Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2020 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

Editor These are strange times we live in, and as I write the escalation of the Coronavirus means more people in more countries are being told to be safe and stay inside. However, to turn this into a positive, this does mean you’ll have more time to read your favourite Canon photography magazine, and concentrate on improving your EOS camera skills. So, you’ll be pleased to know that, although you’re staying indoors more than normal, we have lots of great advice, photo projects and tutorials to try out from the safety of your own home. We have creative photo projects, from page 45, on how to capture mega macro flower images with clever focus-stacking skills, you’ll learn the difference between lighting modifiers when photographing people inside, and how to spring-clean…

MANUAL MODE NICKY COPIED the settings on Andy’s 5D Mark IV onto her 6D Mark II. She did this by going into Manual mode to take control of the exposure in her images. Andy wanted to show Nicky that Manual is not as daunting as it might seem. To begin, the shutter speed was set to 1/60 sec, which should be fast enough to get sharp handheld shots. They used an aperture of f/7.1, which Andy believes is the sweet spot for sharpness with his wide-angle lens. The ISO was set to 100. They’ll then take test shots and adjust the exposure as needed. SINGLE POINT AF ANDY SET the autofocus to Manual Selection 1pt on Nicky’s 6D Mark II, so that the central AF point was the active one.…

EXPERT INSIGHT USE A SHUTTER RELEASE ONE THING Andy always carries with him is a shutter release cable for his Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, he says it’s just a cheap non-branded one he picked up online. This allows him to take pictures without pressing the shutter button, which could be enough to knock the camera and introduce camera-shake in long exposures, such as when shooting at night, like in these light trail shots. NICKY’S COMMENT The sun had set and it was getting dark as we walked towards the tube station to head home, but there was time to take one more shot on the iconic and very photogenic London Bridge. With heavy traffic we decided to once again set up a tripod, this time on the central crossing…

One of the most appealing things about macro photography, is the way it lets us see a tiny world in sublime detail. But what if the detail straight-out-of-camera isn’t enough? In this project, we’re going to look at how to combine two camera techniques that let us expand our depth of field and our image resolution, resulting in a level of fine detail that wouldn’t be possible in a single frame. Depth of field is one of the main considerations with close-up photography. When the subject is very close to the lens – as is usually the case with macro shots – the depth of field can be incredibly shallow, even when using narrower apertures. As long as our subject is stationary, we can get round this little problem by…

IF YOU want to up the resolution of your image, why not shoot a macro pano? There are expensive rail systems that can shift your camera position for you, but a low-fi alternative is to use a tripod head that has a sliding plate, like the Benro gimbal here. AFTER THE first set of focus stacks are done, we slide the tripod plate to shift the camera a few cm to the right, then set off the focus stack again to capture another 40 shots. Then repeat. If you don’t have a sliding plate, try nudging the tripod, or flower, to the side.…

01 TRIPOD AND STEPLADDER For our levitation trick, we’ll use a tripod to lock off our framing between shots, to make the edit easier, and a stepladder to give the model some height. This will help create the illusion that the black umbrella is lifting her off into the distance. 02 CAMERA AND PORTRAIT LENS A 50mm lens on a full-frame body, or 35mm on an APS-C, is ideal here. Canon’s ‘nifty fifty’ EF 50mm f/1.8 STM hardly breaks the bank either, costing just £99, and has a wide max aperture of f/1.8, so you can blur the background easily. 03 UMBRELLAS AND PROPS Each of our umbrellas cost less than £10 with the cheapest being the lace parasol that cost just £4 from eBay – bargain! We also bought…

01 CONVERT TO MONO When converting to mono we can control the brightness of colours, which gives us a head start with adjustments. After importing into Lightroom, go to the Develop Module and click ‘Black and White’. Use this panel to lift the yellows and darken the blues, like so. 02 LIGHTEN THE WATERFALL Grab the Adjustment Brush from the Lightroom toolbar. Double-click ‘Effect’ to reset any previous settings, then dial in +1 Exposure. Paint over the waterfall and the water to lighten them. We can also crisp up the details by increasing Clarity as shown. 03 OPEN IN PHOTOSHOP Right-click the image and choose Edit in>Edit in Adobe Photoshop. Once open, hit Cmd/Ctrl+J to duplicate the background layer, so we can work on a copy of the original. Get…

LONDON MAY BE a city of nearly ten million people, but it is also a green city with an abundance of parks, woodland and urban wildlife. Matthew Maran is the proof that a professional wildlife and landscape photographer does not have to live in more distant, open countryside to make a living. Nearby Hampstead Heath provides him with a wealth of landscape possibilities and his local streets are the domain of a thriving population of foxes. With the onset of spring he has as much reason as any of his shire-dwelling contemporaries to look forward to a full and productive season of nature photography… As a photographer focused on local wildlife and the landscape, what subjects will you be focusing on this spring? This year will be the fourth year…

While growing up, I always had a passion for trees, and I’ve spent the last 16 years working on a project called The Tree, using my Canon to document the beauty and importance that the trees play in our world. I’ve always shot Canon, but most predominantly an EOS 5D with a wide-angle EF 17-40mm f/4L and a EF 70-200mm f/4L USM, both of which are great for picking out details in landscapes. Thanks to my projects, and conservation work, I’ve run numerous solo and group exhibitions in Iran, Turkey, Slovenia, France, Italy, Canada, Monaco, USA and Azerbaijan. I’ve also been lucky enough to be able to publish a book called, The Passion of Trees, through Matador, in England. In Iran, the snow no longer cloaks our mountains in white powder…

01 Celestron CPC 800 tripod WEB: www.celestron.com MY TELESCOPE is a bit of a beast, weighing 19.1kg with it’s large two-pronged fork mount… So I need a very heavy duty tripod to take its load and my Canon camera when attached too for stable and sharp shots. I use my telescope with a Celestron CPC 800 tripod, which is a specialist tripod that can take the load no problem and has an Alt-Azimuth mount to take the telescope. It’s expensive at £399, but it’s worth paying the price to get the right tool for the job. 02 Celestron CPC 800 telescope WEB: www.celestron.com THE CELESTRON CPC 800 is a computerized telescope that has a comparable aperture of f/10 and a full-frame equivalent focal length of 2032mm – which is absolutely…

REGULARLY CHECK FOR UPDATES Firmware updates are more frequent for recently released cameras, so check for updates. Don’t forget to check for your other equipment, such as EF, EF-S, RF lenses, mount adapters, Speedlites, Wi-Fi transmitters, battery grips, as each has had firmware updates during the life of the EOS system. 01 PREPARE YOUR CAMERA AND CARD Make sure you have a fully charged battery in your camera, as firmware updates are not possible if the battery has insufficient charge. Make sure you’ve copied all the pictures from your memory card, then format the card in the camera to erase all the data, then create the required camera folder structure. 02 COPY FIRMWARE TO A MEMORY CARD Copy the firmware to the top-level folder of your card. Put the card…

While this month’s Canon School has highlighted the benefits that a splash of ALO can bring, there are some caveats that need considering before whacking it up to High. For a start, it can increase noise, which will be especially obvious in the shadows that have been lightened. If you’ve ever dragged the shadows slider to the right in photo editing software, you’ll know what to expect (although to be fair, it’s not usually as severe). This problem will be worsened if you’ve shot a high ISO. ALO can also interfere with your exposure. Say you’ve used exposure compensation to make an image darker on purpose – ALO may simply brighten things up again. It’s a similar story with flash exposure compensation. If you have a particular look in mind,…

Default settings for your camera are invariably not the required settings for you and your photos. So why do so many default settings appear to be the wrong for serious shots? We all have to start somewhere, and when your camera leaves the factory it’s default settings are selected to ensure that the camera has the most autonomy to help it capture good looking photos with minimal input. Default settings are derived by the manufacturer using a combination of years of camera making expertise and photographic knowledge. For most cameras, this means the fully auto Scene Intelligent Auto mode, or green square mode, is the default exposure method, but it’s rare that the best photos are made using the factory setting. It’s the application of your skill and intent that…

THE CONTENDERS Most macro prime lenses have a magnification ratio of 1.0x or 1:1, but what does that mean? In a nutshell (or something of a similarly small size), when you move in close using the lens’s shortest available focus distance, objects are reproduced on the camera’s image sensor at full life-size. Something measuring just 36x24mm would completely fill the image sensor of a full-frame, and it’s just around 22x15mm if you’re shooting with an APS-C. Bear in mind how much larger an image is when you view it on screen or in print, compared with the size of the camera’s sensor, and the scope for enlargement is incredible. Tiny garden bugs can look like giant, otherworldly creatures and you can see levels of fine detail that are invisible to…

Taking the 1.6x crop factor of APS-C format SLRs into account, the EF-S 60mm has an effective focal length of 96mm. It, therefore, feels like shooting with a 100mm macro on a full-frame, with the same advantage that it’s well suited to portraiture. It enables a natural shooting distance for head-and-shoulders and half-length portraits, so you’re not crowding your subject. The minimum focus distance of 0.2m for full macro shooting is shorter than the usual 0.3m of a 100mm lens, but still gives plenty of space. There’s therefore no need for a built-in LED Macro Lite, as featured in the EF-M 28mm and EF-S 35mm lenses. A more disappointing omission is there’s no image stabilizer. There’s also no STM AF system. Instead, this lens features a more traditional ring-type ultrasonic…

Despite Sigma launching its ‘Global Vision’ line-up of Art, Sports and Contemporary lenses in 2012, the first macro optic didn’t arrive until 2018. Build quality is ace, combining a weather-sealed brass mounting plate with a TSC (Thermally Stable Composite) barrel. A coreless DC motor enables quick and whisper-quiet AF, with great precision. Manual override and precise fully manual focusing are available via the electronically coupled manual focus ring. The optical design incorporates two top-grade FLD (‘Fluorite’ Low Dispersion) elements and two SLD (Special Low Dispersion) elements, along with one high refractive index element. Two aspherical elements are also incorporated, with the aim of enhancing resolution at very close focus settings. Unlike most modern macro lenses, the Sigma doesn’t have internal focusing. Instead, the physical length of the lens increases as…

For full-frame and APS-C SLRs, the Canon 100mm L-series lens and Tamron 90mm are almost perfect. They deliver amazing image quality and have hybrid image stabilizers along with robust, weather-sealed build quality. The Canon lens is sharper in general, but the Tamron draws level for close-ups. On a tighter budget, the Sigma 105mm lens is the one to go for. It has a regular, rather than hybrid stabilizer, but works a treat for general shooting. The EF-M 28mm is a handy prime for EOS M mirrorless’s and its 1.2x Super Macro mode and built-in LED Macro Lite make it equally adept at close-ups. The EF-S 35mm for APS-C format SLRs also has LED lamps and a hybrid stabilizer, but we still prefer one of the full-frame Canon, Sigma and Tamron…

01 DREAMING THE NYMPH BY ALESSANDRO GRUZZA Commended - Abstract views Alessandro took this stunning abstract landscape in a reflection of Lake Carezza in Alto Adige, Italy. He tells us, “When I captured this photograph it was a dreamlike landscape with The Latemar Dolomites reflected in the turquoise shades of the water. A legend tells of a beautiful nymph that used to live in its crystal clear waters, and her beauty still shines on in the colours of the lake today.” Lens Canon EF 24-70mm f/4L IS USM Exposure 1/25 sec, f/10, ISO400 02 THE THREE AMIGOS BY JANE SIMMONDS Highly Commended - Abstract views Jane combined multiple exposures of three Cyclamen flowers to create a unique textured and otherworldly effect. She tells us, “Some of the images were blended…

We’ve been in the country less than six hours, but already I’ve learned the difference between a taco and a burrito, and Wendy has dropped her cutlery on a turtle. I would just like to stress before going any further that no reptiles have been harmed on our Mexican adventure. And our host, Vania, has now emerged dripping from the cenote (the natural submerged limestone caves which the Yucatán Peninsula is famous for) after retrieving Wendy’s knife. This Pescadores beer is good… Oh yes, it’s so good to be back in Latin America. I awake to an amazing dawn chorus of tropical screeching. This isn’t Somerset in February, clearly. I scramble out from beneath the mosquito net, jump into T-shirt and shorts and grab my camera bag, which seems not…

01 COMBINE IN HELICON FOCUS When we have all our shots, we can merge the sharp bits from each frame in Helicon Focus. Then, drag the images in and click Render to combine them. If needed, play with the three Rendering Methods. Once done, save the stack. If you’ve shot a pano, you’ll need to repeat for each segment. 02 BUILD A PANO IN CAMERA RAW After stacking all the segments for a macro pano, the next step is to stitch them together. One of the easiest ways to do this in Photoshop’s Camera Raw. Highlight all the images in Adobe Bridge and ‘Open in Camera Raw’, then click the top-left menu and choose Merge to Panorama. 03 RETOUCH AND TIDY Experiment with the panorama settings (here, Cylindrical Projection works…

01 CAMERA SETTINGS Any Canon EOS camera and kit lens will work for this project. We used a Canon EOS 5D Mark III DSLR with 24-70mm lens. Our exposure in Manual mode was f/5.6, 1/160 sec and ISO100. We set our white balance to Daylight for consistent results to use for comparisons. 02 FLASH HEAD SETTINGS With our shooting settings fixed in camera, we set the power on our lighting head to 2.6 for a well-exposed portrait. We had one flash head with a softbox ready and set up on a stand. Then, we swapped it out for another flash head with an umbrella, ready for direct comparison portrait images. 03 SETUP AND COSTS Softboxes are pricier and can be fiddly and time-consuming to put up. Umbrellas, on the other…

01 MAKE AN ADJUSTMENT LAYER Open up your image or Portrait_before.jpg from us into Elements, then go to the Layers panel (Window>Layers). Here, click on the Create new adjustment layer icon and choose Hue/Saturation from the list. 02 PICK A COLOUR CHANNEL In the Hue/Saturation panel you’ll see the Channel will be set to Master by default, meaning you’re affecting all of the colours at once. It’s usually better to just choose the precise channel you want to adjust. 03 TWEAK THE ‘HSL’ VALUES Now you can change the Hue (colour), Saturation (colour intensity) and Lightness (how bright the colour is) using these three main sliders. We shifted Hue to the right to make the magenta clothing more red. 04 REFINE THE ADJUSTMENT AREA At the bottom of the panel,…

Whether you want to drop in a new sky to improve a landscape or blend two shots, Affinity Photo has excellent tools for compositing two images. The first stage in any compositing project is to isolate part of an image, like our sky. This is a complicated shape, and selecting it freehand could take many hours. But, thankfully, Affinity has a tool that does it in seconds. The Selection Brush has a ‘Snap to edges’ feature that helps it seek out changes in colour or contrast. So, by painting the sky here with the tool, it’ll snap on to the edges of the horizon. Once the area is isolated, the next step is to improve the selection. Initially it’ll be quite hard and jagged, but if we run the Refine…

Just over two years ago, Matthew’s photo showing a red fox adjacent to a piece of street art inspired by the fleet-footed canine was shortlisted for the WPY People’s Choice Award. But it wasn’t a lucky snap; Matthew had spent months trying to get this result. “I got one about three weeks before of it running past that same graffiti, but it just wasn’t light enough and was blurry,” he recalls. “These animals are creatures of habit, so it was doing the same routes and I just had to persevere and wait for the right moment.” It wasn’t until Matthew got his photo that he noticed the paw of the fox mirroring the position of the paw of the fox in the art. “It made me appreciate the detail that…

The first camera I ever used professionally was the terrific Canon FTb 35mm film SLR, manufactured in the 1970’s, the decade when I started my career. These broken refractions were taken with the Canon EOS 5DS R, using a Canon EF 180mm f/3.5L macro lens, but I did also use my Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8L for some, both of these lenses are great for studio portraits. My endeavour has been to create photography as art, dispelling the notion that with a camera, at best, you can only artistically record subjects. A piece of film, or a file, is my blank canvas on which to create. In this way, I blend my love of photography with my passion for art. The process of my explorations and experimentations have been considered an…

CANON EOS SOLUTIONS Update your Canon camera’s firmware BRIAN WORLEY CAMERA EXPERT Brian has unrivalled EOS camera knowledge after working for Canon for over 15 years. He now works as a freelance photographer and photo tutor in Oxfordshire. DIGITAL EOS ESSENTIALS How to utilize the Auto Lighting Optimizer MARCUS HAWKINS PHOTO EXPERT Marcus has more than 30 years of photography experience. A former editor of our sister publication Digital Camera, he has written about photography for Canon and Jessops, and uses a Canon EOS 5D Mk IV. EOS S.O.S Your technical Canon queries answered BRIAN WORLEY CAMERA EXPERT Brian has unrivalled EOS camera knowledge after working for Canon for over 15 years. He now works as a freelance photographer and photo tutor in Oxfordshire.…

One thing you do need to be aware of, is that ALO affects the exposure histogram, sometimes in quite significant ways. Generally, you’ll notice the histogram becoming squeezed from left to right, with less of a peak on the left (shadow) side of the graph, and a greater spread through the middle of the range. The brightest highlights on the right of the histogram may also be pulled in towards the left, but this is often a subtle shift. If you shoot JPEGs, then what you see is what you get; if the histogram is ‘clipped’ on the right of the graph, then the brightest areas of the picture will be overexposed. If it’s pushed up against the left-side of the graph then the darkest areas may be underexposed. In…

ALTHOUGH YOUR Canon camera will allow you to adjust the exposure of an image in increments of 1/3 of a stop, you can change that to a large amount if you wish. The options available to you will vary according to the camera you’re using, but if you head to your camera’s Custom Functions menu, you may be able to change the increments from 1/3 stops, to 1/2 stops, or you may be able to get more specific – such as changing the ISO increments from 1/3 stops to full stops. The latter can be handy, as it’s rare you’ll need as much control over the ISO compared with aperture or shutter speed, and it does speed up adjustments.…

01 HEX Mini DSLR Sling A great bag for street photography £TBA/$70 www.hexbrand.com SLING BAGS offer an appealing cross between a shoulder bag and a backpack. Think of a slim backpack, worn diagonally across your back and hung from a single strap, rather than two – great for access and low-profile street photography. HEX’s new sling is styled to suit just that, with Black, Camo and ‘Glacier Camo’ colourways available. There’s enough space inside for an EOS R or 6D Mark II with a compact prime attached, plus a second lens alongside. 02 Wacom One Creative Pen Display Wacom’s affordable pen display tablet £359/$400 www.wacom.com IF YOU like the idea of using a pen display to enhance photos with a more natural, ergonomic input, but have been put-off by the…

The original Canon EOS M6 was easy to like, but difficult to love – much like the EOS M line as a whole. With Canon’s APS-C mirrorless camera range having seemingly plateaued at 24.2Mp, there were only so many bells and whistles that could make the M6 feel exciting – things like 4K video, which were sadly absent. It left the M6 with that awkward ‘second camera’ tag – it was good enough to be your backup, or the one you took out when pictures weren’t quite as important, but it wouldn’t demand your attention beyond that. Well, you can officially throw that line of thinking out the window – both for the new Canon EOS M6 Mark II and the EOS M series as a whole. With all the…

This is Canon’s one and only dedicated EF-M macro lens for EOS M cameras, and it has a surprisingly short focal length, equivalent to shooting with a 45mm lens on a full-frame. Typical of EF-M lenses, it’s compact and lightweight, tipping the scales at just 130g. Although small, the lens packs in a lot of features. STM autofocus (AF) is effective for stills and video, and there’s a hybrid image stabilizer which corrects for x-y shift, as well as the more usual vibrations. It’s effective in general shooting, but less so for close-ups, and no substitute for a tripod in full macro shooting. Speaking of, the lens features an extra ‘Super Macro’ mode, which boosts the max magnification from 1.0x to 1.2x. The working distance at max magnification is just…

The minimal depth of field and risk of camera-shake make stillness vital in full macro shooting, so even hybrid image stabilization is no substitute for a tripod, or other fixed camera support. This lens only costs half as much as Canon’s newer L-series stabilized lens (in the UK, at least), so it’s well worth considering. In the USA, however, the price difference is minimal, making it less appealing, especially as this lens lacks the L-series model’s weather-seals and pro-grade build. You also have to pay about £30/$35 for the ‘optional’ hood. With a near-identical focal length to the ‘effective’ value of the EF-S 60mm macro for APS-Cs, this full-frame compatible lens works equally well for portraiture and extreme close-ups. The working distance between the front of the lens and the…

Like many modern macro lenses, Sigma’s full-frame compatible 105mm works well as a fast telephoto prime. The f/2.8 aperture enables quick shutter speeds, even under dull lighting, while the fast ring-type ultrasonic AF system is good for tracking action. To speed up AF in tricky conditions, there’s a three-position range limiter, with which you can select just the short or long focus range, either side of 0.45m. Unlike Sigma’s newer 70mm macro lens, this has fully internal focusing and adds the bonus of image stabilization. It has a four-stop effectiveness in general shooting and comes with static and panning modes but, as it’s a regular, rather than hybrid stabilizer, it’s quite ineffective for close-ups. Optical highlights include two SLD (Special Low Dispersion) elements to improve sharpness and contrast, while reducing…

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APPRENTICE NAME: NICKY MCGUIRE CAMERA: CANON EOS 6D MK II NICKY’S BEEN interested in photography for around 16 years and is a regular subscriber to PhotoPlus. She’s completed photography courses at the London Institute of Photography in Shoreditch, and loves to shoot around London, where she resides. She often gets a bit bamboozled by all the technical jargon and has called on our expertise to clear up any technical mumbo jumbo – we’ll do our very best with Andy! CANON PRO NAME: ANDY HUNT CAMERA: CANON EOS 5D MK IV LIVING IN London for more than a decade, Andy has grown to know some of the best spots to shoot. He stumbled into it all three years ago, when he attended a sightseeing tour, but the tour guide failed to…

The first time you’re asked to take photos at someone’s wedding can be a great privilege and great burden. But what if you’re now photographing weddings a few times a year, or you’re semi-pro and have hit a lull? This issue we’ll help you improve your wedding portrait photos with Canon pro photographer Brett Harkness. Not only is Brett brilliant at capturing stunning portraits of the bride and groom, he has a unique and artistic eye, even when under pressure and against the clock. Whether it’s clever compositions, how to use light, or shallow depth-of-field shots, we will help you find new ways to approach weddings. There’s the choice of lenses, or learn how to use only a 50mm prime on the big day and still capture great variety. Plus,…

WINDOW LIGHT is very effective for a project like this, but flash lighting can give your macros extra clarity, offer more control, and minimize the chances of subject and camera shake. It also means lighting stays consistent throughout, while with window light there’s a chance the clouds may part, or the light levels may drop. Here we used three studio flashes. First, a softbox was placed above the flower for soft, top-down light. Next, a second light fitted with a circular reflector was placed behind the subject and angled back towards it for harder edge lighting. A third light was angled onto the backdrop, and fitted with a coloured gel to add a touch of colour. Together, our three flashes light the flower and the backdrop for a more vibrant…

01 TAKE A TEST SHOT Select Aperture Priority, use an aperture of f/8, an ISO of 400 and adjust your exposure comp to around +1EV. Use a focal length of 50mm and shoot at a white wall. The shot will be bright, but zoom in and see if your sensor/kit needs a clean. 02 USE AIR POWER Before touching the sensor it’s best to look at the optics, as they’re easier to clean and could be causing the dust spots. Remove the lens and use a hand blower to knock off any dust of both ends and remove screw-in filters and give them a blast, too. 03 TACKLE STUBBORN DIRT The blower may not be able to remove all of the dust, so you’ll need to use a lens pen…

The main change between exposure comp and ALO is, exposure comp is a global adjustment, whereas ALO is selective. Exposure comp will make the entire shot lighter or darker, but ALO will lighten areas of shadow more than the rest of the picture. Also, when you apply exposure comp in the camera, it’ll make the image brighter, or darker, by changing the exposure setting, which means it affects the Raw. So, if the camera is set to Av mode, dialling in compensation alters the shutter speed – making it slower (to make the image lighter) or faster (to make it darker). ALO doesn’t have this effect, because it’s applied after the exposure’s done – it’s manipulating the pixels that have already been captured.…

WHEN YOU set a precise exposure in Manual, the last thing you want is ALO trying to make the image brighter, so it’ll be disabled in this mode. Many EOS cameras allow you to override this setting though – select ALO from the menu or Quick Control Screen and press INFO to remove the check mark next to ‘Disabled’. Shades of grey IF THE ALO menu option is greyed out and you are unable to make adjustments, that could be because you have activated Highlight Tone Priority in the Custom Functions menu, or the Shooting menu (depending on your camera). Highlight Tone Priority is designed to improve gradation in bright areas – such as in a bride’s dress – but it’s incompatible with ALO, which is more focused on shadow…

“Is there an easy way to select different AF points on the EOS 7D Mark II? I find it hard when compared with my EOS 200D.”Karen Kelly, Newcastle-under-Lyme BRIAN SAYS… That’s a good step-up in Canon camera! Fortunately, the EOS 7D Mk II certainly has many easy ways of working with the AF system. Using a custom control configuration, you can set the camera so that all you need to do is simply move the multi-controller to change AF point position. This kind of customization is perfect for changing AF point position while still looking through the viewfinder of the camera. Press MENU and navigate to the third custom function settings tab. At the end you will see Custom Controls, press SET, then turn the quick control dial to reach…

With an effective focal length of 56mm in full-frame terms, and a usefully wide aperture rating of f/2.8, this lens works well as a ‘standard’ prime for general shooting. As such, it’s compact and light, has a fast and ultra-quiet stepping motor autofocus system and a hybrid image stabilizer. These features bring all of the same advantages as in the EF-M 28mm lens, and both also have an LED Macro Lite built into the front end. However, the working distance between the front of the lens and the subject is greater at the shortest focus distance for maximum magnification, at 3cm, rather than just 13mm, for the EF-M lens. That gives you more breathing space for macro photography, but makes the lamp less effective. In our tests, we had to…

Although Canon’s hybrid stabilizer has been inherited by the EF-M 28mm and EF-S 35mm macro lenses, the full-frame compatible 100mm L-series macro was the first lens to feature it. With enhanced performance for close-up shooting, the stabilizer counteracts movements in the horizontal and vertical planes, as well as regular vibrations. Still, its claimed effectiveness of four-stops in general shooting shrinks to three-stops at 0.5x magnification and two-stops at full 1.0x macro shooting. For extreme handheld close-ups, you’re equally likely to run into problems with front-back movements, for which the stabilizer can’t compensate. Other attractions include robust build quality and weather-seals. Bokeh is pleasant at the widest aperture and remains so when stopping down, helped by the well-rounded nine-blade diaphragm. The ring-type ultrasonic AF system is rapid and whisper-quiet, while manual…

Compared with the previous ‘gold ring’ edition, the new version has a refined optical layout, including two top-grade XLD (eXtra Low Dispersion) elements, along with a regular LD element. It also has conventional and nano-structure coatings to keep ghosting and flare to an absolute minimum. Autofocus is courtesy of a ring-type ultrasonic system which is fast and ultra-quiet, while manual focusing is smooth and precise. Tamron has also added a proprietary hybrid image stabilizer or VC (Vibration Compensation) system. Like in Canon’s stabilized macro lenses, this counteracts x-y shift as well as angular vibration, with four-stop effectiveness in general shooting, dropping off at extremely close range. Build quality feels good throughout. Weather-seals are featured and a fluorine coating is added to the front element, to repel grease and water and…

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…

FREE VIDEOS! In the next Canon Skills chapter… Get the best portraits using fast primes ▪ Spinning star trails ▪ Prepare for a landscape shoot ▪ Photoshop Elements, CC and Affinity Photo tutorials PLUS ALL THIS… The Apprentice: Pro techniques for better boudoir photos The interview: Professional headshot photographer to big-name actors, Rory Lewis Canon news: Five things we know about the new EOS R5 ISSUE 165 ON SALE 28 APRIL * Content subject to change…

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