Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2019 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

EAGLE EYE ACTION PHOTOS Our Apprentice gets pro tutition to find out how to capture top shots of birds of prey this issue Page 8 Editor If there’s one wildlife subject that will push your Canon kit and camera skills to the limits, it’s fast-flying birds of prey. Our Apprentice this issue was struggling with his focusing techniques when trying to photograph birds, so we arranged for him to spend a day with Canon pro photographer, Guy Edwardes, at the International Bird of Prey Centre, to help improve his techniques, his Canon DSLR and lenses setup. See page 8. Inside this issue, we have an absolute myriad of content to help you improve your technique and become a better Canon photographer… In our main techniques guide we go in-depth into…

Bonifacio, Corsica, France. 04:42am. 4th June 2011. On the western horizon a thin line of cloud in an otherwise unbroken blue sky hovers over the flat calm Mediterranean, suggesting land beyond. As Elba passes to starboard the first jagged peaks became visible. There’s no doubt about it, sailing over the seas to a distant island stirs the imagination in a way flying in never by EasyJet never does, particularly when the island in question is Corsica. As the mountains rise out of the sea I ponder; where to go, what to photograph? With any new destination it’s always a dilemma, but in this case our plan is stunningly simple; start from the southern tip and work north. Quaint, picturesque Bonifaccio is incomparably situated atop the sea sculpted limestone cliffs that…

VIDEO ALSO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_155_1 01 FLASHGUNS The key to this technique is in mixing flash with continuous lighting. We’ve used three Speedlites here – one in front and two behind the subject. You can use any flash setup you like, but keep in mind that the blur will show more clearly if the flash does not spill onto the dark background. 02 DARK ROOM It’s vital that the room is dark, or else the ambient light will contaminate the shot and blur the parts that we want to keep sharp. So close the curtains and turn off the overhead lights – or shoot outdoors at night. The only constant light should be coming from the lights we set up. 03 CONSTANT LIGHTS Two continuous light sources have been used here.…

01 THE LIGHTING PLAN The key is in directing the lights to hit different parts of our subject, then balancing out the power so that it works for our long shutter. The flashes are aimed at the parts of the subject we want sharp, while the continuous lights are for the blurred parts. 02 GELLING THE FLASHGUNS To add to the mood of our shot we’ve used coloured gels (a multi-pack set from Selens), fastened in place over our two rear Speedlites. When choosing colours, it’s usually best to pick those that are complementary like the orange and blue combo here. 03 ARRANGING THE CONSTANTS Once our flashes are in place, we need to think about continuous lights. These could be any kind of source you like. A modelling light…

High-speed photography will allow you to record rapid action that happens in a blink of the eye. I’ll show you how to capture this image of a match head bursting into flames using your Canon camera’s Manual mode, a shutter release cable and a few other items you probably already have lying around the home. For the best results you’ll want to attach a macro lens to your Canon with a reproduction ratio of 1:1, so you can get closer to your matchstick and make the head larger in the frame. This will save you cropping in later which will reduce resolution and image quality. That said, you can still get decent results with a kit lens, but if you want the best possible results, then a macro lens is…

VIDEO ALSO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_155_4 01 DIAL IN THE RIGHT SETTINGS In your Canon camera’s Aperture Priority (Av mode), dial in an aperture of f/5.6 to blur the background. Or f/22 to keep it sharp like we did, then tweak the ISO until you get a shutter speed of 1/60 sec or faster. 02 FOCUS AND TAKE THE SHOT Place your lens ball on some prominent foreground that doesn’t obstruct the view of the ball, taking care to not leave fingerprints on it. Focus on the landscape inside the ball and press the shutter to take the shot. 03 MAKE A ROUGH SELECTION OF THE BALL Open your picture into Photoshop or Elements and grab the Elliptical Lasso tool from the toolbar and drag your cursor over the lens ball to…

VIDEO ALSO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_155_7 01 SELECT YOUR IMAGE SET To Focus Merge, just open Affinity then go to File>New Focus Merge. Click Add in the dialog box and navigate to your set of focus-stacked photos. Cmd/Ctrl-click on the files you want to select, then hit Open to bring them into the New Merge. 02 START THE MERGE Once you’ve chosen your images, hit Merge – this’ll take a while. First the images are aligned to correct for changes in subject size between each shift. Next a depth map is created to find the sharp parts in each frame, The sharp parts are merged together into one. 03 CHECK FOR ISS UES Once the merge is complete you’ll see the Sources panel appear. You can use this to fix any blurry…

Embracing video has enabled me to tell stories in a more dynamic medium I used to be the editor of a photography magazine, but was made redundant back in 2016 when it was merged with another magazine. Losing your job can be soul-crushing, but luckily for me it was actually a blessing in disguise as it gave me the freedom to go freelance. Today video and still images are my currency. My Canon journey goes back twenty years to the EOS 3000 film DSLR and stretches right up to the 5D Mark IV, taking in no less than 12 models in between, such as the 10D, 40D, 7D and 6D to name but a few. On assignment, no two days are the same. The jobs vary wildly from shooting music…

VIDEO ALSO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_155_8 01 BASIC PANEL Click on the Basic panel icon to access the Picture Style menu. This dropdown menu will only be available when you’re working with a Raw format file that’s compatible with Digital Photo Professional 4 (see our ‘Can I Use DPP 4’ boxout, right). 02 COMPARE When experimenting with Picture Styles it’s important to compare the edited version with the original Raw file. Click on this icon to see a before and after image at the same time. You can toggle between different layouts and even split the shot down the middle. Here we’ve chosen the Arrange Vertically option, to see versions side by side. 03 CONTRASTING LIGHTING Our partially sunlit subject was a challenge to shoot. If we exposed to capture detail in…

THE FILTER adaptor rings of square systems can prevent you from attaching the original cap on the lens – having to remove the ring each time you want to put the lens away quickly gets tedious. You can, thankfully, buy specific plastic caps designed to fit those larger adaptor rings. Do you need a grad? ND filters also come in a graduated form, which has separate dark and clear parts. By positioning the filter so that the dark part covers a bright sky and the clear part lines up with the land, you can reduce the contrast and record detail in both. You could do away with the filter and make individual exposures for the sky and the land, then blend them digitally, but when it comes to long exposures…

While you can shoot long exposure JPEGs, this technique really suits Raw files, as you can freely fine-tune the brightness, colours and noise later. If you do record your images as JPEGs, then it pays to get everything right in-camera; even if you rely on Raw it makes sense to get the settings correct so that you get an accurate preview image. One of the things you’ll likely need to address is the white balance. Strong ND filters often give images a colour cast. For instance, the LEE Filters Big Stopper can leave images with a cool blue cast. You can go some way to correcting this in-camera by setting a ‘warming’ white balance preset, such as Cloudy or Shade, or manually dial in a K (Kelvin) value north of…

£1849/$1899 Canon’s most ideal zoom lens for full-frame astrophotography, this one isn’t as wide-angle as the EF 11-24mm f/4L USM, but is an all-important f-stop faster. The maximum viewing angle is slightly less than the 14mm and 15mm full-frame lenses on test, equating to 108 degrees compared with 114 or 110 degrees. This lens gains a large and complex double-surface GMO (Glass Moulded) aspherical element at the front, adding to two UD (Ultra-low Dispersion) elements and a ground aspherical element at the rear. Upgraded, high-tech coatings include both SWC (SubWavelength Coating) and ASC (Air Sphere Coating) for greater resistance to ghosting and flare. Weather-resistant attributes are extended to include moisture- and greaserepellent fluorine coatings on the front and rear elements. The lens is quite long at 128mm, considering that it…

As with our other lab-tests in this round-up, we’ve concentrated on the amounts of distortion for zoom lenses at their shortest focal lengths, where they more directly compete with the prime lenses on test. The results themselves look like a mixed bag but, by necessity, they’re based on shooting test charts at a very close range, due to their physical size. In ‘real-life’ shooting, especially for landscapes and the night sky, distortion is minimal in all cases.…

For shooting smaller sections of the night sky, you’d naturally be better off with a lens that has a longer focal length. For star clusters, Sigma’s 50mm, 85mm and 105mm f/1.4 Art lenses are great, combining longer focal lengths with a fast aperture rating. Indeed, for producing highly detailed images of the Milky Way, specialist astrophotographers often prefer to work their way across the night sky, taking a sequence of images that they can be stitched together. For shooting the moon, a longer telephoto lens is more ideal. A fairly basic 70-300mm zoom can yield good results on an APS-C camera, helped by the 1.6x crop factor, whereas a 150-600mm lenses is a better option for full-frame bodies.…

£1279/$1299 Unique in this group, the Tamron sports an optical stabilizer or ‘Vibration Compensation’ system. Moreover, it’s an upgraded version in the G2 edition of the lens, with increased 4.5-stop effectiveness. Useful when shooting at dusk or indoors, but zero benefit for long exposures at night, where it’s best switched off. There’s little change in the optical line-up, compared with the original lens. It’s still based on 18 elements in 13 groups, with XGM (eXpanded Glass Moulded Aspherical) elements and several LD (Low Dispersion) elements. However, the G2 adds a third ‘AX’ (Anti-Reflection eXpand) coating, which was developed for coating curved convex elements. Solid build quality includes a set of weather-seals and a reformulated, durable fluorine coating on the front. Unlike the other zoom lenses on test, the Tamron has…

Stand on the equator and you’re travelling at 1000mph, even when you’re standing still. That’s the speed that the Earth spins on its axis. Similarly, the stars are constantly moving across the night sky, so long exposures will turn them into streaks of light. It’s great for creating star-trails but a major problem when you want stars to retain a natural appearance. The governing factors are the length of the exposure and the focal length of the lens. The ‘500 rule’ acts as a rough guide. The idea is to divide 500 (300 for APS-C cameras) by the focal length or zoom of your lens. The result gives the longest exposure time that you should use, measured in seconds. For example, it works out to about 20 or 30 seconds…

FREE VIDEOS! In the next Canon Skills chapter… ▪Balancing act portraits with a combo of camera skills and Photoshop ▪ Learn infrared cheats ▪ Photoshop Elements, Adobe CC and Affinity Photo tutorials PLUS ALL THIS… ▪ The PhotoPlus Apprentice: How to take great family portraits outdoors with a top Canon pro ▪ The Interview: Ilvy Njiokiktjien, photojournalist, Canon Ambassador and World Press Photo winner ISSUE 156 ON SALE 20 AUGUST * Content subject to change…

CANON PRO NA ME: GUY EDWARDES CAMERA: CANON 5D MARK IV GUY has been a pro landscape, nature and travel photographer for 25 years. His images are marketed by agencies like Getty and Nature PL and has been published in books, mags and newspapers all over the world. He also has the task of managing a picture library of 250,000! Guy runs wildlife photography workshops during the year, so is more than qualified to put Ian’s focusing fears to bed. More info at www.guyedwardes.com APPRENTICE NA ME: IAN HAMILTON CA MERA: CANON 5D MARK III IAN has had an interest in photography for 40 years and has used Canon kit for the past ten. The AI Servo mode has bemused him to this date and is something that he confesses…

01 FOGGY MORNING IN LAKE BLED BY MELINDA NAGY There’s an incredible amount of texture and atmosphere in this shot and we love the way the fog surrounding the island makes the bright church pop out. The blue colour palette gives the scene an ominous, melancholic mood and the composition really draws in the eye, which is why we chose it as the winning image in the ‘Blue for You’ competition. Lens Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM Exposure 1/320 sec, f/10, ISO250 02 SISTERS IN BLUE BY LAURA BENVENUTI “I took this picture during a lifestyle family session, in Tahiti. Two of the girls had these beautiful matching blue dresses. I positioned them on the floor, climbed up one of the outside stairs and shot from above. I used…

Don’t restrict yourself to boring ‘normal’ lenses when there are lots of specialist options available to use with your Canon camera. There are fun fisheye lenses to capture extreme fields of view, tilt-shift lenses for toytown shots or straighter photos of buildings, as well as ultra-wide lenses like the Canon EF 11-24mm. But it’s not only the wides, check out Canon’s unique Canon EF 200-400mm f/4 L IS USM with Internal 1.4x Extender, and it’s available for around only £10,000! Diagonal and circular There are two main types of fisheye lens: full-frame and circular. A full-frame fisheye produces an image that covers the entire sensor, while a circular fisheye produces a round image in the middle of the sensor with a dark border around it. This effect varies according to…

VIDEO ALSO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_155_1 01 THE KEY LIGHT When using a few flashes it simplifies the process if you begin by building the lighting one flash at a time. Start by placing the key light in front of the face to the right of camera, then control the power of the flash until it suits our exposure of ⅓ sec, f/5.6 at ISO100. 02 GELLED EDGE LIGHTS Next we turn off the key light and set up our edge lights placed on either side of the subject and angled back towards her. The orange-gelled flash hits the left edge and the blue-gelled flash hits the right edge, creating dramatic rim lighting around her. 03 ALL THREE FLASHES Finally we turn on our Speedlites to complete our setup. By working on…

VIDEO ALSO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_155_2 Before you get up early to shoot a stunning sunrise, first decide whether you want to shoot into the rising sun, or use the sun to light up a specific area in the scene you’re photographing. Then plan your destination accordingly. Use a weather app so you can plan what time is best to shoot – allowing time to be on site and in position before the sun comes up. We use the BBC Weather app on our smartphone, so we have instant info at our fingertips. For the sunrise shots we’ll be up and out the door, waiting ready with our camera on a tripod on location 30 minutes before sunrise. The difference is amazing when shooting with low-light conditions early in the morning, compared…

VIDEO ALSO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_155_3 01 LENS CHOICE You can get results with the 55mm end of a kit lens, but a macro lens is better if you have one – it will allows you to focus closer so the matchstick head fills the frame. Switch off any image stabilization on your camera or lens when using it on a tripod. 02 TRIPOD You’ll need a tripod so you can lock off your composition. This is essential as you’ll need consistent framing while taking your burst of pictures. You’ll also need both your hands to be free to light the match and use the remote shutter release. 03 MATCH A pack of safety matches costs around 50p, so it’s an affordable way to get some amazing hi-speed pictures. You’ll light the…

VIDEO ALSO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_155_5 If you’re trying to achieve a postcard look with your landscapes then it’s a good idea to make sure the photo is free of pedestrians, so the viewer’s attention is focused solely on your focal point. But this is easier said than done, and whether you’re shooting the Eiffel Tower in Paris or Big Ben in London, you’re bound to get at least a few bystanders in shot. It’s even quite a task to get a clean shot of lesser known gems like Ogmore castle in Wales. You could get up early to increase your chances of having the spot to yourself, or blur the people in the scene with a long exposure. However, that doesn’t help you if you’ve already taken the image. With that…

01 OPEN THE IMAGE SET Open Adobe Bridge and navigate to the set of images (if using Lightroom, import the photos and go to the Library module). Click on the first image, then hold Shift and click on the last to select them all. Then right-click them and ‘Open in Camera Raw’. 02 BEGIN THE MERGE Once open, hit Cmd/Ctrl+A to select all the images in Raw, then right-click the selection and choose ‘Merge to HDR Panorama’ from the list that appears. After a few seconds, the merged.dng image will appear in the ‘HDR Panorama Merge’ dialog box. 03 EXPERIMENT WITH PROJ ECTION The three options – Spherical, Cylindrical and Perspective – at the top right each affect the way the panorama is stitched. Click through to find the best…

01 CATCH ME IF YOU CAN British Lion George North taunts Australia’s Will Genia as he breaks clear to score, in Brisbane, June 2013. Lens Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS II USM + EF 1.4x converter Exposure 1/1000 sec, f/4, ISO4000 DAVE ROGERS is just back from holiday when I call him on a mid-summer’s morning. He’s sitting in his garden when we talk, because he gets a better signal outside. Luckily, the sun is out. As a sports photographer for Getty, Dave is used to the outdoors, always with an eye on the weather and prepared to shoot in any conditions. His next assignment is at Lord’s for the England v Australia round-robin match in the cricket World Cup. “I did the first week, then I went on holiday…

ND filters come in a range of strengths or densities, which are measured in stops. Each stop requires the length of the exposure to be doubled – the darker the filter, the stronger the effect. If a shutter speed of 1/80 sec was needed for a ‘normal’ exposure, then attaching a 3-stop ND filter to the lens would enable you to reduce the shutter speed to 1/10 sec: from 1/80 to 1/40 is one stop, from 1/40 to 1/20 is the another stop, and from 1/20 to 1/10 is another stop. Your camera will calculate the exposure when you’re using semi-auto modes, like Aperture Priority, up to the max shutter speed of 30 secs. After this, you’ll need to do the work yourself. Thankfully, there are apps that can help…

THE SMALLER apertures used for long exposure shots, and the motion-blurred parts of an image, will show how clean a camera’s sensor is. While manually removing one or two dust spots from an image isn’t a chore, but if your sensor is filthy now may be the time to register Dust Delete Data so that DPP 4 can erase the spots for you. To do this, select the option in the red Shooting menu. You’ll need to shoot a sheet of plain white paper with a defocused telephoto lens from about a foot away. Once the camera has mapped where the dust is, the data will be appended to each image (Raw or JPEG) taken from that point. You can then apply the data via the stamp tool in Canon’s…

perture Priority (Av) mode is one of the most popular creative modes, allowing photographers to choose the depth of field, while the camera chooses metering and shutter speed. One of the limitations is the shutter speed range extends as far as 30 secs. As a result when shooting in low light, blurred photos often result due to camera shake and subject movement. One option for most cameras is to set the camera to Auto ISO. This causes the camera to factor in the focal length of the lens and raises the ISO to avoid camera shake as much as possible, and especially in low-light situations. But if you shoot with a 24mm lens a 1/30 sec shutter speed is likely, which is still a little slow for photos with moving…

01 Canon PowerShot G5 X Mark II & G7 X Mark III Two new Canon PowerShot G-series cams £720-850/$TBA www.canon.co.uk WANT large-sensor image quality in a highly portable package? The new Powershot G5 X Mark II gives you a powerful 1-inch, 20Mp stacked CMOS sensor with a max sensitivity of ISO 25,600, yet it weighs just 340g and is substantially smaller than the original G5 X, largely due to a new, space-saving pop-up EVF with a 3.36-million-dot resolution. You even get 5x optical zoom, with a bright f/1.8-2.8 max aperture for shallow depth of field effects and enhanced low light performance. THE NEW PowerShot G7 X Mark III has the same sensor and maximum variable lens aperture, with 4.2x zoom. Like the G5 X Mark II, it packs a 20Mp…

The Canon RF 85mm f/1.2L USM is the perfect portrait lens for Canon’s new mirrorless EOS R system, combining a fast f/1.2 maximum aperture for soft background blur, with the 85mm focal length reckoned to give the best balance between flattering facial perspectives and a useful working distance. It’s roughly half a stop faster than the f/1.4 maximum aperture commonly seen in portrait lenses, and it joins the other ultra-fast prime lens in the EOS RF range, the Canon RF 50mm f/1.2 L USM. There is, incidentally, another RF 85mm version coming later in 2019, a special DS (Defocus Smoothing) lens which softens the bokeh ‘discs’ in blurred backgrounds – this is likely to cost more, and will bring a loss in light transmission of around 1.5 stops. This is…

In addition to our usual range of real-world and lab-based testing, we focused on aberrations that affect the performance of lenses for astrophotography at their widest apertures. Towards the corners of the image frame, these include vignetting, ‘coma’ which gives stars and other celestial bodies the appearance of having a comet-like tail and ‘astigmatism’, which turns dots of light into lines. Spherical aberration can occur throughout the entire image frame, giving points of light a soft halo effect. All of these aberrations tend to be reduced when narrowing the aperture by an f-stop from its widest setting. For zoom lenses, the results of lab tests shown on the following pages highlight performance at their shortest focal length. This is generally their preferred zoom setting for astrophotography, and the closest equivalent…

we recommend an aperture of f/2.8 or wider for astrophotography. The Canon, Sigma and Tamron zoom lenses for full-frame cameras, and the Tokina zoom for APS-C format bodies, all share this aperture rating. They also have a ‘constant-aperture’ design, so f/2.8 remains available throughout the entire zoom range. The prime lenses on test are mostly a little ‘faster’ with wider aperture ratings. In the case of the Irix and Samyang 14mm full-frame compatible primes, they’re a third of an f-stop faster, at f/2.4. The Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM | A is the outright fastest lens on test, being 1.33 f-stops faster than the zooms, whereas the APS-C format Samyang 10mm f/2.8 lens is no faster at all. A bonus of faster lenses is that you can stop down a…

£1169/$1299 his Sigma gives a wider viewing angle than any of the other zoom lenses on test, matching the Samyang and Sigma 14mm primes. Sigma also makes a wider 12-24mm Art zoom but, like the Canon 11-24mm, it has a slower aperture of f/4 that’s less ideal for astrophotography. Exotic glass includes an ultra-high-precision moulded glass aspherical front element, along with three FLD (‘Fluorite’ Low Dispersion) and three SLD (Special Low Dispersion) elements. As with the Sigma 14mm prime lens on test, there’s a fast and quiet ring-type ultrasonic autofocus system with a focus distance scale. Being a zoom rather than prime, however, there are no depth of field markings. Build quality and handling are excellent in both Sigma lenses, but the zoom gains a full set of weather-seals, whereas…

For a good starting point, set the shooting/exposure mode to Manual, and dial in the widest available aperture of the lens with a shutter speed of 30 secs. Also set the White Balance manually to its Daylight position. Next, select an ISO of around ISO1600 and be prepared to increase or decrease the value if the resulting images are too dark or too bright. Next up, you’ll want to switch off image stabilization if available and rely on the support of a sturdy tripod. If you don’t have a remote controller, the ‘Mirror lockup’ function available in most DSLRs works well with a 2-second or 10-second timer delay, allowing vibrations to gently settle after pressing the shutter button and the reflex mirror flipping up.…

Letter of the Month Firstly, I would like to comment on issue 154 of PhotoPlus which I have found most useful. I found Projects 1 and 3, the Photoshop Elements tutorial, and the Improve Your Dynamic Range article particularly handy. Secondly, why doesn’t Canon improve DPP4 and make it as a competitor to Photoshop Elements/Photoshop etc? It’s also a shame there’s no hard copy manual for DPP4, so far as I know, as it would make life easier when trying to learn the programme. I’m old school and prefer to have a hard copy alongside, rather than having to keep switching screens when trying out techniques! Pete Stockton, Cardross, Glasgow Thanks for your positive feedback, Pete! We agree and wish Canon would improve DPP significantly. The interface isn’t very user…

HOT SHOT #1 Lens Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM Exposure 1/250 sec, f/10, ISO 800 IAN’S COMMENT With Guy’s advice I zoomed all the way in on my lens to 400mm to get some tight portrait shots of the wonderful Pharaoh Eagle-Owl and the Yellow-Billed Kite. The bird handler placed them on a perch so I got down low with the bird for better eye contact. I also framed up in such a way that the background behind was much darker, meaning it would be dark and free from distractions. I focused on their fantastic eyes as they’re undoubtedly the main focal point. GET THE BIRD’S ATTENTION You’ll often get much more striking pictures if the bird is looking directly down the barrel of the lens than looking…

What lens you pick to shoot a subject, and how you use it, has a massive influence on your photographs. For example, the focal length affects how much of the scene you can include, which in turn will influence the viewpoint and composition. The apertures available on your lens will affect the depth of field, and will also determine the available shutter speeds. Specific lenses also suit certain subjects. A wide-angle lens is the natural choice for landscapes, while for sports and action you’ll almost automatically reach for a telephoto. But should you use a zoom or prime lens? Do you need fast lenses? To help you get the best out of your lenses, in the following 12-page guide we’ll cover all types of lenses from wide-angles zooms to primes,…

Atelephoto lens is the natural choice for sports and wildlife subjects that you can’t get close to without scaring them away. But long-focal-length lenses are great for shooting all sorts of subjects. Because you can shoot from a distance, it’s easier to isolate individual subjects from their surroundings, or make subjects at different distances appear to be very close together in the final image. This effect is called ‘compressed perspective’, and is dead handy when there are layers of objects in the scene that appear to stack on top of each other. As well as photographing birds and wildlife and action shots, the longer focal length is also perfect for grabbing candid portraits. But a telephoto lens can also be used creatively for picking out individual details in architecture or…

GIFT WORTH £100! Reasons to subscribe… Get a SlingShot 102 AW A stylish, compact shoulder bag that will fit a DSLR and standard zoom, plus other lenses and kit Great savings Subscribe from only £26 and get your issues delivered to your door, plus this Lowepro camera bag worth £100 Free Video Disc Each issue, you’ll receive a Video Disc packed with fantastic photo projects Option 1: 6-month subscription £26 • Six issues of our print edition delivered Option 2: Regular subscription £60 • 13 issues of our print edition delivered • Expert PDF handbook • 20% off entry to The Photography Show Option 3: Premium subscription £99 • 13 issues of our print edition delivered • Digital edition for your phone or tablet • Magazine binder • Expert PDF…

Most photographic blur effects occur when the subject moves during the exposure – think of blurred water or clouds, a fast-moving subject or a speeding car. Of course, for these kinds of effects a perfectly still camera is essential. But look what happens if we flip things so the subject remains still and the camera moves instead. With the right setup, we can create streaks of blur across our image. To create our blur here we quickly move the camera during a long exposure of around a third of a second – that’s the simple part. The slightly more complicated aspect is the lighting. The aim here is to light our subject partially with flash, and with continuous lighting. This way, the flash gives us sharp details, while the continuous…

THE UNPREDICTABLE part of the technique here is the camera movement – you simply don’t know exactly how the blur will look until you start swinging the camera. However, you can predict things to some degree… In the main image here all the lights were on, while in the inset image the flash was turned off, so you can see how the blur works with the rest of the lighting. The direction of the camera movement is important. Shifting the camera downwards – as in the main shot here – will mean the blur will streak upwards. You can see this on the arms. By contrast, in the inset image the camera is tilted upwards so the blur moves downwards.…

01 PHOTOGRAPHER’S EP HEMERIS As well as sunrise times, the direction of the sunlight is also important, so you can plan which angle of view is best to light up your location, or for the sunrise to be in the background. We use the Photographer’s Ephemeris smartphone app for this. 02 CAMERA AND LENS For our sunrise shots, we’ve used a full-frame Canon EOS 5D Mark III and EF 24-70mm f/2.8L lens, but you can use any Canon DSLR and standard zoom lens. You don’t need fast lenses for scenic shots as you’ll be working with narrower apertures. 03 EXPOSURE MODE By shooting in Av mode, we can set our aperture for good depth of field. For scenic sunrise shots use narrow apertures around f/8 to f/11 so shots are…

This month we’re taking you through the looking glass by showing you a fresh way to shoot landscapes. I’m sure plenty of you are like me and love to shoot in the great outdoors, but there are only so many ways to shoot landscapes traditionally. But with a clear glass ball, from companies such as Lensball, you can unlock new and exciting ways to shoot vistas. Due to physics, when you take an image of a glass ball, the landscape inside of it will be flipped upside down. Back at your computer you can choose to leave it as it is, and flip the entire picture upside down by going to Image>Image Rotation>180º in Photoshop. Or you could select the circular image inside the ball and rotate just that by…

01 MAKE A DUPLICATE LAYER Open your image into Photoshop Elements by heading to File>Open and double-click on your shot. Now duplicate the photo layer by hitting pressing Ctrl/Cmd+J or going to Layer>Duplicate Layer and bring up the Layers panel by going to Window>Layers. 02 TRY THE SPOT HEALING BRUSH TOOL To start we’ll try using the Spot Healing Brush tool which is automated but generally does a pretty good job. Grab it from the toolbox and keep the settings at their default values. Resize the brush with the [and] keys and paint over them. 03 PICK A PART OF YOUR IMAGE TO SOURCE If you struggle to get the result you want with the Spot Healing Brush you can use the Clone Stamp which gives you manual control. Grab…

When shooting close-up macro subjects the depth of field (DoF) will be very shallow, and the plane of sharpness may only stretch a few millimetres across the subject, even when using narrower apertures. So it can be a struggle to record a sharp close-up from front-to-back. If you need total sharpness, then try focus stacking. This involves taking a series of shots using a tripod-mounted camera, adjusting the focus ring after each frame so that a different part of the scene is in focus. Once done, the sharp parts can be merged into one superdetailed macro photo. Affinity Photo offers a powerful focus stacking tool called Focus Merge. Not only is it easy to use, it also produces excellent results most of the time. However, no focusstacking software is perfect…

“I think 2003 was amazing. Luckily, I went to the dressing room with England and that was just a privilege to be in there, thanks to Clive Woodward, who sorted that out for me. It was incredible. Prince Harry was in there celebrating – it was just a very privileged occasion to witness.” But for national significance it was South Africa’s victory in 1995, just one year after Nelson Mandela was elected the country’s first black president, that had an even greater impact. “To go back there and see their country pull together through rugby, which is the South African white sport, it was incredible. I never thought I’d live to see the day,” he recalls. “I remember driving back to the hotel through all the crowds and it was…

01 MAKING A BREAK Rolling on to its side we see the planes’ striking top decal Lens Canon EF 70-200mm & Extender EF 2x III Exposure 1/800 sec, f/5.6, ISO100 A ll’s quiet looking over a beautiful beach and ocean view. There’s only the whisper of a gentle breeze spreading through the delicious air. Suddenly, instantly, I’m rocked by an earth-shaking blast, followed by the blazing roar from the fire streaking afterburners. The decibels quickly diminish as a Blue Angel F/A-18 Super Hornet evaporates into the distance. The Fort Lauderdale 2019 Air Show has started. Other flying machines make their appearance, including the incredible Lockheed Martin F22 Rapture. But nothing thrills quite like the performance of the elite fighter demonstration teams, whether it be the Navy Blue Angels or the…

01 SELECTIVE SATURATION BOOST Open the Picture Style Editor and drag a Raw file into the workspace. In the Basic panel choose a base picture style, such as Landscape. Go to Six-Color-Axes. Click on the Cyan and Blue sections and boost the Saturation (S) for both. 02 DARKEN THE SKY Click Specific Colors. Use the Eyedropper to sample the blue sections then reduce the L (Luminance) slider to create darker sky colours. Sample and lighten the vegetation. Click the Save icon. Caption your custom style. 03 IMPORT TO DPP 4 Open a new Raw landscape file in DPP 4. Click the Browse button and import the custom .pf3 file you created in the Picture Style Editor. The caption will appear in the drop-down. Click to apply the custom picture style…

ND filters are available in both standard circular screw-on flavour or as a slide-in option for a square filter system. Circular and square filters each have their pros and cons, but square ones have the advantage when it comes to long exposure work with strong ND filters. For a start, you can compose and focus shots without the filter in place, then quickly slide it into position. Of course, if you use the Live View display you can size up the shot with a strong ND already attached to the lens, but this will drain the camera’s battery – and you’ll need all the juice you can get when shooting extended exposures. A square system also makes it easier to combine an ND with other filters, such as a graduated…

Once you know the length of exposure you need to use, what’s the best way of timing it? Obviously the camera will do it for you if the shutter speed is 30 secs or faster, but what if it’s longer? As mentioned earlier, in this case you’ll need to switch the camera to Bulb mode and time the photograph yourself. Bulb mode starts the exposure when you press the shutter release button and it ends when you take your finger off the button. Even with your EOS locked on a tripod, the chances of you nudging the camera when you do this are high. One option is to use a remote release – one which allows you to lock the shutter open rather than keeping the button pressed down will…

Why do my photos have a circular black border when I use my Sigma 18-300mm lens on the EOS RP?Simon Stinton, Bourne End BRIAN SAYS… The Sigma 18-300mm lens is a DC model, which is optimized for cameras with APS-C sensors. This makes them smaller and lighter, but means they only need to image over the area of the much smaller APS-C size sensors. With an EF-EOS R lens adapter you can fit these lenses to the mirrorless EOS RP. I’ve found the lenses don’t automatically inform the camera that they are a crop lens. As the EOS RP is a full-frame model you’ll see that the edges of the frame are not covered by the lens image area. Exact results vary with the focal length in my experience. If…

DAVE GILOG LEY, ABINGDON SAYS… I have been working over a few days to get some trust from a local nesting pair of Red Kites. I’ve been putting out some raw chicken wings, which seems to be a favourite of theirs, they have either one or two youngsters they are feeding, and appreciate the extra free food. They get extra food, I get pictures, fair trade. I used my EOS 80D with a Sigma 150-600mm Sports lens. In post I’ve cropped in a bit to make the bird a little larger and position it more centrally within the frame. BRIAN SAYS… I think you’ll be spending a lot more time taking photos of these Red Kites. One of the most obvious criticisms is the clipped feathers at the top of…

If you’re shooting with an APS-C camera, choices of wide-angle lenses with a fast aperture rating are limited. Canon doesn’t make any wide-angle ‘EF-S’ prime lenses apart from the 24mm f/2.8 STM! With its ‘effective’ focal length of 38.4mm, the viewing angle is rather narrow for astrophotography. Canon also doesn’t make an APS-C format wide-angle zoom lens with a faster aperture rating than f/3.5-4.5, which is a bit on the slow side for shooting stars. As always, the versatility of a zoom lens adds convenience. This is true if you want to include areas of landscape, rather than shooting the night sky in isolation. You can often ‘zoom with your feet’, by walking around to gain the best vantage point when using a prime lens.…

£1299/$1599 we’ve been highly impressed by Sigma’s wide-angle prime and zoom Art series lenses recently. This one has a slightly wider angle of view than the Irix on test, matching the Samyang 14mm, but beats both of them for speed in terms of aperture rating. At f/1.8, it’s a complete f-stop faster. And whereas the other two are manual-focus lenses, the Sigma adds super-speedy ring-type ultrasonic autofocus. Launched recently, the Sigma is unique in offering such a short focal length with such a wide aperture. It comes at a price, however, not only because the large-diameter elements are more expensive to manufacture, but also because they result in a comparatively big and heavy build. Indeed, it’s about the same size and 20g heavier than Sigma’s 14-24mm f/2.8 zoom lens on…

Our lab tests check on the severity of chromatic aberration. This is a form of colour fringing that affects high-contrast transitions at or near the edges and corners of the image frame. So it can give bright stars against a dark sky the appearance of red and cyan borders. In-camera corrections for lateral chromatic aberrations are available in most recent DSLRs for the Canon and Sigma lenses here, but not for other makes of lenses.…

£529/$469 Ultra-wide zoom lenses with fast aperture ratings for APS-C format cameras are few and far between. The main competitor to this lens is Tokina’s own AT-X 14-20mm f/2 AF Pro DX, which is pricier, has a faster aperture rating and delivers impressive quality for general shooting and astrophotography. However, its max viewing angle is restrictive compared with this 11-20mm offering. The sophisticated optical path includes two all-glass moulded elements and three SD (Super-low Dispersion) elements. The autofocus system feels basic, powered by an electric motor that’s rather noisy, but not lacking in speed. As with most Tokina lenses, there’s a ‘One-touch Focus Clutch Mechanism’. This relies on you snapping the focus ring forwards or backwards to engage AF or manual focus respectively. It works well as an alternative to…