Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2016 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

10 AUTUMN PHOTO PROJECTS It’s the time of year to learn new Canon skills, as well as the best ways to capture the brilliant colours of the season. See page30 PhotPlus CANON MAGAZINE Autumn (or fall, as our American friends call it) is, perhaps, the best time of year to shoot the great outdoors. Mother Nature is her most vibrant and colourful, with the low sun highlighting red, orange and yellow leaves, while wildlife is busy stocking up larders for winter. To make the most of all the photo opportunities, this issue we give you ten great ideas for autumn photo projects. See page 30. What else? Also inside, we give Canon’s new full-frame 30Mp 5D Mk IV the PhotoPlus test treatment. Find out what we think of this latest…

STUNNING IMAGERY FROM THE WORLD OF CANON PHOTOGRAPHY 01 Feeding pigeons by Jasmine Lappalainen It was an early spring afternoon when I took my camera out while wandering aimlessly in the old town square in Gdansk, Poland. In the centre of the square, a little girl took some bread from her mother and threw it in the air. All of a sudden there were pigeons everywhere, so I picked up my camera to record this wonderful moment. Lens Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di-II VC Exposure 1/100 sec, f/5, ISO100 02 York Busker by Ky le Damon Parr York is one of my favourite locations for photography, with the historic architecture making for some magical shots. This shot was taken in May. When I saw the busker, everything seemed…

THE MISSION Use the new Haze Removal tool in Photoshop Elements 14 Time needed 10 minutes Skill level Easy Kit needed Photoshop Elements 14 DOWNLOAD PROJECT FILES TO YOUR COMPUTER FROM: http://downloads.photoplusmag.com/pp119.zip You often get distant haze in landscape shots, which makes parts of a scene and subjects in the distance appear washed out and less distinct than what they would be close up. It happens when there’s dust or moisture in the air, and increases with distance. It’s sometimes called ‘aerial perspective’ and can be a useful creative effect, but much of the time it’s an annoyance because the spectacular backdrop that we thought we were going to get comes out looking unexpectedly flat. Which is where the Remove Haze option in Photoshop Elements 14 comes in. It’s designed…

SOME photographers are always travelling to new locations in search of great landscapes. Andy Farrer has a different approach. Living close to some of the UK’s most photographed scenery has taught him to enjoy revisiting locations over and over again. This has allowed him more opportunities to see those locations in remarkable light and to capture their essential character in a way that is distinctively his own. Born in Swanage, 42-year-old Andy has lived all his life in Dorset, apart from a couple of years in London after he left art college. Being away from his beloved Isle of Purbeck was an experience that made him value the beauty of his birthplace all the more. Although Andy has a natural affinity for both photography and the natural world, he has…

WHETHER YOU’RE using the viewfinder or Live View, the image is displayed at your lens’s maximum (widest) aperture even if you’ve dialled in a narrower aperture on the camera, until you take the shot. This is fine if you’re shooting ‘wide open’, but how can you judge the degree of sharpness and blur if you’re shooting at narrower apertures? The answer is to use the camera’s DoF Preview button, which you’ll find near the lens mount on the camera – and which is not to be confused with the lens release button! There isn’t a DoF preview button on the 1300D, so if you’re shooting with this camera you’ll need to assign DoF Preview to the Set button – you can do this in the Custom Functions menu. When you…

PhotoPlusEXPERT BRIAN WORLEY CANON PRO Brian is a freelance photographer and photo tutor, based in Oxfordshire. He has unrivalled EOS DSLR knowledge, after working for Canon for over 15 years, and is on hand to answer all your EOS and photographic queries “I want to upgrade my EOS 60D to a fullframe camera: 5D Mk III or 1D X Mk II?” Simon Wood, Southampton BRIAN SAYS… Upgrading to a full-frame camera is a fair step. An EOS 5D Mark III or the new EOS 5D Mark IV would make a fine upgrade over the EOS 60D in terms of image quality, focus and frame rate. Probably the only downside of a full-frame camera is the loss of the vari-angle LCD and the need to change lenses that are only for…

Canon’s 5D series has a rich heritage – the original EOS 5D camera bought fullframe photography to the masses – so the arrival of a new generation of the 5D is a big deal. The 22.3Mp sensor in the 5D Mk III was starting to look a little dated compared to some of the competition, so it’s nice to see a notable jump to 30.4Mp here. It’s when you zoom into a saved photo that you realize how big a 30Mp image is. Files measure 6720x4480 pixels. This means that if you want to print at 300dpi, the native size is just under A2 at 56.9x37.9cm (22.4x14.9 inches). Those looking for even more pixels already have the option of the 50.6Mp 5DS. The 5D Mark IV uses the same latest-generation…

Aluminium is traditionally used for constructing tripod legs. It’s reasonably lightweight yet tough and rigid, and not overly expensive. Carbon fibre has become a popular alternative, as it can reduce carrying weight, without any sacrifice in rigidity or maximum load capacity. However, manufacturing costs are higher, so carbon tripods are more expensive. Apart from the Benbo tripods, all have a directly equivalent carbon fibre edition (for Vanguard, the ALTA PRO 284CB 100 is the closest). The typical weight-saving is around 15 per cent or 400 grams, while the price increase is usually around 50 per cent, although it’s somewhat less for the Manfrotto 055 (legs only), and rather more for the Benro Classic and Vanguard carbon alternatives.…

Most current tripods feature multi-angle legs, so you can splay the legs at wider angles to the centre column and lock them in place, reducing the shooting height and making the tripod more stable. A limiting factor in reducing height is usually the length of the centre column, as its base will come into contact with the ground. To get around the problem, some tripods have dual-section centre columns, the lower section of which can be removed. You can also usually remove and invert the centre column, shooting with the camera upside-down. However, a bonus of a pivoting centre column is that you can shoot horizontally, keeping the camera the right way up, as well as avoiding the feet getting into wide-angle shots.…

You can save money by buying a complete tripod kit, but if you’re picky about your legs and head, you can buy them separately and there’s no need to limit yourself to the same manufacturer. But you do need to bear a couple of things in mind. For the best fit, choose a head with the same diameter of mounting surface as the platform on the tripod legs. Most high-performance heads have a 3/8in attachment thread, corresponding with the stud in the mounting plate of sturdy tripods. If the tripod has a smaller 1/4in stud, you can still fit a 3/8in threaded head, via an adaptor. However, you can’t fit a head with a smaller 1/4in thread to a tripod with a 3/8in stud.…

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CANON PRO NAME: CLINT RALPH CAMERA: EOS-1D X Mk II & 6D BY DAY, Clint is managing director of an ethical waste management company in Pretoria, South Africa. But in his spare time, he’s an award-winning wildlife photographer who specializes in the birds and big game of his home country. This Apprentice shoot marks the first time that he has shot the Great Migration and he was keen to help Caron get the most from her new kit. See his work at www.facebook.com/Clint-Ralph-Photography-714373005250511 APPRENTICE NAME: CARON STEELE CAMERA: EOS-1D X Mk II & 7D Mk II CARON is a former advertising director who now runs a working farm estate – complete with conference centre, wedding venue and business park – in Worcestershire. She studied zoology at Oxford University and now…

As summer gives way to autumn, as the days get shorter and nights get longer, and as T-shirts are exchanged for scarves and coats, many people begin to long for balmier days to come around again far too quickly. Not so us photographers, for we know that autumn is the most photogenic of seasons: once-uniformly green trees turn a thousand shades of red, brown and yellow; misty mornings give landscapes an eerie, otherworldly feel; nature is at its most spectacular as animals make last-minute preparations for hibernation or put on dramatic displays. So wrap up warm and get out among the elements with your Canon. Here are ten ideas for easy autumn photography projects… OUR TOP 10 INSPIRATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECTS TO TRY TODAY 01 AUTUMN PORTRAITS Wrap up warm and…

THE MISSION Photograph a toy car in a realistic situation to create the illusion of a miniature world Time needed 10 minutes Skill level Easy Kit needed Standard zoom lens • Beanbag (or rolled up jumper) Photographing miniature models and toys has captured the imagination of hundreds of thousands of photographers worldwide. There’s something charming about capturing a toy model in a real-life situation with your camera. In this project we’re going to show you how to shoot a toy Land Rover in a likely situation, off-roading in a woods. It sounds simple enough, and you only need a standard zoom/kit lens to focus close enough for this shot, but there are a few key points you need to remember when capturing your miniature scene that we will explore in…

THE MISSION Turn friends and family into comic book characters Time needed 15 minutes Skill level Intermediate Kit needed Photoshop CC DOWNLOAD PROJECT FILES TO YOUR COMPUTER FROM: http://downloads.photoplusmag.com/pp119.zip One way to create an eye-catching image is to give a photograph a stylized artistic makeover. A portrait shot against a plain background is perfect for this. By using Photoshop’s filters you can simplify the colours and tones in the picture to make them look as though they were drawn and inked by a comic book artist. This technique is an effective way to produce things such as creative profile pictures to represent you on social media sites, or even a personalized birthday card design. In this walkthrough you’ll learn how to use the Filter Gallery to apply filters in layers,…

Surreal dream A set of images that tells a story and portrays my escape and journey into another world through photography My passion is portraits that create a story with a concept to produce an image with a fine art feel. I love creating something unrealistic in a realistic world to make the viewer question what they see before them. I use Photoshop CC to manipulate my images and can easily spend five or six hours working on just one photo. I am a perfectionist and it’s important to me that the image represents what I imagined in my head. JOIN IN THE FUN! One of the great things about photography is being able to share your view of the world. This issue, using Photoshop to transform images into surreal…

No other type of photography throws up as many depth of field challenges as macro photography. Not only will you be working extremely closely to the subject – remember that the closer you focus, the shallower the depth becomes – but even the narrowest aperture on a lens (eg f/22) may only deliver a depth of field that’s measured in millimetres. And that might not be enough to make all of a tiny subject’s features appear sharp. There are some tactics you can use here. Aligning the camera so the sensor is parallel with the subject’s key features, such as the wings of a butterfly, will allow you to maximize what little depth of field there is. You can also shoot from further away and crop the image later, but…

01 OPEN START FILE Open MixedLighting_start.CR2. This has a mix of warm tungsten light and cold daylight. The camera’s AWB setting has tried to compromise between cooling tungsten and warming daylight. We can fine-tune the colours manually. 02 CUSTOM WHITE BALANCE Grab the eyedropper tool and click on the orange back wall to cool down the warm tungsten light. This creates more neutral looking colours for the back wall, but the day-lit areas now look too cool and also suffer from a green tint. 03 FINE-TUNE THE SETTINGS Set the White Balance drop-down menu to Color Temperature. Manually set the slider to 3300 K to cool the tungsten light without making the daylight too blue. We’ve reduced the green tint by setting the Magenta (M) slider to -4.…

We measure the maximum operate height of each tripod and its folded length for carrying, with the supplied head fitted. We also measure the combined weight of each set of tripod legs and head, using calibrated electronic scales, and measure the diameter of all leg sections, from the widest to the thinnest, using a Vernier calliper. We check the ease of use, smoothness and precision of all available adjustments in each set of tripod legs and heads. We’ve paid particular attention to the ease and effectiveness of using the centre column in horizontal orientation, as well as at other angles throughout a 180º or full 360º arc, where available. To check overall stability, we shoot with a range of DSLR camera bodies fitted with wide-angle, standard, telephoto and macro lenses.…

With an inspired design and immaculate build, the Benro FGP28A is small enough to take anywhere, yet extends to an impressive height. The pivot system enables effortless rotation through 180º. Being able to remove one leg for use as a monopod is an extra bonus. The Benro Classic TGP17A is also a great tripod, although it lacks the flip-over leg arrangement for compact stowage, and its ball head has a reduced load rating. You get most of the FGP28A’s features in the Kenro Karoo kit, except the pivot mechanism only enables vertical or horizontal orientation. It’s standout value at the price. The Manfrotto tripods are less versatile but their XPRO ball heads are absolutely excellent. The Vanguard kit is another good value buy, whereas the rather oddball Benbo tripods are…

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Great reasons to subscribe now! • Get a FREE Lowepro bag • Become a member of PhotoClub • Get 13 issues a year delivered directly to your door • Free Video Disc • Save up to 69% OPTION 1 MEMBER Subscribe and you also become a PhotoClub Member – this includes: • Lowepro Photo Traveler 150 bag (worth £49) • 13 print issues per year delivered to you • Bonus photography bookazine (worth £9.99) • Exclusive web content and Club discounts • From only £54 (RRP £178) FIND OUT MORE www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/phpclub16 OR CALL 0344 848 2852 and quote PHPCLUB16 Your Lowepro Photo Traveler 150 backpack Subscribe today to get this great gift! Ultra-compact design, ideal for enthusiasts who want to carry their kit everywhere Padded interior to store and protect…

“There’s no such thing as a day off for the landscape photographer – David Noton takes every opportunity he can get…” We were supposed to be having a weekend off, yet there I was creeping out of our friends’ house in the darkness before dawn... Trying not to disturb their well-earned slumber, intent on trudging up a Welsh hill before the first light painted the landscape. A hike the day before had confirmed the colours in the Dee Valley were finally at their autumnal prime. As I drove through Llangollen the familiar excitement that precedes a promising shoot started to build. Tantalising, evocative mist lay amongst the russet-toned trees lining the banks of the river. Yes, my schedule over the past month had been relentless and I really did need…

THE MISSION Explore different ways to capture your local funfair Time needed Two hours Skill level Intermediate Kit needed Tripod • Cable release Fairgrounds and funfairs offer all kinds of opportunities for great photos. First and foremost are the rides themselves – all twirling metal and lights. Then there’s the thrill-seeking punters, the colourful artwork and all the other goings-on of the fair. With such vibrant visual treats of offer, it’s not hard to come away with a bunch of knockout photos. It’s the thrill of high-speed action that draws the crowds to the fair, and all that motion is just as enticing to photographers. There’s ample opportunity for some amazing long-exposure photography. Armed with a tripod and a few simple camera skills we can capture beautiful blurred motion. But…

THE MISSION Capture a flower and enhance it with a monochrome solarization effect for an arty finish Time needed One hour Skill level Intermediate Kit needed Standard zoom lens • Sunflower • Sheet of black card or paper • Tripod • Photoshop CS/CC DOWNLOAD PROJECT FILES TO YOUR COMPUTER FROM: http://downloads.photoplusmag.com/pp119.zip Capturing a still-life shot of a flower is straightforward enough, but shot against a plain backdrop using natural light can look rather mundane. In this photography project we’re going to show you how you can transform a simple close-up of a sunflower head into a cool, monochrome work of art by replicating a traditional darkroom technique called solarization in Photoshop CS/CC. This magical effect will add visual interest by giving the tones an almost negative and metallic look. This…

THE MISSION Remove dust spots and other sensor dirt quickly Time needed 10 minutes Skill level Easy Kit needed Lightroom Despite our best efforts to keep our lenses and cameras clean, we may find that some photos suffer from sensor spots. When you swap lenses on location, tiny fragments of dirt and dust can enter the camera body and adhere to the sensor. These sensor spots can then show up in a photograph as small, soft, dark blobs. These blobs are particularly annoying because they appear in the same parts of every photo from a shoot. They are particularly noticeable in clean, smooth areas of an image, such as skies (as you can see in our ‘before’ image). Your Canon DSLR attempts to shake dust from the sensor by vibrating…

“Slightly less obvious are props such as classic clothing, hats, bags, books and vintage binoculars or cameras” Niels van Gijn Travel and lifestyle photographer Niels van Gijn reveals the kit he can’t be without when working at home in the UK and on his travels in Africa When I’m out on a shoot for travel clients, it’s useful to know how the photos are going to be used. Who is going to see them? What message do they give? Will they be used in a design that gives them context or do they need to tell a story in their own right? My kit bag is full of all sorts of equipment, from an Ikelite underwater housing to Profoto lighting kit. Slightly less obvious are props such as classic clothing,…

To get as much of a scene as possible to appear sharp, you’ll need to use narrow apertures, wide lenses and focus on subjects that aren’t too close to the camera. In fact, landscape photographers often use a technique called ‘hyperfocal focusing’ to increase the depth of field. If you just focus on the nearest subject, you’ll waste all the depth of field you get in front of point of focus and reduce the depth of field range behind it. Hyperfocal focusing involves manually focusing at a specific distance into the scene that ensures that everything will be sharp, from the most distant object to those fairly close to the camera. It’s similar to the rule of thumb guide to maximizing depth of field, where you focus approximately one-third of…

AS YOU open the aperture to reduce the depth of the field, you also let more light flood into the camera. To compensate, a faster shutter speed is required to expose the sensor for a shorter duration and prevent the photo from being too bright. If you’re shooting outdoors in bright sunlight then you may not be able to tap into very large apertures if the camera can’t set a shutter speed fast enough to prevent overexposure. For example, the 1300D’s fastest shutter speed is 1/4000 sec, which might not be short enough to match the light let in by apertures of f/1.4 or f/1.8. A trick to allow you to carry on using wide apertures is to fit a neutral density (ND) filter on the lens. This reduces the…

01 COLOUR CAST Our unprocessed Raw start image looks far too cold due to a blue colour cast caused by an inappropriate in-camera white balance preset 02 BASIC PANEL You’ll find the white balance presets and options in the Basic panel. 03 ONE-CLICK PRESETS You can experiment with white balance settings by clicking on the drop-down White Balance menu. The Auto preset is a good place to start. When you choose a white balance preset a little tick appears next to it. 04 IN-CAMERA SETTING The white balance preset that you selected in-camera is indicated by a little camera icon. Here we can see that our photo was captured with a Tungsten preset that’s designed for shooting in warm indoor lighting conditions. Due to this inappropriate white balance preset the…

01 Samyang Premium 85mm f/1.2 Samyang guns for premium status £TBA/$TBA www.samyanglensglobal.com CAN’T stretch to a Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM? Pricing has yet to be confirmed for Samyang’s fastest portrait prime, but it’s certain to undercut the Canon competition. Samyang claims the ten-element design will be sharp enough to unleash the resolving power of a 5DS. It weighs in at just over 1kg, though it’s manual focus only, requiring a very keen eye to focus accurately at f/1.2. 02 Canon EOS M5 The most DSLR-like EOS M yet £1049/$980 www.canon.co.uk THIS new Canon mirrorless compact system camera gets a DSLR-like makeover and now boasts a 24.2Mp APS-C CMOS sensor, Dual Pixel CMOS AF, the latest DIGIC 7 processor, and – for the first time in the M range…

The centre column of a tripod is often seen as a last resort, being extended only when you need a little extra shooting height. Increasingly, manufacturers are developing clever designs where the centre column can be rotated 90º, to act as a horizontal boom. But why would you need that? An extending boom is great for macro photography, enabling you to get the camera close enough to what you’re shooting without the tripod legs getting in the way. It’s also a big help if you want to photograph objects shooting directly down from above. Another advantage is that you can shoot with a really wide-angle lens, without the tripod feet creeping into the picture. And, combined with the multi-angle legs that are featured on the vast majority of modern tripods,…

Canon 135mm prime I am a subscriber to your magazine, and find it very informative. I see that of all the lenses that you have reviewed, you do not seem to have covered the Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM prime lens. Is there any special reason for this? A lot of the internet reviews rate it highly, some citing it as one of the sharpest Canon lenses on the market. I have just purchased it, but it was when researching it that I found that you haven’t reviewed it. Sorry if I seem picky, but it just surprised me that your Buyers’ Guide shows no reviews. Jeff Guile, Porthmadog, Wales This lens has excellent performance, but is quite pricey at around £760/$1000 and is a bit of a niche lens,…