Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2020 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

Editor In these ongoing tough times of lockdown and social distancing, we’re all being challenged to be more creative in our attempts to keep ourselves entertained. I hope this is where we can come in and help inspire you to keep taking photos with your Canon gear. In this issue’s big camera skills guide, we’re providing you with 16 easy-to-follow home projects in our Stay At Home Special. There’s something for everyone, whatever your ability, however basic your kit – see page 28. Also inside, in our special Apprentice article, we’ve collated the best Hot Shots and tips for capturing great pet dog photos, from page 8. In our Canon Skills section, we have great techniques you can again try at home or in the garden, from lush close-ups of…

FULL MANUAL “DARREN WAS used to using Av mode, but we needed to go into Manual to take control of the exposure. We changed the ISO to get a shutter speed between 1/200 and 1/500 sec, and the aperture at around f/5.6 to give us enough depth of field, with the white balance set to daylight,” says pro Phil. BACK BUTTON FOCUS “I KNOW that some photographers don’t get on with it, but for me back button focus is the only way to go. Especially when shooting outdoors, using the back button with AI Servo AF switched on, there’s nothing else for it. I was impressed with how quickly Darren got the hang of it,” says Phil. “You can set up it easily via Custom Controls in your Canon camera’s…

DARREN’S COMMENT I really enjoyed shooting in the studio. You have so much more control and you can really envisage a specific shot. My favourite lighting was the single-light set-up that we used to shoot Stanley, but we added two more lights for this picture of Yogi. I also loved using the 85mm lens. (So much that he went out the next day and bought one!) PHIL’S VERDICT This is a lovely shot of Yogi. We moved the key light more to the front and put in extra light to stand him off the background. He’s only three months old, so he was a bit challenging at times as he’d get distracted and keep jumping down from the table. But Darren did really well, and by using an aperture of…

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01 BLACK CARD This is what you’ll use to create a unique aperture hole in any shape you wish. This will become the shape of the aperture when placed in front of the lens, which will also change the shape of your out of focus highlights, also called ‘bokeh’. 02 TAPE, SCISSORS & PENCIL These are a few household items you’ll likely already have – you’ll need the pencil to make your markings on the black card and the tape and scissors to cut it all out and stick it together, so that is stays in one piece when you’re shooting with it. 03 TAPE MEASURE OR RULER You’ll need one of these to work out the centre of the circle you draw, as this is where you need to…

01 MIXER BRUSH SETTINGS Open the Layers panel and click the new layer icon, then get the Mixer Brush Tool from the toolbox. Tick ‘Sample All Layers’ in the tool options. Click the preset dropdown and pick ‘Very Wet’. Enable the ‘Clean Brush’ icon and turn off the ‘Load Brush after each stroke’ icon. 02 START PAINTING Select a rough-edged or bristle brush tip from the brush picker dropdown list and start painting on the empty layer to smudge the colours. Use short, sharp strokes to blend the colours, slowly building up the effect and following the lines and shapes in the frame. 03 ADD FINE DETAILS Use a large brush tip to start and block in the colours with broad strokes. Play with different types of brush tip to…

HDR (high dynamic range) photography can produce spectacular images. It’s a way of capturing scenes with a tonal range so wide that you can’t capture them with a single exposure. By merging a series of different exposures, however, it’s possible to bring out extreme shadow and highlight detail in sunsets, night shots, interiors and other situations where you’re wrestling with wildly different light levels in different areas of the scene. HDR image capture and processing can seem daunting, and it can be difficult to get satisfying images that don’t look over-processed, but Skylum Software changed all that with the introduction of Aurora HDR. Not only can it merge a series of exposures seamlessly, it can then apply a huge range of HDR ‘looks’ via its presets and image adjustment tools.…

I am a big lover of all aspects of photography, so it doesn’t take much for me to find an excuse to pick up my Canon camera and get shooting. I live in Liverpool, so when I heard there was going to be a River of Light festival along the river Mersey in November last year, I just felt compelled to go and shoot. However, I suffer from psoriatic arthritis, fibromyalgia, and ankylosing spondylitis, so getting out to take photos can be tough. I’m lucky to be surrounded by a supportive group of friends that help me get out. Over the course of several days, we went out and I was able to get images of the festival. I knew I wanted to shoot the lights, but I also knew…

CANON EOS SOLUTIONS PAGE 70 Add punch to your action photographs 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 PAGE 72 Discover the secrets of image stabilization 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 PAGE 76 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.…

Can you believe that Canon’s Image Stabilizer (IS) technology is 25 years old? Launched in 1995, the EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM was the first interchangeable camera lens to boast built-in optical image stabilization – by today’s standards though, two stops of shake reduction is hardly something to boast about. Canon continues to be at the forefront of stabilized lens design, with the latest IS lenses typically offering four or five stops of shake reduction for sharper results at slower shutter speeds. Where Canon has been a bit slow off the mark is with in-body image stabilization (IBIS). A number of rival mirrorless camera manufacturers are already using this technology, however Canon is soon to launch its first body with ‘true’ IBIS – the EOS R5. When vibrations are detected…

The rule of thumb for sharp handheld shots is to ensure the shutter speed is at least equivalent to (ideally faster than) the focal length of the lens. So with a 60mm lens, the shutter speed should be at least 1/60 sec to avoid the effects of camera shake. But if you’re shooting in low light, or you want to use a smaller aperture, the shutter speed may be slower. You can, increase the ISO to achieve a faster shutter speed, but you may not be able (or want) to push it. This is where an IS lens can save you. Canon’s image stabilization systems, whether they’re in-lens or in-camera, are rated in ‘stops’. A stop is a measure of exposure. When a lens says it offers four stops of…

ALTHOUGH A number of Canon macro lenses are fitted with Image Stabilizers, their effect is reduced as the lens gets nearer to the subject. This is because the closer a macro lens is focused, the greater the magnification – both the subject and any camera movements. Take the EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM: this offers up to 4 stops of stabilization for normal shooting, but at 1:1 (life-size) magnification at the closest focusing distance, the stabilization drops to around two stops. Ultimately, you’re more likely to take sharper extreme close-ups if you use flash or work from a tripod. Depending on the subject, you may also be able to select smaller apertures for more DoF, or use the magnified Live View display to help manually focus the lens.…

THE CONTENDERS Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM £99/$125 Canon EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM £1369/$1499 Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L USM II £1849/$1999 Canon RF 85mm F1.2L USM £2799/$2699 Sigma 30mm f/1.4 DC HSM | A £349/$499 Sigma 56mm f/1.4 DC DN | C £349/$429 Sigma 105mm f/1.4 DG HSM | A £1199/$1599 Tamron SP 35mm f/1.4 Di USD £899/$899 Many of us seem to get obsessed with the sharpness of lenses and how much infinitesimally fine detail they can resolve. But for soft and dreamy images, bokeh is more important. This is a measure of the pictorial quality of defocused areas within an image. The trouble is, you can’t really measure it, as there’s no scientific test for good bokeh. It’s more a matter of subjective opinion, but there are…

A tight DoF isn’t just the preserve of telephoto focal lengths. Use a standard, or even a moderately wide-angle lens, and you’ll need to move closer to your subject to make it the same size in the frame. As you move closer, the focus distance is reduced and the depth of field gets tighter. With the wider viewing angle, you’ll be able to fit more of the background into the frame. Here’s how it works out on full-frame cameras, with an APS-C shot thrown in for good measure.…

Portraiture is a classic case of using blur in photography. We often want to literally focus all the attention on the main subject, while blurring a fussy background, so it’s not a distraction. This helps to isolate the portrait sitter within the scene. Fast 85mm primes are generally the top choice for use with full-frame cameras, whereas its 50mm lenses for APS-C bodies, as the ‘effective’ focal length ends up being similar, thanks to the crop factor of the smaller image sensor. These lenses give a natural working distance for portraiture, so you’re not crowding your subject, but are close enough to be engaged and give direction. Indeed, we majored on 85mm lenses in our Super Test of top portrait lenses, back in issue 159.…

For gorgeous bokeh, even when shooting with a relatively wide-angle 35mm lens, we’ve always been big fans of the Canon EF 35mm f/1.4 L II USM. However, it’s a typically pricey Canon f/1.4 prime, at around £1629/$1699. In this Super Test, we’ve gone for the competing Tamron 35mm f/1.4 instead, which delivers similarly smooth bokeh and, in our tests at least, proved even sharper than the Canon lens, particularly towards the edges and corners of the frame. It’s also less than two-thirds the price of the Canon lens to buy. Similarly, the Canon EF-M 32mm f/1.4 STM is a very good native lens for EOS M cameras and costs £480/$480.…

01 THE LADY AND THE MOON BY MARCO TAGLIARINO Marco’s image ‘The Lady and the Moon’ takes the top spot in this month’s Minimalism photo contest. We loved the simplicity of the black and white conversion, the shapes and the striking silhouette of the dancer against a large white circular backdrop. It’s a brilliant capture that shows Marco’s masterful timing, perfect exposure and eye for a brilliant candid photo. Great job! Lens Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM Exposure 1/60 sec, f/3.5, ISO800 02 EARLY MORNING COSMOS BY CHENH HONG This is a lovely spring flower shot from Chenh who tells us a bit more about how he got the shot: “I took this at a flower exhibition in Taiwan. Each year they plant several acres of cosmos in…

Inle Lake, Myanmar, Burma. 08:26am. 12 June 2012. I think we’re on the right plane, although I’m not entirely sure: boarding at Mandalay was chaos with indecipherable shouted announcements of imminent departures. Some random official we assumed was a baggage handler disappeared with our luggage. Now the only indication we have that we are on the right flight to Heho is that everyone else has the same coloured stickers on their chest; it’s the follow-the-herd mentality, applied to air travel. If we’ve got it wrong and are actually bound for Yangon or Bangkok then so too are all of them. Ah well, what will be will be. We’re in laid-back travel mode. At least we seem to be flying south. After a short 30-minute hop, we touch down somewhere I…

01 BEST BACKGROUNDS Backgrounds are the key to great close-up flower photos. Avoid messy backdrops and instead position yourself in your garden at ground level, so the background complements and contrasts. I choose one flower that provides a clearer focal point. 02 ADJUSTABLE TRIPOD It’s good practice to use a tripod to ensure sharp close-up shots. I used the Manfrotto 190 Go! carbon-fibre tripod, which has a 90-degree column mechanism and versatile legs, this means it can be angled to shoot much lower to the ground. 03 DEDICATED MACRO LENS For smaller flowers – like this blue grape hyacinth – I’ve been able to focus super-close with a dedicated Canon EF 100mm Macro lens to fill the frame for great results. To suit the flower’s shape, I composed vertically (portrait…

To reflect the growing use of smart devices for image editing, Adobe released a new version of Lightroom as a desktop and mobile version. The original Lightroom app is known as Lightroom Classic CC, which is still the choice for many professional photographers; with its ability to organize, edit and share shots using a range of modules (such as Develop and Print). But the new streamlined and simplified Lightroom app for mobile, (confusingly, also available for desktop too) enables you to organize and edit your pictures without being tied to your main desktop or laptop computer. This means you can edit on the go, or from the comfort of your sofa with ease. Any changes you make to a shot in Lightroom for mobile will be synced via the cloud,…

01 DESATURATE THE MONO IMAGE Open your Raw image into Elements and it will be automatically taken into Adobe Camera Raw. In the Basic panel, change the Treatment to Black & White, to start working your shot up in mono. 02 EXPAND THE DYNAMIC RANGE Adjust the Exposure to get the overall brightness looking right. Then pull the Highlights left and push the Shadows and Whites to the right to expand the dynamic range a little. 03 BOOST THE CONTRAST Now, you can increase Clarity and Contrast to give the image some punch. It’s also worth adjusting the Temperature and Tint sliders, as these can have a big impact on the contrast of your shot. 04 SHARPEN KEY DETAILS Go to the Detail panel and set Sharpening Amount to 50.…

Among the masses the term ‘Photoshopped’ has become a byword for digitally enhanced portraits (among other types of image), but these days it’s not just Photoshop that lets you carry out these kinds of edits. Affinity Photo offers a range of powerful portrait-enhancing tools, from those that let you remove marks and imperfections, to dedicated features for skin softening. What’s more, the layer-based workflow of Affinity means that these edits can be done on separate layers, so you always have the option to control the strength of an effect, or go back to an earlier stage. Here we’ll explore several key retouching techniques that you can apply to almost any portrait. Along the way we’ll encounter many key features in Affinity Photo. Portrait retouching is often about enhancing different areas…

Each of Canon’s IS lenses uses gyro sensors inside the barrel to detect horizontal and vertical movement of the lens. It then counteracts this movement by shifting a group of internal elements in the opposite direction to stabilize the image. But while the process is the same, the way it’s implemented across the IS lens range varies. The majority of IS lenses have a simple switch to turn the IS function on or off. With IS enabled, the camera automatically shifts from standard all-round stabilization to one that’s designed for panning when it detects the camera being moved in a single direction for a short period of time. The panning stabilization corrects camera movement in just one plane – so if you’re panning the camera from left to right to…

THERE ARE many situations where stabilization really can make the difference between a sharp shot and a soft one, and it opens up more options when it comes to exposure. For example, when you’re shooting a landscape or a macro shot, you may want to use a small aperture to increase the depth of field and bring more of the scene into sharp focus. Ordinarily, you might have to increase the ISO to compensate for the loss of light, otherwise the shutter speed may become too slow to get sharp results. But image stabilization enables you to keep the ISO at a lower setting for the best possible image quality. IS shines in low-light situations, too. As light levels drop, exposure times get longer. If you don’t want to (or…

This Canon full-frame compatible 50mm prime is the least expensive lens in the group. Even so, it’s nicely made and an improvement over the previous edition. Enhancements include a more refined autofocus system based on a stepping motor, which gives smooth, ultra-quiet transitions ideal for movie capture. There’s also a slight improvement in handling, as the focus ring and front element no longer rotate during autofocus. The upshot is that you don’t need to keep your fingers clear of the focus ring, and it’s easier to use filters like circular polarizers and ND grads. Build quality is better in the new lens as well, with the mounting plate being made from metal, rather than plastic. From a bokeh standpoint, the increase in diaphragm blades from five to seven is a…

A part from a few extremely wide-angle optics, prime lenses tend to exhibit little distortion, and the ones in this group are no exception. In descending order of barrel distortion, the Canon EF 50mm, Sigma 30mm, Tamron 35mm and Canon EF 85mm f/1.2 are the worst offenders, but even these keep distortion to a low order. The Canon RF 85mm comes closest to being a zero-distortion lens, whereas marginal pincushion distortion is all but imperceptible with the Canon EF 85mm f/1.4. Technically, the Sigma 56mm lens is the worst in the group but, pincushion distortion will generally go unnoticed.…

Faster lenses with wider apertures need to have wider-diameter glass elements towards the front, to let in more light. It’s no surprise then that they’re more expensive… If you’re paying extra, it’s because you want to use those faster apertures of f/1.2 or f/1.4. However, the depth of field might be so tight that you’ll only get one eye of a portrait sitter sharp in the shot, so you may want to stop the aperture down. You might be unable to use the widest aperture under bright sunlight, where even the max shutter speed of your camera isn’t fast enough to avoid over-exposure. A larger number of diaphragm blades produce better-rounded apertures when stopping down, helping to maintain the quality of bokeh.…

Most of the lenses in this test deliver fabulous bokeh but, if we had to pick just one, it would be the Canon RF 85mm. Its telephoto focal length and super-fast f/1.2 aperture combine to give a tight depth of field but, more importantly, the quality of defocused areas is deliciously smooth. For full-frame DSLRs, the EF 85mm f/1.2 is less impressive and we’d go for Canon’s EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM instead. It gives better overall bokeh despite its narrower aperture, and adds the bonus of IS. Sigma’s 105mm f/1.4 Art lens also delivers smooth bokeh, while Tamron’s 35mm f/1.4 lens gives impressive bokeh for such a wide-angle lens. In the APS-C camp, Sigma rules with its 30mm f/1.4 Art lens for DSLRs and 56mm f/1.4 Contemporary lens for…

FREE VIDEOS! In the next Canon Skills chapter… ▪ Sexy boudoir photos at home ▪ How to calibrate your monitor ▪ Restore vintage family photos ▪ New guides in Photoshop CC, Elements and Affinity Photo tutorials PLUS ALL THIS… ▪ PhotoPlus Apprentice: Get up close with these mega macro tips ▪ New pro skills: Find out what three top Canon pros are shooting in lockdown at home ▪ Super Test: Best big yet budget lenses for wildlife photography ISSUE 167 ON SALE 23 JUNE 2020 * Content subject to change…

Home project and video: Take great bird photos from your kitchen window! You don’t necessarily need to head out into the wild to get great bird photographs – you can shoot from your window! More great home projects on DigitalCameraWorld.com via our quick link bit.ly/dcw_birds The new Canon EOS R6 will reportedly be announced in May 2020 The Canon EOS R6 might not have the gangbuster features of the R5, but it certainly looks set to impress. For more Canon news stories, go to DigitalCameraWorld.com, this story at via our quick link bit.ly/dcw_r6 My 10 best and worst bits of camera gear ever: Dan Mold, PhotoPlus The awesome Dan Mold is Technique Editor on PhotoPlus. Here’s his top ten list of kit he’s used, bought, loved… or hated! More info…

THE APPRENTICES DARREN KIDBY CANON EOS 5D MK III DARREN first picked up a camera 30 years ago, his interest was sparked again when he discovered the Canon EOS M5 mirrorless system. Darren was keen to learn how to photograph his prize winning pooch. JEAN WHITESIDE CANON EOS 400D JEAN started off with her Canon 400D and is a member of Colne Camera Club. Jean wanted to learn how to take better photos of her friend’s pet and working dogs after struggling to get sharp, exciting results. STEVEN HAVERS CANON EOS-1D MK IV STEVEN, a dog behaviourist from Leicestershire and has spent 25 years working with dogs. With a passion for photography, Steven wants to combine the two to expand his business. CANON PROS PHIL HAWLEY CANON EOS-1D X PHIL…

PET DOG PHOTOGRAPHY certainly pushes top-end cameras. You can capture some cracking shots with a little technical know-how, a certain amount of timing and luck… To ensure you’re set up in the best possible way, there are two key settings that you will need to know about. By combining these settings you’re sure to capture at least one good shot in an action sequence. AI SERVO AF For dogs on the move, switch your autofocus to AI Servo to track your moving subject. Combine this with back button focusing, which assigns focus to the AF-On button and leaves the shutter button for firing a shot. By separating these two functions, you can ensure you bag a pin-sharp shot. HIGH-SPEED CONTINUOUS SHOOTING Set your camera to fire off a burst of…

Although Coronavirus has caused an extension to the UK lockdown, it doesn’t mean you can’t continue to take some brilliant Canon photographs. In fact the opposite is true! Now is the time to indulge in your hobby and start to think more creatively by using what you have lying around the house to fill your portfolio with amazing still life pictures, macro shots and portraiture that you can shoot indoors, or out in your garden. When you’ve given them a go, hopefully, you’ll be inspired to raid your kitchen cabinets and hunt down more items that will make it into your next photo project. And don’t forget to share your shots to the online community and tag us in them on Facebook (@photoplusmag) and Instagram (@photopluscanonmag), as we love to…

If you’ve held an interest in photography for some time you’ve probably come across the term ‘bokeh’ before. It’s a word of Japanese origin that’s used to describe out-of-focus specular highlights in the background of your shots, usually in portraits taken with wide apertures. The shape of your bokeh is determined by the shape of your aperture, which will be circular if the aperture is made up of enough blades. However, lenses, such as Canon’s original EF 50mm f/1.8 ‘nifty-fifty’ lens, use a five sided aperture ring. This gives bokeh a distinctive pentagonal look. Some people prefer the circular bokeh shapes, and perhaps that’s why the latest EF 50mm f/1.8 STM version has a seven bladed aperture to smooth this out and give it a more circular look. When you…

01 GET LIGHTROOM To get Lightroom Mobile to work with the desktop version, go to www.adobe.com and choose a subscription plan. For £9.98/$9.99 per month the Photography plan will give you Lightroom desktop and mobile, plus Photoshop. 02 ADD TO ALBUM On the desktop, click Add photos and browse to a folder to select the shots you want. Click Review for Import, then click Add. In the Albums panel click the ‘+’ icon. Click Create Album and label it. Drag shots from the filmstrip into the album. 03 ACCESS FROM MOBILE DEVICE On Lightroom mobile, tap to view the synced contents of the album. Tap to view a photo. To reveal detail in an overexposed sky, tap the Selective Edits icon. Tap the ‘+’ icon and choose the Gradient adjustment.…

This is a fun project to try out on a photo from your image library – you could pick an outdoor scene like ours, or why not try a different genre? Perhaps portraiture, still life or abstract. We’ll use the Mixer Brush Tool to give the photo the look of an impressionist painting. If you’ve ever looked through the Photoshop Filter Gallery you’ll know that there are several filters within that can be used to create a painterly look. But they are all blunt and universal. The great thing about using the Mixer Brush Tool is that it creates painterly strokes based on the details and colours in the image. So you can tailor the effect, rather than applying a generic filter. However, this involves a bit more work. We…

01 PATCH OVER BLEMISHES Open a portrait in Affinity. Duplicate the bottom layer with Cmd/Ctrl+J (we’ll edit this layer to preserve our original), grab the Patch tool from the toolbar. Zoom in, then use the tool to drag selections over blemishes. Next, click on a clean area nearby to fix the blemish. 02 SMOOTH EYE BAGS Grab the Clone tool and hit ‘2’ to set the opacity to 20% (this way we can gently soften bits). Go to the tool options and set layer blend mode to Lighten. Hold Alt and click to sample a clear patch of skin below the bag, then paint to clone and soften the darker skin. 03 SOFTEN THE SKIN Once done patching and cloning, duplicate the layer with Cmd/Ctrl+J, then go to Filter>Sharpen>High Pass.…

01 ZOOM CONTROLS Use these controls to zoom in and out as you check the details in your image – very handy when sharpening or applying noise reduction. 02 BEFORE AND AFTER Split the screen vertically into a before-and-after display. Using this you can check your progress against the original image. 03 HISTORY DROP-DOWN Work backwards through the adjustments you’ve made – a useful tool if you need to retrace your steps and find any minimal tweaks. 04 PANEL DISPLAYS These buttons control the visibility of the Tools panel on the right of the screen and the Preset Effects browser along the bottom. 05 PRESET EFFECTS These offer a quick and convenient way of applying creative HDR looks with a single mouse click; they’re organized into categories. 06 LAYERS Aurora…

I have had a passion for photography since I was a little girl and becoming a mother was the point where I wanted to pursue it even further – life is ever changing, especially with children and I wanted to capture those fleeting moments on camera. When I started out, I was licensing my images through Getty and Alamy. After gaining some confidence from taking pictures of my own children, I branched out and set up my own child and lifestyle photography business in 2013. For this, my approach is to use natural light to lend images an honest, intimate style. I love capturing real moments and smiles with the families that I work with. Being outdoors also helps to put everyone at ease much faster than in a studio…

When cropping bear in mind these tips. To start, it’s usually best to crop with a predefined aspect ratio like, 4:3, for example. However, you can experiment in DPP with your very own. Also, try to remember to crop to benefit the framing. What do I mean? Don’t crop for the sake of it! Do it to remove visual clutter (like a lamppost you didn’t have time to omit), or as in our shot, to position the rally car so it has ‘space’ to jump into in the frame. 01 FIX COMPOSITION If you were focused on getting the shot, you might have less than ideal composition. With so many megapixels it’s easy to use the crop tool to enhance your shot. Open your photo in DPP, and go to…

Many EOS cameras have a digital IS menu option available when recording videos. Unlike IBIS, which physically adjusts the position of the sensor, ‘Movie digital IS’ stabilizes the image digitally. It does this by cropping the image and then using the spare pixels to adjust the position of the image on the sensor. There are two Movie digital IS options: enable and enhanced. The image is only slightly magnified when Movie digital IS is enabled, but the enhance option sees the image magnified much more in order to correct stronger camera shake. The magnification can be even more pronounced if you record 4K video, as some Canon cameras crop the image in the centre to give the correct 4K resolution. The stabilization effect is much more effective when you’re holding…

While image stabilization can take the edge off vibrations caused by camera movement, it has no effect on subject movement. If the shutter speed is too slow to freeze a moving object, you’ll still end up with a blurred shot. The problem can be further exacerbated by the relatively small maximum apertures that IS lenses often have: you may have no option but to increase the ISO sensitivity when shooting action, just to get a usable shutter speed. There are other things to bear in mind when shooting with IS. For a start, not all IS lenses are compatible with tripod work. Some of Canon’s lenses can detect when the camera is on a tripod and will stop working, but others will not. Regardless, it’s usually better to turn off…

White balance is something that most of us take for granted – we trust the camera to get the colour right for us in many photos. When a subject is illuminated by light, its colour is impacted by the colour of the illuminating light. Humans see a sheet of paper as white regardless of whether it is illuminated with daylight, tungsten light, or fluorescent. White balance is the process the camera uses to give a good representation of the subject under a variety of light sources. The process is complicated when there’s multiple different light sources. A portrait by a window might have warm tungsten light in the room, daylight from the window and a flash on the camera all illuminating the subject with different colours of light. Automatic white…

Elinchrom has built a strong reputation in studio and location flash systems for robust build quality, top-drawer performance, reliability and ease of use. Mains-powered D-Lite monobloc heads and kits have long been a favourite of discerning photographers, thanks to their compact portability, simplicity and overall superb lighting quality, especially when combined with Elinchrom’s excellent range of softboxes and various other light modifiers. However, based on conventional, rather than IGBT (Insulated-Gate Bipolar Transistor) technology, D-Lite heads lack advanced modes like TTL flash metering and an ‘Action’ option, which fires a short-duration flash for freezing action. The new Elinchrom ELC 125 and ELC 500 heads add these as well as many other upgrades. Key features IGBT technology enables the versatility of advanced shooting modes, but it comes with a catch. There’s a…

Lab-testing reveals the lateral chromatic aberration, which shows up as colour fringes around high-contrast edges of objects. All of the lenses in this group exhibit minimal lateral chromatic aberration. When using fast primes at or near their widest aperture, axial or ‘on-axis’ chromatic fringing can be more of a problem. This can occur anywhere in the image frame, around the edges of objects in the scene that lie in front of or behind the point of focus.…

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