Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2020 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

The days are shorter, the nights have drawn in, we’re entering the magical season of winter. This is the time when the great outdoors is transformed – tree are barren, water has frozen and (most of) the landscape is covered in a blanket of soft snow. It’s no surprise that some animals decide to sit out this harsh time of year altogether by going into hibernation, but many species tough it out. And for some species of migratory birds, this is the only time of year you’ll be able to photograph them. Capturing pictures of animals like birds, squirrels, deer and red foxes can give you delightful photo opportunities in a unique environment. Wildlife is arguably the toughest photographic genre, requiring patience, an intimate understanding of your camera’s settings, and…

Red squirrels look cute and adorable all-year round, but they look particularly vibrant in winter when their alluring coats make them pop out from a snowy white backdrop. Unsurprisingly though, they’re very fast… so for this technique we’ll be covering how to maintain a pin-sharp focus on unpredictable subjects and optimize the autofocus performance for moving subjects by customizing your Canon DSLR, or mirrorless, camera’s settings. Due to declining numbers, red squirrels can only be seen in Northern parts of the UK and small pockets of the South, or Northern Ireland, so venture to a wildlife park in one of these places where they’re known to be regularly sighted. If that’s not practical, the skills you’ll learn here can be easily transferred to any other fast moving animals such as…

50 megapixels is a lot and it's rare that you'll often shoot a scene that will truly utilize them, in this case, David uses them all for a surprising shore… There are references on the park information boards to Land’s End, but I’m dubious. Looking to sea from here on the cape I know more of this huge country is out there; Nova Scotia lies some 500km to the south east, while Newfoundland is due east. But it feels like Finisterre, I’ll give them that. And the name Gaspé does come from the Mi'kmaq word gespe'g, meaning 'end'. Land’s End or not, there’s no doubt this is one evocative headland, with an interesting history to boot; the Breton explorer Jacques Cartier landed in Gaspé Bay in 1534 to claim the…

VIDEO ALSO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_160_2 PROJECT 2 THE MISSION Take brighter close-up photos on a budget Time needed One hour Skill level Intermediate Kit needed • Tripod and macro lens (optional) • Reflective card or cheap reflector For this budget-tastic project, we’ll show you how easy it is to capture great close-up photos with nothing more than a kit lens, window light and reflective card! You don’t even need high-end kit – anything from an entry-level EOS camera with a kit lens will do – but you can get closer with a macro lens. We’ve used a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV DSLR with a 24-105mm telephoto lens. First, we need to make sure the light where you’re shooting isn’t too harsh, you don’t want to place your subject where sunshine…

VIDEO ALSO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_160_5 PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS THE MISSION Tell a story with multiple images Time needed 15 minutes Skill level Beginner Kit needed Photoshop Elements Three is the magic number, and that is certainly the case with our Photoshop Elements tutorial this month, where you’ll discover how to create an eye-catching triptych photograph using three separate images. You’ll need three pictures tied together with a similar theme, such as our portrait. In our case, all three shots are close-up details of her portrait: her face, hands holding an old Canon film camera (it had to be!) and lastly her shoes in a sensical order. You can find the images in the Resources folder if you want to experiment with the technique before heading out to take your own trio of…

UNDER £15 STOCKING FILLERS THAT WON’T BREAK THE BANK SPUDZ LENS CLOTH This 6x6-inch microfibre cloth is housed in a pouch with a handy clip-on hook. From £9/$9 www.alpineproducts.com CALUMET PRO SERIES C6 & C8 Shoot remotely or lock the shutter down for long exposures using Bulb mode. £10/$13 www.wexphotovideo.com VANGUARD ALTA BCS CASE Keep your camera’s memory cards and batteries organized. £13/$15 www.vanguardworld.co.uk ANKER USB 3.0 MEMORY CARD READER Read popular memory card types such as SD, microSD and CF with ease. £13/$17 www.anker.com KINETRONICS SPECKGRABBER Small, cheap and great at removing individual dust particles from sensors. £12/$12 www.cameraclean.co.uk UNDER £50 GREAT GEAR YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT SIX-MONTH SUBSCRIPTION Gift your favourite Canon photography magazine to friends or family from just £22.49. See page 40 to find out more…

01 TOWARDS TRYFAN A sunset with waterfalls on the Afon Lloer in the foreground and Tryfan peak in the distance Lens Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM Exposure 15 secs, f/13, ISO100 I took these images in Snowdonia whilst on a two week trip to Wales where I also ventured to the Brecon Beacons. I’m a 47-year old pro landscape photographer, based in Cornwall and my main aim was to add sunset and sunrise images to my stock library. I wanted to capture a collection of atmospheric landscapes with the emphasis of my work being on the quality of light, with the golden hours around sunrise and sunset being utilized wherever it was possible. The Welsh weather was a vast improvement from what I’d come to expect from previous trips…

01 Canon EOS Ra Canon launches its first astro camera since 2012’s EOS 60Da specialist DSLR £2599/$2499 www.canon.co.uk THE EOS Ra is a modified version of the EOS R and is the first Canon full-frame camera designed for astrophotography. The EOS Ra is also unique in that it doesn’t require an external power source or a tethered computer connection in order to record those star-studded skies. It inherits the EOS R’s key tech specs, but adds a new infrared blocking filter which allows higher hydrogen alpha light to reach the imaging sensor. This enables the EOS Ra to capture the distinct red colour of nebula that would otherwise be blocked by the UV/IR cut filters in a normal camera. 02 DJI Mavic Mini Meet DJI’s lightest-ever drone £369/$399 www.dji.com WITH…

Sigma 60-600mm f/4.5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sports Price £1699/$1759 Tested 147 WINNER SUPER-TELEPHOTO ZOOM What we love Like a superzoom lens on steroids, this Sigma gives a mighty 10x zoom range but, instead of starting at a wideangle focal length, it kicks off in standard territory and stretches to super-telephoto lengths. It’s feature-packed with wide-ranging on board controls and customization options. What we love most is the ability to shoot with anything from standard to super-telephoto focal lengths without the need to swap lenses. It can make all the difference between getting the shot and missing it, especially in wildlife and sports scenarios. What’s missing? The aperture shrinks to a disappointing f/6.3 at the long end of the zoom, but avoids the lens being too enormous. Why upgrade? If you…

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…

APPRENTICE NAME: LEANNE HART CAMERA: CANON EOS 200D LEANNE, 35 years old, is a professional make-up artist from Weston-super-Mare, in Somerset. Her husband bought her a Canon EOS 200D with a Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 prime lens, and she asked for our help to show her how to take better beauty shots. Leanne was struggling to find flattering ways to take portraits that are interesting and show off her make-up skills! We were happy to help. www.leannehart.co.uk CANON PRO NAME: REBECCA FAITH CAMERA: CANON EOS 5DS R REBECCA, 44 years old, is an experienced pro portrait and wedding photographer based in Mendips, Somerset. She became a photographer following her degree in photography and after travelling the world with her camera. In her 20-plus years as a pro she’s built up…

KEEP YOUR SNOW WHITE ONE OF the trickiest parts of shooting wildlife in a beautiful snowy landscape is that snow is extremely reflective, which can throw off your exposure and white balance. Your best bet is to shoot in Canon’s Raw format such as CR2 or CR3, so that both the exposure and white balance can be adjusted in postproduction using a program like Photoshop CC’s Adobe Camera Raw or DPP easily. To stop the snow looking too grey in-camera you can try setting the camera’s White Balance to Cloudy, and increase the exposure compensation a little to make the picture brighter. DON’T FOG YOUR GEAR CONDENSATION can form on your lenses when you bring them in to a warm house from a cold shoot on a frosty morning. It’s…

Shooting at sunrise requires being up at the crack of dawn, but the good news is that it’s easier to shoot a sunrise in winter. Thankfully, the sun rises much later, at around 8am in December, as opposed to 4:42am in the middle of summer. The early start is worth it though, as you’ll be able to shoot in the golden hour, the hour after sunrise and before sunset, that bathes your scene in a stunningly atmospheric golden light, caused by the low angle of the sun. For this technique you’ll learn how to backlight a deer to give it a wonderful rim light effect and also illuminate its breath on a frosty morning, all possible at a local deer park. 01 GET IN THE RIGHT POSITION To turn the…

Technique editor dan.mold@futurenet.com Welcome… WINTER is a brilliant time to photograph wildlife and landscapes, so be sure to check out our projects on pages 52 and 56 to see how you can capture a burst of action and increase the sharpness in landscapes. If you’d rather remain cosy inside then be sure to check out Peter’s ‘close-ups on the cheap’ photo project on page 50 as he transforms waste product packaging into gold and silver… no he’s not found a philosopher’s stone, he’s been crafting budget reflectors with cardboard from the recycling! James has been giving his classic car a high-end studio look, but with his car on the drive, and two studio flash heads and Photoshop to work with, see page 46. And if editing is more your cup…

THE MISSION Shoot a wide range of movement in a moving bird and stitch it all together Time needed Two hours Skill level Advanced Kit needed • A DSLR or CSC with a fast burst • Telephoto lens • Shutter release cable • Tripod • Access to a wildlife hide or bird feeder When it comes to showing the motion of a moving subject with your camera you normally have two options: use a fast shutter speed to freeze it and get a pin-sharp shot, or slow the shutter speed down to inject a sense of motion. Well, this month We’re going to introduce you to a technique that will give you some more creative options. You’ll discover how to take a series of pictures of a moving subject, like…

VIDEO ALSO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_160_6 PHOTOSHOP CC THE MISSION Learn key compositing skills with Blend Modes and Masks Time needed 20 minutes Skill level Beginner Kit needed Photoshop CC A shoot rarely goes exactly to plan, especially when working with children or animals. While photographing the dog here, my idea was to create a shot with water drops flying out from the dog’s head at all angles. However, it proved tricky to get the dog to play ball, and even when I managed to get a usable shot, it didn’t have the scattering of water drops that I had envisaged. However, I did have other frames from the shoot in which the dog wasn’t right, but the water drops were plentiful. As such, I could piece together the drops and the…

01 FLYING SOLO An unusual perspective of a lone gannet flying over the ocean swell – which also makes a perfect background beneath Lens Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS II USM Exposure 1/2000 sec, f/4, ISO320 AT WHAT AGE do you become too old? In Michel d’Oultremont’s case it is 27. While that may sound incredulous to most of us, in Michel’s case turning 27 has proven to be a critical point in his brief career as a professional wildlife photographer. Turning 27 means he’s too old to enter the Rising Star Portfoilio Award in the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, run by the Natural History Museum in London. This award is open to photographers aged 18 to 26 for a portfolio of six photographs, and Michel has…

01 HOLOGRAM Sean creates kaleidoscopic effects using fractal lenses that distort perspective Lens Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM Exposure 1/200 sec, f/3.2, ISO250 Photo essays from PhotoPlus readers and professional photographers alike I cover press, editorial and PR assignments as a freelancer and have been doing it for over 25 years. But lately I’ve been trying to understand why I started taking photos… Recently, while waiting at Downing Street for four hours for Donald Trump to arrive, I came to the conclusion that I set out all those years ago to shoot subjects that interested me – to ‘capture a decisive moment’ as Henri Cartier-Bresson so famously said and, maybe more importantly, to have some fun. Personally speaking, it is the ‘fun’ that seems to have disappeared – it has…

“What do you think of the EOS 77D as an upgrade for my EOS 760D?” John Clark, South Shields BRIAN SAYS… The EOS 77D replaced the EOS 760D in Canon’s range, but the update is quite minor depending on the kind of photography you do. First up, the image sensor has the same 24Mp resolution, but you get an updated DIGIC 7 processor, and a 45-point AF system derived from the EOS 80D. In addition you also gain further improvement in the Live View and movie functionalities, particularly with face tracking AF. All your existing lenses, and batteries can also be used with the EOS 77D. For most photography, there’s not a great deal of difference in the two. The updated AF is worth the update for wildlife, sport and…

IMOGEN ANGELLY, KENT SAYS… This was my second ever visit to a motocross race. I had taken my EOS 200D and a borrowed 70-200mm f/4L lens. I tried using sports mode on the EOS 200D to capture photos of the riders during the races, but the shots looked a bit blurry even on the LCD. I spoke to another photographer who advised me to try using a faster shutter speed and maybe try Shutter Priority mode. With my camera set to 1/2000 sec I tried again and got much better results. I processed my photo using Apple Photos software. BRIAN SAYS… Well that’s a good sharp shot with crisp detail in both rider and motorbike. The suggestion to use a faster shutter speed was a good one. Your composition is…

Sigma 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3 DC Macro OS HSM | C Price £349/$399 Tested 153 WINNER TRAVEL ZOOM What we love One of the big attractions of any ‘system camera’ that has interchangeable lenses is that you can fit the best tool for the task at hand. The flip side is that nobody likes travelling or walking around with a heavy bag of lenses. This Sigma stretches from seriously wide-angle coverage to telephoto reach, with just the twist of a zoom ring. Better still, it manages to deliver impressive image quality at all zoom settings, while keeping the size and weight to easily manageable proportions. What’s missing? The ultrasonic motor-based AF system lacks finesse. The ring rotates during AF and manual override is unavailable. Why upgrade? If you bought your DSLR as…

Choosing lenses Key factors to watch out for THE MAIN factors to consider in a lens are its focal length, maximum aperture, and whether or not it’s full-frame compatible. We’ve categorized lenses by focal length range – from wide-angle to telephoto. The larger a lens’s maximum aperture, the ‘faster’ it’s considered to be – allowing you to control depth of field more, and offering better options in low light. Zooms are more flexible than primes, but tend not to have such fast maximum apertures. Full-frame lenses will also work with ‘crop-sensor’ EOS DSLRs, but crop-sensor lenses aren’t compatible with full-frame cameras. Contacts Canon www.canon.co.uk Peleng www.digitaltoyshop.co.uk Samyang www.samyang-lens.co.uk Schneider www.linhofstudio.com Sigma www.sigma-imaging-uk.com Tamron www.tamron.co.uk Tokina www.tokinalens.com Voigtlander www.robertwhite.co.uk Zeiss www.zeiss.co.uk…

Letter of the Month Thanks PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine for your interesting and informative head-to-head comparison of the Canon EOS 90D against the 80D and 7D Mark II. My old EOS 70D is a bit long in the tooth now and I’ve been wondering what should be my next upgrade. I have been debating whether the 80D is enough of a step up, or if the 7D Mark II suits my needs – as I photograph landscapes and cities mostly, but do sometimes like having a fast burst rate to shoot local wildlife or my son’s team playing football. So it looks like the EOS 90D is the best of both worlds with a good upgrade of specs over the 80D, and also with a 10-frames-per-second burst speed to match…

01 SEVEN DEADLY SINS BY KIM AYRES Kim’s approach to the theme of ‘Food Glorious Food’ is what makes it stand out as the winner in this month’s comp, as it’s a fantastically creative and well-executed portrait with food being an integral part of the setup. Kim tells us, “I was commissioned to shoot a set of portraits around the theme of seven deadly sins for In House Chocolates in Scotland and this is my favourite image from the shoot”. Lens Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM Exposure 1/160 sec, f/8, ISO100 02 COLOUR SPLASH BY JACQUI SCOTT (FOTOPHANTASIA) Combining action with food photography isn’t an easy job, but that’s what Jacqui’s managed to do with her vibrant image of three peppers being dropped into a tank of water. She made…

You don’t always have to venture far to get amazing winter wildlife pictures, in fact you can get some amazing portraits of birds in your own back garden. Having a bird feeding station will definitely help attract birds to your garden and increase your chances of seeing them, especially the wintery red-breasted robin. To prepare a quick perch, prop up a garden fork next to the feeders – this is much more photogenic than a usual bird feeder. The secret is taking your pictures with a long zoom lens and using a wide aperture to blur the background so you can’t tell it was taken in your garden. Here’s how to do it… 01 SET UP A PLACE TO PERCH For this technique you’ll want to place a large garden…

Free Vanguard VEO Discover 25 shoulder bag This compact shoulder bag fits a Canon EOS DSLR or mirrorless with lens attached, plus 3-4 extra lenses, flash, accessories and tablet. It keeps your kit clean and dry, with water-resistant and anti-scratch material on the bottom, plus a total coverage rain cover. The bag is well-padded all round, with a nonslip shoulder strap and belt connector, and offers speedy top access to your kit. Your special Christmas offer Free shoulder bag worth £39.99 Enjoy six months of forjust22.49 – that’s just £3.74 per issue! Receive every issue delivered direct to your door each month A thoughtful gift that keeps on delivering throughout the year Go Premium for £69 a year and you’ll also get… Digital + print edition Magazine binder Expert PDF…

THE MISSION Use a flash to light a car piece by piece over several frames then combine them Time needed Three hours Skill level Advanced Kit needed • Tripod • Studio flash kit • Clip frame • Black card • Cable release • Photoshop • Polarizing filter • Wireless flash triggers Built in November 1969, this TVR Tuscan V6 has just celebrated its 50th birthday. We wanted to capture the beautiful flowing shape of this classic coupe. However, the car’s usual suburban home – in a garage in Wiltshire – didn’t really work as a backdrop to those gorgeous curves. So the plan was to bring the TVR into a huge studio and light it with a dozen flashes. But then we realized we didn’t have a huge studio… or…

VIDEO ALSO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_160_4 PROJECT 4 THE MISSION Get set to achieve totally sharp shots Time needed 10 minutes Skill level Beginner Kit needed • Kit lens • Tripod OPTIMUS PRIME You’ll generally see better image quality in prime lenses as their optics are finessed for a single focal length, like 50mm, as they have no zoom capability. That said, premium zoom lenses will likely perform better than budget primes, so to be sure look out for Canon’s top flight L-series optics, which deliver incredible clarity, or from top-end third-parties such as Sigma’s Art range. Sharpness and clarity are two features at the front of our minds when it comes to buying a new lens. Perhaps this is in part due to Canon releasing increasingly high resolution cameras. Pair that…

THE MISSION Enhance a landscape with Affinity Photo Time needed 10 minutes Skill level Beginner Kit needed Affinity Photo When it comes to editing landscapes, judgement is the most important tool in your image-editing arsenal. We should always ask ourselves whether anything in particular needs addressing – is the exposure right? Does the scene need more or less contrast? Would a colour boost benefit the image, or perhaps a black and white treatment? These judgement calls, and a good edit have more to do with answering these questions than expertise in a specific editing tool. But it still pays to know the best tools for the job, and there are plenty to choose from in Affinity. In this tutorial we’ll look at six essential landscape editing tips. The right edits…

The Ardennes is a region that Michel knows well, having visited this thickly forested area of southern Belgium numerous times to photograph the wildlife. This time, he was hidden behind a tree, hoping to fulfil a standing ambition to photograph the peak of the action when two red deer stags lock antlers, roaring in competition. Michel wanted to capture such a scene in the light of dusk and he was fortunate that as clouds gathered and the light faded, these two stags eventually appeared on the line of a ridge. Through the branches and working with an effective focal length of 800mm, he rendered the two combatants as a silhouette. This shot formed part of Michel’s portfolio which won his second Rising Star Portfolio Award in the 2018 Wildlife Photographer…

Clever cropping in DPP Turn quick snaps into considered compositions with post-production cropping In pre-digital days, when shooting on rolls of film, we were limited by the amount of photographs that we could capture while on a shoot. This forced us to consider composition more carefully to avoid wasting film. By contrast, digital photography enables us to shoot hundreds of photos on a single memory card, and with no film or processing costs it’s possible to adopt a more relaxed approach to composition; by shooting hundreds of photographs we are still likely to find at least one decent shot in our memory card’s large collection of image files. Thanks to applications such as Digital Photo Professional, it’s also possible to turn a mediocre shot into a better image by recomposing…

Ask Brain! Confused with your Canon DSLR? EmailEOSSOS@future.com Autofocus works by looking for the closest subject that can be rendered in focus. It does this by evaluating the subject for contrast, maximum contrast is when the subject is in focus. With DSLR cameras the individual AF point is sensitive to a line of contrast, either vertical or horizontal; cross-type AF points are sensitive to both horizontal and vertical lines. If you have no contrast the camera will not be able to focus, you’ll know this if you’ve tried focussing on a blank painted wall. Early implementations of focus in Live View worked by maximizing the contrast of the subject, changing focus iteratively to achieve max contrast. When more AF points are active, the camera has more information to process, and…

Gear Update Canon gear from this month Buyers’ Guide Every EOS and Canon-fit lens CANON GEAR OF THE YEAR 2019 CANON EOS M200 TESTS & AWARDS WHEN IT comes to testing Canon DSLRs, lenses, photo gear and services in PhotoPlus, we tell it like it is. We’re 100 per cent independent and we use our in-depth lab tests to find out how kit really performs and compares. Here are our main awards… TABLETOP TRIPODS Buy for the best combination of quality and value Only the best of best win our coveted award Ben Andrews Lab Manager ben.andrews@futurenet.com Welcome… THIS issue we reveal the very best kit from 2019 in our Canon Gear of the Year awards, find out who’s won page 105. We’ve also tested a bunch of tabletop tripods…

Being on the bottom rung of the EOS M ladder, the M200 doesn’t have an extensive set of features, but you do get a 24.1Mp APS-C Dual Pixel CMOS sensor (to enable phase detection autofocusing), plus Canon’s latest Digic 8 processing engine, and 4K video. It’s a camera that’s designed to be easy to use, which makes it a good choice for beginners, but the M200 is equally appealing to more experienced photographers who just want a small, go-anywhere camera. Canon’s Dual Pixel CMOS AF system is extremely capable in all Canon’s that feature it, and it gives good service in the M200, with up to 143 AF points – up from 49 in the M100. The M200 has the same max continuous shooting rate as the M100, at 4fps…

Canon RF 50mm f/1.2L USM Price £2199/$2099 Tested 146 WINNER STANDARD PRIME What we love Canon surprised a few people by going large on its 50mm lens to pair with its downsized mirrorless R and RP bodies. But it really does make a point. The legendary Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 lens for DSLRs is sketchy in terms of AF accuracy, because the AF module is separate from the image sensor and depth of field is so tight. Using phas-edetection AF right on the sensor, this lens can give consistently accurate focusing with practically zero effort, and the overall image quality is ace. What’s missing? No optical image stabilization, but that’s par for the course with ultra-fast lenses. Why upgrade? If you want the best and most versatile 50mm prime lens…