Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2022 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

APPRENTICE NAME: CAROLE STEVENS CAMERA: CANON EOS 70D CAROLE, 38, is a transport manager for First Bus, and is based in Bristol. Known to her friends and family growing up as always being the one with a camera, she studied A-level photography and got her first DSLR when working in London for the 2012 Olympics. But she’s lost the habit and wrote to PhotoPlus saying, “I’ve totally lost my photo mojo and really want it back again! I’ve never really got beyond the basics of using my DSLR and need help to move on from Auto settings.” CANON PRO NAME: REBECCA FAITH CAMERA: CANON EOS R6 REBECCA, 46, is professional portrait and wedding photographer based in Somerset. Her photographic journey began after travelling around the world with her camera following her degree, where she…

The latest Canon cameras pack in some incredible features but many of you don’t have the time to read through and decipher the entire instruction manual to learn them all. Fortunately, we’ve read our manuals and used Canon cameras extensively, and in this month’s big guide, we share the essential settings and features that you need to get to grips with if you’re just starting out in photography. You’ll learn all about your Canon EOS’s most important features and put them to use in a 12-hour crash course, photographing everything from wildlife at sunrise to astrophotography at night, and everything in between. We show you how to get to grips with your Canon EOS while taking an incredible portfolio of varied images in a single day. You can, of course,…

The early afternoon is a great time to get out with family or friends to have fun in the garden or head to a local park to play or watch local sports. It can be difficult tracking and focusing on fast-moving subjects such as football players, and even children running around can be a curveball. There are two main factors that make a fast-moving subject difficult to shoot. The first is having to avoid subject blur by using a fast shutter speed to eliminate both camera shake from handholding the camera as well as subject blur from your subject moving. The other is getting an in-focus shot, as it can be tricky to focus on a moving subject. However, Canon’s latest mirrorless models have great AF point coverage and subject…

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WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_196_1 How often have you shot a beautiful sunset, then later on had to lift the darker foreground to balance out the scene? We’ve all attempted a heavy-handed shift to the Shadows slider, but perhaps there’s a better way. How about time blending instead? This is simply a fancy term for shooting the same scene several times over a period of time, then blending together the best bits. This way, we can choose the best frame for the sunset sky, and blend it with earlier frames when the landscape is bathed in better light. By shooting a scene several times over the course of an afternoon – from golden hour to sundown to twilight – then combining the best parts from each frame, you can effectively pick…

01 USE APERTURE PRIORITY A set and forget exposure mode is easiest here. Aperture Priority mode is ideal as we can use a narrow aperture of f/16 for maximum depth of field, and set ISO100 for the best quality, then let the Evaluative metering work out the correct shutter speed to change as light levels drop. 02 BRACKET YOUR SHOTS Time blending involves combining frames taken at different times. As such, it can be difficult to predict which frames you’ll use and how they’ll look once blended. To give yourself a safety net, bracket your shots. We set up to take three frames at a time with one-stop increments between each. 03 TRY A TIMELAPSE If you want to leave your camera unmanned, you can simply set it up to…

01 ATTACH YOUR TORCH Cut a long length of string (it can be shortened later) and attach this to the bottom of your torch if it has a hole for attachments, or make a loop and secure it with tape. Tether the other end securely to a sturdy ceiling light or fitting. 02 POSITION YOUR TRIPOD Place your Canon EOS directly underneath the torch. Adjust the leg angles of your tripod to get as low to the ground as possible and fit a wide-angle lens to your camera to give yourself more chance of capturing the broad swing of the torch. 03 SET YOUR FOCUS Most modern Canons have a flip-out LCD, which is handy in this scenario. Flip it out and go into Live View, so you can see…

PROS Electronic shutters are silent – ideal for weddings or wildlife. They also don’t create vibration, so macro shots are sharper. On Drew’s EOS R5, its electronic shutter allows the fastest 20fps burst. CONS You might get distortion, such as uneven bokeh circles, banding and rolling shutter. Flash can’t be used. On the EOS R5, the minimum shutter speed is set to 1/2 sec and you’re limited to 12-bit files.…

01 CHOOSE YOUR LIGHT LEAK After downloading the Retro Light Leaks folder (see link, bottom-left), open your image in Photoshop CC. Go to File>Open, and navigate to the Retro Light Leaks folder. Double-click on the one you want to use (we chose Light Leak V 32.jpg) and it loads in a separate window. Now press Ctrl/Cmd+A, Ctrl/Cmd+C and Ctrl/Cmd+W to select, copy and close it. You’re returned to your main image, so press Ctrl/Cmd+V to paste the light leak over the top of the picture. Go to the Layers panel (Window> Layers) and you can see the light leaks layer above the Background layer. With the top layer active, click where it says Normal and set the Blending Mode to Screen. You can now see the light leak come through…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_196_6 Black and white can be a beautiful effect, but sometimes a subtle colour tint can elevate things to another level. In this project, we show you how to apply classic tinting effects in Affinity Photo. From vintage sepia treatments to classy cobalt finishes, we explain how to craft a host of different treatments. And if you’d rather jump straight in and start applying these classic analogue finishes to your images, you can find 16 free presets among the project files, ready to be loaded into Affinity Photo and tested on your own photos with a couple of clicks (see download link, left). However, the tinting is only half the effect. First, you need to know how to convert to mono. Our free presets can do this…

01 IN-FLIGHT The beautiful iridescent blues and bright oranges on the kingfisher’s plumage contrast wonderfully with the vibrant green background Lens Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM Exposure 1/6400 sec, f/4, ISO2000 These images were taken along a short stretch of the River Dodder in the heart of Dublin. The far bank is overgrown and teeming with wildlife: foxes, badgers, otters, herons, cormorants and egrets, to name just a few of the inhabitants. I am obsessed with kingfishers. I wanted to capture one in an original way, bursting through the water, picked out against a stark black background. This patch of river was perfect, as the water is quite dark already. One challenge was the number of twigs in the way that might trick the autofocus, and I prefer not to…

Canon’s high-end Speedlites, such as the EL-1, 600EX II-RT, 470EX-AI and 430EX III-RT, come with screens that provide a summary of the main settings at a glance. It takes a while to get to know where everything is, because many of the functions are nested in different menus. As as a result, it can take several button presses and spins of a control dial to get to the function that you want to adjust, but once you’ve set up the Speedlite to match the way you want to shoot, the important stuff, such as flash mode and power level, is easy to get to. If you want to use the Speedlite remotely, you can do that via a cable attached to the hotshoe, or wirelessly. If you choose the latter,…

Flash menu YOU’LL FIND the Flash Control or External Speedlite Control option in the first few pages of the red Shooting menu. This takes you to the Flash menu, where you can change settings such as whether the flash fires or not, and the flash sync speed when you’re shooting Aperture Priority (you can set a faster shutter speed to avoid blurred shots in low light). Flash Function Settings is where you’re able to make changes to the flash mode, fast exposure, wireless control settings and more. Wireless control BEING ABLE to control a Speedlite wirelessly gives you more freedom to position the flashgun than if you were to use a cable to attach it to the camera. There are two options: radio transmission or optical transmission. With radio, the…

Canon expert Brian explains how DPP can help you get the best results when editing tricky-to-take action shots Action photography has so much going on that it can be a challenge trying to concentrate on composition, focus and exposure as well as the action itself. By applying a few simple techniques in the edit, you can make your photos stand out and put the action in the spotlight. You need fast and large memory cards if you shoot Raw, but this does give the most flexibility after the shoot. To capture great photos, it’s important to know the subject well. For action shots, that means finding out who are the main competitors, and looking for winners and the action a particular location provides. When it comes to the edit, one of…

Ask Brian! Confused with your Canon camera? Send your questions to EOSSOS@futurenet.com The EOS R system introduced RF lenses with a control ring around the lens body in addition to the usual focus and zoom rings. It controls a range of functions, from basic exposure to autofocus and image settings. The position of control rings varies from lens to lens, making it more difficult to find instinctively if you use a range of lenses. In this respect, using EF lenses with the control ring mount adapter is better as the control ring remains in the same location. Some of the compact RF lenses have little space for an additional ring and feature a combined focus and control ring. Autofocus on the EOS R series is so reliable there’s little need…

Although it lacks the retractable design of its sibling EF-M 11-22mm and 15-45mm lenses, this telephoto of the trio is nevertheless amazingly compact and light, at just 61x87mm and 260g. As with the EF-S 55-250mm for DSLRs, it has a plastic rather than metal mounting plate. That’s no bad thing really, as it helps to keep the weight off and is still perfectly durable. Typical of EF-M lenses, the design is very clean-cut. There are no physical switches; choices for auto/manual focusing and stabilization on/off are catered for by in-camera menus. Under the bonnet, these systems are taken care of by a fast yet virtually silent stepping motor for autofocus, and an optical stabilizer unit with a 3.5-stop rating, complete with auto panning detection. While panning, stabilization is only applied…

With most budget telephoto zooms, you can expect a little barrel distortion at the short end of the zoom range, negligible distortion at mid-zoom settings, and fairly minor pincushion at the long end. Most of the lenses here follow a similar path. The two exceptions are the Sigma and Tamron 100-400mm lenses. With their longer range of focal lengths, they exhibit minor pincushion even at their shortest setting, getting slightly worse as you extend through the zoom range. The Sigma can take advantage of in-camera corrections in current and recent Canon cameras.…

It can be difficult to find space for a telephoto lens in your kit bag but this 70-200mm is only about the size of a can of drink, at least for stowage, thanks to a retractable design. That’s great if you like to travel light, less so if you fancy adding an extender, as the proximity of the rear element to the mount makes it incompatible. It has many of the same headline features as the older EF mount 70-200mm lens on test. As well as the same zoom range and constant f/4 aperture rating, it has 5-stop optical image stabilization. Better still, mount the lens on one of the recent EOS R system cameras that feature in-body stabilization and you get 7.5-stop stabilization. The autofocus system is super-fast, this…

In days gone by, Sigma and Tamron were renowned for their 70-300mm zooms, which delivered good performance while heavily undercutting the cost of Canon alternatives. They also dabbled in smaller telephoto zooms for Canon APS-C format cameras, but they’ve fallen by the wayside. As part of its Global Vision line-up, Sigma reinvented the budget telephoto zoom in the shape of this 100-400mm Contemporary lens, and Tamron followed suit. The Sigma lens measures 86x182mm and weighs 1160g, making it shorter but marginally heavier than the Tamron. That said, it’s only just over 100g heavier than the discontinued Canon 70-300mm L-series lens. The Sigma is the only one of the three for which there’s no optional tripod mounting ring. Build quality feels robust and includes weather-seals. The optical path includes four SLD…

What to look for Canon EOS mirrorless cameras Canon’s full-frame EOS R cameras are packed with the latest tech including IBIS, Animal AF tracking and 20fps via the electronic shutter in both the EOS R5 and R6. While the new APS-C crop-sensor EOS R7 and R10 are more affordable, more compact, yet still offer 15fps bursts and latest intelligent AF tracking, and more. Without the mirror, EOS R full-frame bodies are smaller than their DSLR equivalents (but only a fraction lighter). Compared to optical viewfinders on DSLRs, using an R’s electronic viewfinder (EVF) is slower to focus due to lag and refresh rates, yet focusing via Live View with AF points all over the touchscreen is better. EOS R cameras can also use the next-gen Canon RF lenses and their…

Limited back issues of PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine print editions are available on our new MagazinesDirect.com secure store at www.magazinesdirect.com/photoplus-magazine-single-issue But if you’ve got an iPad, Android, Kindle or Nook tablet, or iPhone or Android smartphone, you can download PhotoPlus back issues from the following digital edition options: • Got an Apple iPad or iPhone? Get the free PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine app in the App Store or at bit.ly/photoplus_app then browse through our back issues or subscribe through the app. • Kindle Fire or Nook HD? Simply search for PhotoPlus on Amazon’s Newsstand or in B&N’s Nook store. • Windows or Mac? Use Zinio to read PhotoPlus on your laptop or desktop computer or via the app! Go to www.zinio.com and search for PhotoPlus where you can buy back…

■ SATURDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER 13:15-14:30 Chase Jarvis - £12 The extraordinary power of creativity applied 15:30-16:45 Colin Prior - £12 A state of imagination ■ SUNDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER 13:15-14:30 Cristina Mittermeier - £12 Enoughness 15:30-16:30 Jack Harries - £12 Tackling the climate crisis with creativity ■ MONDAY, 19 SEPTEMBER 13:15-14:30 Roberto Valenzuela - £12 Breaking out of average into greatness 15:30-16:45 Kaylee Greer - £12 The secrets to capturing the best dog photos ever ■ TUESDAY, 20 SEPTEMBER 13:15-14:30 Christina Ebenezer - £12 Christina Ebenezer - in conversation with Caleb Femi…

CHASE JARVIS Best known for his creative flair across a range of disciplines Join renowned photographer, creator and entrepreneur Chase Jarvis for this inspiring talk to learn specifically how putting small, daily actions to work can supercharge our innate creativity and help us rediscover our personal power in life. Chase Jarvis is an award-winning artist, entrepreneur, best-selling author, and one of the most influential photographers of the past 20 years. His expansive work ranges from shooting advertising campaigns for companies like Apple, Nike, and Red Bull; to working with athletes like Serena Williams and Tony Hawk, to collaborating with renowned icons like Lady Gaga and Richard Branson. In 2013 Chase contributed to the Pulitzer-Prize winning New York Times story Snowfall, and in 2014 earned an Emmy nomination for his documentary…

Lens Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Exposure 1/500 sec, f/5, ISO200 CAROLE’S COMMENT “I had such a great day on the photo shoot with PhotoPlus and Rebecca, and it was so helpful to be shown how to set up and shoot with my Canon camera to take amazing portraits. I learned so much in such a short space of time, and would never have picked everything up by studying the Canon manual! I loved capturing this shot of Jade in the bandstand; it was like a purpose-built space to take vintage portraits! I look forward to putting what I’ve learned into practice when photographing my family soon!” REBECCA’S VERDICT “Carole was a brilliant PhotoPlus Apprentice and, after she’d settled in and grown more confident with her Canon camera settings, thrived with us…

The early bird catches the worm and there’s some fabulous lighting to be had at the crack of dawn. The gentle golden hour lighting at sunrise, combined with damp, misty mornings, works incredibly well for deer photography, and during autumn, the sunrise is at a more respectable hour than in the summer. It’s also rutting season, so you may even be able to photograph the action of battling stags fighting for dominance. Quick menu THE QUICK MENU, accessed by pressing the Q button on your Canon EOS, enables you to quickly access important camera settings, such as aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, exposure compensation, image type, drive mode and focus mode. On Canon EOS DSLRs, you can get into the Quick menu when using both Live View and the…

The afternoon is a great time to try out some portraiture on friends and family, or if you have the budget for it, you could collaborate with a model. If the sun is out in full force, this can cause harsh shadows from directly overhead, which look unflattering, so move to a shaded area or use some fill light from a flashgun or reflector. If it’s overcast, the clouds act as a big softbox in the sky, softening the sunlight and producing gentle light for your model. Here are our tips to help you take some top portraits. White balance THE white balance determines how cool or warm an image looks. While Auto White Balance mode can do a good job, you can set it in the Quick menu by…

Once the sun has finally set, you may think it’s time to pack up the camera and head home, but the photographic opportunities are endless – you just need to get creative and bring your own lights. Painting with light is the process of using torches, LEDs and flashes to paint dimly lit scenes and bring them to life. This can be as simple as shining a torch at a building to reveal data, to painting with the torch’s light to draw shapes and patterns (learn more on page 50), which are all recorded by your camera’s long exposure. Bulb mode BULB mode, found under B on the mode dial, enables you to create a custom exposure length determined by how long you hold the shutter open. Pressing the shutter…

Canary Wharf, London. 14:53am. 20 July 2021 Lens Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM Exposures 1/640 sec, f/8, ISO1600 In 2007, when my editorial career first began with photography magazines, I was asked to create an article about triptychs. I wrote a confident and lengthy acceptance reply to the email, pressed send and then sat there researching what on earth a triptych was! Thus began my love affair with threes, something I didn’t realize would become such a focus of my professional career. Have you ever felt as though the picture you have just taken doesn’t seem to sum up the location you’ve visited? It may not have anything to do with the image itself; it could be a lack of other supporting images. For example, the contents of a travel guide…

01 CHECK YOUR ANGLES Before heading out, consider the position of the sun and where it’s likely to set, as this gives you a better idea of which parts of the scene will be illuminated by the horizontal evening light of the setting sun. Apps such as The Photographer’s Ephemeris and PhotoPills are ideal for this. 02 TIME IT RIGHT Find out what time the sun will be setting using a weather app. This determines when to arrive and how long you need to hang around. We set up about 1.5 hours before sunset, then stayed for half an hour beyond it. Throughout this time, the light, colour and clouds change dramatically. 03 EXPERIMENT WITH COMPOSITIONS On arrival, you might want to spend a few moments walking around taking handheld…

FOR THOSE of us who lack the patience for landscape photography, this project can highlight the benefits of waiting for the best light. The variety of cloud cover and wind speed here meant that the sky was constantly changing over the course of the evening. We were treated to beautiful evening sunlight, low grey clouds, vibrant sunset tints and even a bank of mist that rolled in at twilight. The most vibrant sky fleetingly emerged about 40 minutes before sunset. After this, the sun disappeared behind low cloud and sundown was barely visible on the horizon. With such variety, it’s worth trying a time slice like this. Simply copy and mask slivers of the scene into a single image.…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_196_3 As with most things in photography, there are endless options for every aspect of taking a photo. From camera modes to settings, and file types to frame rates, the list goes on. And with every fresh camera body release, there are new settings to master; the introduction of Canon’s mirrorless cameras, for instance, gave us the ability to select our shutter mode. DSLRs saw the arrival of the ‘silent’ shutter mode, which wasn’t an accurate description because it only slowed and prolonged the mirror slap and shutter clack, but with Canon’s EOS mirrorless, we can opt for truly silent shooting, as there is no mirror to slap and the shutter mode can be changed. The electronic shutter on an EOS R5, for example, allows for completely…

THERE’S always going to be a compromise depending on the scenario. For instance, for a wedding in a quiet church, the electronic shutter is ideal as it’s silent. However, if the venue uses artificial light, this mode could produce unsightly banding. Alternatively, if panning race cars at a track, using an electronic shutter enables the faster max burst rate of 20fps on an EOS R5, but due to the rolling shutter effect, any trackside furniture or fences in the background may appear slanted. So, mechanical shutter seems to be the best compromise mode, but it also has downsides, such as a slower frame rate, noise, and more wear on the mechanical moving parts. You pays your money, you make your choice!…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_196_5 Color Lookup Tables have been available in Photoshop for a while, but they’re often overlooked as a tonal tool. It may be because they’re thought of primarily as a means of colour-grading video footage in software like Premiere Pro. But they’re also handy for editing stills, especially in combination with Profiles. Referred to as LUTs for short, a Color Lookup Table is a way to remap colours in your image so that, say, a deep red becomes a dull pink instead. Imagine all the colours in an image written as a list or a table. Then imagine each colour in the table has a second field that directs it to another colour. This is essentially what a Color Lookup Table does. Photoshop offers an array of…

01 CONVERT TO MONO Open your image in Affinity Photo, then go to the Layers panel, click the Adjustment icon at the bottom and choose Black And White. Now experiment with the six colour sliders. These enable you to change the brightness of colour ranges. Tailor the black-and-white effect to the content of the image. 02 BOOST THE CONTRAST Black-and-white effects can initially look a tad flat, so it’s worth adding contrast with a Curves Adjustment layer. Make a shallow S-shaped curve by dragging one point upwards near the top of the line, and a second point downwards near the bottom. The bigger the S shape, the stronger the contrast. 03 PREPARE THE GRADIENT Add a Gradient Map Adjustment layer. Initially, the colours look terrible. Highlight the middle colour point…

Based in Yorkshire, Oliver Wright first took up photography as a way of documenting his mountaineering experiences. That changed in 2010 when an accident led him to devoting his life to photography, especially landscape, wildlife and macro. Since 2014, Oliver has worked as a guide specializing in aurora photography for the Swedish company Lights Over Lapland. For five months of the year, he is based in Abisko, 200km above the Arctic Circle. He is equally at home in the jungles of Ecuador and Costa Rica. His work has been published in international titles, including The New York Times, The Observer and The Times. Between 2013 and 2018, Oliver’s work was highly commended 10 times in the British Wildlife Photography Awards. He has also held talks on landscape, macro, wildlife and…

Professional photographers reveal their top six tools of the trade they couldn’t shoot without Growing up in sunny south-west France near Toulouse, a horn of plenty for French cuisine, I’ve been surrounded by food from a young age. After a baccalaureate in hospitality, I started a career in cheffing all around Europe. In 2003, a series of events put me on the track towards what I do today. I was leading the kitchens of a five-star hotel in the Republic of Ireland when a photographer came to shoot the interiors and some of my food. However, the images looked like they were from a 1960s recipe book and very dated. Having seen brighter and more minimal food photos in a recent magazine article, I ran to the nearest camera shop…

As well as being able to control a remote Speedlite with a ‘master’ or ‘sender’ Speedlite mounted to the camera (or by using a camera that has a built-in Speedlite Transmitter), you can fit a dedicated Speedlite Transmitter to the hotshoe and use that instead. It might seem odd to splash out on something that’s essentially just an antenna when you can get a second Speedlite to do the same thing, but there are some good reasons to go this route. It’s a bit less expensive, it’s lighter and it doesn’t take up much room in your camera bag. There are plenty of cheap third-party options, where you need to attach a receiver to the foot of each flashgun and a sender to the hotshoe, but for full compatibility with…

CAPTURE THE BEST RESULTS AND ENHANCE AFTERWARDS If you want to reduce post-processing, take a look at your camera settings. Select Landscape Picture Style for more vibrant colours by default. And to capture the peak of the action, a fast shutter speed is vital to freeze not only the competitors but also all the dust and stones they may kick up. 01 MAKE THE ACTION AS BIG AS POSSIBLE You might not have had a long enough lens when taking your shot, so use the Crop tool to cut away parts of the picture that distract and make the action itself larger in the frame. You can use one of the preset aspect ratios if needed to match a series of pictures. Cropping is non-destructive with DPP, so you can…

STEVEN CARLETTI, PENNSYLVANIA, USA, SAYS… I took this shot of these racing boats while my wife and I were having lunch at a bay-side restaurant in San Francisco. Fortunately, we had a table next to an open window on the bay. I saw the boats approaching at speed and had my camera ready. Their speed, black sails, the brightly coloured hulls, and crew members all leaning over the windward sides just grabbed my attention. I handheld my Canon EOS 5D Mark III and zoomed my lens to the maximum of 105mm. I shoot in JPEG, so post-processing was limited to cropping. BRIAN SAYS… That’s a great restaurant with a view! You have applied good compositional sense to show only three boats, and they’re separated from each other. I think it’s…

To test real-world performance, we use lenses in all sorts of lighting conditions, for indoor and outdoor shooting scenarios. We check for good build quality and handling, smooth and precise operation of all controls, and we test the speed and accuracy of autofocus. We typically test full-frame compatible EF lenses on a range of full-frame and APS-C format bodies, whereas EF-S lenses that are designed specifically for APS-C format bodies are only tested on cameras such as the EOS 90D and 7D Mark II. EF-M and RF lenses are tested on respective EOS M and EOS R type mirrorless bodies. In-camera corrections for chromatic aberrations and peripheral illumination are disabled throughout all testing, to better reveal the true performance of each lens. We also run a full range of lab…

Whereas the upgrades in Canon’s similarly recent EF 70-200mm f/2.8 zoom are slim pickings, there’s a comparative feast packed into the second edition of this lens. Headline updates include a completely revamped optical path, although it still features high-end fluorite and UD elements. The autofocus system gains a new processor for increased speed and accuracy, and the upgraded image stabilizer matches that of the newer RF 70-200mm lens for performance and versatility. Indeed, the new-generation stabilizer has a 5-stop rating, gaining two full stops over that of the original lens. It also boasts three switchable operating modes, again similar to the RF lens. As such, you can switch between traditional static and panning modes, while gaining a third option that applies stabilization only during actual exposures. This leaves the viewfinder…

For some of the lenses here, lateral chromatic aberration is slightly more noticeable at the short end of the zoom range, especially towards the corners. This can be seen as coloured fringes around high-contrast transitions, such as dark tree branches against a bright sky. Fringing often dies away at mid-zoom settings, then returns to a lesser extent towards the long end. In others, fringing is a bit worse at the long end rather than the short end. Automatic in-camera corrections are available for all lenses on test apart from the Tamron.…

This is super compact and lightweight for a super-telephoto prime, partly due to a retractable design that shrinks the physical length from 270mm to just 200mm for stowage. At 930g, it’s also manageable for long periods of handheld shooting. Like the RF 70-200mm, there’s no optional tripod mounting ring, but a tripod/monopod mounting plate is built into the barrel. Other major factors enabling the diddy design include diffractive optics and a relatively narrow fixed aperture rating at f/11. Given that you’re unlikely to want to shoot at a narrower aperture, Canon has saved further weight, complexity and expense by not including an aperture diaphragm, so there are no iris blades or an electromagnetic mechanism to drive them. Controls are quite basic, with just an AF/MF switch linked to the STM…

Canon’s EF 70-300mm lens ticks all the right boxes. It’s affordable, well built, delivers ultra-fast autofocus, effective image stabilization and excellent image quality, while being compact and lightweight. For native RF mount lenses, the Canon RF 70-200mm F4L IS USM offers mostly excellent image quality and all-round performance from a small, retractable design. However, it’s the least affordable lens here. The Canon RF 600mm F11 IS STM might seem an oddball design with its fixed f/11 aperture but works well as a prime lens with super-telephoto reach. Meanwhile, the Canon EF-M 55-200mm is the perfect super-lightweight tele for EOS M cameras. For longer reach with zoom versatility, the Sigma or Tamron 100-400mm are best. We prefer the additional modes of the Sigma, and it can benefit from in-camera corrections.…

Letter of the Month As a long-time Canon user and subscriber to your digital edition, I really enjoy getting each issue. There is always something new to learn. However, as a retiree on a fixed income, I am envious of the cameras and accessories you highlight, most of which are out of my pocket. About a year ago, I upgraded from a Canon EOS 20D to a used 50D that I found on eBay. I was fortunate to get a battery grip, flashgun and Canon EF-S 55-250mm lens with it. I also still use the trusty EF-S 17-85mm lens that was on my EOS 20D. As my main focus for photography is landscape, street and architectural, I feel I have a good setup that will last me for many years.…

FREE ANALOGUE SHOWCASE 11:00-11:30 The art and craft of cameraless photography Jo Bradford 12:00-12:30 From digital to film: A crash course in analogue photography Max Herridge 13:00-13:30 Selecting the right ILFORD film for you Michelle Parr 14:00-14:30 Why we need to rescue film cameras, not make new ones Juho Lepannen 15:00-15:30 Mental collodion Simon Riddell 16:00-16:30 Experimental photography Holly Gilman FREE BEHIND THE LENS 11:00-11:40 Mini maternity masterclass Tianna J Williams 12:00-12:40 Peak perserverance: Summiting and shooting Simon Riddell 13:00-13:40 Experimental and creative photography John Humphrey 15:00-15:40 Mirrorless wildlife Will Burrard-Lucas 16:00-16:40 Setting yourself apart in newborn photography Melanie East FREE EDITING AND POST PRODUCTION 10:30-11:00 Tips from a travel blogger: Breathe life into your photos with Lightroom presets Kelsey Heinrichs 11:15-11:45 Fantastical compositing James Riston 12:00-12:30 An introduction to…

01 FLEECE BY HOWARD MASON Howard has managed to find an excellent minimalist composition by zooming in tightly on this sheep and revealing all of the textures. There’s some wonderful details and contrast in this image and his decision to convert to black and white works very effectively. Lens Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM Exposure 1/640 sec, f/5.6, ISO160 02 GANNETS BONDING BY DES GLYNN Des has captured a beautiful wildlife shot of two gannets here. The overexposure has created an eye-catching high-key style that fits our minimalist brief, and the off-centre composition is interesting, too. The focus, camera settings and editing are also spot-on. Great job! Lens Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 Sport DG OS HSM Exposure 1/400 sec, f/7.1, ISO200 03 NATURAL BEAUTIES BY JAY BIRMINGHAM Jay has taken a brilliant macro scene of these…

When the clocks go back on 30th October, we start to see the sun setting around 4:30pm. Catching a setting sun makes for brilliant landscape photos. Although it’s best to turn up about an hour before the sun sets, so you can shoot during the golden hour, it’s also worth staying for the hour after if you can, because then you transition into the blue hour, which gives much more subdued and cooler tones. Level up the land AS WITH any landscape, make sure your horizon is completely straight, as a wonky one is the first thing viewers spot. This is easy to do in-camera as most Canon DSLRs and mirrorless bodies have a built-in electronic level that you activate by pressing the Info button a few times. You can…

As we shift from the blue hour into astronomical twilight, the sky grows darker and the stars become visible. Bring a friend or fellow photographer with you to shoot at night to make the experience safe and more enjoyable. In the total darkness of night, you can test your Canon to its limits by capturing some fantastic star-lit skies and scenes. Every new Canon EOS model offers increasingly better performance in low light, but you can still get some top shots with old kit, too, so don’t let this deter you. Also important is your lens choice – a wide-angle lens with a focal length of around 20mm (full-frame) or 10mm (APS-C) would be great, while a wide aperture such as f/4 or / 2.8 is beneficial for sucking in…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_196_1 COMMIT TO THE SPOT The nice thing about time blending is that you have to commit fully to the composition right at the start of the shoot. As such, there’s no desperate dashing around as the light fades, seeking out one composition after another. While the scattershot approach may give you a greater variety of images, there’s something wonderful about making your peace with just one composition, then sitting back and enjoying the evening while occasionally firing off another set of bracketed frames. 01 PREPARE THE PHOTOS Use Adobe Bridge to select your frames – we picked one for the sky, another for the land. Highlight them, right-click, select Open In Camera Raw, then use the tonal tools. Here a saturation boost to the reds and…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_196_2 The uninitiated might assume light painting is simply post-production trickery, when, in reality, light painters are constantly pushing the envelope and redefining what can be achieved in-camera. In fact, the light painting community is so inventive it can be a little difficult to know where to start, and that’s where this month’s project comes in. By suspending a tiny beam of light on a piece of string and setting it into a swinging motion, you can create incredible geometric patterns from the comfort of your own home. What makes this an ideal first light painting project is that it can be as simple or as complicated as you want. Just one light source can create clean but complex trails of light, or you can experiment with…

01 MECHANICAL Mechanical focal plane shutters have been used for decades and use two curtains that open and close to expose the sensor to light. However, their moving parts can be loud and create tiny vibrations at slow shutter speeds or with macro. 02 ELECTRONIC 1ST CURTAIN (EFCS) A halfway house between mechanical and electronic modes. The first curtain is already open at the start of the exposure and uses the mechanical second curtain to end the exposure, enabling slower shutter speeds and flash to be used. 03 ELECTRONIC An electronic shutter uses no mechanical parts and simply turns the imaging sensor on and off line by line to expose the scene. This means it’s totally silent and fast, but can lead to distortion such as rolling shutter or banding…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_196_4 While instant, one-click smartphone filters can apply an indiscriminate effect to a picture, it’s a joy to take a little extra time to customize your shots if you want to take a different creative direction. Retro and lo-fi finishes enable you to wind the clock back a few decades, but a homogenous effect seldom offers the discerning photographer the control and fine-tuning that considered shots require. Light leaks – a happy accident that fogged film by inadvertently exposing it to light – can give a real sense of age to any modern shot. In this issue’s free download (see link on left), we have 32 different effects to choose from. Offering single-edge and double-edge light leaks in both horizontal and vertical formats, the specially created files…

01 DATA AND TABLE ORDER Saving your LUT as a Cube file gives you a few extra options when you apply the LUT to other images. The Data Order and Table Order settings can be switched to change the way the LUT works over your photo (try changing Data Order to BGR and Table Order to RGB). A couple of LUTs in Photoshop – Candlelight and NightFromDay – also give you this choice. 02 SAVING AN LUT Once you’re happy with your combination of Adjustment Layers, you can export the effect as a new LUT, so you can use it on other images or include it in custom Camera Raw and Lightroom Profiles. Go to File>Export>Color Lookup Table. Choose to save as a Cube file. Next, open the Color Lookup…

MAYBE IT’S the record-breaking British summer temperatures that have turned Yorkshire’s moist green pastures into dry, yellow straw, or simply because it’s the next location on his annual schedule, but Oliver Wright seems to be longing for the cooler autumn air and shady forests of northern Sweden. “I’m going there this September as a tourist for a little while, and then I’m coming back here for a bit,” he says. “I’ve got a work visa, so I’ll be back in Sweden working from the middle of November to the end of March.” An image of long, dark nights, sub-zero temperatures, frozen lakes and snow as far as the eye can see doesn’t seem plausible while we speak in the middle of a drought in 35°C heat, but Oliver likes variety…

01 BLACK BEAR 1 Two young cubs run along the road to keep up with their parent Lens Canon RF 800mm F11 IS STM Exposure 1/500 sec, f/11, ISO640 Photographing wildlife in Yellowstone National Park is a particular pleasure of mine, and my favourite animal there is the Yellowstone black bear. Black bears are intelligent and entertaining creatures. About half are black, but brown, cinnamon and blond colours are also seen. Both adults and cubs with their short, curved claws are adept at climbing trees. It’s a special delight to capture the cubs’ playful activity and interaction with their mothers. The average visitor will be fortunate to see half a dozen black bears in the wild on a day trip. For many years, though, bears were fed by visitors along Yellowstone’s highways.…

IT IS long-winded pressing buttons or tapping the screen several times to get to the camera’s flash control screen. If you’re using the Speedlite Transmitter ST-E10, you have that handy shortcut button. But if your camera has a built-in flash, tap the flash button once the flash is raised or if there’s a Speedlite attached to the hotshoe. On full-frame cameras that lack a built-in flash, you can assign the Flash Function Settings option to a button via Custom Controls, so you can access it quickly. On older bodies, you can only add this function to the SET button, but newer EOS cameras allow you to assign it to a range of buttons. PART 19 Next issue: Better black and white photos…

“How do the eye-controlled AF points work on the Canon EOS R3 mirrorless?”Nick Leandry, Orkney BRIAN SAYS… Eye control on the pro R3 uses multiple infrared detectors to determine the position of the eye in the eyepiece. The camera monitors where in the frame you are looking before the shutter is pressed or AF is started. An orange circle icon moves around the scene as you look at the subject. When the focus button is pressed, the AF point moves to where you are looking and subject tracking starts. For eye control to work, it is necessary to calibrate the system for your eye, and repeating the calibration process in different light levels helps to improve the R3’s system accuracy. Eye control has some limitations, so it may not be…

Designed for APS-C format DSLRs, this and other EF-S lenses can also be used on both APS-C format and in crop mode with full-frame mirrorless bodies, via EOS mount adapters. Larger and heavier than the EF-M 55-200mm lens on test, this has more traditional DSLRtype styling, with physical switches for AF/M focusing modes and stabilization on/off, as well as chunkier rubberized grips for the zoom and focus rings. Nearly 50 per cent heavier than the EF-M 55-200mm lens, the EF-S model adds 50mm in telephoto length, with an overall zoom range equivalent to 88-400mm in fullframe terms. It also has a slightly faster aperture rating, shrinking to f/5.6 rather than f/6.3 at the long end. Similarities between the two lenses include fast and virtually silent stepping motor-driven autofocus and 3.5-stop…

Thanks to their physically smaller image sensors, APS-C format cameras have a crop factor that boosts the effective focal length by 1.6x, compared with full-frame cameras. So, you could use a 70-300mm or 100-400mm telephoto zoom designed for a full-frame body on your APS-C format camera and get an effective range of 112-480mm or 160-640mm respectively. That takes you into super-telephoto territory, without using a huge, heavy and expensive lens. 200mm full-frame 200mm APS-C…

The Mark II edition of this lens could barely be more different from its predecessor. As well as a redesigned and upgraded optical path featuring new specialized UD elements, the exterior has a much more modern look and feel, and the internals are overhauled. The old lens had an autofocus system based on an ultrasonic micro-motor. Compared with the more usual ring-type arrangement, it was audible and sluggish. The front element also rotated during focusing, which impaired handling and made the use of filters like circular polarizers and ND grads a real chore. As with the RF 70-200mm lens on test, autofocus is driven by a Nano USM system, this time with a single motor. It’s very fast for stills and enables similarly smooth focus transitions for video. It’s also…

This lens goes toe-to-toe with Sigma’s 100-400mm on test. It’s identical in terms of zoom range and has almost the same spread of aperture ratings, being marginally faster at the short end. The Tamron can focus closer at 1.5m instead of 1.6m. Both have ring-type ultrasonic autofocus systems and 4-stop stabilizers, with switchable panning modes. While the Sigma has a three-position autofocus limiter switch for locking out the short or long end of the range, the Tamron has a single Limit position on the AF/MF focus mode selection switch. When engaged, this can cleverly limit the autofocus range on one side of the current focus distance position or the other. As with the Sigma, an optional USB docking station is available, this time in the shape of Tamron’s TAP-in Console.…

What to look for Canon EOS cameras Canon splits its EOS DSLR line-up into entry-level, enthusiast and pro ranges; the EOS 4000D is the most basic, the 850D and 77D for intermediates, the 90D and full-frame 6D Mk II for more advanced enthusiasts, while the 7D, full-frame 5D and 1D lines have pro-level features. With more expensive models, expect better handling, more robust build quality (weather-sealing and magnesium-alloy shells), more advanced features, and full-frame rather than APS-C image sensors. Over the page are full-frame EOS R mirrorless cameras, with the EOS R3 and R5 for more serious photographers, and the EOS R10 as an entry-level affordable APS-C option. Plus Canon’s smaller, older compact system, the APS-C EOS M mirrorless camera range. DSLR CAMERAS PRICES QUOTED ARE BODY-ONLY UNLESS STATED ENTRY-LEVEL…

THE NO.1 MAGAZINE FOR CANON USERS! FREE VIDEOS! In the next Canon Skills chapter… ■ Creative baby photo tips ■ Introduction to white balance ■ Use lighting modifiers for better portraits ■New Adobe Photoshop CC and Affinity Photo image-editing guides PLUS ALL THIS… Fraikin ISSUE 197 ON SALE 18 OCTOBER 2022 * Content subject to change…

FREE CREATOR STAGE For the content creator and the pro creative alike, the Creator Stage will offer a whole realm of ideas for content creation. Then let your imagination run riot in our playground, with funky sets, optical illusions and giant props - bring your friends and have fun! NEW PROGRAMMES COMING SOON VIDEO HUB Combining the best brands and expertise in video, the Video Hub will showcase video kit and offer the opportunity to discover more about filmmaking - whether your ambition is adding video to your services or becoming the next Netflix chart-topper. SPONSORED BY…

FREE ANALOGUE SHOWCASE 11:00-11:30 The power of sustainability Edd Carr 12:00-12:30 Capture your creativity Kate Hook 13:00-13:30 Palladium printing Roberto Aguillar 15:00-15:30 Analogue & hybrid wedding photography Rachel Brewster-Wright FREE BEHIND THE LENS 11:00-11:40 The secret world of medical photography Michelle Corrie 12:00-12:40 Creating signature wedding photography Fiona Elizabeth 13:00-13:40 Finding your niche Daniel Huges 14:00-14:40 Express your self Clare Louise 15:00-15:40 What you need to know about same sex & alternative weddings Emma Joanne FREE EDITING AND POST PRODUCTION 10:30-11:00 Social-ready templates made easy in Photoshop Dave Clayton 14:00-14:30 Camera to client - the ultimate backup workflow journey Peter Morgan 12:45-13:15 Smarter layers and masks with Capture One David Grover 15:30-16:00 Combining Premiere Pro and Rush Ian Sayers FREE ON LOCATION 10:30-11:10 The psychology of portrait photography - the…

SATURDAY 17 SEPTEMBER SUNDAY 18 SEPTEMBER BEGINNERS’ MASTERCLASS: PHOTOGRAPHY Saturday, 17 September or Sunday, 18 September (repeated), Piazza Suites 1-3 £10 Start your photography journey by learning some essential lessons from the experts. There’s a charge of £10 for this four-part programme, in addition to the show entry fee – choose either Saturday or Sunday morning. 10:30-11:00 The craft of composition Jess McGovern 11:05-11:35 Photography fundamentals: Understanding the exposure triangle Emily Endean 11:45-12:15 Choosing your first camera Laurence Norah 12:20-12:50 Getting started with editing Liam Man TURNING PRO MASTERCLASS Saturday, 17 September or Sunday, 18 September (repeated) Super Theatre £10 Looking to make the jump from enthusiast to professional photographer? This half-day masterclass will help you to understand the benefits of going pro and what to watch out for. There’s…