Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2018 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

Who doesn’t love long exposures? I relish the chance to flex my Canon camera skills using my tripod and slowing down the shutter speed. But for some people, it can be a daunting and confusing technique to master. Night is the easiest time for long exposure photography, because the lack of light equals shutter speeds beyond 20-30 seconds without even trying, or the need for fancy and pricey ND filters. This issue, we’ll help you master long exposures, as well as lots of other essential Canon DSLR skills for capturing great shots at night. From cityscapes and bridges lit up at night to starry skies and the Northern Lights, and from fireworks and light painting to classic traffic light trail shots like the one above, we’ll help you get more…

FACTFILE PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOPS DAVID LUND offers unique and bespoke teaching on a one-to-one basis or for small groups. He covers everything from still life to his stunning signature liquid imagery. To find out more, contact david@davidlund.co.uk and go to www.davidlund.co.uk. Also see David talk at The Photography Show at the NEC in Birmingham in March! Diamond job: flawless commercial filmmaking 19 March 2018 – 16:00-16:40 in the Behind the Lens Theatre. Liquid explosion! 19 March 2018 – 12:00-12:30 on the Live Stage. www.photographyshow.com CANON PRO NAME: DAVID LUND CAMERA: CANON EOS 5D MK III DAVID’S background is in graphic design and marketing, but he always knew he could combine these skills with his passion for photography to push creative boundaries. David shoots liquids in motion: drinks, still-life scenes and aerial…

01 SEAL AND PENGUIN BY AMOS NACHOUM “We were waiting for hours along a shallow lagoon, on the remote island of Plano, off the Antarctic Peninsula. Like clockwork, the leopard seal got into the lagoon just prior to low tide. It put its head in the water, so that it looked from the outside like just another rock in the receding water. When the seal reached open water, I got into the water as well and moved parallel to follow its actions.” Lens Canon EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye Exposure 1/125 sec, f/4, ISO400 02 EAGLE ROCK BY THOMAS ALLEMAN “Part of a body of work about Los Angeles and the land on which it sits. These photographs feature bougainvillea and other brilliant spring flowers in recent bloom throughout the city,…

Lens Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X PRO DX Exposure 15 secs, f/10, ISO100 Traffic light trail shots For classic shots of blurry traffic light trails at night, try following these tips. Set up your tripod in a safe position, where you can stand for half an hour without being in the way on the pavement, and as close to the road as possible, for the most dynamic composition. Using a wide-angle lens up close to the traffic will emphasize light trails and streaks more vividly. Pre-focus on a point around a third into your scene – using Live View and the x10 zoomed-in view is the easiest way to do this – then lock the focus on your lens to MF (Manual Focus), so it doesn’t try to re-focus when you…

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In photographic terms we think of backgrounds as the bit behind our subject. But ask a person what their background is, and chances are they won’t turn and look behind them. When shooting an environmental portrait we can bring the two meanings of the word together. We can use the photographic background – and foreground – to tell a person’s story. Simply put, an environmental portrait is a portrait with context. These kinds of portraits are the opposite of studio shots – a setting that’s entirely fabricated. The idea with an environmental portrait is to capture a person in their natural habitat, a place that means something to them – perhaps relating to their profession, culture, or history. However, that’s not to say that environmental portraits should be entirely natural.…

01 CHECK THE AMBIENT This is the ambient light in the workshop. A mixture of window light and tungsten lamps gives a flat, dull light. We can supplement natural light with two Speedlites to pick out our subject and add some drama. We used this setup for our main shot on pages 44-45. 02 WORK OUT A BASE EXPOSURE We worked out an exposure for the ambient light using Manual mode – here we had f/4, 1/200 second at ISO3200. This gave us the Step 1 shot. Next we underexposed by dropping the ISO to 400, a 3 stop difference. This lets us underexpose the ambient light. 03 SET UP A SPEEDLITE We lit our subject with a main light, called a key light. We’ve positioned our key light off…

01 HIGH-CONTRAST SCENES For this project, we’ve shot on a sunny day and looked for locations with a mixture of shadows and highlights that can’t been captured in a single shot. For sharp shots and bracketing, we’ve used a tripod, plus we’ve used Live View to aid composition. 02 CANON DSLR & LENS We used our trusty old Canon 5D Mark III full-frame DSLR with a wide-angle Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L lens to capture as much of the street scene and sky in shot, shooting as wide as possible at 16mm. But any Canon DSLR and kit lens is fine. 03 LARGE DEPT H OF FIELD For these shots, shoot with a wide-angle lens and at an aperture of around f/11 or f/16 for good depth of field, so your…

01 GO GREYSCALE Open up your image in camera Raw, and head to the HSL/Grayscale slider. Tick Convert to Grayscale. Next, tweak the Hue sliders and fine-tune the tones in the image. We wanted to darken the sky, so we took down the levels of Blues and Red in our shot. 02 TWEAK SLIDERS Now is the time to make more adjustments to the overall tones, such as we darkened Blacks, and boosted Contrast. At this point, you also might want to increase the contrast by heading to the Tone Curve slider and adding a slight S-Curve. 03 DARKEN THE CORNERS For a really dark and dramatic result, head to the Lens Correction panel, click on the Manual tab and then add a strong Vignette. We took the amount to…

01 FIND THE MODE Firstly, turn the Mode Dial to Scene, Press the Q button to display the Quick Control screen, select Choose Scene and then navigate to the Panning mode. Set the drive mode, the brightness to an average value, and the AF mode to Auto selection AF. 02 PAN SETTINGS Set the strength of the panning effect. The maximum setting means that the camera will set a slower shutter speed to increase the background blur around your subject. If possible, experiment by taking test shots of your subject at different effect levels. 03 PERFECT TECHNIQUE When you’re ready, ask your subject to start moving. As they near the camera frame, hold the shutter button halfway to focus, then pan the camera to follow their movement. When they hit…

01 MAKE AN ADJUSTMENT Open car.jpg into Photoshop Elements. Click on the Expert tab. Next click the layers icon bottom right to open the Layers Panel. Click the ‘Create Adjustment Layer’ icon at the top and choose Levels. In settings, drag the black and white points in to boost contrast. 02 BOOST THE CONTRAST Use a blend mode to boost contrast. Click the Create Adjustment Layer icon and choose Gradient Map. Select a black to white gradient for a monochrome effect. Now go to the Blend Mode dropdown (top of the Layers Panel) and change from Normal to Overlay. 03 ADD A GRAD This gives the image a punchy desaturated look, but it’s too strong over the car. Grab the Gradient tool and Set a black to white gradient making…

There are several ways to convert your images to black and white using Lightroom. The quickest might be to drag the Saturation or Vibrance slider down to -100, but this is definitely not the most controlled method for tweaking those shades of grey. You’ll get a monochrome result, but with no control over how the colours have been rendered into the various shades of grey and tones. Another method is to use Lightroom’s B&W mix, located next to the HSL drop-down. While this does enable you to adjust the mix of the component colours that are shown in the black and white result, unwanted posterisation can also occur at the same time. Here, we’ll show you how to edit your images in stages to retain the best result. The first…

“This shot shows a Hawaiian Air National Guard Boeing F-15 Sea Eagle dropping magnesium flares, which are used as a decoy to fool heat-seeking missiles,” says John. “If a pilot gets a missile warning, he brakes hard, turns in the opposite direction and fires these flares which burn brighter than the sun. “I took this shot in the open air, sitting on the back of an aeroplane’s cargo ramp with my feet over the edge. When I was ready, I radioed the pilot to deploy the flares. When they exploded, I could feel the heat on my face. It’s a testament to Canon because I took the shot on auto, yet it’s got every detail.”…

PROJECT INFO NAME: David G Richardson LOCATION: Cape Town MISSION: To photograph the Cape Town stopover of the 2017/2018 Volvo Ocean Race KIT: Canon EOS 60D, Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM, and Canon EF-S 18-135mm IS USM www.capetownphoto.net/wp/ I have been living in Cape Town for about 18 years now, and it has become a very interesting and exciting place to work as photographer. Over the past decade, the city has grown as a sporting destination to such an extent that today it is without a doubt the leading extreme and adventure sport city in the world. Everything from skydiving to abseiling, big-wave surfing to extreme downhill racing can be seen here, and the reason is the geographic location of Cape Town. This is where two oceans meet, where…

When it comes to importing photos from a memory card, Canon’s free Digital Photo Professional 4 (see previous page) works in tandem with the Canon EOS Utility. The EOS Utility has always been a standalone app, but the latest incarnation has become more integrated with DPP 4. You can now launch EOS Utility 3 from within DPP 4, thanks to the new Camera Control panel. As well as enabling you to browse photos on a tethered camera’s memory card, EOS Utility 3 also allows you to take control of your camera via cable or Wi-Fi, so that you can shoot remotely and then import your photos into DPP 4 for editing. This double-act between EOS Utility 3 and DPP 4 enables you to streamline the shooting and importing workflow. Go…

THE WHITE balance setting affects the whole image, which can present a problem if you’re shooting in mixed lighting. For example, if you’re shooting a tungsten-lit indoor scene, which has a daylight view visible through a window, you won’t be able to set a white balance that matches the colour temperature of both parts of the scene. Even in a landscape photo, there might be some parts of the scene that are lit by warm sunlight and other parts that are in cool, blue shade. Typically, you would set the white balance to match the colour temperature of the lighting on the main subject, and live with the rest of the scene being cooler or warmer as a result. In fact, a contrast between colour temperatures can make a picture…

Lioness guarding her cubs MIKE LUMB, SOUTH AFRICA SAYS… I managed to get just three shots of this lioness guarding her cubs from a male, before she retreated into the bush. I felt the lioness surrounded by foliage was quite dramatic, as she meant business if the male came too close. I used my EOS 7D Mk II and processed the Raw file with Digital Photo Professional 4. I enhanced my image with a Tone Curve Adjustment and a touch of saturation to draw the subject out of the vegetation. I also removed a small white flower with the stamp, which was proving to be a background distraction. BRIAN SAYS… I love the intensity of the lioness’s look. By having your camera ready to shoot, you have brilliantly captured a…

Wide-angle zoom and superzoom lenses, which stretch all the way from wide-angle to telephoto focal lengths, typically produce very noticeable distortions. By comparison, distortions in all of the budget telephoto zooms here are moderate. You can expect a little barrel distortion at the short end of the zoom range, switching to low pincushion at medium to long zoom settings. Technically, the Canon 70-300mm produces the worst barrel distortion at the short end, and the relatively old-style Sigma and Tamron 70-300mm ‘macro’ tele zooms give the worst pincushion at the long end, but there’s not much in it.…

NEW CANON TIPS Night life is so much more exciting when you have your Canon DSLR with you. When the skies darken, the lights come on, and the stars come out to play, cities and skies transform to become photogenic magic. Towns and cities arguably look their best at night. It’s perfectly possible to capture stunning cityscapes and landscapes during the day, too, but unless the light is just right, and from just the right direction, it’s often hard to do it all justice. The advantage of shooting at night is that you don’t have to worry as much about the light, or indeed the weather. The sort of deep, dusky blue skies you get up to an hour after sunset on clear evenings are probably the ideal for night…

Lens Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 AT-X PRO FX Exposure 13 secs, f/3.5, ISO1000 Exposure advice For shots of starry skies and the Northern Lights, when you’re far from light pollution, light levels are very low – so you need to use a killer combination of a wide aperture, high ISO setting and long exposure to get as much light into the sensor as possible. With a wide lens, set an aperture between f/2.8 and f/5.6, ISO between 1600 and 3200, and a shutter speed between 15 and 30 seconds. Sharp starry night On a clear night, coastal spots far from city lights offer the darkest skies for capturing the stars. An exposure around f/4, ISO1600 and 30 secs is a good starting point, but any longer than this, and the stars…

Loch Maree, Wester Ross, Scotland. 05:20am local time. 16-25 November 2017 On the road to up Glen Docherty, as if sensing the location, my iPod shuffles to Local Hero. The combination of the scenery and the music causes my spirits to soar and memories to flood back. Good times, mostly, exhilarating times occasionally, wet times often, frustrating times frequently – but I cut my teeth as a landscape photographer here in the Highlands. It’s so good to be back. Lugging yet another bag up the stairs at the hotel, I’m coming to the conclusion I’ve brought far too much. Multiple camera bags, boots, rucksacks and sundry chargers soon clutter my tiny room. There was a time when I travelled the world with just one backpack; where did it all go…

01 POSING PORTRAITS Even though you want a natural look, you can still pose your subject. Placing our subject in the centre of the room allowed us to frame him with the machinery and work benches. 02 COMPOSITION A tripod isn’t essential, but it’s useful when fine-tuning a composition as you can take a step back, study the frame and move objects in or out to suit the composition. 03 LIGHTING You might find that natural light works perfectly, but here it’s a little flat, so we’ve highlighted our subject with a couple of Speedlites – the key light here is fitted with a silver umbrella. 04 PROPS It’s the surroundings and mise-en-scene that tell the story. The right props will help, too. Tom here makes knives, so it stands…

01 BACKLIGHT THE SUBJECT Backlighting is a great mood-setter; it lifts the edges of the subject while keeping the rest dark and moody. It’s great for side-on shots. To create backlighting, we position the light source behind the subject to the side, whether it’s a Speedlite, window or tungsten. 02 SHOW THE DETAILS Sometimes hands can tell the story better than a full portrait, especially in environments like this one. So look for those closer details that help to tell the story. These kinds of shots work very well when placed in a collage with your main portrait. 03 FRAME TWO PEOPLE Why not frame up several people in the shot? Here we’ve used the same cross-lighting setup as our main portrait (pages 44-45), but this time we’ve switched positions…

As far as cut-outs go, it doesn’t get much more daunting than this. The Eiffel tower is about as complex a shape as you can imagine. The iconic outline is simple enough, but it’s all the little gaps and spaces in between that pose a challenge for anyone wishing to make a selection. The bare tree branches on the right make things even harder. So how can we cut out an object like this? Forget using the freehand or simple selection tools, it would probably take a week. Even the cleverer tools like the Quick Selection tool or Magic Wand are likely to struggle. Instead, we can use the information within the image. In our starting image, the dark shapes of the building and tree are clearly defined against the…

01 LOAD IT UP Open up your image in Lightroom and then head to the Develop tab. Firstly, Set the Treatment to Black & White in the Basic panel. This has a similar effect to switching to Greyscale mode in Camera Raw. If you want to crop your image as suggested on the left, do this before you start editing the rest of the tones. 02 TONE IT AROUND Next up, refine your conversion with the tone sliders. We lowered the overall exposure to -0.35, the contrast to +25, and the highlights to -15. Shadows were boosted to +10, while Blacks were taken to -40. Lastly, we took the Clarity to +25 to bring out details in the rocks. Different exposures will need different values. 03 DARKER SKIES The next…

Professional photographers reveal their top six tools of the trade they couldn’t shoot without “Ping the honesty up front… I’m not a gear guy. I don’t keep an eye on the newest things that come out” My photography is focused on wildlife in its environment. I like to include the natural habitat of the animal in the image, so I don’t use long lenses very often. Ping the honesty up front… I’m not a gear guy. I don’t keep an eye on the newest things that come out, and I don’t know (or care about) all of the specs and charts. The best images in my portfolio are taken with a Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II which I recently replaced with the outstanding new version, and the Canon EF 70-200mm…

01 RATE A FILE You can add a rating or check mark to a selected thumbnail by clicking the icons at the base of the workspace. Alternatively, tap any of the number keys between 1-5, or go to Label and select the star rating you’re after. 02 CREATE A COLLECTION Go to the Collections pane and click the Add Collection icon. Label your collection to make it easy to identify. Drag thumbnails to the collection to add them to it. Click on the collection label to display its contents in the workspace. 03 QUICK CHECK By clicking the Quick Check icon at the top of the workspace you can enlarge a thumbnail for a better look and easier access to all the rating and check markassigning icons. You can also…

FOR THE most accurate colours, take a manual white balance reading. To do this, first take a photograph of a white object in the same light as your subject – make sure it fills most of the frame. Next, choose the Custom White Balance option in your camera’s red Shooting menu, and follow the on-screen instructions to select the picture and register this manual reading. Finally, press the WB button on your camera and choose the Custom icon. The camera can only save one custom setting at a time, so you need to repeat the process if the light changes.…

Taking over the baton from the Macro Twin Lite MT-24EX, the new MT-26EX-RT is better in pretty much every way. It’s more powerful, more versatile, and more durable. But what exactly is it? The Macro Twin Lite delivers a versatile lighting solution for close-ups, in anything from product photography to shooting insects, dental or forensic work, and even portraits. The control unit slots into the hotshoe of a camera, and the two miniature flash heads clip onto a mounting ring that attaches to the front of most Canon macro lenses. Notable exceptions to direct fitment include the EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM and EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM lenses. For use with these and independently manufactured lenses, Canon makes ‘Macrolite Adapters’, enabling fitment to 52mm, 58mm, 67mm, 72mm attachment…

Colour fringing in telephoto zoom lenses tends to become more noticeable at the maximum focal length. It’s not always the case, however, as demonstrated by the Canon 70-300mm and Tamron 70-200mm. A star performer for minimizing colour fringing is the Sigma 70-200mm, whereas the Canon 70-200mm is relatively poor at the long end. The worst for colour fringing are the old-style Sigma and Tamron 70-300mm ‘macro’ zooms.…

The Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 comes up trumps, combining effective dual-mode image stabilization with super-fast autofocus and excellent image quality. The fast, constant-aperture design enables quick shutter speeds even under dull or indoor lighting, as well as a really tight depth of field. Canon’s 70-200mm f/4 lens is a good lighter-weight option and adds weather-seals, but is also a whole stop slower. If you want the greater telephoto reach of a 70-300mm zoom, Canon’s EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS II USM is our pick. The Tamron SP 70-300mm f/4-5.6 Di VC USD is the best choice on a tighter budget, and the Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM is good as a lightweight lens for an APS-C body.…

Limited back issues of PhotoPlus print editions are available on our MyFavouriteMagazines secure store at http://bit.ly/getphotoplus. But if you’ve got an iPad, Android, Kindle or Nook tablet, or iPhone or Android smartphone, you can download PhotoPlus back issues from the following digital edition options: • Got an Apple iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch? Get the free PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine app in the App Store or at bit.ly/photoplus_app then browse through our back issues or subscribe through the app. • Kindle Fire or Nook HD? Simply search for PhotoPlus on Amazon’s Newsstand or in B&N’s Nook store. • Android/Google Play? Go to bit.ly/photoplus_googleplay to subscribe to PhotoPlus on your Android device. • Windows or Mac? Use Zinio to read PhotoPlus on your laptop or desktop computer! Go to bit.ly/zinio_photoplus where…

Golden hour I’m a keen amateur Canon photographer based in Alicante, Spain. I remember quite well that when I first took this shot (see right), I was really surprised as it was the first time I had managed the golden hour technique. I had tried this technique so many times earlier with my Canon gear, and failed every time, but this day I finally managed to capture this portrait. In that very moment, I gained a substantial amount of inspiration to carry on with challenging myself and exploring photography thoroughly. Being motivated is definitely the key to exploring photography. I took this shot with my Canon EOS 600D and Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 lens, with an exposure of 1/2000 sec, f/1.8, ISO100. Vivian Engh, Parcent, Alicante, Spain Thanks for the…

Lens Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L Exposure 30 secs, f/8, ISO100 Like a bridge... Bridges make ideal subjects for cityscapes at night when they’re lit up, as they usually create great reflections in the water below. By including the moon, as in our example, it can light up the sky and scene more, too. You need a tripod for all your night shots, as you’ll be taking long exposures, and you’ll end up with blurry images if you don’t use one. Start off setting a narrow aperture of around f/16 for good depth of field, so your whole city night scene appears sharp. One bonus of a narrow aperture is that it turns bright lights into star bursts. Use a wide-angle lens to capture as much of the bridge and city…

Lens Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 Exposure 13 secs, f/6.3, ISO100 Baby, you’re a firework Instead of a 30-sec exposure, for fireworks you need to shoot between one and 15 secs to capture the explosions, and therefore, instead of a really narrow aperture, you need to shoot at around f/5.6 to f/8 and ISO100-200 for a good exposure. While you’re capturing the fireworks during the display, it’s always worth checking the image histogram after taking each shot. A few blown-out highlights are inevitable (and recoverable in Photoshop), but try not to overexpose the highlights too much, otherwise you’ll lose vital detail in the fireworks. Check that the peak on the right of the histogram isn’t ‘clipped’ by the end of the graph. If clipped, try shooting at f/11 to darken the shots.…

AVOID the urge to start shooting and spend time watching and talking. Get to know your subject, and find out about them. This will help you build a rapport with the person, and give you the chance to size up the space and eye up any potential compositions. CONTEXT IS good, but don’t overwhelm the frame with too much detail. Use lighting or depth of field to minimize clutter by darkening the backdrop or blurring it with a wide aperture. This focuses attention on the subject and shows the surroundings.…

01 TIME IT RIGHT Check the weather before your shoot – you need cloud movement to create blur. Ideal conditions are light winds with around 60% clear sky and 40% cloud cover. Walk about your chosen location, and look for a subject and the best angle before setting up a tripod. 02 SET A STABLE BASE Mount your camera on a sturdy tripod, ensuring that the tripod head is securely locked. Point your camera directly upwards towards your subject. Cover the camera’s viewfinder with black tape to prevent light leaking in during the long exposures. 03 FRAME AND FOCUS Engage Live View mode and use it to compose the frame. A vertical or square composition that uses symmetry will keep things simple. Focus on the scene with autofocus, then switch…

There are a variety of different ways to photograph subjects in motion. Action photography can be about freezing moments in time, but it can also be about showing motion. Sometimes a fast shutter speed doesn’t tell the whole story, and a slow shutter speed with a panning motion creates a much more expressive and compelling image, as the motion blur captures a sense of movement. Panning is when you follow a moving subject – think cyclist, runner or race car – along its plane of motion with your camera. The concept is simple: you set your Canon to an extended shutter speed, move your camera with the subject and fire the shutter. In practice, it can be a bit tricky; fortunately, Canon have added a Panning Scene mode to several…

Layers are one of the most fundamental features of Photoshop. They allow you to build up images like layers of tracing paper. In the main, layers are pixel-based, like the image that sits on the background layer when you first open it up, or any parts of other images you might want to place on top. But layers can also go beyond pixels. An Adjustment layer is a different kind of layer. It lets you tweak the tones of an image, alter colours, convert to monochrome and much more. Of course, you can apply these kinds of edits directly to an image layer if you like (using the Enhance menu). But adjustment layers are often the smarter choice, as they give you greater control and flexibility. An Adjustment layer works…

01 COPY A CHANNEL Open eiffel_before then go to Window>Channels. In the Channels Panel, click through the red, green and blue channels and assess which gives the most contrast between the object and surroundings. Drag it to the New Channel icon at the bottom to copy. 02 INCREASE THE CONTRAST Go to Image>Adjustment>Levels (or hit Cmd/Ctrl+L). In the Levels box drag in the black and white points to increase contrast. The objective here is to make one part completely black, the other completely white. However, don’t push things too far yet. 03 PAINT BLACK AND WHITE Grab Brush tool from the Tools Panel. Go to the tool options and set Brush Mode to Overlay and opacity to 50%. Hit D to set colours to white and black. Paint the background…

01 HAWKER HURRICANE John shot the Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar’s Hurricane flying past the cliffs of Dover where the Battle of Britain was fought Lens Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 Exposure 1/200 sec, f/9, ISO100 TO MAKE a career in the highly specialized field of air-to-air photography requires a very particular set of skills and attributes. Not only do you need a willingness to deal with everything from extreme temperatures to high levels of G-force; at the same time, you need razor-sharp timing to capture one or more aircraft executing manoeuvres at high speed. Lastly, you need a head for heights and an understanding of the inherent risks of the job. London-born photographer John Dibbs has them all, plus an ability to adapt his business to suit an ever-changing market. He…

01 Do your homework Learn about the place you are visiting, but don’t be wedded to preconceived notions of what to photograph. You need to be flexible and ready to react to the subjects and scenes there. 02 Make a list Have a detailed packing list and start packing well in advance of your trip so you have time to obtain any necessary items, such as prescriptions, before you go. Don’t forget your adapters! 03 Pack your tripod Take a tripod even though it adds bulk. It forces you to slow down and be more critical about the subject. It also allows for longer exposures. 04 ISO for handheld Conversely, don’t be wedded to a tripod. With today’s high ISO performance on Canon cameras you can be the roving street…

01 FOLDER Click on a folder to display thumbnails of its contents in DPP 4’s workspace. You can drag one folder into another to rearrange them. Folders of imported photos tend to be stored chronologically, but there’s lots you can do to find files faster… 02 FILTER SETTINGS You can filter the contents of a folder to display files that meet a specific criteria. For example, to only display Raw files that have been rated with 5 stars, or those displaying a particular check mark. Click on Filter at the top of then choose from the three drop-down menus. 03 SORT To help you find files more easily you can change the way that thumbnails are displayed in DPP 4. You could choose to display the newest files at the…

WHITE BALANCE isn’t just for colour photography. Whether you’re using the Monochrome Picture Style in-camera or converting a Raw file to mono in software, making adjustments to the colour temperature can subtly enhance the look of black-and-white pictures. Use WB SHIFT/BKT to introduce more blue, amber, magenta or green, as this can make a difference, too. Using the Live View display enables you to preview the result of white balance changes before you take a photo, although bear in mind that if you’re shooting Raw files, rather than JPEGs, the unprocessed colour file is saved to the memory card, rather than the image you see on the camera. See the effect Use Live View to check white balance and Picture Style settings, rather than taking lots of test shots…

I often meet photographers who have great cameras, but complain that some aspect of its operation is not to their liking. Some recent cameras have a whole new look to the menu and displays, designed to simplify the learning curve of a new EOS photographer. My new EOS 200D falls in to this: it has new default displays and menus that are visually appealing, but slower for my experienced mind to work with. Auto Picture Styles is a setting that many stick with, then wonder why their JPEGs look different in some situations, or the Raw images don’t look the same as the camera’s when opened in Lightroom. I like the Fine Detail picture style found on recent cameras, so it has become my chosen setting instead of the default…

01 Chillblast Fusion Photo OC Lite IV Photo Editing PC A no-compromise, image-editing PC £1500/$2075 www.chillblast.com RISING megapixel counts, 4K video and advanced image-editing features demand serious computing clout, and this PC is a tower of power. Based around Intel’s latest blazing-fast six-core Core i7 processor, backed up by 16GB of RAM, you’ll be hard pressed to find a faster Photoshop performer. Water cooling minimizes fan noise, while storage is comprised of a topquality Samsung SSD for Windows, plus a pair of 2TB hard drives for your images. Just add a monitor, keyboard and mouse. 02 Fotospeed Platinum Cotton 305 Premium paper for your prized pictures £32/$44 www.fotospeed.com DEVELOPED in partnership with leading landscape photographer Joe Cornish, this 100% cotton 305gsm fine art paper has a smooth natural white surface…

Think ‘budget tele zoom’ and you’re probably thinking of a 70-300mm lens, preferably with image stabilization and a price tag that won’t make your eyes water. But that’s not the only choice. Canon still makes a budget tele zoom specifically for DSLRs with APS-C format image sensors. Indeed, the latest incarnation of the EF-S 55-250mm is compact and lightweight, while adding practically silent STM (Stepping Motor) autofocus and the latest generation of stabilizer. Even so, it’s in a minority of one, as it is currently Canon’s only APS-C format tele zoom, and both Sigma and Tamron have discontinued manufacture. The trend is for full-frame compatible 70-300mm lenses with variable aperture ratings, typically shrinking from f/4 to f/5.6 as you extend through the zoom range. Sigma and Tamron still market relatively…

At the short and long ends of their zoom ranges, the lenses in this test group give focal lengths of 55mm, 70mm, 200mm, 250mm and 300mm. This sequence of shots shows the relative effect of using each focal length, and how much more telephoto reach you get at longer zoom settings. Naturally, if you use an APS-C format camera, you’ll effectively multiply the focal length by 1.6x, but the relative difference between each shot in the sequence will be the same.…

Spend more money on a telephoto zoom and you have three main options. The Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM is something of an oddball choice at £1250/$1350. It’s unusual in that it has the 70-300mm zoom range and variable aperture design of less expensive lenses, but its image quality and all-round performance is excellent. The more usual choice is to go for a top-class 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. Canon’s legendary EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM is a favourite among professionals, and commands an accordingly premium price of £1900/$2100. In some ways, however, it is outclassed by Tamron’s new SP 70-200mm f/2.8 Di VC USD G2 (Generation 2) lens, which has similar optical excellence and pro-grade build quality, along with a more effective image stabilizer. It also undercuts the Canon’s…

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