Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2020 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

NEW CANON TECHNIQUES Every issue we bring you inspirational techniques, tips and tutorials to help you become a better Canon photographer. Find out what’s inside on Page 4 While we continue to live in challenging and strange times, the PhotoPlus team and I have all been taking solace in the fact we can always focus on and enjoy our Canon photography. It’s also been great hearing from lots of new readers telling us how much you’re enjoying the magazine content, and that we’re inspiring you to get out and improve your own Canon camera skills and photo techniques. Inside this issue, we’ve got some top tips for taking captivating portraits of your families, as Canon Pro Taylor Brady shows our Apprentice how to get great shots even with a £99…

CANON PRO NAME: TAYLOR BRADY CAMERA: CANON EOS 7D Mark II TAYLOR HAS been working as photographer for around nine years. She began by doing a Level 3 course in Photography before going on to do a foundation degree. She explored lots of different aspects of photography but portraiture was always the main interest. After completing her degree, Taylor set herself up as a freelance photographer working from a studio at home for newborn and family photo shoots, but she also outdoor shoots and on occasions weddings. Instagram: @taylorbradyphotography APPRENTICE NAME: JONATHAN CROOK CAMERA: CANON EOS 760D JONATHAN IS a keen camera enthusiast based in Market Harborough and wrote to us to help him perfect his portraiture, as he’d like help with lighting his portraits, and to be able to…

01 GECKO (ANIMALS: FINALIST) BY JUAN JESÚS GONZÁLEZ AHUMADA Geckos are absolutely tiny creatures, so Juan did well to not only spot this one but also to get a frame-filling shot of it in this beautifully vibrant setting. His focusing technique is spot-on as the gecko’s eye is pin-sharp too. Juan told us, “Geckos like to sun themselves to regulate their temperature. They also like to take advantage of any gap in my house to hide themselves! This individual is peeking out of a hole in an old gymnastics bench in the storage room.” Lens Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM Exposure 1/20 sec, f/8, ISO200 02 RUNNING ON WATER (ANIMALS: FINALIST) BY SVETLANA IVANENKO Svetlana has created a wonderful photograph of a raft spider (Dolomedes fimbriatus), which she found…

The Taj Mahal, Agra, India. 6:30am. 11 November 2019 It was a hot November morning in Agra, India and I had arrived at the Taj Mahal earlier than most. I was desperate to get first in the queue, to capture a heart-stopping travel moment – dawn light bathing the world’s most beautiful architectural masterpiece. It was already feeling sticky after walking briskly with far too much kit, but the effort would surely be worth it. By 6:00am the queue was building and the anticipation was rising. This was not my first time at the Taj, I was acting cool, however I can reveal that I was anything but. This revisit was planned with precision; an almost military operation containing new angles, new positions and specialist equipment, minus a tripod which…

01 FISH TANK A small fish tank like this is ideal, but any plastic or glass container will work. Ensure the glass is as clean as possible before you start filling the tank with water. You’ll need to refresh the water after every few shots, so this is best done near to a tap. 02 SPEEDLITE An off-camera flash is the best way to capture the paints, as it gives your images a clarity that is hard to achieve with natural light alone. Position the flash to one side of the tank, angled slightly away from the backdrop so that it doesn’t spill onto it. 03 REFLECTOR By positioning a reflector opposite the flash on the other side of the tank, we can bounce the flash light into the shadows…

01 DROP IN A SHAPE Open Photoshop, go to File>New, set Background Contents: Black and hit OK. Next, drag and drop the shape you want. We used an outline of a dancer, but you can find other figures online. Resize the shot with Cmd/Ctrl+T and hit 2 to set the layer to 20% opacity. 02 COPY IN THE PAINT Copy in a paint photo and position it over the figure. In the Layers panel set the Blend Mode to Lighten. Next, go to Filter>Liquify. Check ‘Show Backdrop’ in the settings on the right. Choose Use: dancer shape and set Mode: In Front, then tweak the opacity slider to suit. 03 WARP THE PAINT Grab the Forward Warp tool from the toolbar and use the ] and [ keys to resize…

Ever wondered if you could fit a non-Canon mount lens to your EOS DSLR or CSC? Sure, there are adapters out there that will let you do it, but we’ve got something a bit more fun and experimental that will allow you to breathe new life into old lenses and bag some brilliant shots that you simply would not be able to achieve otherwise. To create our rendition, we used an old Olympus 50mm Zuiko f/1.8 lens that we picked up in a charity shop for just £10, so it’s definitely worth hunting around for an old cheap film lens, even broken lenses can work well, depending on what their fault is. Old lenses work great because they usually have a physical aperture ring, meaning you can control the aperture…

01 ATTACH YOUR MACRO LENS While you can use a kit lens at its longest zoom, a macro lens will yield even more impressive results as you can get closer to the cutlery to make them appear larger in the frame. Attach your lens to your Canon camera and set it up on a tripod. 02 PLACE YOUR CUTLERY Position a tablet or computer display on a table and set the screen to be bright white by creating a blank document in an app like Photoshop, go into full-screen mode and turn the brightness all the way up, then lay your plastic cutlery across it. 03 COMPOSE YOUR SHOT Tweak the position of your camera and tripod until you can get a frame-filling shot of the plastic cutlery. Now focus…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_172_6 Bold colours can help your portraits to pop, but you might not always find the colours you want while shooting. Thankfully, recolouring parts of a scene is easily done in post-production. We’ll use simple Photoshop tools here to change the backdrop to a bold blue tone. You can adapt this technique to change the colour of pretty much anything. At the time of the shoot, we found a convenient red wall next to a large window – ideal for portraiture! But after the shoot the reds seemed overpowering, especially as the skin tones and hair also have varying shades of red. So instead, we isolated and recoloured the background in Photoshop. Shifting colours is a fairly simple task, but it’s best to do it so you…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_172_7 01 SELECT THE GIRAFFE Open the giraffe_before.jpg image (see web link left), and your chosen background image in Affinity Photo. Go to the giraffe image, grab the Selection brush in the toolbar. Check ‘Snap to Edges’ in the options, then paint over the giraffe to select it. Hold Alt and paint to subtract if the selection picks up the wrong edges. 02 IMPROVE THE CUTOUT Click Refine in the options, then use the Refine box to improve the selection edge. Increase Border Width to 10%, then click Background and paint over any parts of the edge that show the backdrop, such as the gap in the giraffe’s tail here. Once you’re happy set Output: New Layer with Mask and hit Apply. 03 POSITION THE GIRAFFE Hit…

Travelling Iceland’s main ring road, Route 1, is the most relaxing of any road trip you may want to conquer, and arguably one of the best in the world. Living in Britain makes this island not only a shutterbug’s paradise, but an easy getaway. If funds permit I try and make plans yearly, plotting around different months and experiencing the diverse weather conditions. These three images were captured in Iceland’s Southern region. The iconic Seljalandsfoss is now more widely recognizable due to the islands growing popularity. Daybreak for me is where I get the most excitement. You can capture those cold crisp mornings, as well as feeling the air hit your face, it’s not quite light, but you’re still guided by silhouettes. Hues that hit the sky can be breathtaking…

SAVE IT FOR LATER Saving recipes is a great time-saver when it comes to your workflow. To do this in DPP, you just need to go to Edit>Save Recipe in File. You can then save the recipe (giving it any name you see fit) wherever you want, although it’s a good idea to make a recipe folder to keep them together. To use the recipe, go to Edit>Read and paste recipe from file. 01 MUTE AND WARM VIBRANT TONES For this image the most vibrant colours are the from the green grass, so target the green and yellow tones. I shifted the hue of the green and yellow fully to the warmer tones, and then adjusted the orange hue as well. Due to the blue in her glasses I boosted…

WHEN YOU carry out maintenance on your camera, it’s worth giving the gear that you attach to your camera a once-over too. Clean optical filters in the same way you would your lenses, for example, check that tripod heads are securely fastened and be prepared to take tripod legs apart and grease the joints if sand or grit has worked its way in there. It’s also worth checking on the condition of the batteries. A number of cameras allow you to monitor the recharge performance of the camera battery in the yellow Set-up menu, so you know when it’s probably time to invest in a new power source. It’s worth removing the batteries from your camera, flashgun and other powered accessories if you’re going to store your kit for a…

If there’s one part of the camera that needs to be kept clean, it’s the sensor. The problem is that there’s a hole in the front of the camera that exposes the innards every time you change lenses. To minimize the risk, avoid changing lenses in windy or dusty conditions, switch the camera off and hold the body face down. Any particles that make their way into the camera can end up as sensor ‘dust’. It’s easy to identify dust spots: they’ll be soft dots in the same place every shot. While it doesn’t take much effort to remove spots in software, it gets tedious. But you can have this carried out automatically in Canon’s DPP software, as long as you’ve registered Dust Delete Data in the camera via the…

“What’s the best way to shoot with flash in low light, and avoid camera shake?”Penny Lloyd, Narborough BRIAN SAYS… If you are getting camera shake with flash in low light, you may be using Shutter Priority (Tv) or Manual. Shutter speed is key to avoiding camera shake and blurred subjects when taking shots with flash in low light. People rarely stay still for a photo, so you should keep the shutter speed to at least 1/60 sec even with flash. Using Tv or Manual that is in your control. But older cameras set to Av will set any shutter speed down to 30 secs to try and balance the ambient light and flash. A good way to work in low light is to use Manual, take a shot with a…

We’ve been waiting to test the Canon EOS 850D since it was first announced back in February 2020. But the global pandemic meant world-wide supplies came to a grinding halt; however while we still wrestle with weekly challenges and evolving restrictions, Canon have been able to finally release the EOS 850D! As it’s priced at over £800 for the body only (or £929 with EF-S 18-55mm f/4-5.6 IS STM kit lens), it’s more an all-rounder camera for enthusiasts, or for beginners looking to upgrade. But what do you get for the money? The Canon EOS 850D is a lightweight, versatile and connected DSLR, powered by Canon’s fast DIGIC 8 processor and capable of 7fps continuous shooting. It has Canon’s favourite APS-C crop-camera 24.1-megapixel Dual Pixel CMOS sensor, but what sets…

Four years on from the launch of the 18-135mm IS STM, Canon announced this new ‘USM’ edition in 2016. However, the AF system isn’t based on either of the usual ring-type or motor-based ultrasonic mechanisms. Indeed, whereas the previous edition was the first Canon lens to feature stepping-motor AF, this is the first to have ‘Nano USM’, utilized in a number of other Canon lenses. Aiming for the best of both, Nano USM enables super-fast AF for stills, along with smooth and silent AF tracking during movie capture. It’s based on an ‘elastic metal’ body with a ceramic voltage element and drive unit. The direction and speed of AF can be controlled in a linear fashion, without noticeable start and stop steps. It works well for movie capture, especially with…

Measuring 71x86mm and weighing in at 430g, this Sigma lens is the outright smallest here. It’s only slightly heavier than the competing Tamron 18-200mm, despite having a metal mounting plate. The Sigma is also much smaller than the Canon 18-135mm lenses, despite boasting a bigger zoom range. It features a space-saving ultrasonic motor and although the focus ring rotates during AF, it’s small and mounted right at the front, so doesn’t seriously impair handling. The front element itself doesn’t rotate during focusing, and a focus distance scale is printed on the focus ring. Three aspherical elements help reduce the size, while three SLD (Special Low Dispersion) elements lower colour fringing. Sigma’s Super Multi-layer Coating is applied to reduce ghosting and flare. The optical stabilizer has an effectiveness of about 4-stops…

A shortest focal length of 18mm has become a bit standard in APS-C format superzoom lenses, but this Tamron bucks the trend. Shaving off a couple of millimetres may not sound much of a big deal but you can squeeze a lot more into the frame, with an ‘effective’ focal length similar to 25.6mm on a full-frame. There’s no holding back at the long end either, with an effective 480mm max zoom length. Handling is more refined than with any of the other Sigma and Tamron lenses on test. Unusually for an ultrasonic motor-based rather than ring-type system, the focus ring doesn’t rotate during autofocus and enables full-time manual override. Optical highlights include LD (Low Dispersion), XR (eXtra Refractive) and ASL (Hybrid Aspherical) elements, along with advanced multi-coatings. The Vibration…

SHOOT IN MANUAL THE PORTRAITS in the morning session were all going to be lit by the large window light in Taylor’s living room – this would give the images a soft, gentle feel, especially as the lighting was very overcast on the day. Thanks to the total cloud coverage, the lighting was really consistent, so Taylor set her camera, as well as Jonathan’s, to Manual mode and entered in settings of 1/160 sec, an aperture of f/2.8 and an ISO of 800 to lock them off. SHOOT RAW TAYLOR SUGGESTED Jonathan set his Canon EOS 760D to shoot Raw files, as these capture much more detail than the compressed JPEG files which are also processed in-camera. This detail is hugely beneficial, especially if the exposure is a little over-…

Doug Allan is a Canon pro and award-winning wildlife photographer and film-maker who regularly shoots breathtaking footage for BBC nature programmes with David Attenborough, including The Blue Planet, Planet Earth, and Frozen Planet. One of the headline speakers at The Photography Show Virtual Festival in September, we caught up with Doug to talk about how he got started as a photographer and film-maker, the transition from stills to film, the Canon equipment he selects for assignments, and how he overcomes the extreme conditions he faces while in the coldest and most challenging places on earth. How did you make the move from being a diver to a wildlife photographer? I was 24 when I first went to Signy Research Station (Signy is a small island in the South Orkneys, at…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_172_1 01 CHOOSE YOUR PAINTS Acrylic paints will work best for this as they don’t mix with water, so they’ll stay clumped together when you drop them in the water. If the paints are too thick then try mixing them with a dash of white spirit to thin them out. Play with the height at which you pour them into the water. 02 PREFOCUS ON THE DROP SPOT Before you start dropping paints into your water you’ll need to prefocus on the spot where they’ll be. Hold an object like a spoon in the centre of the water, focus on it and then switch your lens to manual focus in order to lock it in place. Drop the paints in the same spot. 03 MIX YOUR COLOURS…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_172_2 The position and height of the sun makes a dramatic difference to the quality of your shots. If the sun is behind a landmark it will plunge it into silhouette. When the sun is behind you, the subject will be bathed with a flat wash of light, causing the photo to lack contrast. However, if the sun illuminates a location from an angle, and when the sun is lower in the sky such as towards sunset, then the mix of shadows and highlights helps bring out the shapes and forms of buildings and landscapes. Thanks to The Photographer’s Ephemeris, you can plan your shoots to ensure that any scene is lit from the most flattering angle. The app can show you any point on a map…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINEhttp://bit.ly/pp_172_3 01 OLD FILM LENS An old prime lens is ideal. You can find them for cheap and they can be modded to capture great results. Prime lenses for film cameras are best: they feature an aperture ring, making it easy to change the aperture when it’s not mounted to the camera. 02 JEWELLER’S SCREWDRIVER You’ll need a set of jeweller’s screwdrivers so you can remove the tiny screws that attach the rear lens mounting plate to the lens. On this Olympus 50mm f/1.8 Zuiko lens, there were just three screws that needed removing to take the plate off. 03 BICYCLE INNER TUBE A small section from a bicycle inner tube will create the light-tight link between your lens and the lens mount, allowing some flexibility to tilt…

Asplit tone is a great way to give your images a cinematic look quickly, and works brilliantly well on portraits like our start image here, which you can download for free. We’re going to be using the Gradient Map Adjustment Layer to pull it off in the budget-friendly Elements, though you can do it in the full version of Photoshop CC just as easily too, as the steps are identical for both programs. A split tone is where you assign a different colour bias to the highlights and shadows of your images, and while it works well on any image we find it particularly useful for portraits. You can use any colour combination you like, but we used a red and blue to mimic the orange and teal look often…

01 SELECT THE SUBJECT Open the ‘change_backdrop_before.jpg’ and go to Select>Subject, then Select>Inverse. This should give you a decent selection of the background (we can fine-tune it later if necessary). Next, click the Create Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Hue/Saturation. 02 CHANGE THE HUE The Hue slider enables you to alter colours, but you can also selectively change them with the Hand tool in the Hue/Saturation command. Click on it, then hold Cmd/Ctrl and drag left over the backdrop to target and change the reds. Fine-tune the Saturation slider too. Here we set Hue -158, Saturation -40. 03 PERFECT THE MASK Our selection wasn’t ideal, so we need to tweak the layer mask on the Hue/Saturation layer. Click the mask thumbnail to highlight…

“I started this project to help other survivors and make my father proud!” I was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. Every summer my father took us to the Ocean and since then I’ve been spellbound by the underwater world. In 2003, I discovered scuba diving and instantly thought, “;This is it!” so I bought a disposable underwater camera and haven’t looked back. In 2013, I launched a campaign called Underwater Healer About Face, to help survivors of cancer, domestic violence and those with disabilities or PTSD to rediscover their beauty from underwater portraiture and total immersion. I, too, am a survivor of a traumatic car accident that tragically killed my father and left me severely injured. I started this project to help other survivors and make my father proud.…

Your Canon camera is a sophisticated picture-taking tool that’s designed to keep firing in a range of environments. Even the ageing EOS 1300D is rated to work well in temperatures of 0-40°C, although pro bodies, such as the EOS-1D X Mark III and EOS R5 feature extensive weather sealing that reduces the chances of the outside world reaching the cameras’ high-tech insides. To keep getting years of trouble-free shooting, it pays to develop a regular cleaning routine. Moisture and dust are the main enemies, so it’s worth giving the body and lenses a once-over when you’ve been shooting in wet and dusty conditions. Although you may be able to get by with a quick rub down from a cloth when out and about, it’s worth investing in a handful of…

YOU MAY be able to qualify for Canon Professional Services (CPS), which allows you to take advantage of priority support and fast turnaround times for any repairs that you need to have done – as long as you have enough Canon kit. There are different levels of membership, you see, each based on a qualifying number of points. You need to register your products on the Canon website (www.canon-europe.com/pro/canon-professional-services) to discover the total number of points that your equipment is worth. The colour-coded membership runs from red to platinum. With the entry-level red membership you don’t need any points, but the only key benefit is that you can access a priority support helpdesk. The real advantages kick in from silver upwards, where you can get discounts on maintenance and free…

Canon EOS digital cameras have revolutionized photography for amateur and professionals in many ways. Early digital cameras with their LCD screens to review images meant that everyone could learn from mistakes during the shoot, and adapt their working process. As time has gone on advances in technology has made cameras so good you have to wonder if the hard learned camera skills are no longer needed? Being old enough to remember the importance of getting the right exposure for slide films, the flexibility and accuracy of the metering systems has taken the need to be precise away. Personally, I think this is an acceptable change – I still want to be in charge of my pictures, but no longer feel constrained by exposure. Using Manual mode, I select shutter speed…

Unlike Canon’s older 18-200mm lens (see boxout), this second-edition lens was redesigned and boasts an upgrade from a basic electric autofocus (AF) motor to a more advanced stepping motor. This enables quick AF for stills, along with smooth AF transitions when capturing video. It works well with cameras like the EOS 650D/Rebel T4i and later bodies that feature Movie Servo AF. A handling enhancement is that the focus ring no longer rotates during AF, so you don’t need to keep your fingers clear in handheld shooting – a notable improvement. Further bonuses are that AF is almost silent and manual override has become available via a ‘fly by wire’ electronic coupling. The optical path includes precision moulded aspherical and UD (Ultra-low Dispersion) elements, plus Super Spectra coatings to reduce ghosting…

Despite their modest zoom range, the two Canon 18-135mm lenses here don’t give less barrel distortion at the short end, or pincushion at the long, compared with the Sigma 18-200mm and 18-300mm, or even the Tamron 18-400mm lens. The Tamron 18-200mm has worse barrel distortion at the short end and, the Tamron 16-300mm has the heaviest barrel distortion at its shorter 16mm focal length. In current Canon cameras, auto corrections are available for all of the Canon and Sigma lenses on test. The Canon RF 24-240mm’s distortion makes it almost unusable without auto correction.…

The larger of Sigma’s two lenses on test, this one is only 16mm longer at its minimum zoom setting, but has a focal length that stretches to 300mm instead of 200mm. That takes it into super-telephoto territory on an APS-C format camera, equivalent to 480mm in full-frame terms. Like its smaller sibling, the construction employs Sigma’s TSC (Thermally Stable Composite) material that’s resistant to size fluctuations during temperature changes. As with other Global Vision lenses, it’s compatible with Sigma’s optional USB Dock for applying customization, fine-tuning and firmware updates. Upgraded glass sees the inclusion of four top-grade FLD (‘Fluorite’ Low Dispersion) elements along with one SLD element. The same kind of motor-based ultrasonic AF system is used as in the Sigma 18-200mm lens, with the same drawback that the focus…

At their shortest zooms, most of the APS-C format lenses give about the same degree of colour fringing towards the corners of the frame, although Tamron 16-300mm is worse. It’s the same at the long end of the zoom range, where the Tamron 16-300mm is again the poorest but is joined by the Tamron 18-400mm. By contrast, the Sigma 18-300mm has little colour fringing at the long end, and it’s minimal in all of the lenses at mid-zoom settings.…

he RF 24-240mm isn’t the first Canon lens for mirrorless interchangeable bodies. The EF-M 18-150mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM is the perfect fit for APS-C format EOS M system cameras, on which it gives an effective zoom range of 28.8-240mm. It’s a good match for slim EOS M bodies, with its small 61x87mm dimensions and 300g lightweight build. It has a STM (Stepping Motor) AF system and 4-stop optical image stabilizer, complete with auto panning detection. Sharpness in the central region of the frame is pretty good throughout the zoom range. As you’d expect, sharpness drops off towards the edges and corners of the frame, and corner-sharpness at 18mm is lacklustre unless you stop the aperture down a bit.…

Making the most of Canon’s full-frame mirrorless mount potential, the RF 24-240mm delivers superior sharpness across the whole image frame. AF is super-fast, the 5-stop image stabilizer works brilliantly and handling is absolutely superb. For APS-C format DLSRs, our favourite is the Sigma18-300mm, which combines a generous overall zoom range with good image quality. If wide-angle coverage is top of your wish list, the Tamron 16-300mm beats all other APS-C format lenses on test and, although it’s not as sharp as the Sigma 18-300mm, it has better handling characteristics with a more refined AF system. For a small, lightweight and inexpensive lens, the Tamron 18-200mm is unbeatable value. If long telephoto reach is less important, Canon’s EF-S18-135mm APS-C format lenses are great options.…

NEWBORN & SIBLING I AIM to capture the soft nature and beautiful moments shared between family in shoots. This ‘big sister, little sister’ photo is a personal favourite of mine. MILK BATH I LIKE the soft blend of tones created from the milk bath in this photo. A milk bath gives the photo a more unique look than a standard studio baby photo shoot. MATERNITY THIS PHOTO is a different style to what I usually shoot in, the colours and shadows are darker but I believe it works effectively for the subject of this photo. TOP GEAR #3 A ‘nifty fifty’ prime lens ONE OF Taylor’s go-to lenses is Canon’s EF 50mm f/1.8 II as it has good image quality, being a prime, and a super fast f/1.8 maximum aperture,…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_172_1 For this month’s Big Project we’ll look at how to craft a colourful dancer image from a series of photos of paint. This involves a combination of shooting skills and Photoshop techniques. First, we’ll get set up to shoot vibrant photos of paint by capturing the colours as they travel through water. Once done, we’ll progress into Photoshop where we’ll warp the photos into the shape of our springing dancer. As such, this is effectively two techniques in one, yet each can work separately. So if you’re only interested in capturing beautiful paint abstracts, then you can follow the first part; if you’d rather focus on your Photoshop skills, then you can skip the shooting part and use our paint sploshing in water images (see the…

YOU CAN use the same Photoshop technique described here to reshape smoke photos into flowing figures like this. All you need are a few photos of billowing smoke (ours were taken using an incense stick and an off-camera flash, positioned behind the smoke to backlight it). Like our paint photos, they need to be taken against a black backdrop, as this makes it very easy to combine them using the Lighten Blend Mode in Photoshop. It’s easy to reshape the smoke to conform to an object or figure of your choice. And why stop there? Besides smoke, you could try using other substances like water, plants, rocks or anything else you can think of.…

01 CHOOSE A LOCATION To research the lighting of a location tap the Locations icon. In the left panel you can search via a location’s GPS coordinates, if you have them. Alternatively, tap Search for address/place and enter a place name. Tap the appropriate search result. Tap the Pin icon. 02 VIEW EVENTS Your location is pinned on a map. Below is a timeline containing events such as Sunrise, Moonset and more. Each event is colour coded. Coloured lines emanate from the pin indicating the direction of the sun (or moon) in relation to the selected location. 03 SCRUB THROUGH TIME Drag your finger along the altitude chart to preview the changing direction and height of the sun. On the opposite side of the sunset line is a black shadow…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_172_4 There are some things that just can’t be replicated in Adobe Photoshop and this is certainly the case when using a circular polarizing filter. This landscape photographer’s favourite tool is essential for cutting down reflections in water or glass, and also has the power to reduce scattered light – making blues in the sky look more punchy. But these wonderfully useful and affordable accessories can also be used to change the appearance of polarized light emitted by computer screens. If you have a laptop, tablet or even a smartphone, the chances are that it’s throwing out polarized light. If you don’t already own a polarizing filter you can pick one up for around £10. In this project we’re going to take advantage of this special light…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_172_5 01 RETOUCH THE SKIN Open your portrait into Elements and grab the Spot Healing Brush Tool to begin the retouching. Set the Type to Proximity Match, then use the square bracket keys to resize your brush, so it’s just larger than your blemishes, and paint over them. 02 ADD A HIGH PASS LAYER To sharpen the model’s closest eye hit Ctrl/Cmd+J to duplicate the layer, then go to Filter>Other>High Pass Filter and set the value to 4px, hit OK. Now press Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+U to desaturate it, so it doesn’t interfere with the colours when blended in. 03 BLEND IT IN TO SHARPEN THE EYES Head over to the Layers panel (Window>Layers) and change the Blending Mode to Overlay to sharpen the image. Now add a Layer Mask…

One of the things Affinity Photo does best is allow you to combine two or more photos in creative ways. Like it’s pricier forebear Photoshop, Affinity Photo utilizes layers for photo editing. This means you can cut out different parts of photos and layer them on top of one another, like sheets of paper in a collage, in order to create a composite photograph like this. In this tutorial we’ll explain how to make a simple composite. There are three key stages to making a natural-looking composite like this. First we use selections to isolate the subject and a mask to remove the background. Next, we copy in and position the subject against their new backdrop. Finally we use tonal tools and add shadows to match the two images, so…

You can reduce the amount of between-shoots upkeep that you need to carry out by taking a few precautions when you’re out with your camera. For example, just fitting a lens hood can provide protection from impacts, as well as shielding the front element from indirect light. The hoods on telephoto lenses can also be effective at keeping rain and falling snow off the glass too – and reducing the amount of front element ‘spotting’ that you need to carry out. The shallow hoods on wide-angle lenses are rubbish in this regard, although that’s not what they’re designed for. To protect the front element in these instances, you can attach a screw-in clear filter to the lens. In fact, Canon lists this as an essential step to complete a lens’s…

IF YOUR camera offers an automatic sensor-cleaning function, then you may be able to select when this function kicks in. On the EOS RP, you can set the sensor cleaning cycle to happen either when the camera is powered off, or when it’s powered on and off. The camera will start up more quickly if you only have it enabled for power off, which can make a difference if you’re sports or action. If there’s no rush, having it set to on and off may be more effective, particularly when you change lenses – although it will use up more power. When the auto sensor cleaning is doing its thing, keep the camera stable in a level shooting position, rather than pointing down as you would for manual cleaning.…

01 Profoto A10 t’s an on-camera studio light! £949/$1095 www.profoto.com PROFOTO’S A10 stands out from the flashgun crowd mostly thanks to its 7cm round head that’s designed to produce a softer light with a smoother falloff than you get from a conventional flashgun. A built-in rechargeable Li-ion battery keeps recycling times down to a fast 0.05-1 second, and it’s good for 450 full-power flashes per charge. Rather than giving a guide number output figure, flash power is quoted in typical studio light fashion, at 76Ws. These specs are identical to the old A1X, but the A10 gets Profoto’s new AirX Bluetooth sync feature, which means you can also use it with smartphones. 02 Benro Rhino tripods Combine portability and performance From £200/$299 www.benroeu.com RHINO IS positioned as the flagship series…

The Canon RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1L IS USM is the first super-telephoto zoom lens for the EOS R System mirrorless cameras. It goes without saying this a high-quality lens with its L-series build, and even has a heat shield coating for coping with shooting in challenging weather conditions, whether it’s hot or cold. Plus its 5-stop image stabilization will help you still aim to deliver sharp shots when you’re shooting handheld with slower shutter speeds and in low light situations. For the best part of three grand, you’ll also get great image quality thanks to Super UD and UD lens elements and ASC (Air Sphere Coating) coatings for strong contrast and sharpness, as well as to prevent flare and ghosting. The 100-500mm focal length offers lots of flexibility to adjust your…

To test real-world performance, we use lenses in all sorts of lighting conditions, indoors and outdoors. We check for good build quality and handling, smooth and precise operation of all controls, the speed and accuracy of AF, and the effectiveness of image stabilization, where fitted. We typically test full-frame compatible lenses on a range of full-frame and APS-C format bodies, whereas lenses that are designed specifically for APS-C format bodies are only tested on the latter. In-camera corrections for chromatic aberrations and peripheral illumination are disabled during testing, to better reveal the true performance of each lens. We also run a range of lab tests under controlled conditions, using the Imatest Master and DxO Analyser suites. Photos of test charts are taken across the range of apertures and zoom settings,…

We’ve seen some big, RF lenses for Canon’s full-frame mirrorless’ but this isn’t one. It’s about 60mm shorter than the EF-28-300mm and less than half the weight, making it much more viable as a travel lens. Even so, it’s larger and heavier than the APS-C format superzooms on test, apart from the Tamron 18-400mm. Without an APS-C format crop factor to take into account, the 240mm max telephoto focal length is modest. Like the newer of the two EF 18-135mm lenses in the group, this RF lens has a super-fast and virtually silent nano USM AF system, which is great for both stills and movie capture. Handling is excellent, with a 5-stop optical image stabilizer and customizable control ring. The latter is switchable between manual focus or focus override, and…

For the sake of quality, most of us use standard zoom or prime lenses mostly. If you’re going to splash out on a superzoom for casual snapping, it makes sense to keep the price down. With the least expensive price tag in the group, the Tamron 18-200mm is relatively cheap to buy and, at 400g, it’s also the most lightweight. This second edition of Tamron’s 18-200mm lens adds VC (Vibration Compensation) and boasts an upgraded AF system. It’s still based on an electric motor but with an integrated gear train that runs more quietly than in the original. As with the Sigma lenses, the focus ring rotates during AF and can’t be used for full-time manual override. The new lens is also 30g lighter in weight than its predecessor, despite…

While Tamron’s 16-300mm lens goes ultra-wide, the latest addition to Tamron’s superzoom stable goes long. Stretching to 400mm, it beats every other APS-C format superzoom on the planet, delivering a max ‘effective’ reach of 640mm. That’s no mean feat and, even though it’s the heaviest APS-C format lens in the group at 710g, it’s still a bit lighter than the Canon RF 24-240mm full-frame lens. Keeping the size down and the quality up, the optical design includes two moulded glass aspherical elements and one hybrid aspherical element, along with three low-dispersion elements. AF is driven by an HLD (High/Low toque-modulated Drive) motor, which is quick and quiet. Build quality is very good overall and the construction features various weather-seals, including one on the metal mounting plate. Handling is good in…

FREE VIDEOS! In the next Canon Skills chapter… Family Christmas portraits! Easy guide to depth-of-field Perfect B&W prints at home Photoshop CC, Elements and Affinity Photo tutorials All with free video guides! PLUS ALL THIS… PhotoPlus Apprentice: Learn to capture great shots of buildings Pro interview: George Logan, award-winning advertising and wildlife photographer Christmas Gift Guide: Great kit and ideas for your Xmas wish list ISSUE 173 ON SALE 8 DECEMBER 2020…

Letter of the Month In issue 170 (October 2020) you were kind enough to publish my Photo Story Dancing in Rossendale – thank you. In the Feedback section you were very complementary, but suggested that the photos were rather the same and encouraged me to try “;a more varied mix of exposures and experimentation.” I felt both challenged and inspired and have done just that. I attach two images from a batch of 200+ where I have used Projection Art, with a reflection in one case, and the multi-exposure with duo-tone lighting in the other. Both images were achieved in camera with just slight adjustment to lighting in DPP4. Thanks for the challenge and helping to improve my photography. Trevor Elkington, Rossendale THIS MONTH’S PRIZE! Each issue, every letter printed…