Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2021 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

I’ve never met a photographer who doesn’t get excited when Autumn (or Fall, to our American friends) finally appears, revealing its vibrant and colourful changes in nature, simply begging to be captured with your Canon camera. From saturated landscapes and wonderful wildlife, to fantastic family portraits outdoors and colourful close-ups, we’ll help you learn to improve your skills to suit the photographic genres that float your boat. The 10 top tips and more start from page 28. Also inside, our Apprentice has a staycation on Anglesey with Canon pro photographer Drew Buckley, who teaches them how to take stunning holiday photos of the coast of North Wales, see page 8. In our inspirational Canon Skills section, from page 45, we have more great step-by-step photo projects; get creative with shutter…

APPRENTICE NAME: ANDY FULLMAN CAMERA: CANON EOS 5D Mk III ANDY IS a 58-year-old civil servant who lives in Conwy, with the stunning North Wales coast on his doorstep. He loves landscape photography and has written to us asking if we can help him get the most out of his recently acquired Canon EOS 5D Mark III full-frame camera. We paired him up with leading landscape Canon pro Drew Buckley to shoot some of the best photo hotspots in the popular holiday destination of Anglesey in North Wales. CANON PRO NAME: DREW BUCKLEY CAMERA: CANON EOS R5 DREW IS a professional photographer based in Pembrokeshire, Wales. Making a living from photography, Drew happily turns his hand to all sorts of genres with landscapes, wildlife and weddings to name a few.…

Autumn can come and go in the blink of an eye, so it pays to be prepared with ideas and inspiration for when the trees turn golden and your breath starts to mist the air. This is the season that has inspired artists and poets for centuries – and with the help of your Canon camera, you can squeeze every warm hue, every texture and more than a modicum of mellow fruitfulness from Autumn’s constantly changing conditions. From colourful landscapes to stunning shots of local wildlife, it’s a truly great time of year to flex your photography muscles. As the days get shorter, the best light for shooting, both early and late in the day, is at a more civilized hour. This makes it an ideal time to capture some…

BLUR THE BACKDROP When capturing wildlife there are times when the subject is moving too swiftly to consider the background, so you might end up with backdrops that look a little cluttered or display distracting details. If this happens then consider applying a touch of blur in Photoshop to smooth out the details. This is easily done with the Motion Blur filter (Filter> Blur >Motion Blur). Simply duplicate the image layer, apply the filter then add a layer mask and paint with black to hide the filter effect over the animal, so that the original layer shows through below. 01 GET DOWN LOW A low camera angle can be great here, as it allows you to get down to eye level with the birds on the water. This makes it…

01 FILTERS CAN BE STACKED Filters can be stacked, whether in a square filter holder, or if they’re the circular screw-in types. It pays to invest in good quality filters, as putting multiple sheets of cheap glass in front of your lens is sure to degrade image quality. We stack ND filters with graduated ND filters for landscapes. 02 WHITE TEXT CAN CAUSE FLARE It’s possible that the white text on the front of your lens could reflect into attached filters, causing flare when facing towards the sun. If you don’t want to take any chances you can write over the text with a felt tip pen to stop this happening, but be careful not to mark the front element. 03 TURN IMAGE STABILISATION OFF While Canon’s Image Stabilisation (IS)…

01 OPEN INTO CAMERA RAW Navigate to the image in Adobe Bridge, right-click it and ‘Open in Camera Raw’ (this works for JPEGs too). Alternatively, if you’re working on an image in Photoshop you can go to Filter>Camera Raw Filter. You’ll also find an identical Color Grading panel in Lightroom’s Develop Module. Click the B&W button. 02 TINT THE SHADOWS Go to the Color Grading panel. Three colour wheels let you tint midtones, shadows and highlights. The icons at the top left let you enlarge each wheel and give further options. It’s usually best to start with shadows, so click on the Shadow wheel. Drag the point around the wheel to choose a colour for the shadows. 03 FINE-TUNE THE SATURATION After dragging the point, it becomes a bit ‘sticky.’…

TOM IS an advertising and editorial photographer from Leeds, UK. His journey into photography started in the music industry, shooting regular gigs for NME and Kerrang! Magazine and working with bands like The Stone Roses and Elbow. Now shooting a variety of commercial commissions and personal projects his work is distinctly recognizable for its unique, colourful take on portraiture and reportage. Tom has been commissioned extensively by Canon and travelled all around the world creating imagery for them, as well as a range of other major brand clients and agencies. How did you start your photographic journey? When I was little I would collect music and skateboarding magazines and loved all the pictures in them, everything I liked was always very visual. I got the chance to try developing my own…

I am a huge fan of seascapes and shooting at the coast. For me, nothing beats being up at sunrise at the coast and, as a landscape photographer, I’m forever checking the weather and tides as photography is never far from my mind. I love the vista images and the intimate shots, but as my passion is seascapes, being based in Nottinghamshire can sometimes make things difficult with its location not being right next to the sea… But I never let it bother me, because if you want something enough you’ll do whatever it takes to make it happen. Being heavily into seascapes I never leave home when heading to a shoot without a good set of filters. I use LEE 0.6 and 0.9 soft graduated neutral density filters to darken…

There are some situations that are particularly suited to the considered and more consistent approach that comes from using Manual, and other times when it’s essential to the outcome. Flash photography is one area where it often helps. While you’re able to take terrific flash shots using, say, Aperture Priority or Program, working in Manual gives you full control over how the ambient light is captured. Setting the flash sync speed on the camera – the fastest shutter speed that can be used with a normal flash exposure, which is usually 1/200 sec – can be useful when you want to minimize ambient light and make the flash exposure stand out. Shooting the source images for a panoramic photo – or any image that requires stitching or blending in software…

EVEN THOUGH you can adjust all three exposure controls to change the brightness of a picture in Manual mode, you can also set the ISO to Auto. This allows you to preset the aperture and shutter speed to your preferred combo of settings, and leave it up to the camera to adjust the ISO in order to maintain the same exposure as the light level changes. It will continue to do this as long as the light levels don’t get very dark or very bright. This means that you won’t be able to increase or decrease the exposure level by changing the aperture or shutter speed, as the camera will automatically alter the ISO. To get around this, you can activate Exposure Compensation when Auto ISO is on. Check your…

PHOTO PAPERS fall into two main categories. The first includes glossy, semi-gloss and lustre papers, which have a protective, shiny top layer. These are most ideal for use with photo printers that use dye-based inks to generate photo output. The water-based ink is fully absorbed beneath the top layer, enabling excellent uniformity with an entirely smooth finish With matte photo papers. There’s also ‘fine-art’ media, available from printer manufacturers like Canon and Epson. Standard photo papers tend to have a plasticky feel and can be lacking in character, fine-art papers are often based on cotton ‘rag’ and other premium fibres, and are created to the highest standards with specialist manufacturing processes. Let’s take a closer look at the options… Canon Pro Lust LU-101 £16.50/$23.50 (20 sheets) THE DEBATE over whether…

At low-power settings, most flashguns will recycle almost instantly. This means you can fire shot after shot when trying to capture fleeting expressions, or a definitive moment, without worrying about not being ready. As you approach the maximum power setting, recycling will take rather longer and you might need to wait for a few seconds. Here’s how long each of the flashguns on test will keep you waiting, when using fresh NiMH or alkaline batteries.…

PRICES QUOTED ARE BODY-ONLY UNLESS STATED DSLR CAMERAS 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…

Letter of the Month Recently in PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine you asked, ‘which EOS camera do we use and why?’ I bought a Canon EOS 90D for Christmas 2019, and I’m delighted with it, and it is too soon to change. I have read your articles on the EOS R System with great interest. For me, I think Canon have got the pricing completely wrong, and regardless of the quality, it is just too expensive. Great magazine, keep up the good work you do every issue! Norman Hill, Nottingham Thanks for being so candid, Norman. We’ve also been vocal in highlighting both the pros and cons of Canon’s mirrorless EOS R System. There’s no doubting the class-leading tech we’re seeing in the full-frame EOS bodies and ground-breaking RF lenses, but…

Top reasons to subscribe now! ✔ Great savings Subscribe for 12 months and get your 13 issues delivered to your door, just choose between the three options below ✔ Vanguard Range 32 bag The Vanguard Veo Range 32M messenger bag will fit your camera with lens attached, 1-2 lenses, a flash and accessories along with a 13-inch tablet and a travel tripod. Option 1 Annual Digital Subscription £50 • 13 issues of PhotoPlus digital edition for your device • Instant digital access • Available on iOS or Android • Gift not included with Annual Digital Subscription Option 2 Annual Print Subscription £54 • 13 issues of PhotoPlus print edition • Delivery to your door included in the price • Free Vanguard messenger bag worth £70! Option 3 Annual Premium Subscription…

In wildlife photography the desire is usually to capture animals that are pin-sharp, but what if we try a different approach and aim for something more abstract instead? This is a technique we learned from UK-based wildlife photographer Ben Hall (for more inspiration by Ben, see page 28, and check out www.benhallphotography.com). The trick is to lower your shutter speed just enough to blur the movement of the animals, while still retaining areas of relative sharpness and legible shapes. The results can be stunning. Sure, things won’t be tack sharp, but in its place you get a wonderful sense of speed and motion. You could try this technique out on any wildlife, but it’s especially suited to bird photography. Birds are almost always on the move, especially those that love…

01 SHUTTER SPEED CONTROL Typically our shutter speed needs to be around 1/20 to 1/80 sec. The right setting will depend on the speed of the subject, and you’ll need to adapt as you go. If it’s a bird in flight, use a faster speed, if it’s stationary on the water while flapping it’s wings then you can drop the speed. 02 SHOOT IN RAW A perfect exposure can be hard to achieve when the subject is moving around and backdrops are changing. Setting your camera to shoot in Raw gives you a safety net, as Raws hold more tonal info in the highlights and shadows, so you will be more able to rescue exposure mishaps. 03 USE HIGH-SPEED DRIVE There’s an element of luck here in that the motion…

01 TRIPOD A tripod is an essential tool for landscape photography. It allows you take your time to compose, and locks the camera in place, which you need when using ND filters to achieve a long exposure, or line up an ND grad filter perfectly with the horizon. 02 WIDE-ANGLE LENS Many wide-angle lenses have a front filter thread, allowing a filter holder or screw in filter to be attached. Watch out for lenses with a bulbous front element, as they may not have a front filter thread, so a more expensive filter holder could be needed. 03 FILTERS If you’re just getting into filters you could do far worse than get yourself a good set of neutral density filters at different strengths; some hard and soft graduated ND filters,…

GRADUATED NEUTRAL density filters have a certain amount of light blocking power at the top of the filter and fade into clear glass, so the bottom of your frame is unaffected. The transition between light and dark can be hard or soft, but in either case the affected portion of your horizon will be notably different when using full-frame ND grads on an APS-C sensor, making it harder to fine tune the graduated area. Many filter manufacturer’s produce ND grads specifically for full-frame or APS-C camera bodies, so make sure you pick up the right ones for you.…

01 IMPORT YOUR IMAGES To create your HDR, you’ll need at least three images, at least two stops apart, though the more exposures the better. Lightroom will be able to extract the best exposure information from each image and combine it all for the best results. 02 MERGE THE PHOTOS Go to the Develop module and select all of the individual images that you want to combine. Then, go to Photo>Photo Merge >HDR. Depending on the size of your photographs, it might take a little while to load a HDR preview. 03 CHOOSE A DEGHOSTING LEVEL If you had moving elements in your landscape, such as clouds, trees or people walking, you might want to choose a low, medium, or high deghosting level. This will essentially prevent ghostly blurs in…

There are lots of popular retro phone filters, apps and effects that make it very easy to make photos look like an old print. But their popularity means that they often get overused. If you want to craft a refined, original retro effect then you need to tailor it to the image, and this sort of control can only be achieved in proper image editors, like Affinity Photo. In this project we’ll show you how to transform a pristine image into a battered old print with a range of vintage tricks, using our free images (see link to download them below). Old prints will typically become dirty, scratched and creased, and the colours will skew towards green and yellow as the chemicals fade. We can recreate the ravages of time…

Professional photographers reveal their top six tools of the trade they couldn’t shoot without In 2012 circumstances allowed me to escape corporate life, and I followed my dream to travel. So I bought my first Canon DSLR camera and began to document my travel experiences. I later attended some workshops to improve my skills and learned a lot from YouTube and photo magazines, too! I specialize in landscape photography. I feel drawn to the beautiful Arctic as well as to tropical islands. My passion is to photograph seascapes, natural phenomena and unusual geological formations. I’ve fallen in love with night photography – the Aurora Borealis, an eclipse, and even the beautiful Milky Way make for magical photographs. Since my first Canon 450D back in 2012, I’ve been a happy owner…

You’re not left to fly blind when shooting in Manual mode, as the camera will continue to meter the light reflected from the subject and tell you if it thinks the image is exposed correctly or not. On a DSLR, you’ll have limited feedback in the viewfinder; keep an eye on the exposure level indicator. The exposure level mark will move along the scale to show whether the area being metered will be exposed as a mid-tone (in the middle of the scale), or darker or brighter than this ‘standard’ exposure. You can also use the Live View display of a DSLR to see a live histogram and activate exposure simulation, giving you a rough and ready guide to how bright, or dark, the image will look. Mirrorless cameras, such…

THERE ARE two shooting modes that have a lot in common with Manual: Bulb and (on a handful of cameras) Flexible Value (Fv). If you’re shooting exposures longer than 30 seconds in order to blur clouds or record star trails, then you’ll need to use Bulb. This mode is more manual than Manual, as you need to time the duration of the exposure yourself. Some cameras have a ‘B’ option on the mode dial, while on others you need to select Manual and scroll beyond the 30 seconds shutter speed setting. Fv mode is essentially a Manual mode, where you can switch the aperture and/or shutter speed and/or ISO to auto at any point. It’s a really quick way to work, as you can quickly choose to take full control,…

Our Canon expert Brian explains how to update the firmware of your camera to get all the latest and greatest features Firmware is the computer program that controls how your Canon camera operates. Like most other modern devices, updates may be necessary to cameras to ensure they remain secure, work with newer accessories, and to provide additional or revised functionality. Firmware updates are even more important as the Canon EOS cameras, lenses and accessories become more intelligent. Sometimes the addition of a new type of accessory requires changes to the camera to fully support it, other times improvements are delivered that make the camera work better, or correct errors. Firmware is an intrinsic part of the camera, lenses and some accessories created by the manufacturer of the product. In the…

EOS cameras have four different ways to measure the brightness reflected from your subject. All cameras have evaluative, partial, centre-weighted metering, with most adding spot metering too. Evaluative metering is the default, and it might be the only one you need. Evaluative metering has advanced in recent years, making exposure comp less likely for most subjects. Evaluative employs intelligence to locate the main subject, drawing on info from AF, subject, and face detection systems. Spot and partial metering measure the light from a small section of the scene at the centre of the frame. On the latest mirrorless models, or when using Live View mode, you may see a small grey circle overlay to indicate where the metering is reading from. Centre-weighted metering uses a central area, but a bit…

THE CONTENDERS Often referred to as ‘the most available light’, a decent flashgun is an amazingly versatile piece of kit. It’s supremely portable and can make a huge difference to the quality of lighting in almost any scenario, from night-time shots and gloomy interiors, to portraits on a bright summer’s day. Indeed, filling in the shadows under direct sunlight on a sunny summer day is one of the things that flashguns do best. With TTL (Through The Lens) flash metering, dedicated flashguns can team up with your camera to enable correct exposures in all sorts of shooting conditions. The system works by using a brief pulse of light, fired by the flashgun prior to the actual exposure. This is reflected from the subject and passes through the lens, after which…

Direct flash can give a harsh, two-dimensional look. Bouncing the flash off the ceiling softens the effect, as the illumination source effectively becomes much larger, but you can lose detail in shadows. A diffusion dome creates direct and bounced light, for a better balance. Av shooting mode enables slow-sync flash, making more of ambient light, and you can use creative off-camera positioning of the flashgun for more dramatic lighting effects.…

01 WINNER SUNSET AT ABRAHAM LAKE BY YAN GAO Yan’s lovely landscape comes first in our ‘Sunset scenes’ contest with its fantastic depth, texture and contrasting colours in this shot of Abraham Lake by Highway 11 in Alberta, Canada. His wide framing with a 12mm focal length really helps give a great perspective of this frozen landscape. His central composition and icy foreground does a brilliant job at anchoring the bottom half of the frame and leads the eye nicely towards the striking mountains and incredible fiery sunset sky. Lens Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L USM Exposure 25 secs, f/18, ISO100 02 END OF THE WORLD BY KLAJD PAPADHIMITRI Kljad used a long 500mm telephoto lens for this shot paired with a 1.4x teleconverter, making it an even more powerful zoom of 700mm. This…

Lens Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM + 1.4x III Exposure 1/30 sec, f/8, ISO200 Hope Valley, Peak District. 04:30am. September 19 2019 I have been working for Canon UK for a decade as an influential speaker and teacher to inspire Canon photographers to push their creative boundaries with their truly excellent equipment. What better way for Canon users to learn about the latest camera technology than by using new equipment out in the field with some of the best professional help. It’s half past four in the morning and a group of incredibly tired photographers are signing out equipment for a dawn shoot in a conference space in the Peak District. Outside it appears grey and everyone is wondering whether this has been the worst decision they have made in…

01 LOCATION It’s fairly easy to find places where you’ll be guaranteed a variety of birds to capture. Large lakes, wetland reserves and nature reserves are ideal. Birds and other wildlife are usually most active around sunrise and sunset, so the start or end of the day is the best time to head out with your camera. 02 TRIPOD This project is all about striking a balance between motion blur and sharpness, so a tripod is crucial, for keeping the camera still to capture subject blur, or tracking the subject for panning blur. It also helps to take the weight of heavy lenses. A beanbag can also come in handy if you want to shoot from a very low position. 03 BIRD ACTIVITY The real joy and challenge in this…

WHEN YOU attempt to focus on erratically moving birds in flight you realize how important it is to tailor your AF settings to the subject. The right tracking and sensitivity settings will give you the best possible chance of locking on to fast-moving birds. First, you should set your AF mode to continuous tracking, which Canon calls AI Servo or Servo AF. This means the camera will continually engage the AF to adapt to a subject that is moving closer or further from the camera. In Servo you can change the sensitivity of your tracking. A low – or delayed – sensitivity will make the autofocus less likely to snap on to another object like a tree, or other animal, if it comes between you and your subject. You can also…

TIP 1 SLOW DOWN TIME WITH ND FILTERS Neutral density filters act a bit like sunglasses for your camera and lens, reducing the amount of light coming in and hitting the sensor. This is useful for numerous reasons, the most important being that it allows you to shoot at slower shutter speeds, so you can give the sensor time to record motion from moving elements within your frame – such as people, clouds or water like in our example here. With bright sunlight and no filter, we had a shutter speed fast enough to freeze the waterfall still, but with an ND filter we could slow the shutter speed to 30 secs to smooth the flowing water into a silky blur. TIP 2 BALANCE SKIES WITH A GRADUATED ND FILTER…

The recently introduced Color Grading panel is available in Photoshop’s Camera Raw plugin and Lightroom, and it’s one of the most powerful toning tools on offer. Several of the other colour tools in Camera Raw are geared towards correcting unwanted colour shifts, but Color Grading is different. Rather than correcting, it instead invites you to add creative colour shifts of your own in order to give an image a certain look or mood. As such, Color Grading is one of the best tools to use for boosting the atmosphere of a scene. Color Grading is a replacement for the old Split Toning panel and, like it’s predecessor, it lets you add individual colour tints to different parts of the tonal range of your image, based on brightness values. But while…

01 PASTE AND BLEND Open retro_01 and 02 into Affinity Photo (download link bottom left). Go to the 01 image of the cameras, hit Cmd/Ctrl+C to copy, then go to the other image and paste with Cmd/Ctrl+V. Go to the Layers panel and change the Blend Mode from Normal to Screen. Use the Move tool to position the image in the frame. 02 MASK THE FRAME Highlight the bottom layer and press Cmd/Ctrl+J to duplicate, then drag to the top. Grab the Freehand Selection tool and check Polygonal at the top left. Set Feather to 1px. Click around the corners to select the frame, then go to Select>Invert Pixel Selection. Click the Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. 03 ADD TEXTURE Open and paste in the Texture01…

Photo essays from PhotoPlus readers and professional photographers alike I’m an amateur Canon photographer who has loved birds ever since my parents would take me to feed the local mallards as a kid. I got my first Canon PowerShot S3 IS bridge camera about 15 years ago on a whim to try out photography. As my photography progressed, I moved onto a Canon EOS 7D, and recently upgraded to the 7D Mk II with a 100-400mm lens. I’m eventually hoping to upgrade to a Canon R5, which would be the dream! I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to travel to see a lot of cool birds, from pelicans in California, to puffins in Iceland, but my favourite shots always end up being of friendly ducks. I love seeing people’s surprised…

01 Canon EOS R5 WEB: www.canon.co.uk I BOUGHT this camera last summer – and didn’t regret it for a second. I kept my Canon EOS 5D Mark IV body as a backup camera, but once your fingers get used to the R5, there is no escape from this mirrorless beauty! I love the vari-angle touch-screen display and the incredible performance when it comes to the in-body image stabilization! Combined with my favourite RF 15-35mm lens, this combo in my opinion is unbeatable when it comes to landscape photography! 02 Canon EOS Ra WEB: www.canon.co.uk WHAT MAKES the EOS Ra unique, compared to regular cameras, is its sensor has extended infra-red sensitivity and increased 30x magnification for pin-point focus checking. I had my old 6D body modded for astro a few…

So, Manual gives you the chance to change the aperture, shutter speed and ISO – but which should you change? The easiest way to approach this is to decide what is more important: the depth of field (the degree of front-to-back sharpness), or the way in which movement is recorded. If you want to control the amount of sharpness, set the aperture first. Then adjust the shutter speed to give you the exposure that you want. If the shutter speed becomes too slow and there’s a risk that pictures will be blurred, because the subject will move during the exposure – or you won’t be able to hold the camera still for long enough – increase the ISO. You’ll then be able to select a faster shutter speed while still…

MAKE TIME FOR UPDATES Carry out firmware updates when you have time to follow the steps accurately. Canon service can perform updates for you at a cost, but the process is designed for you to be able to do it yourself. When updating EOS R5/R6 the process seems to pause for around 90 seconds before a progress bar is displayed, just be patient and wait for the process to finish. 01 BEFORE YOU START You need a charged battery and a memory card to perform an update. It’s good practice to format the card in your camera before copying the update to it, make sure images are transferred to your computer before formatting. Alternatively, use a small card for updates. The camera will not allow an update to proceed if…

TTL flash metering is available with virtually all dedicated flashguns that are designed for use with an EOS camera. Before the exposure, the flashgun fires short pulses of light that are reflected back from the subject, pass through the lens and are measured by the camera. The system then calculates the duration of flash required for a ‘correct’ exposure and communicates this to the flashgun. This chart shows how accurately TTL flash metering works when using each of the flashguns on test. Positive values mean overexposure, negative for underexposure.…

THE NO.1 MAGAZINE FOR CANON USERS! FREE VIDEOS! In the next Canon Skills chapter… ■ Better portraits in midday sun ■ Lenses for landscapes ■ Using high ISOs to shoot Jack-o'-lanterns ■ Image-editing guides in Affinity Photo, Lightroom & Photoshop CC PLUS ALL THIS… ■ Canon tips: Master your EOS camera ■ Pro interview: Christian Anderl, an Austrian-based portrait photographer ■ Super Test: We test the best macro lenses for proper close-up photos ■ The Apprentice: Join us on safari to photograph big cats and wildlife ISSUE 184 ON SALE 19 OCTOBER 2021 * Content subject to change…