Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2018 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

Big mountains – I just really love being in the big mountains. Ever since I started mountain biking and taking photos in my youth, I’ve been mesmerized by the big snowy peaks, the vast sweeping views, and that feeling that you’re on top of the world. The mountains are also a great reminder of how insignificant we are, and help put our petty personal problems into perspective. Whether it’s Whistler in British Columbia, the French Alps or the Scottish Highlands, these epic mountain landscapes are all begging to be captured with my Canon gear. This issue I spent a long, enjoyable day in Snowdonia National Park in north-west Wales, photographing beautiful green valleys surrounded by big, striking rocky mountains. See the shots I captured and the DSLR tips I’ve shared…

FACT FILE WE SHOT at the fantastic International Centre for Birds of Prey, a charity in Newent, Gloucestershire, established in 1967, and packed full of beautiful birds of prey. Visit www.icbp.org for details. CANON PRO NAME: BEN HALL CAMERA: CANON EOS-1D X PROFESSIONAL wildlife photographer Ben, 39, got into photography as a 14-year-old. He turned professional in 2003, and in 2017 won a British Wildlife Photography Award and was named Bird Photographer of the Year with his shot of a condor. He currently runs photography workshops throughout the UK, centering on British wildlife such as mountain hares, red deer and more. For more information visit www.benhallphotography.com APPRENTICE NAME: PAUL SHARMAN CAMERA: CANON EOS 7D Mk II PAUL, 52, from Burgess Hill, West Sussex, has been shooting since his teenage years.…

◆ Look for the light We stayed in Llanberis, which is at the foot of Mount Snowdon, down a huge, winding valley from the Pen-y-Pass access point to the peak. It’s also home to two large lakes spanning north-east (Llyn Padarn) and north-west (Llyn Peris) from the small town centre, ideally placed and angled for sunset, and sunrise photos. We got up before first light, so we were in position and hopeful for a colourful sky at sunrise. We had our Canon DSLR on a tripod and ready to go, but unfortunately the cloud cover spoiled our party. By using a 24-70mm lens and zooming in we could still capture the first beams of sunlight filtering up the valley between the peaks. Panoramic fun ◆ Panoramas are great for including…

Hike up for the best views Many Canon DSLRs come with touchscreens now, and they aren’t just for accessing the menu or reviewing your images, they make shooting with Live View a lot easier as well – even when perched on a rocky outcrop up a mountain, as we were for the valley scene on the right. Shooting using the touch screen on a Canon 77D, we could touch each area on the LCD to take a shot that exposed for the shadows, midtones and highlights. We then blended the three images in Photoshop, using layers to reveal a full range of tones in a more natural (non HDR) way. The right light Landscape photography is all about the best light. We took nice photos all day, in a mixture…

n this project, I’ll show you how to bring sunny castle scenes to life by using ND filters and long exposures. As buildings are stationary it can sometimes mean your images feel a little lifeless. To boost our shot of a castle scene, I’m using an ND filter to extend our exposure during the day. I’ve used a 10-stop filter for our shot of a castle across the water – this has extended my shutter speed from 1/60 sec to a really long exposure of 20 seconds – this has in turn added movement to skies and water to bring our scene to life. Neutral Density (ND) filters work by reducing the amount of light going into your lens and on to your Canon DSLR’s sensor. To expose the scene…

Many of the amazing landscape photos that we aspire to emulate aren’t a photograph at all. Instead they’re a combination of two or more images, shot at different exposure settings to capture detail at either end of the tonal range, then blended together to form a seamless whole. This is done to retain detail in the sky, as it’s usually brighter than the land. By taking one frame with a wellexposed foreground and one for the brighter sky, we can blend the two later for a balanced scene. The technique for this begins in-camera, as you have to take two or more frames in perfect alignment, so a tripod is essential. It’s also a good idea to use a cable release and engage your camera’s bracketing mode, so that there’s…

As a professional sports photographer, Canon Ambassador Samo Vidic shoots the world’s top athletes for world-leading brands and publications. But in his latest project, Samo wanted to shine a light on a sometimes-overlooked group of sporting heroes – disabled athletes who’ve overcome the odds to achieve great things in the sports they love. “Disabled athletes are rarely seen in the media in comparison with non-disabled ones,” Samo says. “I wanted to show different kinds of sports people, to highlight them and tell their often amazing life changing stories.” In this photography project, he wanted to emphasise the athletes’ sporting prowess and the considerable obstacles that they have had to overcome. His two camera bodies for these thought provoking shoots were the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV and the Canon EOS…

In Indonesia, back in 1998, “I was filming a wildlife documentary in the Sumatran rainforest, where I had a remarkable encounter with a tribe of hunter-gatherers. They were called the Orang Rimba and they lived in harmony with their jungle home, and I’ve never forgotten them. I took one photograph that’s become particularly special to me, of a young tribal girl,” says Chris. “She’s become a barometer for me of measuring the condition of our planet.” Chris took this original portrait on a Canon EOS-1 film SLR and Canon L-Series telephoto lens. 20 years later, in his incredibly moving documentary, Chris overcomes obstacles and heart-breaking revelations, to search for and find the girl in the picture.…

01 EDIT IMAGE Click the Edit Image button to access extra image-editing tools, such as the Histogram window, so that you can analyse the photo’s exposure problems with more precision. 02 HISTOGRAM The histogram in our annotation displays a more balanced range of highlights, midtones and shadows for the edited version of the image than in the histogram of the unedited image (below). Here, we can see that the brightest pixels at the right of the graph are peaking far higher than the midtones in the middle and shadows on the left, indicating that the highlights are very overexposed. 03 LEVELS Your photo’s tones are measured in a range of levels that run between 0 for pure black and 255 for pure white. If you place the cursor over part…

AS WELL as the focal length of the lens – or the range of focal lengths in the case of a zoom lens – you’ll find a host of cryptic numbers, letters and symbols printed on your lens. Here’s a guide to the most common ones, and how to decipher them. What does Ø77mm mean? This symbol indicates the diameter of the front of your lens, so you know the correct size of filter or lens cap to use. What does L mean? L stands for Luxury, and Canon’s top-of-the-line lenses can be easily identified at a distance by their distinctive red ring. L lenses share high-end build quality, high-quality glass and synthetic fluorite elements, and a reassuringly high price. What does STM mean? STM (Stepping Motor) lenses use electrical…

THE CONTENDERS On a full-frame DSLR, an 85mm prime lens with a wide aperture is the ideal optic for portraiture. It enables you to capture head and shoulders, or half-length portraits at a comfortable working distance, so you’re close enough to direct your subject without invading their personal space and literally being in their face. This is the ideal spacing for portraits Meanwhile, the typical widest aperture of f/1.4, or f/1.8, enables a tight depth of field, so you can throw fussy backgrounds out of focus and focus all the attention on the portrait sitter. Another advantage of relatively wide apertures, compared with most zoom lenses, is that you can keep shutter speeds fast enough to freeze any slight movement on the part of the camera or the person being…

Launched way back in 1993, this lens has a relatively simple optical path, based on just seven elements, whereas Sigma’s 50mm f/1.4 Art lens has 13. An upside is the Canon lens is smaller and more lightweight, at half the length and a third of the weight of the Sigma. Even so, it’s still larger and nearly twice as heavy as Canon’s 50mm f/1.8 lens. With its faster aperture rating, the front element needs to have a greater diameter to let in more light, and the filter thread is upsized from 49mm to a modest 58mm. Although it’s a ‘USM’ lens, autofocus is based on an ultrasonic micro-motor rather than a ring-type system. Autofocus speed is quicker than the Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens’s gear-type STM system, but it’s not fast…

When buying a portrait prime, you usually need to make the choice between image stabilization or a super-fast f/1.4 aperture. This new 85mm from Canon gives you the best of both worlds, with no compromise in features or image quality. The only L-series Canon lens in the group, it has top-notch build quality and a full set of weather-seals. Typical of recent up-market designs, the lens has a much more complex optical layout than the old Canon 50mm f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.8 lenses on test, with no less than 14 elements arranged in 10 groups. Other upgrades include a nine-blade diaphragm that enables an extremely well-rounded aperture, and Canon’s advanced ASC (Air Sphere Coating) to minimize ghosting and flare. The speedy ring-type ultrasonic autofocus system and image stabilizer are quiet…

Colour fringing is usually most noticeable towards the edges and corners of the image frame, around high-contrast transitions in subject matter, like dark branches and leaves of a tree silhouetted against a bright sky. All of the lenses in this test group perform well in keeping colour fringing to a minimum. In most cases, you won’t notice any fringing at all.…

The two most up-market standard primes for full-frame cameras in the group, and therefore for portraiture on APS-C cameras, are the Canon and Sigma 50mm f/1.4 lenses. They tip the scales at 290g and 815g respectively, with a similarly considerable difference in size. This Tamron lens takes the middle ground, weighing 540g that makes it well-balanced on typically lightweight APS-C format bodies. The Tamron’s widest aperture is narrower, at f/1.8, but an advantage is it’s the only 45/50mm lens in the group to use stabilization. The ‘Vibration Correction’ system works well. We were able to shoot consistently sharp handheld portraits at shutter speeds of just 1/10th of a second on APS-C cameras, although this demands the sitter is able to keep still. The ring-type ultrasonic autofocus system is effective, with…

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The DPP paperchase I thoroughly enjoy your articles on DPP4, Canon’s photo editing software. I prefer this to either Photoshop Elements or Lightroom. I first used DPP3 when I purchased the Canon 450D and found that Raw files wouldn’t download in my version of Elements. When I bought the relevant version I noticed that the difference in the images, although slight, were enough to convince me to convert Raw files in DPP and do any further edits in Elements. The only problem I have found is that DPP4 does not recognize international paper sizes such as A3/4/5, which were available as presets in DPP3. It really is a pain to have to use custom settings and insert ‘1.41:1’ and remember which way is portrait and which way is landscape! When…

The International Landscape Photographer of the Year 2017 competition celebrates incredible landscape imagery taken by photographers from all over the globe. The contest rewards the best single photograph. Alongside this, the best portfolio of four photographs and the top 101 entries are also collected into a stunning book. More info at www.internationallandscapephotographer.com…

Welsh valleys ◆ Next up was Llyn Ogwen lake and the area known as the Devil’s Kitchen, which includes a smorgasbord of scenery with big mountains, valleys and lakes in all directions. From here we could climb a little higher to look down Ogwen valley. Although now cloudy, we were blessed with shafts of sunlight way down in the valley below. If it wasn’t for the relentless 45mph winds and gusts, and the occasional military fighter jet roaring around the ‘Mach Loop’ overhead, it would’ve been incredibly peaceful! Exposed to all the elements, to keep our camera still in the high-winds, we hung a camera bag off our tripod for extra added stability during our exposures. Increase ISO for sharp shots ◆ It may seem counter intuitive to increase your…

“It’s stylish, comfortable to carry, and easy to access my Canon DSLR so I can be ready to shoot quickly”Peter Travers Editor Your free Vanguard camera bag • Dual purpose benefit: Photo bag or daily bag • Exterior front zippered and back pockets • Dual Memory Card pockets • Integrated storage pocket for 9in tablet or 11in laptop…

james.artaius@futurenet.com Welcome… GREETING! I’m James, and proud to say I’m the new Techniques editor on PhotoPlus. I can’t wait to bring you some great new photo projects and image-editing tutorials over the coming months. For now, please enjoy the following great projects, starting with clever compositional tricks with perspective, a toy car and willing model. We bring static scenery to life during the day by using a 10-stop ND filter and long exposure to blur clouds and water. Learn how to convert images in-camera to infrared by using a lens filter and a little polishing in Photoshop. Afraid of shooting into the sun? We show how to get creative portraits shooting into the light. If that’s not enough, we have new image-editing guides in Photoshop Elements, CC and Lightroom to…

Back in the day, infrared photography used to be a complex and slightly unsatisfying process. Here in the digital era, however, the technique is pretty foolproof. In this project, we’ll show you how to take stunning, somewhat eerie, infrared images without having to convert your existing camera. To a get started, you’ll need a circular IR filter to fit your lens. Once screwed on, this prevents visible light from passing through while allowing IR light to reach the camera sensor. Using an IR filter in practice is simple, but it does still pose some challenges. The filter blocks out visible light, so your exposures will need to be longer to compensate. A stable tripod is vital for avoiding camera shake. As IR filters are inherently very dark, you’ll have to…

This month we’re getting creative with shadows! We’ve transformed our shadow into a bird-like character, but you can use these skills to mould your shadow into whatever you want. To do this we create black shapes, then soften and blend them with the existing shadows. We used a few photos of birds to create the wings and beak for our sinister birdman, and we’ll use the Blend If command to blend our fake shadows with the texture below. It’s a handy feature that enables us to see which parts of a layer are visible based on their brightness. Here we can use it to darken the road, making it look real, while allowing some of the brighter textures to come through. We will also make use of the Field Blur…

ONE OF Samo’s subjects was the Slovenian swimmer Darko Duric. Despite being born with only one arm and no legs, he has become a Paralympian, a double world champion and has broken the world record in the 50m Butterfly S4 class. When shooting Darko’s portrait and action shot, Samo wanted to convey his striking story immediately. “Darko only has one arm, but the water gives him wings, somehow. That’s exactly what I wanted to show,” he explains. The sports shoot took place at a pool in Ljubljana, Slovenia. With Darko posing on a diving board for the portrait, Samo got two assistants to throw buckets of water at him from left and right, creating wing-like shapes with the water. Samo froze the movement of the water with his studio flashes,…

Nature Photographer Chris Packham, 56, is a British naturalist, nature photographer, television presenter and author. He has high-functioning autism, including a seemingly photographic memory. He might have a little difficulty building relationships with humans, but that’s humanity’s loss and mother nature’s gain as Chris has a profoundly close relationship with nature and each of his pets. He is an expert in his field, and incredibly knowledgeable about ecology, environmental and ethical issues, and a passionate campaigner on conservation. He likes his own space and lives on his own in a house in the woods, only with his pet dog – his partner of ten years, Charlotte Corney, is owner of the Isle of Wight Zoo, and also lives on the island. He started off presenting in 1985 in the The…

Professional photographers reveal their top six tools of the trade they couldn’t shoot without “I think it’s super important to continue evolving by experimenting with expanding your tool kit” Minimalism, you could say, is my life motto. My home is smaller than most bathrooms and everything I own fits into less than 100 square feet. I live in a Sprinter van, with my man, and travel the States shooting weddings and couples. But when it comes to my gear, simplicity goes out the window. Being prepared, and having all the right tools to get creative with, is always my priority, and my kit reflects that. I own two camera bodies, five prime lenses, two flashes, two straps, five film cameras (some instant), a whole lotta film, a tripod, and a…

In the last three issues of PhotoPlus we demonstrated how Canon’s free EOS Utility 3 software enables you to import your photos into Digital Photo Professional 4, so you can organize, edit and share your favourite shots. However, this pair of recently released programs is only compatible with a specific range of more recent Canon camera models. If your camera isn’t compatible with these newer programs then you can still import your digital photos into a Mac or PC using Canon’s older Image Browser EX program. As well as enabling you to sort your imported files into dated and labelled folders, Image Browser EX can also help you fix common problems with a JPEG’s colours, tones and composition (though you’ll need to export Raw files from Image Browser EX to…

The size of the imaging sensor in your camera has an impact on the effective focal length of a lens, and consequently the angle of view. The majority of EOS cameras have an APS-C sized sensor which are 1.6x smaller than full-frame sensors. As a result, they capture a smaller area of the image projected by the lens. In effect, APS-C sensors crop the image, making everything look noticeably bigger. The focal length of the lens does not actually change – a 50mm lens remains a 50mm lens whether it’s attached to a full-frame camera or an APS-C one – but the angle of view gets narrower. You can actually work out the equivalent focal length – the one that would give a similar angle of view on a full-frame…

There are two types of lenses: primes and zooms. Prime lenses have fixed focal lengths, while zoom lenses give you a range of different focal lengths. Zoom lenses are more versatile, as you can try a range of different looks without changing the lens. For instance, an EF 24-105mm lens gives you the angles of view of 24mm, 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm and 100mm prime lenses all in one. Not having to remove the lens as often reduces the risk of dust getting inside the camera. So, why bother with prime lenses if you can save yourself the time, hassle and space in your bag? The main advantages of a prime lens is they’re usually smaller and lighter than a zoom lens which covers the same focal length. They’re also…

Ask Brian! Confused with your Canon DSLR? Email EOSSOS@futurenet.com EOS cameras have several functions that are suitable for creating pictures that stand out from the crowd. The first of these functions is Manual exposure mode, the one mode that you take full control over your exposure. You determine the appropriate depth-of-field, degree of subject motion and how much digital noise is present in the file. These three interconnected variables determine the brightness of your photo, but with Manual you determine what the correct exposure is. Darker or lighter, the choice is yours. Once you have been taking pictures for some time it is a great creative exercise to try a new subject, using only Manual exposure. Entry-level EOS cameras have creative filters that can be applied when shooting images, or…

01 Lomography Naiad 3.8/15 Lomography expands its Neptune system £389/$449 www.lomography.com THE recently launched Neptune system is a trio of prime lens modules that share a single aperture base. The new 15mm Naiad is the fourth Neptune Front Lens module. It’s a manual lens with full-frame coverage and a 135° field of view, that’s also able to focus as close as 1cm for macro shots. The lens must be used with the Neptune system base, but there is a Naiad+Base kit available. 02 WD My Passport Wireless SSD The humble portable hard drive, reworked for photographers £200/$230 www.wdc.com AT its core this is a fast portable solid-state drive, available in 250GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities – but it’s a bit more special than that. Thanks to a built-in card…

Canon’s EF 50mm f/1.8 lenses have always been attractive budget buys, but the preceding editions felt plasticky, right down to their plastic mounting plate. The more recent STM edition feels more solid and better built, has a metal mounting plate and is richer in features. The old-fashioned electric motor of previous editions is replaced with a stepping motor that’s quieter in operation. Despite the upgrade, autofocus is a bit sluggish and audible, being noisier than STM systems in most other Canon lenses. That’s because it’s a compact system that uses helical gears to drive focusing, rather than being a lead-screw type. At least smooth autofocus transitions are still enabled when shooting video, and there’s the usual electronic coupling for ‘fly by wire’ manual focusing and manual override of autofocus. The…

As you’d expect from a group of prime lenses with focal lengths between 45mm and 85mm, there’s little distortion. For barrel distortion, the two Canon 50mm are the worst offenders. The amount is similar in both cases, and much less than from a typical standard zoom lens at its shortest focal length. The Canon 85mm f/1.8 and Tamron 45mm produce less barrel distortion, whereas the Tamron 85mm gives negligible pincushion and the Canon 85mm f/1.4 shows more. Both Sigma lenses are virtually free of distortion.…

Some say you don’t need image stabilization in a lens that has a wide aperture, because it enables fast shutter speeds. However, you might want to narrow the aperture to retain more background detail for environmental portraits. And even at wide apertures, shutter speeds can be slow under indoor lighting, or when shooting twilight or night portraits outdoors. In these conditions, image stabilization can make all the difference between sharp and blurry shots.…

Getting on for twice the length of the Canon 85mm f/1.8 lens and with considerably more girth, this is the biggest and heaviest lens on test. It measures 95x126mm and weighs in at 1130g, so it’s a handful. A relative latecomer to Sigma’s Global Vision party, this Art line lens wasn’t launched until late 2016, two and a half years after the 50mm Art lens. Similar in design to the 50mm Sigma, this lens has one aspherical elements and two rather than three SLD elements, along with a nine-blade diaphragm. Build quality and handling feel almost identical, although the newer 85mm lens adds weather-seals in its ‘dust-and splash-proof’ construction. Again, the 85mm is supplied complete with a hood and padded soft case, and both lenses are compatible with Sigma’s optional…

Just as blurring the background makes portrait subjects stand out against their surroundings, so does vignetting. This term refers to the darkening of edges and corners in images. It happens naturally with any lens, and the effect can be particularly pronounced in ‘fast’ lenses, when used at their widest apertures. With all of the Canon lenses in the group, as well as both Sigma lenses with the latest firmware, in-camera corrections for ‘peripheral illumination’ are available in all recent Canon cameras, to counteract vignetting. Naturally, whether you want to use this facility is a matter of preference.…

Whether it’s a week-long holiday or weekend break, by travelling to a mountainous region like Snowdonia National Park, in north west Wales, you’ll be spoilt for choice with the amazing scenery to capture with your Canon camera gear. In fact, we’ve managed to cram in a whole day’s landscape photography by shooting from sunrise to sunset in some truly stunning settings, surrounding the UK’s second tallest mountain. This is, however, as long as the weather plays ball. Mountains create their own climate – and rain, wind and clouds can appear from nowhere. In early May, we arrived in the evening before to be greeted by heavy, freezing rain and gales, but thankfully our photography day was blessed with some lovely sunlight (if still blowing a hooley) and moody clouds. Turn…

Correct colours ◆ Continuing to climb the stone path, we reached the picture perfect Llyn Idwal. Auto White Balance (AWB) is fine in most situations, but your Canon DSLR doesn’t always get it 100% right. To ensure our colours are accurate, we set our White Balance setting according to the weather – a mixture of the Daylight and Cloudy settings for our shoot. Adjust your White Balance to a specific setting and each sequence of the photos will have a consistent colour ‘temperature’, so you’ll spend less time in Photoshop warming up or cooling down images later on. Blowing a gale = long exposure time ◆ Did we mention it was windy as hell while we were shooting? As the clouds were moving quickly and the small Llyn Idwal lake…

Forced perspective photography is one of the oldest visual tricks in the book, and also one of the most fun. With careful arrangement of objects in a scene, we can fool the eye by combining small and large elements into a believable whole. It also gives us the chance to play with toy cars. This project is a prime opportunity to make use of shooting skills and Photoshop magic, as it requires a little of both. We’ll start off by setting up our model car. The height of objects plays an important role in how our eyes perceives said object in a standard image. So in order to create our illusion, we must raise the car off the ground and line it up with the scene behind. The main hurdle…

Portrait photographers are often told to follow particular lighting rules, but these can really limit your creativity. Shooting towards the direction of the sun, for example, is seen by some as undesirable, but produces stunning results when done in the right way. In this project we’ll be shooting backlit portraits, while explaining the best ways to avoid fiat images and achieve more striking results in natural light. If you’re not used to dealing with backlighting, the main challenge is figuring out how to position and expose for your subject correctly. Plus, bright sun beams can throw off your lens’ focusing ability. There are, however, plenty of advantages to the approach, too. Your model doesn’t have to squint by looking into strong sunlight, and you’ll avoid harsh shadows on their face.…

Sometimes the widest lens in the bag isn’t wide enough to capture everything we want. Here we wanted to include this building in the corner, but this meant cropping out most of the beautiful sunset. Luckily in situations like this there’s a fairly easy fix – we shoot two horizontal frames, one on top of the other to cover the area we want. With Lightroom’s Panorama command, we can then stitch the two frames together in seconds. As the name suggests, Lightroom’s Panorama command is the ideal tool for merging photos. But they needn’t be super-wide, it’s as effective with two images like ours, and it works horizontally and vertically. One of the best things about the feature is that the resulting panorama, is a Raw file. This means, if…

IF YOU’RE a fan of BBC wildlife shows, you’re likely to be a fan of Chris Packham. Depending on your age, you might potentially remember him with his spiky blonde hair and punk attitude on The Really, Really Wild Show. Or perhaps more recently, displaying unfailing enthusiasm and encyclopedic knowledge on the BBC’s seasonal Springwatch, Autumnwatch, Winterwatch television shows. He’s a British naturalist and TV presenter, but he began his career as a humble nature photographer. He’s 56-years-old, but it wasn’t until he was 40 that he was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. For many people this can make day-to-day living very challenging. However, Chris impressively manages his high-functioning autism and “heightened senses” in a positive way in his life, and especially, in his nature photography. Chris is able to, “see things with a greater clarity…

Photo essays from PhotoPlus readers and professional photographers alike “My goal is to break the preconceived ideas of the destinations I travel to” So far I have visited India twice. The first time was a short trip to Mumbai and the second trip, where this photo series comes from, was a far longer trip that included some sight seeing around the ‘Golden Triangle’ – before heading to Varanasi and Bihar for my own wedding. On both occasions people warned me that I may feel overwhelmed as India is highly populated – especially the big cities – and can be noisy due to traffic. But I never felt this. Even within the hustling of the cities, it’s easy to find a peaceful and quiet corner, tucked away from the chaos. This is what…

Get to grips with Canon’s free Raw image organising, editing and sharing software – Digital Photo Professional 4 When we view a high-contrast landscape the pupils in our eyes rapidly adjust to reveal detail in bright or dark areas as we look around the scene. However, when we capture the scene as a digital image we create a frozen frame of time. If the camera’s pupil – the iris – is set to expose for shadows, then the highlights will be overexposed and lack detail. Alternatively, it may capture detail in the highlights, plunging the shadows into darkness. Either way, the resulting photograph lacks the wider range of tonal detail that we perceive with the our own naked eye. By using spot metering you can prioritize the aperture so that…

EVEN THOUGH the angle of view is fixed according to the focal length and the sensor size, where you stand determines exactly what is recorded in a picture. You can capture a wide view using a long focal length, as long as you stand far enough away. And even though a wide-angle lens sucks in a large amount of a scene, you can fill the frame with a relatively small subject if you move much closer. If you take a photo of the same subject with both a long focal length and a short one, moving the camera each time to keep the subject the same size in the frame, the resulting two pictures will still look different; this is a result of a change in perspective. You need to…

ASPECT RATIO is the width of an image relative to its height. Canon DLSRs have a default ratio of 3:2, which enables you to use the full area of the camera’s imaging sensor, regardless of whether you’re shooting with a full-frame EOS or an APS-C one. There are four options available: 3:2, 4:3, 16:9 and 1:1. You’ll need to be using your camera’s Live View mode to see the aspect ratio, as the viewfinder in a majority of cameras will keep displaying a full image. If you’re saving images as JPEGs the pictures will be cropped before saving them to a memory card, so there’s no going back. Save your images as Raw files and the full picture recorded by the camera will be available, even if you change the…

Get critiqued! Email photos to EOSSOS@futurenet.com with the subject ‘Rate My Photo’ Barra HARLEY HUNTER, STIRLING SAYS… I took this photo of a six-week-old macaque at Blair Drummond Safari park when I was working there as a volunteer. One of the other keepers needed some photos for a presentation so I borrowed my dad’s EOS 7D Mark II to capture some shots with natural looking backgrounds, and to show social interaction. The photo shows Barra with his mother and two other females. Spending days working with these animals allowed me to get shots that are not normally possible. The macaques were very comfortable with me around, meaning I had time and could get close to these amazing creatures. BRIAN SAYS… I love the picture. Not only is it a great…

For those investing in their first interchangeable lens camera, a DSLR is still the cheapest option, and with the EOS 4000D, Canon has aimed to get the price down lower than ever at only £329 for the body only. It’s one of two new entry level cameras announced by Canon, and the other is the slightly more upmarket EOS 2000D. These two cameras have broadly similar specifications, but differ in some important key details. It’s easiest to think of the EOS 4000D as a whole new model with whole new levels of economy, and the EOS 2000D as an improved replacement for Canon’s previous cheapest model, the EOS 1300D. Both cameras offer an APS-C sensor, 9-point autofocus system, full HD video, 3fps continuous shooting, an ISO range of 100-6,400 (expandable…

Swiss manufacturer Elinchrom is renowned for high-quality flash outfits, dedicated to studio or location shooting and based on a no-compromise design ethic. Indeed, its recent location flash systems like the ELB 400 and ELB 1200 have come with three optional heads, optimized for either maximum output, superfast flash durations, or for use with rapid shutter speeds. The new ELB 500 combines all three options in a single flash head, as well as enabling you to run the complete portable kit from the mains while recharging. The difference between the new ELB 500 and previous Elinchrom flash kits is it uses IGBT (Insulated-Gate Bipolar Transistor) technology. In this respect, it’s more similar to flashguns and recent competing location flash kits from the likes of Interfit, Phottix and Profoto. Elinchrom resisted IGBT…

Predating the veteran Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens by a year, this 85mm optic harks back to 1992. It looks of the same era, like an upscaled version of the 50mm lens with a larger focal length and physical size, more in keeping with portraiture on full-frames. The modest f/1.8 aperture rating enables the lens to be smaller than the 85mm f/1.4 optics on test, and it’s only a third of the weight of the Sigma lens, tipping the scales at a manageable 425g. As with both Canon 50mm lenses in the group, the lens hood is sold as an optional extra. This time, however, the front element is nearer the forward edge of the lens barrel, making the hood more necessary to reduce ghosting and flare. Unlike both of the…

Anybody who thinks that bigger is better will be drawn to this Sigma. It dwarfs the competing Canon f/1.4 lens on test and weighs in at 815g compared with just 290g. Now four years old, the 50mm was one of Sigma’s first ‘Art’ designation prime lenses in its Global Vision line-up, representing a major revamp of the company’s previous 50mm lens. The revised optical layout includes an aspherical element and three SLD (Special Low Dispersion) elements, in a complex build that includes 13 elements in total. Sigma’s aim was to engineer a standard prime lens for full-frame cameras that delivered stellar resolution to keep pace with the latest high megapixel counts, while keeping unwanted factors like colour fringing and distortion to a minimum. Naturally, when used on an APS-C camera…

Alarger number of diaphragm blades enables the aperture to retain its circular shape better when you stop down from the widest setting. The roundness of the aperture depends on how much the diaphragm blades are curved. Most lenses in this test have well-rounded apertures based on nine diaphragm blades. The Canon 50mm f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.8 have eight-blade diaphragms and the Canon 50mm f/1.8 only has a seven-blade diaphragm. Still, the aperture of the 50mm f/1.8 looks better rounded and many prefer the effect produced by an odd, not even, number of blades.…

A wide f/1.4 aperture is often preferred by photographers, when choosing premium grade primes. Recent top-end Canon and Sigma lenses reinforce this, whereas Tamron has focused on building f/1.8 primes, including its 35mm, 45mm and 85mm lenses. Key advantages in them is the narrower aperture rating enables a compact, lightweight build, and the inclusion of VC to counteract camera-shake in handheld shooting. The upshot is, with its size and weight, plus the availability of stabilization, this 85mm lens is brilliant for handheld portraiture. The competing Sigma f/1.4 lens is heavier and lacks stabilization, whereas Canon’s stabilized 85mm f/1.4 lens is twice the price. Like the Tamron 45mm lens on test, this one is beautifully built and has a robust, weather-sealed construction. Unlike the smaller lens, it’s compatible with Tamron’s TAP-In…

Future/Peter Travers THE NO.1 MAGAZINE FOR CANON USERS! FREE VIDEOS! In the next Canon Skills chapter… ▪ Skateboard action images ▪ Road trip scenic shots ▪ Using photo boards for still life shots ▪ Water patterns ▪ Plus new Photoshop CC, Elements and Lightroom PLUS ALL THIS… ▪ Master your Canon DSLR with our new camera techniques guides ▪ Sports pro shooter Tom Jenkins ▪ Learn how to get the best out of all of your lenses for better shots ▪ Discover simple ways to take better portrait photographs ISSUE 141 ON SALE 26 JUNE * Content subject to change…