Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2024 i N-Photo: the Nikon magazine

Marble FLORIAN SMIT This photograph was taken in Marble Castle, Saltfjellet-Svartisen National Park, Norway. The scene was illuminated with flashes from several perspectives. Frosty Bell(e) SIGI ZANG A close-up of a pasque flower on a frosty morning taken with a macro lens and using a shallow aperture to blow out the background. Bonnet Mould MATTHIAS HÜTHER Bonnet with bonnet mould. This widespread pin mould primarily parasitizes this particular group of fungi. Tasting the Air KAI KOLODZIEJ The diamondback rattlesnake uses its tongue to detect odours. My goal was to make this behaviour visible. Parental Responsibility NIKLAS BANOWSKI The term ‘parental responsibility’ has a special meaning for wolf spiders – each female carries around hundreds of offspring. Frosty Morning at Istein Cataracts on the Rhine KARL HEINZ SCHEIDTMANN The Rhine flows…

My eyes are watching the expansive flock of eiders in front of me, their regular call hitting my ears with a cooing-whizz every few moments. It’s rather wonderful to be this close to such a large group of birds, fully undeterred by my presence; the 600mm lens already seems a little overkill. The surrounding landscape is impressive, with steep-sided mountains in every direction, the water’s edge partially frozen, snow-covered all around. It would seem an idyllic place for wildlife photography, but this doesn’t exactly match the reality… Even though I’m sitting in a gorgeous Icelandic fjord, I’m in a dirty grey snow pile, with dog poo around the base, behind the bins and old oil drums, on a concrete dock. Every breath I take is filled with oil fumes and…

Street photography is so exciting because you never know what images you’re going to come home with. But while it’s one of the most accessible genres, it’s also one of the most challenging. After all, you have to react to the world around you. It’s something you can’t plan ahead for, but you can plan for success and hope for the best… 1 Pack light Street photography is about observing your surroundings and reacting to the situations that unfold. You may find yourself covering a large distance, so a light kit bag is essential. Some street photogs swear by a ‘nifty fifty’ alone, others prefer a couple of primes or a standard zoom. Just don’t bring the kitchen sink. 2 Camera settings Street photography is all about being reactive to your surroundings.…

The typical approach to flower photography is to use a long lens or macro lens and blur out the backdrop with a shallow depth of field, so that the focus is on the subject. But why not take a different approach to background blur? In this project, the aim is to blur the backdrop with motion. To achieve this there are two key factors. First, we need to get set up for a long exposure – so all the usual long-exposure tricks apply like use of a tripod and neutral density filter. Secondly, we need to work out a way to keep some parts of the scene still while the others are in motion. This is where our secret weapon comes in – a leaf blower. We can use the…

Shutter options explained Z-series cameras have a variety of shutter options. Here’s how they work… A conventional camera shutter works in an entirely mechanical way. The shutter is fully closed before taking a shot. At the start of an exposure, the ‘first curtain’ opens, traversing the image sensor in the process. At the end of the exposure, the second curtain slides across in front of the sensor. But at very fast shutter speeds, the second curtain starts to close before the first curtain has fully opened. That can cause a dark band in images when using a flashgun. The solution is to use ‘Auto FP’ (Auto Focal Plane) or ‘High-Speed Sync’ flash, which fires a short burst of flashes rather than a single flash. Z-system cameras with mechanical shutters offer…

Q I do a lot of mammal and bird photography with a Z 180-600mm lens but am looking to upgrade to the Z 400mm f/2.8 or Z 600mm f/4, or is there another option? Huw Gwilliam A The Nikon Z 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S (£13,499/$13,997) and Nikon 600mm f/4 TC VR S (£14,999/$15,497) are very expensive but have built-in 1.4x teleconverters, adding to their versatility. I’ve tested and reviewed them for N-Photo and they’re both fabulous. With a mighty maximum focal length of 840mm, the 600mm TC lens is arguably a better fit for bird photography. Even so, the 560mm of the 400mm with its teleconverter engaged should provide plenty of scope. I’d go for the 400mm lens. It proved sharper in our lab tests with the teleconverter engaged and is…

Nikon Imaging Cloud Free www.nikon.co.uk Teased during the Nikon Z 6III announcement, Nikon Imaging Cloud excited viewers, offering a brand-new and free cloud service for Nikon creatives. Nikon states that Nikon Imaging Cloud is “your new creative partner”, creating a connection between the cloud app and the best Nikon cameras. At present, this entails three main functions – cloud storage, firmware updates, and, perhaps the most anticipated, exclusive image recipes. Nikon has been winning back fans of late with some fantastic award-winning releases, and appealing to the younger generation with its retro-inspired Z f line. This looks likely to continue with the inclusion of what Nikon calls “exclusive image recipes”, which are essentially custom LUTs or film recipes. Nikon Imaging Cloud enables users to recreate their favourite film stock, preset,…

Fine art wildlife photographer Harry Skeggs’ images of exotic animals hang in galleries the world over, with price tags of his limited-edition prints running into the thousands. In this issue’s lead feature, he shares his tips and technique that elevate his images from mere photographs to works of art. Our apprentice heads to the moors and tors of Dartmoor National Park where landscape photographer Neil Burnell schools him in shooting scenic shots with a difference – in the infrared spectrum with a modified Nikon and specialist filters. We put eight prime lenses through their paces in our Big Test – ranging from wide angle to standard and short-telephoto focal lengths, the main factor that binds them together is that they’re all absolute bargains, costing under £250/$300. We also give the…

Never miss an issue! Delivered direct to your door and device SAVE 50%* on a six-month subscription NEW! Digital access to every single issue with a print subscription** N-Photo is the only magazine for Nikon enthusiasts by Nikon enthusiasts!Adam Waring Editor Reasons to subscribe • Save 50%* off the cover price Half-price subscription compared with the newsstand price • 100% Nikon – 100% relevant All our tutorials and features are Nikon-focused and we only cover Nikon-fit kit • Learn from top Nikon photographers Top-name pros write our features and columns, and appear in our interviews • Expert tutorials and free videos View our accompanying video tutorials on your computer, tablet or smartphone • Digital edition access Complimentary access to the current edition – and every single N-Photo back issue all the…

A photo walk is something I’m sure most of us do on a regular basis. But if you only ever walk the same route and put little thought into the subjects you’d like to photograph along the way, you’ll quickly end up bored. A little planning goes a long way. I briefly escaped city life on a photography excursion into rural Somerset, having researched a few locations online, and packed a light kitbag including my 18-140mm and 10-20mm lenses. Both are very versatile and offer a broad focal range to suit a variety of environments. I followed a circuitous route that took me through woodland, up hills and past several landmarks. Photo walks should be leisurely: roam at your own pace, enjoy your surroundings and try something new today. Five…

Of all the darkroom techniques to have made an impact on digital photography, solarization is perhaps the most instantly recognizable. First championed by Man Ray in the 1920s, solarization involved flicking on the lights in the darkroom while exposing a print. This partially inverts the tonal range of the image. Normally, the tonal range would run from dark areas to bright areas. In digital imaging this is represented by the histogram, which groups dark pixels on the left of the graph and light pixels on the right. If we think of the range of brightness in this linear way from left to right, then imagine chopping the range in half and flipping one half around. This is what solarization does. It inverts half of the tonal range, while leaving the…

Ian Asprey Profile ● When not running a successful decorating business, Ian Asprey can usually be found taking landscape photos around the mountains of Snowdonia. ● Since buying his first Nikon in 2017, his photos have been awarded in the British Photography Awards, Landscape Photographer of the Year and other contests. ● Every winter, he co-leads photo tours to Iceland with landscape pro Mark Andreas Jones, focusing on photographing the Northern Lights. ● Ian specializes in shooting the night sky and runs astrophotography workshops for beginners to Snowdonia, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall, Llangollen and near his home in the Shropshire Hills. ● He also runs annual photography workshops to Anglesey’s lighthouses in April, May and September. Dates for 2025 will be released in December. www.ianaspreyphotography.co.uk They say it’s never too late…

Nikon cameras enable you to select Picture Controls, to apply some in-camera processing to your images. The Portrait Picture Control, for example, gives skin a subtly smoother look, while the Landscape Picture Control boosts blues and greens (and also increases contrast). The Flat Picture Control gives images less contrast, and is a sensible choice if you want to apply your own processing in NX Studio. If you shoot in JPEG format then it will be harder to adjust the colours, tones and sharpness of the shot in Nikon’s free NX Studio app. However, if you shoot images in the RAW (NEF) format, you can use NX Studio to experiment with alternative Picture Controls, or even finetune an existing Picture Control to create one of your own. It’s worth noting, though,…

1. Road to Nowhere BY SARA JAZBAR This month’s incredible winner was chosen because of its unique take on low-light photography, and the planning required to capture such unusual weather conditions. The light trails lead the eye along the curvature of the road and into the cloud inversion, where they create a subtle curving glow in the haze. We can imagine this image as an album cover – a fantastic effort. 2. New York, New York BY GEORGE ROBERTSON This image of New York was taken from Old Pier 1, which is a popular vantage point for capturing the Manhattan skyline. The derelict stilts offer great foreground interest, surrounded by colourful reflections from the city lights. This example is beautifully framed, with the curving stilts leading the viewer towards the…

£649/$597 www.nikon.co.uk Call me old-fashioned but I’m of an age where enthusiast photographers with deep pockets bought f/1.4 prime lenses and those on a tighter budget settled for cheaper f/1.8 alternatives. That was certainly the case with Nikon’s F-mount lenses for DSLRs but, in its Z-system line-up, we’ve so far seen f/1.8 premium S-line lenses, jumping straight to the likes of the super-fast Nikon Z 50mm f/1.2 S and Nikon Z 85mm f/1.2 S, taking time-honoured f/1.4 lenses completely out of the equation. Stranger still, while the Nikon Z 35mm f/1.8 S was one of the very first Z-mount lenses to be released, the new f/1.4 option is not only faster but cheaper to buy, lacking S-line credentials. Nikon is billing it as a perfect choice for ‘street photography’ but…

Ninety-six per cent of the world’s mammal biomass is made up of humans and our livestock, with just four per cent of mammals remaining truly wild – it is a terrifying statistic. That our wild neighbours now represent such a tiny fraction of our world brings into sharp focus just how little of our planet is really free. We simply cannot afford to lose any more. I had never considered a life in photography when I lost myself in the jungles of Brazil, armed with a camera brought almost as an afterthought. What I could not have known was the frustration that would follow, feeling that I had failed on every level to convey the depth of emotion that had gripped me in this incredible place beyond where the lights…

If you’re a film buff who dreams of capturing cinematic action sequences, then short of hiring an army of actors, set designers and a practical effects crew – or embarking on a career as a film stills photographer – then toy photography is as close as you’re likely going to get. So when I decided to capture a queen facing off with a fiery dragon, I turned to everyone’s favourite construction toy, Lego. I used the Lego Lion Knights’ Castle as a backdrop for my fantasy scene, but with a little creativity you could use any Lego sets or action figures you might have lying around. And while a large set provides you with more freedom, a little creative framing and out-of-the-box thinking can make even a tiny setup work…

Photoshop has a new retouching tool – and it’s likely to become your go-to for many retouching tasks from now on. If you want to remove something from your photo, the new Remove tool will almost always do a great job. Simply paint over the offending details and it’s gone in a second. In our example, it lets us transform a bustling tourist snap at the famous Treasury building of ancient Petra in Jordan into a wonderfully empty scene. Of course, it’s not quite perfect. But then what tool is? Before the Remove tool came along, we relied on features such as the Spot Healing and Patch tools. These all base their fixes on the existing content within the image. But the new Remove tool is different, employing AI to…

Nearly a decade on from its launch in September 2014, the Nikon D750 is still a very capable camera that’ll handle pretty much any photography application you can throw at it. The Big N launched this much-loved DSLR as the debutant in a range of compact and lightweight full-frame bodies. And while such a statement might garner a wry smile in today’s mirrorless market, stacked up against the D810 and D4, it was notably smaller and lighter. But what was perhaps most interesting was the press release’s claim of “full-scale specifications (…) pursuing those of professional models.” PRO POWER – ENTHUSIAST PRICE The D750 boasted a new FX-format sensor and the, then, top-notch EXPEED 4 image processor. And according to Nikon, this delivered superior image quality to the D810 at…

When we reviewed the Nikon Z f, we called it ‘Nikon’s best-looking camera since 1982!’ And now, together with Nikon UK, we’re giving you the chance to win this full-frame retro-style Z camera. It’s an incredible prize that’s worth a whopping £2299/$1999. Enter any of the 12 rounds of NPOTY 2024 to be in with a chance of taking Nikon’s nostalgia-infused Z camera home – and of being crowned N-Photo’s Photographer of the Year 2024. A blast from the… future? The Z f is far from retro under the hood. It’s built around a 24.5Mp full-frame CMOS sensor and inherits some of the latest advancements from the Nikon Z 8 and Z 9. It’s powered by the latest EXPEED 7 processor, has a native ISO range of 100-64,000, and uses…

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…

The ‘cost of living crisis’ has become a familiar phrase around the world. Nikon’s top-flight prime lenses might remain on the wish list rather than in the shopping basket but there’s now some light relief for photography fans. Good prime lenses are always desirable additions to any kitbag but they generally don’t come cheap. We’ve been on the hunt for high-quality primes that keep costs to a minimum, for FX (full-frame) and DX (APS-C format) Nikon Z-system cameras. Budget glass used to equate to ‘dumb lenses’ without autofocus or electronic communication with the camera body. That’s no longer the case, with high-performance autofocus primes now being incredibly affordable. Compared with zoom lenses, primes have a purity to them. The fixed focal length makes you think more about placement, perspective and…

Current market prices are checked regularly with reputable stores to serve as a guideline. Body-only prices quoted unless stated. Different lens bundles are available. Prices correct at time of going to press. FX DSLRS NIKON D780 TESTED IN ISSUE 155 • £1999/$1997 THE D780 TAKES the D750’s winning design and handling cues, but adds on-sensor phase-detection autofocus and EXPEED 6 processing, inherited directly from the Z 6. The result is a capable and natural-feeling DSLR for shooting stills in viewfinder mode, coupled with the same kind of performance as a mirrorless camera in live view. NIKON D850 TESTED IN ISSUE 155 • £2299/$2497 THE D850 GOES extra-large in megapixel count with a 45.7Mp image sensor. Further attractions include a high-spec 153-point autofocus system and fairly recent EXPEED 5 processor. For live…