Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2019 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

Well, it’s been quite the year, and many of us will be glad that Christmas and the holidays are coming, so we can finally put 2018 to bed. The festive season is the ideal time to take stock of your photography, to see how far you’ve progressed, and to plan new targets for the following year. The holidays also offer a wealth of photo ops, from wintry landscapes and wildlife, to fun family portraits and festive food – and in our big Canon techniques guide, we’ll help you take amazing photos of it all, and to give you excuse to spend some quality time with your DSLR. See page 28. It’s also been a big year for new gear, and this issue we celebrate the very best Canon DSLRs, Canon-fit…

APPRENTICE NAME: RICHARD JONES CAMERA: CANON EOS 80D RICHARD’S photographic journey began in his school’s darkroom. His first camera was a Vivitar V2000, but his interest waned after leaving school and losing access to the darkroom. His passion rekindled during his first military tour in Kosovo, using a Sony Cybershot, as he was amazed that beautiful landscapes could be found even in some of the worst places. His first DSLR was a Canon EOS 50D, which he took off his mother’s hands when she upgraded, and last year he progressed to the versatile 80D. CANON PRO NAME: JUSTIN MINNS CAMERA: CANON EOS 5D Mk IV AWARD-WINNING photographer, who has been honoured as recently as last month’s Landscape Photographer of the Year (see page 20), Justin shoots for the National Trust…

CRISP – RIVER STOUR, SUFFOLK I ABSOLUTELY adore the winter. On crisp, clear mornings like this, I often use a slightly blue white balance to really emphasize the cold atmosphere in the photograph. THE WHITE HOUSE – SUFFOLK THIS was taken on a rough morning as a storm passed. The combination of a two-minute exposure and the black-and-white conversion simplifies the shot and makes the most of shapes and lines. BACKWASH – BAWDSEY, SUFFOLK I WANTED to create a sense of drama in the water to match the sky, so I used a slow shutter speed to add motion to the water, but not so slow that it would lose the impact of the breaking waves.…

La Tzoumaz, Valais, Switzerland. 4:37pm. 2 January 2018. La Tzoumaz in winter at dusk, Valais, Switzerland Lens Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM Exposure30 secs, f/8, ISO400 “The first twinkling lights are now starting to come on in the village; my timing is perfect” By 4pm on a winter’s afternoon in Switzerland darkness is starting to descend. We’re hunkered down with friends in their chalet in La Tzoumaz after a short day on the slopes. With the low cloud, poor visibility and icy slopes the conditions for skiing were not ideal, but who cares? It’s just great to be here in this winter wonderland on this, the second day of the year when most of the world is still on holiday, including us. Except… maybe I’m not, at least not…

Ah, the good old days of film. Being restricted to shooting 36 frames at a time, then trudging down to the chemist and waiting a couple of days before seeing the pictures you’ve taken (or converting the under-the-stairs cupboard into an improv darkroom with developing trays, chemicals and red-hued light bulbs). Having to shoot through an entire roll before changing ISO. And not having a clue what settings you used for any given shot… we don’t miss them one bit. Film may seem like an outdated archaic format, but digital SLR photography has only really been with us for around 15 years, with the launch of affordable consumer-level DSLRs, such as the Canon EOS 350D in 2005. But if you were bitten by the photography bug back in the days of…

Having well-lit product shots is a great way to make your items look more appealing on eBay, or to show off your favourite finds on a blog or Facebook post. However, getting those well-lit shots can be difficult using natural or flash lighting. The best way to get effective lighting is to use a lightbox (sometimes called a light tent). As you might imagine, this is a box (or tent) that you place a product inside of it and flood with light. Using diffused illumination from multiple sources, it provides wrap and fill light for a pleasing and even look to the subject. A decent one can cost between £50 and £100 on Amazon (cheaper ones are available, but as with most photographic kit you get what you pay for),…

All lenses have their own quirks and physical characteristics that distort the field of view and alter the edges of the frame in a shot. Telephoto lenses tend to darken the edges of the frame and increase pincushion distortion. Wide-angle lenses, on the other hand, distort the perspective of photos and introduce barrel distortion, while central subjects are accentuated. In this tutorial we’ll go through two panels in Lightroom CC: the Optics panel and the Geometry panel. The Optics panel will take care of things like chromatic aberration – purple or green fringing at the edges of pixels where light meets dark. While the Geometry panel will compensate for barrel or pincushion distortion, as well as allowing you to manually adjust vertical or horizontal lines. Some parts of this process…

Photo essays from PhotoPlus readers and professional photographers alike Through my adventures and the photographs I take of them, I simply want to transcribe my dreams for others to be able to see. For a long time I have been incredibly passionate about nature and landscapes, and in particular the rare natural phenomena that occurs around the world. I had long sought a way to be able to share my adventures. So, following a trip from France to Australia back in 2011, I bought my first camera, a Sony RX. During this trip I realized that I had found the artistic path that I had long been seeking. When I returned, I decided to invest my time, my energy and my passion into this way of life. Today I travel the world…

Professional photographers reveal their top six tools of the trade they couldn’t shoot without “Although I rather naively set out to be a professional landscape photographer, portraiture found me” I’ve been a professional photographer for around 15 years but have been capturing images for as long as I can remember. Although I rather naively set out to be a professional landscape photographer, portraiture found me and has now become the main focus of my work. I never intended to become a portrait photographer, but found it to be as interesting and challenging as any other genre of photography, requiring skill and patience in order to achieve those professional looking results. Getting subjects to relax in a short time is the greatest challenge, ensuring you can capture some personality in their…

One of the best bits of advice given to photographers is to check the exposure of their shots with the histogram. But how? The histogram is a display that shows the distribution of tones in an image. The graph plots the black and shadows on the left, and the highlights and whites on the right. For an image with a standardized range of tones it may resemble the bell curve with most the tones in the centre. You want to expose your subject so the histogram is not just at one end of the chart. If you have a tall spike in the graph on the right side, it’s an indication that your shot is overexposed, similarly a big spike on the far left indicates underexposure. There’s no correct look…

01 Apple MacBook Air Apple refreshes its MacBook Air range £1199/$1199 www.apple.com THE new MacBook Air has 50 per cent narrower screen bezels around its 13.3-inch screen that packs 4 million pixels. That’s 4x the resolution of the previous Air, plus the new screen also offers 48% more colour coverage. The size has been cut down (now only 15.6mm at its thickest point) and it weighs just 1.25kg, plus 8th-gen Intel processors and up to 16GB RAM gives plenty of image editing punch. 02 Freecom Celeritas Latin for ‘speed’, let’s take a look £609/$792 www.freecom.com BOASTING barely-believable transfer speeds of 2800 MB/s read and 2000 MB/s write, the Celeritas may have a strange name, but it’s also one of the fastest portable storage devices you can buy. Inside, bleeding-edge solid…

Nicknamed the ‘Bigma’, Sigma’s original 50-500mm super-telephoto lens was launched back in 2001, updated in 2006, and then revamped in 2010 with the welcome addition of optical stabilization. It was renowned for being a massive lens but the new 60-600mm Sport is noticeably larger and nearly 40 per cent weightier, at 2700g. Like the preceding 50-500mm lenses, the new edition has a giant 10x zoom. Its main selling point is that you can shoot at any focal length from standard to super-telephoto, at the flick of a wrist, without needing to swap the lens on your camera. It’s ideal when you need to react quickly to shifting shooting opportunities. Much more than just having an upsized focal length, the new lens represents a major redesign. As a ‘Sport’ lens, it’s…

APERTURE PRIORITY JUSTIN recommended shooting in Aperture Priority (Av) mode, especially as Richard’s Canon EOS 80D had a touchscreen LCD. Not only did this mean that he could tap the screen to select his focus point, it also meant that the camera metered from wherever he touched and adjusted the exposure accordingly. He could also change his aperture directly, or use exposure compensation to make adjustments. USE LIVE VIEW WHILE Justin usually makes his initial composition through the viewfinder, he will then put the camera into Live View mode for fine-tuning, making compositional tweaks and getting the exposure spot-on, for which the histogram is invaluable. “Basically I cheat,” he said, jokingly. “I’m very lazy – I just watch Live View and the histogram and I adjust my exposure until it…

01 FELIXSTOWE SEA DEFENCES, SUFFOLK, ENGLAND BY DAVE WATTS “I arrived on the beach to find nothing but thick grey cloud and not the sky I was hoping for,” says Watts with his Canon EOS 6D shot, “but I set my camera up and composed the shot with the tide coming in fast and soaking my feet in over a foot of sea water. I was rewarded with a last-minute break in the sky and a beautiful wash of low winter sunshine.” Lens Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM Exposure 41 secs, f/16, ISO100 02 ENCHANTED WOODLAND, THE PEAK DISTRICT, DERBYSHIRE, ENGLAND BY DARREN CIOLLI-LEACH “We were under siege by midges and at the end of our tether, waving our arms around to deter the swarms when I came across…

Superheroes are omnipresent these days, jumping out of the pages of comic books and onto the screens of billion-dollar blockbusters. This makes superheroes a compelling subject to shoot – but as much fun as it is to photograph a cosplayer, you always struggle to get your favourite characters in their impossibly dynamic poses. So, rather than a cosplaying model, try picking up an action figure or statuette of your chosen superhero instead. Flying or leaping characters work best, so we’ve gone for Spider-Man in an exciting web-slinging pose. We’re going to take a shot of Spidey and then superimpose him onto a cityscape image using chroma key compositing – the technique that many people know as ‘green screen’. This enables us to replace a specific colour range, namely a green…

THE MISSION Alter facial features and expressions of your subjects Time needed 10 minutes Skill level Beginner Kit needed Lightroom • Photoshop Elements How many times have you taken a photograph where everything is great except for the human element? The exposure is spot-on, the background looks immaculate, your depth of field is buttery smooth, the composition is perfect, the focus is pin-sharp… but the person in the picture is pulling the wrong expression. A smiling subject can kill a moody, atmospheric shot dead in its tracks. And when you’ve got a family portrait of everyone smiling except for one moody teenager, pulling a dour sadface, it can spoil an otherwise magic momento. Thankfully, Photoshop Elements has an incredibly powerful tool to adjust facial features that may not fit your…

Lens Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary Exposure 1/250 sec, f/5, ISO800 STEVE FLEETWOOD, YORKSHIRE SAYS… I took this shot of the raven in the rain during a bird photography experience session In North Yorkshire. It was a lovely day and I learnt a lot as well as getting the opportunity to photograph some amazing birds in some interesting situations. This is one, but it isn’t rain, the bird handler was spraying water over the raven, who loved it. I was trying to keep the ISO low to keep the grain down, yet also keep a high shutter speed to freeze the bird. I’m still very much a novice so I usually use Shutter Priority or Program mode. I used Lightroom to process the file. BRIAN SAYS… I think…

“The vari-angle screen enables novel shooting angles, injecting fun into photography” Canon EOS 77D & EF-S 18-55mm Price £734/$949 Tested 128 What we love We like that it’s small and lightweight enough to take anywhere and everywhere, and that it’s so simple to use. The vari-angle screen enables novel shooting angles, injecting fun into photography. And when we’re in a more serious shooting mood, the dual control dials and top-panel info LCD come to the fore, as featured on enthusiast-level cameras. Super specs include a Dual Pixel AF image sensor, 45-point autofocus system, a 5-axis sensor-shift stabilizer for movies, Wi-Fi, NFC and Bluetooth. We love having so much packed into such a small DSLR. What’s missing? The 600-shot battery life is a bit limited for an ‘advanced’ DSLR and it…

“It’s a bit like getting all the best bits of the 5D Mark IV but without the flippy-flappy mirror” Canon EOS R & RF 24-105mm Price £3269/$3399 Tested 145 What we love Canon mirrorless system cameras have come of age with the grown-up, full-frame EOS R. It’s a bit like getting all the best bits of the EOS 5D Mark IV, but without the flippy-flappy mirror. We love the highly detailed electronic viewfinder with its unreal 3.69 million dots, and the way it gives a real-time view of the effect of exposure settings. Elsewhere in the numbers game, we like the speedy 8fps continuous drive rate, 4k movie capture and the astonishing 5655 autofocus points, courtesy of the Dual Pixel AF image sensor. Better still, the camera’s incredible autofocus system…

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…

It’s the season to be jolly, and it’s also an ideal time to assess and improve your Canon DSLR photography techniques. So this issue, we’re going to teach you how to take great photographs over Christmas. Wicked wintry landscapes, striking shots of stags on a cold and frosty morning, perfect family portraits, and action sports and even light trails. You’ll learn how to master it all, right here. So, take a break from eating mince pies and binge-watching on Netflix; put down the mulled wine and take some time out from family gatherings and get stuck into your Canon kit to learn some fun, festive photo techniques that will serve you all year around… SCENES & NATURE WINTER WONDERLAND Shoot a lone tree in a landscape and enhance the wintry…

Black-light photography involves shooting a subject under ultraviolet lighting. To the eye these kind of lights appear to emit very little light, but that’s because the bluish UV light is at the limits of the visible spectrum, and much of the output is invisible. However, the UV can cause white or neon colours to produce visible light, giving it a glow that looks so incredible when used in combination with body painting. We booked a model and a makeup artist and hired a couple of UV LED batten for our black light shoot. But you don’t necessarily need to spend lots on this, you can achieve similar results on a shoestring budget. The body paint costs just a few pounds, and you can buy UV lights or bulbs online for…

Win this massive haul of Manfrotto goodies worth over £800! Discover the missing X-factor with these pieces of kit by shooting flexibly and creatively with this absolutely unmissable gear: The Pro Light Bumblebee-230 combines strong, lightweight construction for lasting performance with the space you need to hold your kit. It’ll carry everything you sorely need including your Canon EOS 5D Mk IV with an EF 70-200mm f/2.8L and more, while generously allowing for luxurious comfort and support. We also have a 190go! MS aluminium tripod kit 4-Section with XPRO ball head. This professional aluminium tripod kit with ball head comes with a lightning-fast operating M-lock mechanism, and 90° rotation capabilities so you can shoot from any angle you need. On top of that, you have the flexible XPRO ball head,…

It might sound like something that requires a white coat and a clipboard, but LAB Color mode isn’t just for digital imaging boffins, it’s for anyone who wants to shift, boost and take control of colour in their photos. Here, we’ll explain how it works. First, a little about colour modes. Most of the time we view and work on images in the RGB colour mode. This stands for Red, Green and Blue, and from combinations of these three colours any other colour can be made. When in RGB mode each pixel has a specific R, G and B value between 0 and 255. This determines not just the colour intensity but also the brightness of the pixel. For example, if a pixel has R 255, G 255, B 255…

STORY BEHIND THE SHOT Fennec fox for sale Bruno’s photo of the illegal trade of fennec foxes won a World Press Photo award “A teenager from a village in southern Tunisia was selling this three-month old fennec fox, one of a litter of pups he dug out of their den in the Sahara Desert,” he says. The catching or killing of wild fennec foxes is illegal in Tunisia but common, which Bruno discovered as part of a project to investigate the issues facing endangered species in the Sahara. He gained the confidence of villagers in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco and discovered widespread wildlife exploitation, including the hunting and capture for commercial trade and traditional medicine. He also discovered the causes are complex. “They have a different perception of nature, and…

All of these images were taken with my Canon EOS 5D Mark III with the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM kit lens at around the 70mm setting. Using a tripod and focusing manually with a remote trigger ensured the perfect photograph with the mirror in the camera set to ‘up’. At first there was camera shake, due to moving on the floorboards while taking the shot in the attic. I’ve since moved house and set up a studio in the new garage using a concrete floor. This is much better for macro shots as the Mark III has the x5 and x10 magnification, which requires ?ne adjustment and a pair of steady hands while focusing. I learned these tips when I joined the local camera club as a ‘novice’,…

Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 DI II VC HLD Price £549/$449 Tested 143 What we love This lens has a class-leading zoom range for an ultra-wide-angle lens, making it versatile while reducing the need to swap between wide-angle and standard zoom lenses. An upgrade from Tamron’s original 10-24mm zoom, we’re won over by this one’s uprated optical path that delivers top sharpness and contrast, along with reduced distortions. The new HLD (High/Low toque Drive) autofocus system is quicker, quieter and improves handling. Optical stabilization is also added, which was entirely lacking in the original lens. What’s missing? Nothing really. The new edition of this lens even gains weather-seals and a keep-clean fluorine coating on the front element. Why upgrade? This is the greatest and most versatile APS-C wide-angle zoom lens on the…

Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 DG OS HSM | Art Price £1199/$1299 Tested 142 What we love There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with Canon’s pro-grade 24-70mm f/2.8 lens but it’s very pricey and lacks image stabilization. This Sigma alternative is beautifully built. It features two switchable autofocus modes which give priority to AF or manual override, the latter working even in AI Servo (continuous) AF mode. Autofocus itself is fast and accurate, while the four-stop stabilizer gives a real boost for handheld shooting. Most of all, we love its gorgeous image quality and that in-camera corrections are available. What’s missing? You might need the optional USB Dock to apply a firmware update to enable in-camera corrections, and the only weather-seal is on the mounting plate. Why upgrade? You get premium performance and excellent build…

Sigma 14-24mm f/2.8 DG HSM | Art Price £1399/$1299 Tested 139 What we love Going one better than Sigma’s surprisingly low-distortion 12-24mm Art lens, this newer release is almost distortion-free. Even when shooting at the shortest focal length of 14mm, there’s practically no distortion. We also love that this Sigma lens delivers superb sharpness and contrast even at f/2.8 and that, for such a wide-angle lens, sharpness is retained so well out to the corners of frame. Handling and build quality are great, and the autofocus is quick and quiet. What’s missing? There’s no optical stabilization but many would argue that it’s not really necessary in such a fast, wide-angle lens. Why upgrade? For our money, this is the best-buy wide-angle zoom lens on the market, and it’s only half the…

Camera snobs I’m a Canon EOS 60D user and proud of it. It always makes me smile when I meet a fellow amateur Canon photographer, who has a new EOS DSLR and big, fancy L-series lens, but doesn’t have a Scooby Doo how to use it! Newer doesn’t always mean better, and it’s not what camera you use, but how you use it that matters. I still use my trusty EF-S 17-85mm kit lens, and rarely struggle to take a decent photo – thanks, in part, to the excellent tutorials I follow in PhotoPlus every month. So, my message to those ‘all the gear, no idea’ photographers out there, don’t waste time being a camera snob, and instead spend time improving your camera skills. Tom Sparey, Birmingham Thanks for your…