Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2021 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

BETTER BIRD PHOTOGRAPHY Learn some simple skills for taking your best-ever bird photos, from little robins to big cormorants! Page 50 Whatever Canon EOS camera you use, we’re here to help you become a better Canon photographer. This issue we go in-depth into making the move to mirrorless, and how Canon’s EOS R System cameras and RF lenses will instantly improve your photography. Canon has developed some incredible new technology for the EOS R5 and R6 full-frame mirrorless cameras in particular, plus the revolutionary RF lens mount is key to faster communication between camera and lens, which means faster and better autofocus, plus a whole lot more. Our big EOS mirrorless guide starts on page 28. Also inside this issue, we reveal what we know so far about Canon’s new…

One of the standout features shared by the EOS R5 and R6 is the new Dual Pixel CMOS AF II autofocus system. It’s a huge leap forward, and uses the data processing power of the DIGIC X processor and a Deep Learning algorithm to be more agile and accurate during tracking. The R5 and R6 are basically powerful computers with a hole at the front… Deep Learning is similar to AI, in that the camera teaches itself how to differentiate the human form in a scene by analyzing a massive library of reference images. Say you’re shooting a skier with a helmet and goggles on, or a motorcycle rider wearing a helmet. The camera will detect the human shape and knows that it should be focusing on the person’s head,…

As well as capturing fast subjects more easily and with better image quality, there’s also a host of technology inside EOS R cameras that can enable you to be more creative too. Take focus bracketing, for example, which is available on the high-end EOS R5 and R6 cameras, and the entry-level EOS RP, but not on the EOS R. This technology allows you to automatically record a sequence of pictures that can be stacked together in software to extend the depth of field. It’s designed for macro and close-up photography, where depth of field is typically very shallow, even when using smaller aperture settings. You tell the camera how many shots you want to take and it will automatically record the sequence, changing the focus distance for each shot to…

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THE MISSION Shoot portraits at sunset with a flash Time needed One hour Skill level Intermediate Kit needed • Flash • Wireless trigger • Softbox • Light stand The magic hour has long been known as the perfect time of day to capture gorgeous landscape photos, but it’s being increasingly used by portrait photographers too. As the sun goes down the vibrant colours can create a stunning backdrop for your portraits. And even if the sky doesn’t erupt into colour, it’s still a great time to head out for dramatic clouds and portraits. The key technical challenge that you have to overcome is the strong backlighting you get when shooting towards the setting sun. This makes it very tricky to get a balanced exposure, because the subject’s front will be…

01 TARGET COLOURS The Colour Mixer panel in Lightroom and ACR is useful for targeting and enhancing different colour ranges. Go to the panel, click the Saturation tab then drag left or right over colours in the image to change the saturation of the colours. It’s useful for boosting oranges and yellows in sunsets. 02 SELECT THE SKY You can boost the colours selectively in the sky using an Adjustment Layer. First go to Select>Sky. Then click the Adjustment Layer icon in the Layers panel and choose your adjustment – try Hue/Saturation to boost the colour intensity, or Curves to add contrast to the sky. 03 USE CHANNEL MIXER Here’s a quick tip for boosting sunset colours. Add a Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer. Set Output Channel: Red then set Red…

Making its debut 18 years ago, the EF-S mount is a variation on the full-fat EF mount. It’s basically identical to the original design, with the same diameter, the same flange focal distance and the same number of electrical contacts. The main difference is in the design of the lenses. EF-S lenses project an image that only fills the dimensions of an APS-C sensor, rather than a full-frame. When it’s attached to the camera, the rear of an EF-S lens also sits closer to the sensor than it does with an EF lens (the’S’ in EF-S stands for ‘Short back focus’). This is why EF-S lenses cannot be attached to a full-frame camera with the EF mount, as despite the mounting rings being the same size, the back of the…

A REMOTE CONTROL AND LIVE VIEW DISPLAY YOU CAN HOLD With a Wi-Fi connected camera, the app is a handy tool, especially when the camera screen is hard to see. Great for DSLRs like EOS 7D Mark II and EOS 5D Mark IV without movable LCD screens. Images transferred to your mobile are ready to share to social media and by email if need be. 01 CONNECT YOUR CAMERA AND MOBILE Download and install the free Canon Camera Connect app (see far right), then start the connection setup from your camera menu. There are several steps that follow and require confirmation on mobile and camera screens. Once setup, it’s simple to reconnect using a previous setup. Cameras can usually store multiple setups, so that you can switch from one device…

After months of rumours, the Canon RF 100mm F2.8L Macro IS USM has finally been announced – and Canon claims that it’s the ‘world first’ autofocusing macro lens with 1.4x magnification. On top of that, the Canon RF 100mm F2.8L Macro IS USM has a dedicated SA control ring. We had previously speculated that this is a soft focus control ring, and indeed it is – the Spherical Aberration control enables photographers to “vary the look of the background and foreground bokeh, while allowing them to create a soft-focus effect on the subject.” While the focal length and aperture are the same as the Canon’s popular DSLR macro lens, the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, the new RF version has some very welcome new tricks… On top of…

This veteran Canon lens is still a firm favourite, not least because it’s reasonably compact and lightweight, ideal for popping in a spare corner of a gadget bag. Better still, it only costs a small fraction of Canon’s ‘faster’ 85mm lenses and is more lightweight, at just 425g. Naturally, downsizing and cheaper manufacturing costs are mostly due to the narrower aperture rating of f/1.8. Originally launched nearly 30 years ago for 35mm film SLRs, the lens has stood the test of time and is equally viable for digital bodies. The optical path is simple, based on nine elements in seven groups, but includes Super Spectra coatings to reduce ghosting and flare. The ring-type ultrasonic AF system is fast, whisper-quiet and has the usual full-time manual override with a purely mechanical…

There’s very little distortion to worry about in any of the lenses on test, and some produce practically none at all. The Sigma 85mm is virtually a distortion-free lens, and the Canon RF 85mm F1.2 comes very close. The Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 gives very slight barrel distortion. The Canon EF 85mm f/1.2 and Canon RF 85mm F2 lenses score the worst, for barrel and pincushion respectively. Even with these two, however, the effect is minimal and will generally go unnoticed when it comes to day-to-day shooting.…

This is a big lens… especially when coupled to a slimline EOS R-series. It’s also costly. The highly complex optical path includes aspherical and UD (Ultra-low Dispersion) elements, the same Air Sphere Coating that’s featured in the latest EF 85mm f/1.4 lens, plus BR (Blue spectrum Refractive) optics. The overall aim is to maximize wide-aperture sharpness and contrast, while keeping lateral and longitudinal chromatic aberrations, ghosting, flare and distortion to a minimum. Build quality is a step up from Canon’s EF f/1.2 lens, with a sturdier overall feel and the addition of weather-seals and fluorine coatings on the front and rear elements. The ring-type ultrasonic AF system is much faster than in the EF f/1.2 lens, but again has an electronically coupled manual focus ring that operates with smooth precision.…

The latest EOS R5 and R6 cameras have classleading face-detection and eye-detection AF systems, so it would be a shame not to make the most of them. Or would it? This fully manual lens from Samyang has no AF at all and no internal electronics, so the lens can’t communicate with the host body in any way. You can therefore only shoot effectively in fully manual or aperture-priority modes. And you can’t adjust the aperture from the camera, instead needing to turn the aperture control ring on the lens itself. The aperture value isn’t shown in the camera’s info display, nor recorded in EXIF info. While the feature-set might sound like a dead loss, the reality is something different. The viewfinders of DSLRs are notoriously poor for manual focusing, but…

Tamron markets its 35-150mm f/2.8-4 Di VC OSD as a ‘portrait zoom lens’. It’s designed to deliver a convenient focal length for full-length portraits or group shots at its shortest zoom setting, classic half-length or head-and-shoulders focal lengths at mid-zoom settings, and stretches all the way to 150mm for tight head shots. It’s a neat idea and the lens delivers on the versatility front, enabling you to react quickly to different portrait photo opportunities at the likes of weddings and events. However, compared with all of the prime lenses in our test group, the widest available apertures are quite narrow. Even so, sharpness and contrast are good, and bokeh can be pleasantly smooth.…

DSLR CAMERAS PRICES QUOTED ARE BODY-ONLY UNLESS STATED ENTRY-LEVEL CANON EOS 4000D TESTED IN ISSUE 140 PRICE: £300/$N/A CANON has stripped everything down to its bare essentials for the 4000D, and it’s a great if basic DSLR for beginners, and at only £300 (body), it’s the cheapest new EOS DSLR. Sadly, it’s let down by a cheap kit lens, that’s tough to tolerate, so we suggest buying the better IS lens. Sensor 18Mp APS-C CMOS Viewfinder Pentamirror, 0.8x, 95% ISO 100-6400 (12,800 exp) AF 9-point (1 cross-type) LCD 2.7-in, 230k-dot Max burst (buffer) 3fps Memory card SD/SDHC/SDXC CANON EOS 2000D (REBEL T7) TESTED IN ISSUE 149 PRICE with 18-55mm kit lens: £329/$400 THE 2000D is a better-spec Canon camera than the 4000D, but comes with a step up at its…

CANON PRO NAME: LAURA GALBRAITH CAMERA: CANON EOS R5 LAURA WAS a teacher of IT and Mathematics, but two years ago decided to pursue her passion and become a full-time photographer. She now runs a successful pet photography and workshop business. She’s had success too, winning the Guild of Photographers Bird Image of the Year title in 2019 and Nature and Wildlife Image of the Year in 2020. We met up with her at her home studio to help Yvette take some top pet pictures. www.lauragalbraithphotography.co.uk APPRENTICE NAME: YVETTE SMITH CAMERA: CANON EOS 6D Mark II NOW RETIRED, Yvette loves nothing more than photographing animals with her Canon EOS 6D Mark II and EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens in her spare time. She’s confident photographing animals outside, but…

Unlike EOS DSLRs, EOS R cameras don’t have a mirror inside to bounce the image up to an optical viewfinder. Instead, they have an electronic viewfinder that’s essentially a smaller version of the camera’s rear display, and this can show the Live View feed from the sensor or the camera menus, just like the main screen. There are a number of advantages to this design, and couple of potential drawbacks. The big bonus is that you can see the subject or scene as the camera sees it. By that, we mean with image processing settings such as white balance and Picture Style applied. Of course, if you shoot Raw files then these settings aren’t applied to the image that’s saved to the memory card. Even so, there’s a real benefit…

01 SUBJECT DETECTION You don’t have to set the Animals option as the priority, but it can lead to more reliable results. Even with this option selected, the camera will also detect people, it’s just that it prioritizes the focus on any creatures that it identifies. 02 EYE DETECTION To enable Eye Detection, the AF method must be set to Face+Tracking. A white AF point will then be displayed around the detected subject’s eye and will be tracked in the frame. You can also tap the screen to choose an eye to focus on. 03 END RESULT With the useful Eye Detection activated, the camera picked out this eagle’s eye without any hesitation at all. If the camera can’t detect an eye, it will focus on the head, or the…

01 VIDEO MODE Although you can start recording video at any point by hitting the movie shooting button, you don’t get as many menu options to tinker with compared to when you set and EOS R camera to its dedicated movie mode. 02 PRO FEATURES The EOS R5 and EOS R6 in particular come loaded with pro-level film-making options, such as Canon Log, ‘true’ HDR video recording in PQ and a zebra stripes overlay to show areas that are too bright in frame. 03 APERTURE CONTROL To avoid big jumps in brightness when you change the aperture while recording, you can set it to finer 1/8-stop increments. It only works with RF lenses, and when the camera is set to ‘Manual manual exp.’ 04 WIRED FOR SOUND Microphone and headphone…

Fanad Lighthouse, Donegal, Northern Ireland. 20:00pm. April 2013 Lens Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM Exposure 1/30 sec, f/5.6, ISO800 Ever since the very early days of my landscape photography adventures I have been a self-confessed lighthouse junkie. It is true to say some of my efforts photographing cold Atlantic storms have got me in hot water, there's one especially memorable experience where I clambered down to the water's edge at Trevose in a force 7 wind, drenched in seaspray, and found myself unable to climb the rocks back out. I’ll call it ‘developing a healthy fear of death’, rather than reckless abandon. Alongside Brittany, the United Kingdom and Ireland has some truly epic lighthouse locations, but the lighthouses themselves do vary. From stubby inland pepper pots to huge monoliths situated on…

FLASHES USUALLY have a white balance around 5000-6000 kelvin, which is similar to the colour of daylight at noon. This makes them useful for shooting outdoors during the day, but at sunset the colour of the light is around 3000 kelvin – much warmer. This discrepancy between the flash and the ambient light can make the subject look too cool. We can fix this by warming the flash. One option is to fix a Colour Temperature Orange (or CTO) gel over the flash bulb. Or, some softboxes like the Godox modifier here allow you to fit a gold reflector inside the casing. Light takes on the colour of any surface it bounces off, so this gold disc can add a touch of warmth to the scene.…

01 CUT OUT THE SUBJECT Open the portrait then go to Select>Subject. Once selected, click the Add Mask icon in the Layers panel. Next, click the Create Adjustment Layer icon. Choose Color Lookup. Click the square ‘clip to layer’ icon in the properties, then choose the ‘Edgy Amber’ LUT. 02 BLEND FIREWORKS Make a new layer, drag to the bottom of the stack and fill with black. Open image fireworks-2585843 (from pixabay.com). Drag and drop it in to your image, then drag it just above the black layer at the bottom. Hit Cmd/Ctrl+T if you need to resize the layer to fit. 03 ADD MORE IMAGES Download image art-3860177. Drag and drop it in to the portrait image and resize, then go to the Layers panel and change the blend…

Photo essays from PhotoPlus readers and professional photographers alike JOIN IN THE FUN! One of the great things about photography is being able to share your view of the world. This month, perfect family/pet portraits, and using flowers to convey the power and fragility of women. We want your photos and stories! For your chance to show off your images in PhotoPlus, send three to five high-resolution JPEGs, along with a brief synopsis – explain why you took the shots, the location, whether they’re part of an ongoing project or a one-off shoot, and anything else unusual or interesting. Also include Canon DSLR, lens and exposure details. Email photoplus@futurenet.com Online www.facebook.com/photoplusmag www.twitter.com/photoplusmag Post PhotoPlus: The Canon Mag Future, The Ambury Bath BA1 1UA, UK PROJECT INFO NAME: Alexander Sviridov LOCATION:…

Get to know Canon lens mounts Not all EF lenses fit on all Canon cameras. Here’s the EOS lens ecosystem low-down… If you’ve moved to Canon EOS camera from a different system, or you’ve upgraded to your first interchangeable lens camera, the range of lens mounts available can be a little confusing. There are four different options in the Canon EOS line – two for cameras with full-frame sensors (EF and RF) and two for cameras with smaller APS-C sensors (EF-S and EF-M). While you can attach some lenses designed for one mount onto another – EF lenses work on EF-S bodies, for example – you’ll need an adaptor to be able to do this with others. And then there are some lenses that just aren’t compatible with other cameras…

The EF-M mount was designed for Canon’s first mirrorless body, 2012’s EOS M. Like EF-S lenses, EF-M lenses produce an image that matches the dimensions of an APS-C sensor. But because there’s no mirror to take account of in the EOS-M bodies, the flange distance doesn’t have to be as big. So, while there’s a gap of 44mm between the sensor and the mounting ring in an EOS DLSR, it has been reduced to a mere 18mm in the EF-M mount. That’s why the EOS M range has smaller, lighter, hobbit-friendly cameras and lenses compared with the rest of the EOS line-up. The native lens support isn’t as wide as with cameras that use the EF, EF-S and RF mounts. There are just five EF-M zooms and three EF-M prime…

WHEN YOU attach an EF-S lens to an EOS R camera using an adapter, the camera will automatically crop the image to the capture a 3:2 area in the centre of the sensor. This magnifies the image by approximately 1.6x so that the image you see matches the APS-sized image projected by the lens. When you attach a full-frame EF lens via the adapter (or you’re using an RF lens), you capture images at the full-size of the sensor. But you can also choose to shoot with the same 1.6x crop if you need a little extra magnification of the subject. You’ll find this option under ‘Cropping/aspect ratio’ in the red Shooting menu. You obviously lose some image resolution when doing this, but it can be worth trying when you’re…

The latest lenses feature enhanced coatings to reduce flare and ghosting, am I impacting this by using a UV filter? Alan Slater, Reading BRIAN SAYS… Every time light passes through a layer of glass it has an impact on the light. Your filter becomes a new element in the optical path of your lens, that wasn’t part of the design created by the manufacturer. So as a protection, I generally use a lens hood instead of a filter. Often the cost of a replacement front element on a lens is similar to a top quality filter. The image sensor in your camera has a UV blocking filter as part of its design so there’s little point in adding another UV blocking filter. Lastly some wide-angle lenses have writing on the…

Blue Tit ROGER BUTLER, EAST SUSSEX SAYS… I’ve taken many shots of different birds on our feeder, using the Canon Camera Connect app to remotely trigger my tripod mounted 5D Mark IV. But when I saw that there were a pair of blue tits building a nest in our kitchen wall, I wanted to try and capture one with some nesting material. Thanks to Canon’s Spring lens offer, I hired an EF 100-400mm L lens. Shooting handheld as I wasn’t sure exactly where they’d land, this allowed me to take the shot further back than I would normally and through our French doors. For post, all I’ve done is cropped the shot. BRIAN SAYS… Well that’s a brilliant sharp shot of a blue tit with nesting material in its beak,…

Canon has also revealed a pair of professionalgrade, high-performance (and high-price) super telephoto lenses: the Canon RF 400mm F2.8L IS USM and Canon RF 600mm F4L IS USM. Designed for professional sports, wildlife and news photographers, the announcement of the Canon RF 400mm F2.8L IS USM and Canon RF 600mm F4L IS USM coincides with the announcement of the new Canon EOS R3 – the pro mirrorless full-frame body with 30fps continuous shooting and eye-controlled AF (see page 80). The optical construction of the two RF lenses is largely indistinguishable from their DSLR counterparts, the Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS III USM and Canon EF 600mm f/4L III USM – two of the best Canon lenses for top-tier telephoto shooting. However, they make use of the cutting-edge RF mount to…

The Canon EOS M50 Mk II is a curious camera. Its 24.1Mp image sensor, Digic 8 processor, 2.36 million-dot EVF and 3-inch touchscreen all seem very familiar. That’s because, both internally and externally, it’s virtually identical to the original EOS M50. The same hardware, same ergonomics, same APS-C sensor, same almost-everything. As you’re getting an identical camera to the M50 that means you get the same capable 24.1Mp APS-C image sensor, with a sensitivity of ISO100-25,600 and a max burst shooting speed of 10fps. This renders sharp and appealing still images, and thanks to Canon’s spectacular Dual Pixel CMOS AF you can expect robust autofocus performance to get your shots sharp. However, the market that the EOS M50 Mark II is really making a play for is vlogging and video…

Afavourite of the most demanding professional portrait photographers. This lens is ideal if you want to literally focus all of the attention on the eye, thanks to its incredibly tight depth of field. Naturally, to let in more light and enable the ultra-fast f/1.2 aperture rating, the front group of elements need to have a wide diameter. Since these large and weighty elements also move forwards and backwards for focusing, autofocus is pretty sluggish. Even so, autofocus speed is improved in this Mark II edition, compared with the original lens. Unusually for a ring-type ultrasonic AF system, the manual focus ring is coupled electronically rather than mechanically. The focus ring’s electronic encoder enables greater precision for manual focusing than in the vast majority of autofocus lenses. Although build quality is…

Compared with the RF 85mm f/1.2 lens, this one is much smaller, less than half the weight and costs less than a quarter of the price. Sure, it’s 1.33 f-stops slower than the f/1.2 lens, and a third of a stop slower than the older EF 85mm f/1.8 lens on test, but it can still deliver an attractively tight depth of field for portraiture. Handheld photography in low-lighting conditions benefits from a 5-stop hybrid image stabilizer, which becomes even more effective when combined with the in-body stabilizers of EOS R5 and R6 cameras. Other useful extras include a customizable control ring and an AF range limiter that can lock out the range either side of 0.5m. In fact, that’s particularly useful, as the lens can focus much closer than any…

Two flavours are served up by fast primes Our lab scores reveal the extent of lateral chromatic aberration, which shows up as coloured lines around high-contrast edges towards the corners of the frame. It can be visible, for example, around dark tree branches and leaves against a bright sky. Longitudinal chromatic aberration, also known as ‘axial CA’ or bokeh fringing, occurs mostly at very wide apertures, and can be seen around the borders between in-focus areas and defocused surroundings.…

THE NO.1 MAGAZINE F OR CANON USERS! FREE VIDEOS! In the next Canon Skills chapter… ■ Light-painting scenes ■ New landscapes photo skills series ■ Prism portrait images ■ New image-editing guides in Lightroom, Photoshop CC and Affinity Photo PLUS ALL THIS… ■ Canon EOS techniques: 21 tricks for taking better photos today ■ Canon School: Part 2 of a new series ■ Super Test: Eight of the greatest all-day versatile lenses for Canon ■ Pro interview: Clement Kiragu, Kenyan wildlife photographer ISSUE 180 ON SALE 22 JUNE 2021 * Content subject to change…

01 WINNER NEON BY DOMINIC BEAVEN Dominic’s captured a fantastic portrait full of colour. His wide aperture of f/1.6, with an EF 50mm lens on his 5D Mark III, has done a great job of turning the background lights into beautiful bokeh circles, while the neon sign adds extra vibrance to his portrait in the foreground and creates an eye-catching reflection in her glasses too. He tells us: “I took this picture on a shoot at night around Soho in London and used a combination of the light from the neon tubes and an LCD panel to light the subject’s face.” Lens Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM Exposure 1/100 sec, f/1.6, ISO250 All the images in this gallery were entrants to the PhotoPlus ‘Wide Aperture Imagery’ competition hosted on Photocrowd…

01 EYE SENSOR You can set an EOS R system camera to automatically switch from the rear display to the viewfinder when you look through it, or you can manually activate them instead. The EOS R5 and EOS R6 also allow you to give priority to the rear screen when it’s swung out. 02 DISPLAY FORMAT As well as being able to customize the amount of info that’s on display, the viewfinder brightness, colour balance and more, you can change the size of the display too – great for those who wear glasses and have trouble seeing into the corners of the frame. 03 TOUCH & DRAG AF When shooting with the viewfinder, you can use the rear display as a touch panel for selecting and moving the AF point.…

It isn’t just the speed, quality and features of the latest EOS R bodies that can help to improve your photography – the innovations introduced in the RF lens range can make a real difference too. Canon has taken two approaches with the RF lens range: either maintaining the same level of quality as the equivalent EF lens, but packing more features in, or producing a lens that just hasn’t been possible before. Take the Canon RF 15-35mm F2.8L IS USM for example. It’s almost identical in size to the EF 16-35mm f/2.8L III USM, if 50 grams heavier. But it goes 1mm wider, packs a 5-stop Image Stabilizer and has a Lens Control Ring that can be customized with various camera settings for quick adjustments on the fly. While…

01 MAKE YOUR BASIC ADJUSTMENTS After importing your photo, navigate to the Basic panel in the Develop module. Use the sliders to create the right exposure and white balance for the foreground. Don’t worry if your sky is overexposed, as we’ll fix this with the Adjustment Brush tool later. 02 CHOOSE THE ADJUSTMENT BRUSH TOOL Press ‘K’, or choose the Adjustment Brush tool. Go to the Brush panel and use the sliders to control the tool. The Size and Feather sliders will affect how large the brush is and how soft the edges are. The Flow and Density sliders control the opacity of the brush. 03 MAKE A ROUGH SELECTION If you have a simple horizon (such as ours), set the Feather slider to around 25%. and paint over the…

THE MISSION Use the Pixelate filter, blend modes and simple selections to create a ‘corrupted’ image Time needed 30 minutes Skill level Intermediate Kit needed Affinity Photo DOWNLOAD PROJECT FILES TO YOUR COMPUTER FROM: http://downloads.photoplusmag.com/pp179.zip Acorrupted photo file will usually send us photographers into a cold sweat, but as a visual effect it can result in a striking photograph. Here we’ll show you how to get the pixelated glitch look in Affinity Photo using a range of simple tools. We’ll begin by making two copies of our layer, then we’ll apply the Pixelate filter to each layer in varying amounts. This handy filter effect breaks our image up into a series of coloured blocks, each an average of the segment of image underneath. By utilizing blend modes we can combine…

PROJECT INFO NAME: Guia Besana LOCATION: Barcelona, Spain MISSION: Capture strength and power in women using flowers as props KIT: Canon EOS R & Canon RF 50mm F1.2L USM www.guiabesana.com I started out in photojournalism, however I made the move from fact to fiction after the birth of my daughter in 2007, and the internal conflict I found myself facing as a new parent with professional ambitions. My project Rummage of Flowers was shot with the EOS R and the Canon RF 50mm F1.2L USM lens. I wanted to play with themes of fragility, power, and indecision. When a woman overcomes fragility, that’s when she becomes powerful. Women can be strong and unsure of what they want. I wanted to try to capture that in my models. I don’t pick…

Our Canon expert Brian explains how to get the most out of the useful Canon Camera Connect mobile app EOS cameras with Wi-Fi work with the free to download Canon Camera Connect app to provide remote control from your mobile, enable transfer of images and, for some cameras, GPS info. For cameras without a movable LCD screen your mobile becomes that screen simplifying low and high angle shots. Download the free app from the Google or Apple app stores by searching for Canon Camera Connect app, or display a QR code on your camera LCD that you scan to find the app. There’s two modes of operation, the camera creates a network hotspot to connect your mobile to, or you can use an existing Wi-Fi network. Bluetooth equipped cameras simplify Wi-Fi…

Ask Brian! Confused with your Canon DSLR? Email EOSSOS@futurenet.com Autofocus advancement, Eye AF particularly, was heralded as a big step forward for the EOS R5 and R6, but how effective is this next great thing in practice? I’ve extensively used both cameras since introduction, and switched to them as my main camera, selling both my EOS 5D Mark IV and EOS R. For people pictures, it’s rare that the camera can’t find the eye, but it does need to have sight of both eyes, nose and a mouth to recognise a face, and find the eye. It’s vital to make sure you select the correct priority subject, people, animals or maybe none. I’ve experienced the camera tracking a sheep walking through the background of a shoot with a person, the…

Canon has announced the development of the EOS R3 – a professional camera aimed at pro and advanced amateur sports, wildlife and news photographers that boasts 30fps continuous shooting, a brand new stacked backside illuminated (BSI) image sensor, “next generation Dual Pixel CMOS AF” and Eye Control Function autofocus. The full-frame Canon EOS R3 will sit between the EOS R5 and future flagship EOS R camera yet to be named (but likely to be the R1). And, looking at its specs so far, it will take aim at the new Sony A1 – at least in the all-important speed stakes, which are the defining feature of the best cameras for sports photography. The headline feature, which matches the A1, is the 30fps burst shooting with full AF/AE tracking and minimal…

01 New Canon MegaTank printers Big print quality, small cost per print From £199/$299 www.canon.co.uk THE PIXMA G650 and G550 are the first MegaTank models to feature six ink tanks, with the standard cyan, magenta, yellow and black tanks supplemented by additional grey and red ink tanks. These are said to provide a “wider colour range, creating deeper shaded areas and richer colours for vibrant photos with strong contrast.” But the big attraction with Canon’s MegaTank printers is their low cost of printing. Both the G550 and 650 are rated to print around 3800 4x6 photos from a single set of ink bottles. 02 Apple iPad Pro 2021 As powerful as it is sleek From £749/$799 www.apple.com THE NEW 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pros are the first to feature Apple’s…

There’s usually no problem in getting suitably fast shutter speeds for portraiture when shooting with an f/1.4 lens. But if you’re at an event like a wedding, and shooting portraits in the evening or indoors under ambient lighting, exposures can become awkwardly slow. This Canon lens comes to the rescue as, unusually for an EF f/1.4 lens for DSLRs, it features an image stabilizer. Naturally, you could use a tripod but stabilization gives you more freedom to move around and play the angles, shooting handheld without setup adjustments interrupting the creative flow. Build quality is pretty epic, incorporating a shockabsorbing barrel, weatherseals and fluorine coatings on the front and rear elements. The ability to shoot portraits in the rain might seem superfluous but wedding and event photographers would disagree. Compared…

The ‘bokeh’, isn’t just about the tightness of the DoF. The design of the lens and the quality of its optical elements are critical in delivering a smooth nature to background blur. A well-rounded diaphragm helps retain the quality of bokeh when stopping down a little. Even so, depth of field is a critical component. This sequence of shots shows how it lengthens with narrowing apertures.…

Samyang and Rokinon lenses are best known as inexpensive manual affairs, but the company also makes premium MF and AF lenses. When it comes to 85mm primes, there are AF choices for DSLRs and mirrorless EOS R-series cameras. First up, there’s the AF 85mm F1.4 EF for DSLRs, priced at £539/$499. It’s based on nine elements that include one hybrid aspherical element and Ultra Multi Coating, along with a DLSM (Dual Linear Sonic Motor) AF system. The AF 85mm F1.4 RF for mirrorless cameras is £599/$629 and adds ED (Extra-low Dispersion) and HF (High Refractive index) glass. Performance and image quality are good, making them good value.…

Longer and heavier even than Canon’s RF 85mm f/1.2 lens, this Sigma measures 95x126mm and tips the scales at 1130g. It’s enormous for an 85mm f/1.4 lens but, typical of Sigma’s Art line-up, the design is focused on image quality without any concessions to reducing size and weight. Despite not having an optical image stabilizer, the optical path is long and complex, based on 14 elements. These include an aspherical element at the rear and two SLD (Special Low Dispersion) elements, placed at the centre and towards the front. Unlike some of the Sigma Art-line lenses, this one has weather-seals. Ring-type ultrasonic AF comes with the usual full-time manual override. The focus ring is mechanically coupled, but nevertheless works smoothly and with precision. Like most of Sigma’s other ‘Global Vision’…

Despite its upsized 105mm focal length, this Sigma Art lens retains a fast f/1.4 aperture rating. The net result is a big, heavyweight build that tips the scales at 1645g. To put that into perspective, the Sigma is about the same weight as most 70-200mm f/2.8 telephoto zooms, and comes with a tripod mounting ring. It’s a good one as well, with a foot that slots directly into an industry-standard Arca-Swiss mounting socket. The lens also has a complex optical path based on 17 elements. These include three top-performance FLD (‘Fluorite’ Low Dispersion) elements, two SLD (Special Low Dispersion) elements, and an aspherical element. Sigma’s usual Super Multi-layer Coating is there to minimize ghosting and flare, and a fluorine coating is applied to the front element, to repel moisture and…

For performance, handling and image quality, the Canon RF 85mm F1.2L USM is the best portrait lens on the market for Canons. The only sticking point is the price. The next best thing as a native RF lens for EOS R-series cameras is the Canon RF 85mm F2 Macro IS STM, which is compact and versatile. For a fully manual lens, the Samyang MF 85mm f/1.4 RF is a great choice. In the DSLR camp, our favourite portrait lens is the Canon EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM. All-round performance and image quality are fabulous, and it boasts the benefit of image stabilization. Under dull lighting conditions, the stabilizer can make all the difference between consistently sharp handheld shots and a missed opportunity.…

Letter of the Month I’m looking to upgrade my camera and lenses to the R6 and RF system after reading the reviews in the mag. I’m relatively new to photography and I’ve found a site called tecobuy selling Canon products really cheap, so much so I’m actually thinking of buying the R5 instead of the R6, as it’s that cheap. But I’ve heard of some dodgy websites abroad that sell replica kit at a fraction of the price of the real deal. Should I stay clear? It seems legit, but when selling an R5 for under £3000 I’m slightly suspicious. If so, could you point me to a reputable site please. Neil Robinson, Liverpool Well done for checking with us, you’re right to be wary of some overseas sites selling…