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

TAKE CONTROL Matt says… Stage lights are constantly changing, so I need consistency. I therefore shoot entirely in Manual mode. I tend to shoot wide open and never dip below 1/200 sec. Modern cameras and editing software makes high ISOs more palatable – and more preferable – to a blurry shot. CONSISTENT KELVINS Matt says… You can get away with Auto White Balance most of the time, but occasionally the stage lighting will confuse the camera. To prevent this, I like to manually set my white balance to a neutral 5600K, so I get consistent results. That said, always shoot Raw so you can alter the colour temp in post. SPOT’S THE DIFFERENCE Matt says… My main concern is that the subject is exposed correctly. You can retain detail in…

DITCH THE DISTORTION Matt says… The first thing I nearly always do when processing an image is tick Lightroom’s Enable Profile Corrections checkbox. This helps to remove any distortions and vignetting created by the lens when capturing the photo, producing a more natural result and a good base for any further edits. YOUR EXPOSURE BLOWS Matt says… With various light sources coming in from different directions (stage lights and ambient), your exposure is never going to be perfect in-camera. Normally, shadows will need lifting to reveal more midtones, and highlights reducing so direct light sources don’t blow out performers. TWEAK THE TEMP Matt says… Light sources of varying colour temperatures, gels and reflective surfaces mean it’s not unusual to have to tweak a file’s white balance for a more pleasing…

Matt says… Live music photography isn’t only about capturing what’s happening on stage; the audience is a key part of the narrative. Some clients are more interested in the energy of the crowd than the performers. If you’re working for a festival organizer, they’ll have a different line-up the following year and probably won’t use all that many images of past performers. But photos of crowd interaction and the stage as a whole are key to marketing future events. Heading into the crowd after the pit will often reap your most exciting and lucrative shots.…

Harbour Idyll JAN LESSMANN A kingfisher perches on a set of rusting steps in the harbour of Pellworm – a small island off the northern coast of Germany – as it waits for its next opportunity between catching small fish from the salt water below. Camera: Nikon Z 6 Lens: 200-400mm f/4 Exposure: 1/200 sec, f/13, ISO1600 Beyond DOMINIK JANOSCHKA Proximity and distance are combined in this double exposure of a forest landscape, which was taken in the Saxon Switzerland National Park, in eastern Germany. Camera: Nikon D800 Lens: 70-200mm f/4 Exposure: 1/13 sec, f/8, ISO100 Lifelines SILKE HULLMANN This aerial shot of the water flowing into Lake Natron, Tanzania, from the slopes of the surrounding volcanoes, reveals the lifelines of the lake in stunning colours. Camera: Nikon D500 Lens:…

Last issue, we showed you how to capture and focus stack a conventional plant portrait. Now you’ve mastered the basics, it’s time to let your creativity run wild. You can create unique botanical artworks by photographing flowers in front of your own DIY backdrops. All you need to get started is a macro or close-focusing kit lens and an LED light or reflector. 1 Build a backdrop We made our graphic backdrop using the Ellipse tool in Adobe Photoshop. If you’re not confident making your own digital backdrop, you could use pastels, watercolours or any other physical medium you have to hand. If you’d rather get straight to the photography, download and print out one of your free ready-made backdrops here: www.bit.ly/np153start. 2 Set up your subject Work indoors to prevent wind…

Whether it’s a pea-souper or morning mist, the magical thing about fog is how it can completely transform even the most mundane scene into something stunning. There are two main reasons why. First, it’s about the atmosphere. Fog creates a mood of its own. In visual terms it diffuses the light and mutes the colours but on an emotional level it creates feelings of calmness, serenity or mystery. It allows you to create photographs that evoke a feeling. The second reason is purely visual. Mist and fog creates separation. As the scene recedes, the distant elements fade out to grey. This offers an opportunity not to be missed, as you can compose in a completely new way. A scene that, at other times, might be dismissed as too busy or…

1 Use Denoise The new Denoise command in Camera Raw/Lightroom can work wonders on image noise. With fog, you might notice graininess in the otherwise-smooth areas of the image. If so, try using the Denoise button in the Detail panel to improve it. It’s also worth sharpening the image here to enhance fine details. 2 Try black and white Fog and mist can desaturate colours, leaving scenes looking almost monochrome. Ask yourself whether the remaining colour is necessary. Removing it might lead to a stronger, simpler composition. The black and white profiles in Camera Raw/Lightroom offer an range of one-click mono conversions to try. 3 Tinting tricks A tweak to the colours or a tinting effect can enhance the misty atmosphere. The Curve command is a great tinting tool. Try making tiny adjustments…

As a photographer, I have a skill set that allows me to communicate with the public through imagery. I feel that if you have this skill set, it is common sense to use that ability for a good purpose. Insect decline is an important subject that is under-reported. I can understand why this is: due to their size, insects are a tricky subject to convey in an engaging way. Extinct & Endangered is a photographic project highlighting the current crisis of insect decline and biodiversity loss. It displays insect specimens from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, all of which are either extinct or in peril. The photographs enable the audience to appreciate the microscopic details of these beautiful creatures. Production began in the summer of 2019,…

Switch to Manual On most Nikons, the Manual setting is on the main mode dial, marked ‘M’. On selected pro Nikons, you need to press and hold the Mode button and turn the rear command dial. Set a shutter speed You’re now in charge of the exposure settings! Turn the rear command dial and pick a shutter speed suitable for the conditions. For outdoor shots, 1/125 sec is a good start. Adjust the aperture Now adjust the aperture. On cameras with two command dials, use the front dial. On those with one dial, hold the exposure compensation button and turn the rear dial. Interpret and adjust Watch the exposure indicator on the rear LCD. Your aim is to centre the exposure at the ‘zero’ point, but it’s just a recommended…

Many photographers using Manual mode will instinctively adjust the exposure by changing the shutter speed or the aperture, but there’s a third, often overlooked, option. If you want to a faster shutter speed or a narrower aperture, you could simply increase the ISO to compensate. Increasing the ISO reduces the picture quality, increasing the amount of noise that’s visible in an image, so it’s best to stick to low ISOs if you can. In theory, you can photograph any subject, however dim, with a long enough exposure. The only time you definitely need to increase the ISO is if you need to freeze a moving subject in dim light with a fast shutter speed, or if you need to shoot in poor light without a tripod and you don’t want…

Q Do I need to buy an FTZ II mount adapter for my Z 6II camera, or would a secondhand FTZ adapter suffice? Gillian Graves A Matthew recommends… The original FTZ has some plus points over the FTZ II, if you’re shooting with anything other than a Z 9. It’s a smart secondhand buy. Nikon FTZ mount adapter THE ORIGINAL FTZ ADAPTER OPENS THE DOOR BETWEEN Z-SERIES CAMERAS AND A WEALTH OF BACK-CATALOGUE F-MOUNT LENSES RELEASED: 2018 PRICE NEW: £249/$247 SECONDHAND PRICE: ‘Like new’ £144/$189 ‘Excellent’ £139/$169 The original FTZ mount adapter, designed for using F-mount lenses on Z-series cameras, delivers identical performance to the newer FTZ II version. Image quality is exactly the same – which is no surprise, as neither adapter features any optical elements. The only real difference…

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…

$9.99 per month/$99 annually https://mylio.com Save 25% off a year’s Mylio Photos+ subscription https://mylio.com/N-Photo If you’ve been a photographer for decades then you’ll probably have thousands of digital photographs scattered over a wide range of locations. Over the years I’ve needed to purchase new external hard drives when the old ones got full of photos and clips. As cloud storage has become more affordable and popular I’ve also got thousands of images filling up my online storage space. A photo collection can be a nightmare to manage, especially if you have to rely on your memory of what’s stored where. Mylio Photos+ is a DAM (Digital Asset Management) app that’s designed to help you take control over clips and stills wherever they happen to be, whether on an SD card,…

To test real-world performance, we use lenses in all sorts of lighting conditions, for indoor and outdoor shooting scenarios. We check for good build quality and handling, smooth and precise operation of all controls, and we test the speed and accuracy of autofocus. We typically test full-frame compatible lenses on a range of FX and DX bodies, whereas APS-C format lenses are just tested on DX cameras. Our test cameras include DSLRs such as the D850 and the D7500, and mirrorless cameras such as the Z 7II and the Z fc. In-camera and Raw processing corrections for chromatic aberration, distortion and vignetting are disabled where possible, throughout lab-testing, to better reveal the true optical performance of each lens. In our lab, we test lenses under controlled conditions, shooting specialist test…

The 24-105mm was launched as one of ‘Art’ line lenses from its Global Vision line-up. With its extended zoom range, compared with typical 24-70mm standard zooms, it comes pretty close to the Nikon AF-S and Z-system 24-120mm counterparts, again with an f/4 aperture rating that remains constant across zoom range. The lens features 19 optical elements in total, with high-performance glass that includes two SLD (Special Low Dispersion) elements and two top-grade FLD (‘Fluorite’ Low Dispersion) elements to minimize colour fringing and enhance sharpness and clarity. Two aspherical elements are also featured. The Sigma is a little heavier than the Nikon AF-S 24-120mm and, although it’s very similar in size, it has a larger 82mm filter thread compared with the Nikon’s 77mm. The build of both lenses lens feels similarly…

RATING: 4.5/5 This was Nikon’s most high-performance, upmarket DX format lens for DSLRs, until production ceased last year. As with the AF-P 18-55mm, there are still some brand new ones on the market but they’re becoming harder to track down. Again, it’s a solid secondhand buy. The zoom range is equivalent to a classic 24-120mm in full-frame terms, with a pretty nippy but variable aperture rating along the way. The lens combines a highly effective yet conventional ring-type ultrasonic autofocus system with an electromagnetically controlled diaphragm, which helps with exposure consistency in rapid continuous drive mode.…

Down the years, many DSLR users have loved the 5x zoom range and constant-aperture design of the AF-S 24-120mm lens that’s also on test. This Z-mount edition represents a complete redesign for Z-mount mirrorless cameras. Typical of S-line lenses, it has a high-end design and build quality. As such, the optical path includes three ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements, one aspherical ED element, and three further aspherical elements. Coatings include ARNEO and Nano Crystal Coat, as well as a fluorine coating on the front element. Everything’s wrapped up in a weather-sealed casing. Unlike all of the other lenses in the group, this one features additional handling exotica. There’s a customizable L-Fn button for the likes of AF-Hold, and a customizable control ring that sits just behind it. That’s in addition…

RATING: 4/5 Historically sold as a kit lens with the D610 and D750, the 24-85mm is worth consideration as a budget standard zoom in its own right. It has ring-type ultrasonic autofocus, 4-stop VR and includes an ED element plus three aspherical elements in its optical design. Build quality feels a bit downmarket compared with other FX F-mount zooms, but it’s compact and relatively lightweight. Downsizing is mostly thanks to a reduced, variable aperture rating of f/3.5-4.5, and the asking price is similarly lightweight. Performance is pretty good on the whole, with decent contrast and fairly pleasing sharpness, although distortions are quite severe.…

By a slim margin, the Nikon Z 28-75mm f/2.8 is our pick sharpness and smooth bokeh. The fast and constant f/2.8 aperture also helps to freeze motion under low lighting, without having to bump up your ISO setting too far. However, the Z 28-75mm is less ideal if you favour wide viewing angles, where it’s fairly limited compared with the Nikon Z 24-70mm f/4 S and Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S. Although an f/stop slower, both of these are S-line lenses really deliver the goods. There’s almost nothing to choose between them but the 24-120mm naturally has a bigger zoom range and some nice handling extras, whereas the retractable 24-70mm is more compact. The super-small Nikon Z 24-50mm f/4-6.3 is an attractive proposition if you want to keep the size…

I’ve bought a new camera and it’s not mirrorless. I’m acutely aware that my secondhand (but barely used) D850 is probably the last DSLR I’ll ever buy, which begs the question: why not just make the move to mirrorless and be done with it? Well, let’s not beat around the bush here. If I could justify the expenditure, I’d march right up to Nikon HQ and say: “I’ll have your finest Z 8, please.” But other priorities and my preference not to part with anything below my D800’s 36.3Mp sensor, have made the D850’s still-stellar spec sheet very hard to beat if you can find a good secondhand deal. Glass act The D850 is a better camera for professional stills work than the original Z 7 (largely because of its…

Everyone loves a nice scenic shot, but the what is the quality that makes for a truly great landscape image? It’s one that evokes emotion in the part of the viewer, argues Carmen Norman in this issue’s lead feature, as she shows you how to use colour, lack of colour, light, reflections and the ‘out of the ordinary’ to take your landscapes to the next level. Summer is the season for music festivals, and with that in mind, we arranged for pro music ’tog Matt Higgs to take on a reader as his apprentice to shoot a variety of rock acts at the Todd in the Hole event. When you first bought your Nikon, chances are it came bundled with a kit lens of one form or another. These are…

Matt says… Weather sealing only gets you so far. If you’re caught shooting a festival in a downpour – like we were today – then a rain cover can be a camera saver! There are tons of rain covers out there in a variety of materials, sizes and with all manner of extra features, so shop around and find the one that best suits you. My preference is something nice and simple that can slip into my bag, doesn’t impede camera operation and can be attached to my setup on the fly. I’ve had this camouflage cover for so long, I can’t even remember what brand it is. But it hasn’t let me down yet.…

Matt says… A good rule of thumb is to capture a usable shot of each band member. I tend to start with the front person, as they’re usually the most recognizable face in the band. I’ll then move onto the lead guitarist and work back from there. Once I’ve bagged each member, I’ll start to relax and experiment a little with my compositions and settings. But no matter what I’m doing, I’m looking out for something special: a jump, mic swing, guitar antics, dance move… anything dynamic that captures the band and venue’s energy.…

Showjumping is a sport that consists of a horse and rider navigating a series of jumps. Those who clear the course without knocking any of the poles down head into a ‘jump-off’, with the cleanest and fastest round winning the competition. The jump-off is helpful for photographers, as it means that you have a second chance at getting the best shot possible. A great showjumping photo conveys the natural movement of the horse with the rider’s face in focus. This often requires you to stop down to around f/4, or my preferred aperture of f/5.6, as you need both subjects in focus. If the horse or rider isn’t sharp, the photos aren’t worth the space on your memory card. While a 70-200mm zoom range will cover most smaller venues, you’ll…

The Column tool in Affinity Photo lets you take the merest sliver of an image, which can then be stretched out to form a vibrant band of colour. The useful thing about the tool is how you can specify a number of pixels for the width, so you can either go for a single row of pixels or – as we’ve done here – make it a few pixels wide. Once expanded, we get an eclectic mix of colour that matches the palette of our portrait. We’ll show you how to use the technique here to craft a vibrant effect. It may look complicated, but it’s a simple matter of copying and stretching our selections, then using a distorting filter to transform the colourful strips into circles. Along the way…

1 What is fog? Fog is essentially a low-level cloud, formed of tiny, floating water droplets that originate from a body of water like the sea mist here. There are several different kinds of fog. The sea fog here occurs when warm, moist air passes over cool water. If the wind is blowing towards land, it carries the fog with it. 2 Distance and clarity Think about the distance between the camera position, the subject and the backdrop. If we’re far away from our subject then the fog will reduce clarity. If you want something to stay sharp, keep close to it. Here the rocks in the foreground are bold and saturated, with the sun breaking through the sea mist. 3 Consider a tripod As mist is common around dawn when the light…

Normally the higher the air, the cooler it becomes. But sometimes a high layer of warm air can trap a cooler layer of air near the ground. In these conditions, a cloud inversion – or more accurately a temperature inversion – can occur. It happens more often in autumn and winter, when the longer nights allow for the air to be cooled by the ground. You can deduce the likelihood of a cloud inversion by checking the temperature at various elevations (see the Ventusky app or www.ventusky.com). We’re looking for warmer high air, and the dew point and air temperature must be close to one another for fog to form. There also needs to be little or no wind. If the numbers add up, head out early, get up high…

Exposure settings were standardized long before the advent of digital cameras. They are cleverly designed so that each step (or ‘stop’) doubles or halves the exposure, so you can quickly work out in your head how to trade off one setting against another. These numbers represent full exposure values, or ‘stops’, but your Nikon also offers one-half or one-third stop increments in-between for finer adjustments. This is why you’ll sometimes see shutter speeds of 1/400 sec, for example, or an aperture with a value of f/7.1.…

Using Manual mode forces you to slow down and think about the settings the subject requires, balancing the settings to achieve the perfectly exposed image. Altering the aperture to control the depth of field is important: you can use a wide aperture to isolate your subject against a blurred background, or a narrow aperture to increase the depth of field, so that everything is sharp and your subject is integrated into its surroundings. The length of time your shutter is open can be used to creative effect too. You need a fast shutter speed to freeze a moving subject, but a slow speed for creative movement blur. Try these experiments to see the benefits of Manual mode… 1 INTOTHE SUN For this experiment, first capture an image of sunset or…

NPOTY is powered by 1. The Cabin BY GILES ROCHOLL Some people travel to Iceland and never witness the Northern Lights, but this incredible image was captured on the first night of a trip. An awful lot of work went into the final product. It’s a four-photo composite, two for the sky and two for the foreground. The natural-looking blend – created using luminosity masks – and the way the aurora stretches across the sky are standout features. Camera: Nikon D810 Lens: 14-24mm f/2.8 Exposure: 25 secs, f/4.5, ISO1600 2. Cinque Terre BY BLACKRIDER The villages of Cinque Terre are a travel photography hotspot, thanks to their classic, multicoloured villas and beautiful Italian Riviera surroundings. This photograph is set against a moody backdrop of dark clouds and punchy golden light,…

1. Nikon and Unistellar unveil ‘Deep Dark’ telescope tech Smart telescope company Unistellar has unveiled new technology to fight light pollution as well as a new solar filter for observing the sun. Available as a firmware update for Unistellar products – the eVscope, eVscope 2, eQuinox and eQuinox 2 – the new Deep Dark Technology is an attempt to eliminate the interference caused by city lights. https://bit.ly/46Fu2zO 2. The Nikon Z 8 is marching across Japan like Godzilla The Nikon Z 8 is taking over Japan with the kind of aggression not seen since Godzilla. It has only been on sale for a few weeks, but the Nikon Z8 is already the top-selling camera. Sales have outpaced everything from the Sony A7 IV to perennial top sellers like the Canon…

ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED £1500/$1400 www.asus.com ASUS has launched what it says is the world’s OLED laptop. We’ve got no reason to doubt that claim, as not only is the new Zenbook S 13 OLED (UX5304) incredibly thin at just 1cm, but also OLED laptops are still relatively new and uncommon, with ASUS the major player in the market. For reference, a 13.6-inch M2 MacBook Air may as well be a cinder block, as it’s a whole 1.3mm thicker than the ASUS. To achieve such a slim, lightweight design, the chassis has been precision-machined to best utilize the space inside. The motherboard has also been engineered to house an additional ultra-thin fan that increases airflow for better cooling. Not only is the Zenbook S 13 OLED super-slim, it’s also…

Most of us shoot with a standard zoom lens for most of the time, so it pays to have a good one. But just how good does it need to be and how much do you have to spend? Many of us can’t stretch the budget to the likes of the Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S or the AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8E ED VR, both with price tags north of £/$2000, and wouldn’t want to use such a relatively big and heavy lens for everyday shooting anyway. Pretty much every Nikon camera body is sold as a ‘kit’ option, complete with a standard zoom, apart from the top-flight D6 DSLR and Z 9 mirrorless cameras. That said, as the last DX (APS-C) format DSLR standing, the D7500 is sold with an 18-140mm…

Originally introduced as a kit standard zoom for the Z 5, this lens is also available to purchase separately for other Z-system cameras. Although an FX format lens, it’s also quite a tempting proposition for lightweight Z DX bodies, but you need to bear in mind that it doesn’t feature optical VR. That’s no real drawback for Z FX cameras, which all have in-body image stabilization. With a similar retractable design as the Z 16-50mm, it’s not much larger, measuring 74x51mm when retracted, and it’s certainly a lightweight at 195g. Downsizing comes at a cost though, as it has a relatively limited zoom range of 24-50mm along with a fairly slow aperture rating of f/4-6.3. Again, like the Z 16-50mm, it has a plastic mounting plate, which also helps shed…

RATING: 4/5 This is the latest of Nikon’s 18-55mm kit zooms for cameras like the D3xxx and D5xxx series. It features a near-silent AF-P ‘Pulse’ (stepping motor) autofocus system and 4-stop VR. The focus ring doesn’t revolve during autofocusing, which enhances handling. The retractable design shrinks to 65x63mm for stowage. Image quality is sharp on the whole but it’s best to stop down a bit at the shortest zoom setting. The only real catch is that Nikon recently discontinued the lens and new ones are getting thin on the ground, but it’s a good used buy. The AF-P autofocus system makes the lens incompatible with DSLRs up to and including the D3200, D5100 and D7000.…

This full-frame Z-mount lens is the DX format Z 16-50mm. It has a similar actual rather than ‘effective’ zoom range but a faster f/4 aperture rating that remains constant throughout the zoom range. The upmarket, S-line design includes an aspherical ED element, three further aspherical elements and one additional ED element. Nano Crystal Coat is employed to fend off ghosting and flare, and there’s a fluorine coating on the front element. The stepping motor autofocus system works with speedy precision in almost complete silence, and the focus ring is customizable. A handling bonus is that the lens has an A-M switch, so you can swap between autofocus and manual focus without resorting to camera menus. As usual with full-frame Z-mount wide-angle and standard lenses, there’s no optical VR. Thanks to…

RATING: 4/5 Nikon has now discontinued all of its DX format DSLRs, bar one. The D7500 is the only camera of its type still in production, and it’s only offered with one choice of kit zoom lens. As we said at the outset, the effective zoom range of this lens is 27-210mm, so it’s technically a superzoom rather than a standard zoom, with a relatively big 7.8x zoom range. Considering the extended zoom range, there’s fairly little compromise in image quality. Sharpness is very good at the short end and pretty good at the long end, although it drops off a bit in the middle sector. Autofocus is brisk and VR lives up to its 4-stop billing.…

Sigma’s ‘Art’ line lenses have earned great reputations over the years. This one is a direct competitor to the Nikon AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8E ED VR for FX format DSLRs and matches it stride for stride on most counts. It’s a little lighter in weight and much shorter physically, measuring 108mm in length compared with the Nikon’s oversized 155mm. Although it’s not a fully weather-sealed lens, it does feature a rubber seal on its mounting plate and the overall construction feels rock-solid, based on a sturdy metal barrel and brass mounting plate. Zoom and focus rings are silky smooth in operation, and the ring-type ultrasonic autofocus system is super-fast and highly accurate. Better still, autofocus comes with switchable options for regular manual override, plus manual-priority autofocus. With the latter, manual override…

THE APPRENTICE NAME: Charles Palmer CAMERA: Nikon Z 6 Charles is a UX designer for The Open University. His interest in photography dates back to his childhood, when he was gifted a Kodak Instamatic. He bought his first SLR at college, but it wasn’t until the past few years that he decided to start taking his hobby more seriously. Since moving to the D50, he’s stayed with the Nikon ecosystem, and was an early mirrorless adopter, picking up the Z 6 at launch. He’s now had plenty of experience shooting his local scene and hopes Matt can help him step up to larger venues. THE PRO NAME: Matt Higgs CAMERA: Nikon D780 Matt’s never strayed far from music or photography. He started his career in music PR but soon moved…

Matt says… Stages are messy places, filled with equipment, VIP bystanders, other photographers, rigging, the list goes on. If you’re shooting a portrait of a performer, you’ll want the background to be as clean as possible, so nothing detracts from the subject. This also affords you the opportunity to play with negative space. If you frame your subject too tightly, the composition will feel restrictive, so a little space provides room for it to breathe. A great time to shoot portraits is when smoke is pumped on stage, since it obscures busy backgrounds.…

Landscape photography is more than just taking a picture, it is about emotion, it’s learning to see and experience the location, to capture the atmosphere. It should create an impression and grab the attention of the viewer to bring out their emotions. The one thing that makes a great photo is its ability to convey emotion and feeling. To make a photograph more than just an image, I need to feel inspired by what I am photographing so my photograph can be a reflection of my experience and how I felt. Any scene can look beautiful, but to communicate with viewers and create something compelling, it needs something more. I need to get to know a place and look at its heart and soul. I ask myself: What makes a place…

Head to any car museum up and down the country and you’ll see swathes of visitors, cameras in hand, shooting everything from antiques like the Ford Model T, classics like the Morris Minor, high-performance supercars such as the McLaren F1, and everything in between. But museums aren’t exactly known for their photo-friendly lighting. Add to this busy backgrounds and fellow car enthusiasts and it can seem impossible to capture a flattering shot. And that’s because it darn near is! So we’ve come up with a few tips and tricks that will help you capture studio-quality images without using a tripod or additional lighting. The first lesson is to forget capturing any car in its entirety. You’ll afford yourself much more control if you focus on capturing close-ups. We shot cars…

The Smudge tool can be helpful for all kinds of creative effects, including painterly treatments. The tool works by smudging colours into one another. But if we combine this with Photoshop’s array of realistic bristle brush tips, we can smudge a photo in such a way that it looks like a painting. As such, even those without any skill in painting can transform a photo into brush-based art. We’ll look at the key features of the Smudge tool here, and explain how to set up your photo for an effect like this. When it comes to painting with the Smudge tool, we can gradually build up the effect, following the natural lines, wrinkles and details in the face. The semi-manual control we have over the smudge painting means our effect…

1 How fog forms Fog forms when the air temperature and dew point (the temperature at which water vapour turns to liquid) are close to one another. The air takes the moisture from the land, and becomes wet with tiny particles. It can occur either if the air temperature is cooled to the dew point temperature, or if water from the land evaporates into warm air. 2 Check predictions Look out for damp days followed by warmer windless mornings, or frost followed by clear, warm skies. Websites https://clearoutside.com and www.yr.no are useful for fog forecasts, with a percentage chance of fog as well as the dew point, air temperature and humidity. 3 Head out at first light While fog can occur at any time of day or night it’s much more frequent in…

Jason Ingram Profile • After graduating from Salisbury College of Art 30 years ago, Jason launched his freelance photography career five years later. He is now based in Bristol.• His work takes him to gardens all over the UK, including regular commissions to photograph Highgrove, the private estate of King Charles III.• Jason’s other clients include The National Trust, BBC Gardeners’ World, The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Gardens Illustrated, House & Garden and BBC Food.• He is a six-time Photographer of the Year winner in the Garden Media Guild awards, in 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.• In July, Jason launched his online Garden & Plant Photography Masterclass, available from Create Academy (www.createacademy.com). www.jasoningram.co.uk Jason Ingram and I are talking the day after the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, which…

Set the exposure Set the exposure manually. Our settings here are 1/125 sec at f/8, but the point about manual exposure is that you can choose different combinations… Change the speed If we need to change the shutter speed to 1/250 sec because of a moving subject, this is a full stop faster, so our shot will now be underexposed by 1EV. Re-balance To compensate, we can open up the aperture by one stop to allow more light to reach the sensor – this means changing the aperture from f/8 to f/5.6. Narrow aperture Here we’re shooting a landscape. We need a narrow aperture to keep both the foreground and distance sharp, so we set an aperture of f/16. Balance with speed This reduces the exposure by two stops compared…

Q I’m loving the speed of my new Nikon Z 8. The only thing slowing me down is constantly swapping between lenses. Is the Nikon Z 24-200mm superzoom lens worth considering for this camera? Gordon Roberts A Coupling the Nikon Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR to a Z 8 might at first glance seem a bit like hooking a farm cart onto a racehorse. It’s certainly not a ‘fast’ lens in terms of aperture, and has a comparatively low-budget price tag of around £769/$797. However, its mighty zoom range enables you to react to wide-ranging shooting scenarios with the flick of a wrist. By using the Z 8’s DX crop mode, you can even boost its telephoto reach to an effective 300mm and still get sizeable 19.4-megapixel images. The big question…

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,…

MISSION: Capture people passing by the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku from a variety of angles. PHOTOGRAPHER: Yasser Alaa Mobarak LOCATION: Alexandria, Egypt KIT USED: Nikon D5600 and Nikon AF-P DX 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR INSTAGRAM: @yasseralaamobarak I have been an avid travel photographer for 14 years. One day, I came across Azerbaijan’s famous Heydar Aliyev Center, Baku. It was designed by Zaha Hadid, who was a famous Iraqi-British architect, and an Arab like me. I researched many photographs to find the best angles and during my trip, I made multiple visits over four days to capture different types of lighting. I then whittled hundreds of images down to just two. They changed my life. Together, they have won over 40 awards across a variety of photo competitions including Travel Photographer…

The Nikon Z DX 24mm f/1.7 is Nikon’s first DX (APS-C format) prime lens specifically for cameras like the Z 30, Z 50 and Z fc. Thanks to the 1.5x crop factor of Nikon (and most other) APS-C format cameras, it gives a pretty much identical field of view to 35mm lenses that full-frame photographers typically favour for street photography. Indeed, the compact build helps candid shooting on the streets, so you can be discreet and avoid drawing attention to yourself. Naturally, you can also use FX (full-frame compatible) lenses on DX format Z-system bodies. Indeed, Nikon offers the Nikon Z 28mm f/2.8 SE as a kit lens option with the Z fc camera. That lens is barely any bigger or heavier, but it has a less generous angle of…

Weighing just 135g and measuring 32mm when retracted, this Z-mount DX lens looks and feels unfeasibly small. Indeed, the optical elements are absolutely dwarfed by the relatively enormous diameter of the Z-mount flange. Even when extended for use, the overall length is only 55-60mm, depending on the zoom setting. The only real minus point is the fairly slow f/6.3 aperture rating at long zoom settings. As you’d expect in such a small lens, there are no onboard switches. Swapping between autofocus and manual focus modes therefore requires a quick dip into camera menus. The optical design includes four aspherical elements and one ED (Extra-low Dispersion) element. New-generation optical VR has an impressive 4.5-stop effectiveness. Build quality is good but there’s no weather seal on the mounting plate. As with other…

A quick glance at the graph reveals that most of the Z-system standard zooms are virtually zero-distortion lenses. But they’re really not. To help reduce the size and weight, the current vogue is for heavy reliance on automatic in-camera correction for distortions, which can’t be disabled. It’s applied to JPEGs and firmly embedded within Raw files, without which many lenses for mirrorless cameras would be all but unusable. For F-mount lenses, which can also take advantage of in-camera correction, the Nikon AF-S 24-120mm is the worst.…

Bucking the trend of typical ‘trinity’ standard zooms that combine a 24-70mm range with a constant f/2.8 aperture, this one takes a different path. You lose a noticeable chunk of wide-angle coverage but gain a little at the long end, while retaining that all-important fast aperture rating throughout. Better still, it’s less than two-thirds the weight of the Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S and costs under half the price. The lens was originally designed by Tamron for Sony E-mount cameras but has been re-engineered by Nikon for the Z system. And if wide-angle shooting is your thing, there’s also a companion Z 17-28mm f/2.8 zoom. Although not an S-line lens, it’s smartly turned out with a dependable, weather-sealed construction. Quality glass includes three aspherical elements, one ED element and one Super-ED…

There’s virtually no colour fringing to be seen in any of the Z-mount lenses in the test group, throughout the entire aperture and zoom ranges, right out to the extreme edges and corners of the frame. That’s not the case with the three F-mount lenses, which all produce noticeable lateral chromatic aberration towards the edges of the frame, especially at the short end of the zoom range. As with distortion, the Nikon AF-S 24-120mm is again the worst offender in the group.…

An improvement over Nikon’s original AF-S 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6 VR, this later edition has a constant f/4 aperture along with an upgraded optical stabilizer. Even so, it’s been on sale since 2010, and the 3.5-stop stabilizer is less effective than in most newer Nikon lenses. On the plus side, VR comes complete with switchable Normal and Active modes. The former includes automatic panning detection, whereas the latter is more effective if you’re shooting from an unstable platform. Available at a substantial discount with the D780 body, build quality is very good for a kit lens. The lens features weather-seals and comes with a petal-shaped hood. Quality glass includes three aspherical elements and two ED elements, along with Nano Crystal Coat. Conventional internals include mechanical control for the diaphragm and a ring-type…

RATING: 4.5/5 Tamron’s original 24-70mm VC USD was the top budget alternative to Nikon’s own-brand F-mount f/2.8 zoom. The G2 edition has a revamped optical design and a more comprehensive set of weather-seals. The 5-stop optical stabilizer and autofocus systems are also improved, although the Tamron lacks the Sigma 24-70mm’s dedicated ‘manual override’ mode. Fine-tuning and firmware updates can be applied via Tamron’s optional ‘TAP-in Console’. You’ll need firmware version 2.0 or higher if you want to use the lens with Z-system cameras via an FTZ or FTZ II mount adapter. In our tests, the Tamron delivered very pleasing all-round image quality.…

DX DSLRS NIKON D7500 AN ADVANCED DSLR that’s easy to use, the D7500 delivers superb performance and image quality, plus great value. The D7500 steals most of the best bits from the now-discontinued pro-grade D500, and squeezes them into a smaller, lighter body at a much more affordable price. TESTED IN ISSUE 141 • £1049/$997 Sensor 20.9Mp, DX (5568x3712) Processor EXPEED 5 Viewfinder Pentaprism, 0.94x, 100% ISO 100-51,200 (50-1,640,000 expanded) AF 51-point (15 cross-type) LCD 3.2-inch, tilt, touch Max burst (buffer) 8fps (50 Raw) Memory card SDXC UHS-I FX DSLRS NIKON D780 THE D780 IS a highly capable and entirely natural-feeling DSLR for shooting stills in viewfinder mode, coupled with the same kind of accuracy and performance as a mirrorless camera in live view and for shooting movies. Despite its…