROJECT VIDEOS ONLINE www.bit.ly/NPhoto146 If you’re a parent or grandparent to young children – or simply a big kid – it’s likely your abode has been littered with new toys ever since Christmas Day. But before you pack everything away, consider whether there are any photogenic subjects that could be used to create a faux cinematic film still. Toy photography is a relatively niche genre, but even if it’s not something you choose to pursue, it’s a great way to practise close-up photography and play with a little artificial lighting. And dreary January is an ideal…

That first job saw her working with the creative team behind Bob the Builder and Pingu, the animated stars of kids’ TV, produced by Hot Animation in Manchester. Although she didn’t know anyone in ‘the Manche’ prior to her move from the north-east, Shirlaine’s love of rock music meant she knew that Manchester was the place to be. “It’s the land of music,” she exclaims, “so I was doing Bob the Builder and Pingu in the daytime and metal gigs in the evening. Lots of fun!” But what made it more fun was taking a camera and trying to get backstage… You always loved music, so when did music meet photography? I started to go to loads of gigs. You know when you’re in your early 20s and you’re obsessed…

MISSION: Use lighting and composite techniques to create images with compelling narratives PHOTOGRAPHER: Melinda McIntyre LOCATION: Pristina, Kosovo KIT USED: Nikon D850, AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8E ED VR lens, Lensbaby Edge 35 Optic INSTAGRAM: @melindamaephotography WEBSITE: www.hellostoryteller.com When I was very young, I saved up cereal box tops for a Where’s Waldo? promotional film camera, and I have been taking pictures ever since. I got serious when I received my first DSLR, a Nikon D5000, in 2010; I now shoot with a Z 7II. I used to be a family photographer, but I have shifted to mostly personal work, including self-portraits and images of my own family. I love capturing light, and finding ways to create and tell stories through my photography. Digital and physical collage I create a lot of…

Technically, it’s better to shoot in Raw, since compression reduces the amount of image data and introduces artefacts. That’s the theory. But can you really see these differences in practice? It’s very easy to find out. 1 Set your camera up to shoot Raw+JPEG files at the same time – if your camera offers a choice, set the JPEG quality to Fine. Now shoot any detailed subject. (Use a tripod if the shutter speed is less than 1/250 sec.) 2 Transfer your photos to your computer, then open up the Raw file in Nikon NX Studio and, without making any image adjustments, save it as an uncompressed TIFF file. 3 Compare this with the JPEG file. Can you really see any difference in the detail? There are other advantages to…

In these cold winter months, you could be forgiven for staying in the comfort of your home, postponing photography outings for more clement times. But it’s also the ideal time to brush up on your photo-editing skills, and to embrace the flexibility that Raw has to offer. It’s not as complex as you might think, and for our lead feature Dan Mold has penned a guide to the 10 essential edits for producing punch-packed pics. It’s also a great time of year to bring your photos off the hard drive and onto the wall. To that end, in this issue’s Big Test we put eight top photo printers through their paces, from A4 models, through A3 and A3+ printers, to one capable of massive A2 prints. We also check out…

On the next set of adjustments, you’ll really start to see the full potential of shooting Raw files. It’s easy to change the exposure by a few stops if it’s too bright or dark, and pull back highlight detail to stop bright areas like clouds from clipping to pure white, while simultaneously lifting the shadows to reveal detail in darker spots. This process simply wouldn’t be possible with smaller JPEG files, which are compressed and would have lost this information captured at the point of shooting. As JPEG files are processed in-camera, they have contrast and colour adjustments baked in. Raw files, on the other hand, are untouched and leave you to apply contrast and colour adjustments at the editing stage – this is why Raw files often look flat…

Convert to mono Black-and-white conversions are a great way to get the most from a capture that was taken with poor exposure settings, or in this case, very flat lighting. Just above the Basic panel, you’ll need to change the Profile to Adobe Monochrome to get started on working up your mono shot. Edit mono ‘colours’ Access to the colour channels with a black-and-white conversion may sound odd, but it’s very handy. Here you can fine-tune the contrast of certain tones, making the green grass lighter or a blue sky darker by adjusting the colour channel sliders in the B&W Mixer panel (under Detail). Add some contrast with a curve You may know Photoshop CC’s Curves adjustment, there’s a similar function in ACR under the Curve panel. Use the sliders…

The Mission – Follow some simple tips that will help to improve your overall photography Time – One hour Skill level Beginner Kit needed – Any Nikon camera VIEWTHE PROJECT VIDEOS ONLINE www.bit.ly/NPhoto146 Photography is a personal journey and anyone looking to refine their skill set will no doubt benefit from a very specific regime tailored to a specific genre and their own preferences. However, all photographers need to practise the basics and brush-up their skills. But, with ever-changing camera technology and the pursuit of pushing oneself to the very limit, you could argue that no photographer ever truly conquers these core pillars. If you’re relatively new to photography then these are the things you simply cannot ignore and will help to open a whole new world of advanced techniques…

FREE! Photoshop CC Mono FX Kit The Mission Convert a colour image into black and white with just a few clicks, then apply toning effects Time – 20 minutes Skill level – Beginner Kit needed – Photoshop CC VIEWTHE PROJECT VIDEOS ONLINE www.bit.ly/NPhoto146 This issue’s cover feature on Raw editing (page 26) includes simple steps for creating a dramatic black-and-white image – but if you’re new to mono photography, knowing how to build on this basic knowledge to make more creative images can be daunting. To flatten the learning curve and help you achieve great tonal results as quickly as possible, our Mono FX Kit brings all the basic ingredients together into a one-click Photoshop kit. Simply load up any colour image into Photoshop, then click through the layer stack…

I have had a bit of an obsession with the moon and the Apollo missions since childhood. I always craved more and more information about the people who made the journey and the spacecraft, and wanted to imagine what it would be like to make the journey to the moon. But I was frustrated with the quality of the images, which didn’t make any sense because NASA used the best cameras, lenses and film. But because everything, for so long, has been based on duplicate film (and copies of copies of the duplicates) and low-quality scans, the images we see have really been getting worse over time. As a lifelong amateur turned semi-professional photographer, I knew of the developments in digital image processing that could help photographs look their absolute…

IMAGE SIZE This changes the number of pixels in your images, so use it with care! You can only change this setting with JPEG images, not Raw. IMAGE QUALITY You can choose between Raw files and JPEGs. JPEGs come in Fine, Normal and Basic quality settings. NIKON KNOW-HOW Memory cards & file formats Everything you need to know about JPEG, Raw, CF, CFexpress, QXD and SD… Your Nikon DSLR or mirrorless allows you to record your images as two different file types – Raw or JPEG. But if you switch between the two using your camera’s Image quality menu you will see a range of options. JPEG is the world’s most popular digital image format. These files can be opened by many different computer programs, and the file size is…

New series! Part 1 of 3 Radiant Photo 3 months free! – N-Photo readers can get a free three-month trial (extended from two weeks and worth £30/$30) at: www.bit.ly/npradiant-trial Instructions for downloading Radiant Photo and obtaining a licence key valid for three months will then be sent via email. After the trial ends, you can purchase the Radiant Photo software bundle (the standalone and plugin versions, which normally retails for £159/$159) with a 30% discount by visiting: www.bit.ly/npradiant-offer Photo editing can be a repetitive task where you easily spend several minutes processing every single image using similar settings and processes. Made by photographers for photographers, Radiant Photo is a new photo-editing program that can improve both your edited and unedited images, using the power of artificial intelligence alongside manual controls.…

OVERALL WINNER! 1. Milking Bonnets in Swirling Rain BY TONY NORTH Each of the photographs printed here topped one of 12 rounds throughout NPOTY 2022 and in doing so beat well over 13,000 images to the punch. However, only one photographer gets to take home the grand prize – a shiny new Nikon Z fc and Z 28mm SE lens – and be crowned N-Photo’s Photographer of the Year 2022. So congratulations to Tony North! Incidentally, Tony was the only entrant to win consecutive rounds (Macro and Flowers & Plants) but that’s not the reason why he’s our overall winner. He takes home the top prize thanks to his incredible fungi close-up Milking Bonnets in Swirling Rain. Back in N-Photo 138, we praised the use of LED lighting, blurred misting…

Serif Affinity Photo 2 £60/$70 https://affinity.serif.com Affinity Photo is one of our favourite Photoshop A alternatives, offering a similar professional toolset but at a fraction of the price, and with a single one-off payment rather than a subscription. Now Affinity Photo 2 is here; introducing plenty of exciting new features, it is part of a relaunch of the whole Affinity ecosystem. New tools include Luminosity, to mask specific luminosity ranges; Live Mesh Warp, to distort an image to match the surface of a template like a book; and Hue Range, to create a mask based on specific colours in your image. Affinity Photo 2 now comes with non-destructive Raw Develop, which, as the name suggests, means you can go back to change your Raw image settings at any time, even…

THE PRO NAME: Johnny Fenn CAMERA: Nikon Z 7II Johnny started out as a local newspaper photographer before joining the British Army, where he spent much of his 25-year career with the Gurkhas. He continued with his passion as an aside, running camera clubs for fellow soldiers, and went pro on leaving the Army 11 years ago. These days he undertakes shoots for commercial clients and runs photo workshops to Nepal and other countries with his company PhotoJourney, see: https://photojourney.co.uk THE APPRENTICE NAME: Tonya Hawkins CAMERA: Nikon D810 Tonya is from Westbury, Wiltshire, and since picking up a camera for the first time less than a year ago, has been aspiring to become a portrait photographer, taking a place on a Government Kickstart Scheme to learn the ropes. She’s had…

One downside of Raw files is that they often look soft and grainy compared with JPEGs, which are processed in-camera and have sharpening and noise reduction applied at the point of capture. Raw files are essentially a blank canvas and it’s up to you to decide how much, if any, sharpening or noise reduction you want to apply to your image. This is more effective in the long run, as you’re not relying on the camera to set this for you, and with JPEGs it’s difficult to change after the fact. We’re going to look at how to sharpen your images without making background noise more prominent, as well as how to reduce digital noise from your shots without losing detail. We will also show you how to remove the…

Use the upright modes To fix geometric distortion in your images quickly and easily, use the automatic upright modes in the Geometry panel, such as Auto for balanced perspective corrections; Level, which applies only one level correction; Vertical, which applies level and perspective corrections, or Full. Vertical and Horizontal If you find yourself needing to take more control, click on the Manual Transformations panel and individually adjust the Vertical slider to make vertical lines bend in or out more towards the centre. You can also drag the Horizontal slider in order to shift the horizontal plane across. Guided mode For architectural shots that have defined straight lines, an easy way to make sure that your lines are straight is to click on the Guided mode. After this, draw at least…

While heavy cloning or sky replacement edits are best saved for Photoshop CC, you can tidy up small blemishes in portraits, or distractions such as a piece of litter or a fence post in a landscape, using the Spot Removal tool while editing your Raw file in ACR. As with all of the adjustments you make to your Raw file, they are completely non-destructive, so if you go wrong then you can always revert back to the original Raw and start again by clicking the fly-out menu at the bottom of the toolbox (its icon looks like three dots) and then clicking Revert to Original. It’s worth zooming in with Ctrl+Plus [PC] or Cmd+Plus [Mac] so you can see the area you’re editing clearly, then hold the Spacebar to drag…

The Mission – Use light painting to add eye-catching orbs of light to your landscapes Time – One hour Skill level – Advanced Kit needed – Tripod – Torches – Adobe CC – Wide-angle or kit lens VIEWTHE PROJECT VIDEOS ONLINE www.bit.ly/NPhoto146 Light orbs are about as close as you can get to performing a photographic magic trick and, in this project, we’re going to step behind the curtain and show you how it’s done. You might assume light orb photography involves plenty of trickery in Adobe Photoshop but, in reality, it’s a light-painting technique that can be performed and captured entirely in-camera. The basic technique involves attaching a piece of string to a torch and spinning it around in a circular loop, while carefully moving from side to side…

The Mission – Blend long exposures taken with differing shutter speeds and combine the best blurred shots Time – Two hours Skill level – Intermediate Kit needed – 6-stop ND Filter – Tripod – Photoshop or similar editing software VIEWTHE PROJECT VIDEOS ONLINE www.bit.ly/NPhoto146 A long exposure is a wonderful way to blur motion in your photography. Rivers, waterfalls, waves and clouds can look stunning when captured as streaks of silky blur. But when it comes to setting up your camera for a long exposure, how slow do you go? Some parts of a scene may come out better with a really long exposure of several seconds or even minutes, while other areas may be better off with a slightly quicker speed of a second or less. It all depends…

Transfer speed The faster the speed, the better the performance at continuous shooting for stills or video. The maximum data transfer speed is often measured in megabytes per second (Mb/s). CompactFlash Once the dominant DSLR memory card, this has been largely superseded by SD and CFexpress cards. UDMA The latest generation of CompactFlash with the fastest transfer speeds use the UDMA (ultra direct memory access) protocol. CFexpress CompactFlash express cards are a new, blisteringly fast CompactFlash replacement, but can be expensive. Capacity Storage space is measured in gigabytes (Gb). Older memory cards may be measured in megabytes (Mb); 1024Mb equals 1Gb. XQD A short-lived propriety format developed by Sony that uses the same physical card slot as CFexpress, but isn’t as fast. Transfer speed Some cards measure data transfer as…

WORTH £5299! When we reviewed the Nikon Z 9, we called it: “Simply the best camera ever!” And now, together with Nikon UK, we’re giving you the chance to win the flagship Z camera. It’s an incredible prize that’s worth a whopping £5299/$5499. All you have to do is enter any of the 12 rounds of NPOTY 2023 to be in with a chance of taking Nikon’s most advanced camera home and being crowned N-Photo’s Photographer of the Year 2023. Mirrorless behemoth The Nikon Z 9 features some truly ferocious specs, as you’d expect from a pro-grade, full-frame, flagship camera. It boasts a stacked 45.7Mp CMOS sensor and runs via Nikon’s EXPEED 7 image-processor. It also packs Nikon’s most advanced AF system and can shoot bursts at an astonishing 120fps,…

The Nikon Z 600mm f/4 TC VR S follows in the highly capable – and very expensive – footsteps of the Z 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S. Unsurprisingly, the 600mm f/4 TC’s 50-per-cent-longer native focal length comes with a reduction in aperture speed from f/2.8 to f/4, narrowing to f/5.6 with the built-in teleconverter engaged. This extends the focal length to 840mm. While the internal teleconverter undeniably adds versatility, enabling you to switch between two focal lengths at the flip of a lever, the lens is up against the Z 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR S and the Z 800mm f/6.3 VR S, both of which are lighter and more affordable: the Z 600mm f/4 TC costs nearly six times as much as the Z 800mm f/6.3 VR S. Key features There’s…

As I write this at the beginning of January, I thought I’d give one final glance back at Nikon’s headline releases in 2022. The past year was never going to trump 2021 and I mean that entirely as a compliment. After all, 2021 was the year that Nikon released its first flagship mirrorless, the Z 9 (turn to page 93 to find out how you could win one). It’s not every year that a camera manufacturer releases – in my opinion – the greatest full-frame mirrorless camera ever. And with the best will in the world, Nikon was never going to follow it up with anything remotely comparable. The Z 9’s release at the tail end of 2021 has meant it’s still very much dominated the past year. But while…