Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2023 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

We have a brilliant issue of PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine in store for you this month. First up, our PhotoPlus Apprentice Sue spends a day in the photo studio with Canon pro Andy Green, learning how to take amazing close-up photos of all sorts of reptiles and amphibians – including the stunning tree frog shot above! See page 8. Also inside, we help you get the most out of your Raw images. I meet lots of PhotoPlus readers who shoot in the Raw image format, but aren’t confident when it comes to the Raw editing stage. See page 26 for our top 10 Raw image-editing tips. In Canon Skills, we have some new photo projects, including how to use cool coloured gels on flashguns to create warmer backdrops for creative…

One downside of Raw files is that they often look soft and grainy compared to JPEGs, which are processed in-camera and have sharpening and noise reduction applied at the point of capture. Raw files are essentially a blank canvas and it’s up to you to decide how much, if any, sharpening or noise reduction you want to apply to your image. This is more effective in the long run, as you’re not relying on the camera to set this for you, and with JPEGs it’s difficult to change after the shot. Here, we’re going to look at how to sharpen your images without making background noise more prominent, as well as how to reduce digital noise from your shots without losing detail. We will also show you how to remove…

01 USE THE UPRIGHT MODES To fix geometric distortion in your images quickly and easily, use the automatic upright modes in the Geometry panel, such as Auto for balanced perspective corrections; Level, which applies only one level correction; Vertical, which applies level and perspective corrections, or Full. 02 VERTICAL & HORIZONTAL If you find yourself needing to take more control, click on the Manual Transformations panel and individually adjust the Vertical slider to make vertical lines bend in or out more towards the centre. You can also drag the Horizontal slider in order to shift the horizontal plane across. 03 GUIDED MODE For architectural shots that have defined straight lines, an easy way to make sure that your lines are straight is to click on the Guided mode. After this,…

While heavy cloning or sky replacement edits are best saved for Photoshop CC, you can tidy up small blemishes in portraits, or distractions such as a piece of litter or a fence post in a landscape, using the Spot Removal tool while editing your Raw file in ACR. As with all of the adjustments you make to your Raw file, they are completely non-destructive, so if you go wrong then you can always revert back to the original Raw and start again by clicking the fly-out menu at the bottom of the toolbox (its icon looks like three dots) and then clicking Revert to Original. It’s worth zooming in with Ctrl+Plus [PC] or Cmd+Plus [Mac] so you can see the area you’re editing clearly, then hold the Spacebar to drag…

Bantham Beach, South Devon. 17:26pm. 24 November 2008 In my early days of writing for photography magazines, the template exaggerated stories and spectacular photographic moments were rife. The spirituality of landscape was being unlocked and I found this all too laughable. I have always fallen short of the religious experience they were describing. I would be found cursing as I stumbled over slippery rocks, then unable to get my cheap camera bag zip open. Then my camera would ERR01 after attaching my lens. On many occasions you would see me wrestling with stuck aluminium tripod legs, ceased from the saltwater, or running back down the beach after leaving a sizzling sunset too early. It is a wet winter afternoon in 2008 and I have finished a round of guitar lessons.…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_202_1 Off-camera flash can be wonderful for taking portraits. It picks out your subject and gives your shots a unique style. But many of us who use it pay little attention to the colour temperature of the light our flash is blasting out. By controlling the colour and our camera’s white balance settings, we can create all kinds of interesting effects. Measured in degrees Kelvin, colour temperature is a scale for the colour of light, from warm orange shades (lower Kelvin) to cool blue shades (higher Kelvin). Natural light shifts back and forth along the scale at different times of day, from morning warmth to midday cool to sunset warmth again. We can alter our camera’s white balance so that, no matter the colour of the light,…

01 IN-CAMERA KELVIN SETTINGS When mixing colour temperatures it’s best to set the white balance in-camera while shooting rather than leaving it to auto white balance. The white balance presets such as shade/sunny can be a bit basic, so instead set it to K and try shifting the Kelvin setting one way or another. 02 RAW WHITE BALANCE CONTROL If you shoot in Raw then you’re free to alter the white balance or choose a preset later on. In Adobe Camera Raw/Lightroom, you can use the white balance eyedropper tool to click on a neutral point in the scene, like a white T-shirt or a grey rock. 03 CHECKING FOR CASTS It can be hard to find the right temperature and tint settings for your photo, but here’s a trick…

01 ENABLE MULTIPLE EXPOSURE Go into your Canon EOS camera’s menu and find the Multiple Exposure setting in the red camera menu, then click it and choose Enable. Then you can choose how many exposures you want to take, we set ours to 2. 02 ADDITIVE OR AVERAGE Pick between Additive or Average blending modes. Additive adds more light cumulatively and may require some negative exposure compensation, while Average works out the negative exposure compensation automatically for you. 03 1-SHOT OR CONTINUOUS ‘1 shot only’ means that after you’ve finished your multiple exposure the multiple exposure setting will be disabled and you’ll go back to normal exposures. Set it to Continuously if you’d like to take several multiple exposures in a row. 04 TAKE THE FIRST EXPOSURE Go into Live…

MANY programs have lens corrections for fixing vignetting, distortion and chromatic aberration, but DxO PhotoLab goes further by correcting edge softness too. It’s most effective on ‘consumer kit’, and gives this photo edge-to-edge definition. THERE are lots of ‘magic cures’ for image blur, but Topaz Photo AI really can achieve quite remarkable results with ‘hopeless’ images like this soft shot. It cleverly reconstructs realistic-looking detail and definition, but it can look a bit too processed.…

Camera shake is the biggest enemy of sharpness, and if you can’t use a tripod you will have to shoot handheld, and this is where we need to talk about ‘safe shutter speeds’. The idea is that you use a shutter speed at least as fast as the reciprocal of your focal length. To put that in English, if you have a 50mm lens (in full-frame terms) you should be safe with a shutter speed of 1/50 sec. So how do you get that? With your camera’s Auto ISO setting – shown above on our EOS RP menu. With handheld night shots like our example image, right, shooting at higher ISOs will produce more noise, but your images will be sharp. You can reduce noise in software, but camera shake…

I recently attended an incredible three-day aerial photography workshop under the expert guidance of award-winning photographers Ken Duncan and Ignacio Palacios. Our location was the UNESCO World Heritage area of Shark Bay in Australia, 750km north of Perth, and also westernmost of the Australian continent. On day one, we arrived at Shark Bay airport for our safety briefing then strapped ourselves into the harnesses needed for the modified light aircraft, a Cessna 206. Doors were removed to allow unrestricted access for the best possible aerial photography experience. Our top pilots knew the best areas to visit so our time was optimized during the flights. Initial nervousness at take off was soon replaced with exhilaration when seeing the wonderful vista below us. We were presented with a glorious palette of turquoise…

Ultra-wide lenses offer such an extreme angle of view that they can even capture the edge of a filter attached to the front of the lens. A square filter system which requires a bulky filter holder to be attached to the lens further increases the risk of vignetting. Thinner, slim-profile screw-in filters can help reduce the chances of this happening, as can dedicated wide-angle adaptor rings for square filter systems. The EF 17-40mm f/4L USM and a number of other ultrawide lenses have a drop-in gelatine-filter holder built into the back of the lens. While this removes the problems of vignetting, it does mean that you have to remove the lens each time you want to add or change the filter. You’re also more limited in terms of the types…

Wide-angle primes and zooms are the lenses to reach for when you want to squeeze large subjects into a single picture and you’re not able to – or don’t want to – shoot from further away. One thing to be aware of when shooting at close distances is converging verticals, where the subject appears to get narrower at the top. This type of distortion, also known as the keystone effect, can happen if you tilt the camera upwards to fit in the subject. It’s particularly noticeable when you’re photographing buildings and other man-made objects with straight lines, with the structure appearing to be leaning backwards in the image. You can use the geometry adjustment tools in editing software to change the vertical aspect – essentially pulling the narrow section out…

ADDITIONAL MOBILE APPS FOR YOUR EOS For each Canon camera model you will find additional recommended apps to improve your mobile workflow. DPP Express for editing Raw images works on both mobiles and tablets, and the mobile file transfer utility suits news, sports and event photographers who need to caption and transfer images to FTP servers. Displayed options vary to suit the selected EOS camera. 01 SET UP YOUR CAMERA AND DEVICE Install the app from the app store. When you start the app you are prompted to choose the camera to connect and then taken through the steps to set up the initial connection. Several of the latest EOS R-series cameras can be connected with a USB cable for faster transfers of multiple images, or where Wi-Fi connections are…

JEFFREY FARR, FARNBOROUGH SAYS… I ventured out with my camera to capture the last of the autumnal leaves. While walking through the woods I noticed the low sunlight illuminating just a few leaves. I’d taken some shots of a whole tree, but was drawn to the light on these few remaining leaves. The leaves were really catching the sun, so the shutter speed could be easily fast enough to stop any movement of the leaves in the breeze. I edited the picture with Lightroom and increased clarity, vibrance and saturation to give more life to the leaves. BRIAN SAYS… I do like the simplicity of the picture, and think you were right to choose this over the whole tree. Focus is spot on with the pair of leaves sharp enough,…

Canon has just announced a new kit lens for its full-frame EOS R mirrorless cameras. The Canon RF 24-50mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM can be purchased on its own or as a bundle with the EOS R8. It takes the tally of RF lenses to a total of 33 and helps to expand the range. It’s interesting to see Canon opting for a focal length range of 24mm to 50mm, as this provides just over two times optical zoom. We’re used to seeing kit lenses that have a focal length around 18-55m or 24-105mm which have optical zooms of 3x and 4.4x respectively. Canon’s new kit lens follows the likes of Tamron’s 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III VXD G2, so it’s interesting to see big brands experimenting with the kit lens formula…

Think ultra-fast primes and you’re probably thinking of hefty lenses with horrifically expensive price tags. This 7Artisans lens will make you think again, shoehorning a phenomenally fast f/1.05 aperture into a compact 61x86mm package that tips the scales at a mere 606g. And it does so at just a fifth of the price of Canon’s mighty RF 50mm F1.2L USM, which weighs nearly a kilogram. Typical of 7Artisans lenses, this manual-focus lens lacks built-in electronics; you need to adjust the aperture via an onboard, stepless control ring instead of from the host camera. Programme AE and Tv (Time value) shooting modes are off the menu but Manual and Av (Aperture value) modes work well. Despite its budget price, the lens features two ULD (Ultra Low Dispersion) elements, a metal barrel…

Many recent lenses for mirrorless cameras rely heavily on in-camera correction for distortion. As you’ll see from this graph, using distortion data for prime lenses as well as for zoom lenses at their shortest focal length (where distortion is typically worst), the Canon RF 16mm and RF 24-105mm lenses are unusable without automatic correction. Indeed, the in-camera distortion correction option can’t be switched off. Even so, the 7Artisans 50mm and Canon RF 35mm mirrorless primes are the closest to being zero-distortion lenses.…

One of the joys of a camera like the EOS RP is that it’s wonderfully compact and lightweight for a full-frame body. The same can’t be said of many RF lenses, the design of which puts impeccable image quality before size and weight. The RF 16mm redresses the balance, with its 69x40mm, 165g construction. That’s pretty astonishing, given its ultra-wide-angle 16mm focal length and fast f/2.8 aperture. Stepping motor-based autofocus is typically near-silent and combines rapid performance for stills with smooth transitions for movie capture. With a minimum focus distance of just 0.13m, you can get in really close and exaggerate perspective effects, making full use of the short focal length. The lens is also great for capturing starry skies in astrophotography. Unlike some RF lenses, there’s no customizable control…

As with distortion, current and recent EOS cameras offer automatic in-camera correction for lateral chromatic aberration, which is worst towards the edges and corners of the image frame. This graph shows the severity of the aberration at the edges of the frame, both for prime lenses and for zooms at their shortest focal lengths, with in-camera correction switched off. The Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM wins out for minimising colour fringing.…

Canon has made a number of EF 50mm f/1.8 primes for 35mm film cameras and DSLRs over the years. They’ve always been massively popular for combining a natural viewing perspective with a fast aperture, at a very affordable price. Repurposed for EOS R system cameras, the RF lens is the best budget 50mm yet, with enhanced build quality and optical performance in a lightweight package, and at a very attractive price. The stepping motor-driven autofocus system is fast enough for sporty stills and smooth enough for video. An aspherical element contributes to edge-to-edge sharpness, and Canon’s Super Spectra Coating reduces ghosting and flare. The 50mm focal length combined with a shallow depth of field enabled by the f/1.8 aperture work very well for half-length portraiture with full-frame cameras and tighter…

AI image fools judges and wins photography competition An Australian AI studio was awarded first place in a photo contest. It fessed up, but what are the ramifications? More on the latest photo news at DigitalCameraWorld.com via quick link bit.ly/fakewinner The best travel tripods: from full-size supports to bag-sized mini tripods The best travel tripods have to be small enough to pack, light enough to carry and sturdy enough for shake-free photos! More in our buying guide at DigitalCameraWorld.com via quick link bit.ly/travel_tripods Apple goes 007: patent approved for Apple Watch with built-in camera An Apple Watch with a built-in camera originally designed for James Bond could hit the mass market. Is this fiction? Check out our news story and other articles at our great website at DigitalCameraWorld.com via bit.ly/007_watch…

APPRENTICE NAME: SUE BRYANT CAMERA: CANON EOS R7 FROM Ferndown, Dorset, Sue is 66 years old, and a retired pre-school teacher. She’s been into photography for about five years, mainly photographing whatever plants and creatures she discovers in the garden. Her first Canon was an EOS 70D, then she moved to a mirrorless EOS RP, and has recently upgraded to a crop-sensor EOS R7. She asked for our help to improve her wildlife photo studio skills, and to master the AF modes on her R7. CANON PRO NAME: ANDY GREEN CAMERA: CANON EOS R5 ANDY, 36, is a freelance photographer from Poole. He started out as a keen photographer 20 years ago, and now sells prints and runs 121 workshops. He’s also a photographer and animal handler at CaptiveLight, where…

AFRICAN FALSE FLOWER MANTIS CAPTURING these details on an insect this small is always a challenge. Thankfully the 1.4x magnification on the Canon RF 100mm f/2.8 Macro IS USM lens meant I could push it to the limit. REGAL JUMPING SPIDER THIS SHOT shows just how shallow the DoF really is when shooting very close-up on this incredible small jumping spider, with DoF mere millimetres at this sort of distance, even at f/18. YEMEN CHAMELEON CHAMELEONS change the colour of individual cells so their skin is incredibly detailed. Luckily, she moves very slowly, so I just waited until she was in a nice position and looking in the right direction!…

Open a Raw file in Photoshop CC and it will automatically launch Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) in its own plug-in window (see below). The first thing to do is correct any lens distortions, such as barrel distortion from wide-angle lenses or pincushion distortion from using a telephoto optic. You’ll also want to fix any vignetting in the corners and chromatic aberration where bright purple or green colours appear in areas of strong contrast. It’s near impossible for a lens to not have any chromatic aberration, though premium lenses do a better job at mitigating this. The last of the initial tweaks is to apply a crop, as there’s little point working on areas that will be cropped out of the final image. ADOBE CAMERA RAW WORKSPACE This is what you’ll…

01 NOISE REDUCTION In the Detail panel, click the dropdown arrow next to Noise Reduction, then zoom in on your photo to see any noise clearly. Dragging the Noise Reduction slider to the right will soften details – the more aggressive your noise reduction, the softer the details will become. 02 DIAL DOWN GRAININESS The standard Noise Reduction slider reduces the ‘graininess’ you see from using a high ISO. As the name suggests, dragging the Detail slider to the right will bring back some detail to reduce the softening effect of the noise reduction, and Contrast will boost the contrast. 03 BANISH CHROMA NOISE Chroma noise looks like coloured specks, and can be effectively targeted with the Color Noise Reduction slider, as well as Detail and Smoothness in the expanded…

There are several ways you can change the colours in your Raw images, from boosting the overall saturation to making your colours appear cooler or warmer with white balance adjustments. We’ll show you how to use the individual colour channels to take full control of your colours. Additionally, you can colour-grade your images, also called a split tone, where you assign a colour to the shadows and highlights for a cinematic look. Alternatively, you can work in mono. You’ll still have all of the Raw colour channel data to play with, which will help you with the black-and-white conversion. Here’s how to do it… 01 WHITE BALANCE AND TINT In the Basic panel, you can tweak the White Balance slider to make the shot warmer or cooler. You can also…

The final step is to save your shots to lock in your edits and create a smaller, more manageable JPEG file. Click on your image thumbnail in the filmstrip, or hit Ctrl+A [PC] or Cmd+A [Mac] to select all of your images, then right-click on any image thumbnail and choose Save Image. In the Save options, set the destination to where you’d like the photos to be stored. To batch rename a group of shots you can set a custom filename and add sequential numbers, too – just be sure to add a two-or three-digit serial number in the File Naming dropdown box. For example, you can create a batch of images called Landscape_01.jpg right through to Landscape_100.jpg. You can also add the date that the image was taken. PRO…

01 OFF-CAMERA FLASH Our off-camera flash here is a Speedlite set to manual mode at 1/8 power. It’s attached to a light stand via an umbrella fitting. Our Speedlite is placed to the side of the subject for soft, directional light over the face that also serves to emphasize the texture of the frosty fallen tree. 02 COOLING THE LIGHT The flash here is fitted with a 1/2 Colour Temperature Blue (CTB) gel. This cools down the light source, producing blue light over our subject. By setting our white balance to match the cool light hitting the subject, the background light appears warmer but retains natural skin tones. 03 EXPOSURE AND WHITE BALANCE The camera is in manual exposure mode with a shutter speed of 1/200 sec, ISO100 and an…

THE NEWLY improved AI masking tools in Lightroom Classic and Photoshop CC’s Camera Raw allow you to quickly isolate either a subject or background. There are buttons for each, so all you have to do is click one and a mask will automatically be generated for either area. Once done, you can go on to alter either area using an array of powerful tonal sliders. These include Temperature and Tint sliders that let you selectively alter the white balance in different parts of the frame. You can experiment by selectively shifting the white balance controls for either the subject or backdrop. This could either serve to correct a mismatch between the two, or intentionally create one, as we’ve done here by cooling the backdrop, which helps the subject stand out and…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_202_3 Everyone wants sharper photos but buying a new camera or lens is not necessarily the answer. You likely already have everything you need for pin-sharp shots. Getting sharper shots often just means taking a little more time and trouble over camera settings and understanding some basic theory about ISO settings, lens apertures and shutter speeds. All of these are covered in this photo project, but first let’s address a couple of points with depth of field, sharpness and the appearance of sharpness. You’ll hear a lot about depth of field. It’s the zone of sharpness that extends in front of and behind the thing you’ve focused on. Shallow depth of field is where only the subject is sharp and even things just in front of or…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_202_3 No camera lens is perfect. You’ll see from our regular lens tests and reviews that all optics show variations in sharpness at different lens apertures. So how do you make sure you choose the best lens aperture for overall sharpness? These days, this will typically be two stops down from the lens’s maximum aperture for a consumer lens, eg from f/4 down to f/8. The easiest way to set this is with your Canon’s Av (aperture value) mode. But beware if you do use a smaller aperture, say f/22, to gain more depth of field, as you’re likely to run into ‘diffraction’, an overall softening effect caused by the fact that light tends to scatter when pushed through small holes.…

Image Stabilisation can produce sharper shots either by steadying a group of elements within the lens, or by shifting the sensor itself to compensate for any camera movement during the exposure. The thing to keep in mind about image stabilisers are that they are simply a little extra insurance, not a guarantee. Just as the idea of ‘safe’ shutter speeds is just a guide, IS that offers up to 6 stops of shake compensation (for example), may only provide about half of that in everyday shooting. This photo was taken at 1/40 sec at a focal length of 32mm with IS enabled. While it is sharp enough, it’s missing that critical edge, so when you’re shooting handheld, ‘safe’ shutter speeds are no guarantee, even with IS activated.…

If you want to make a composite from two or more images, there are two stages to carry out. First, there’s the task of cutting out and piecing the images together. Second, there’s the challenge of making the images look like they belong together. The first stage has been made much less arduous in recent editions of Photoshop CC, with commands like Select Subject and Remove Background. Now the second stage has become easier, too, thanks to the brand-new Harmonization Filter. It matches the colours, tones and feel of one layer with another, analysing the content of your image using artificial intelligence and making changes based on what it finds. All you need to do is cut out an object or person and place it on a different background, then…

01 MAKE A NEW LAYER Open the clone.jpg start file and make a new empty layer for your retouching. Set the tools to sample ‘Current Layer and Below’ in the tool options at the top. Click the New Pixel layer icon in the Layers Panel then grab the Clone tool to edit non-destructively. 02 CLONE THE STEMS Hold Alt and click to sample a clean source for your cloning. We want to separate the branches from the rest of the land here, so sample the water and create a dividing line. Once done, switch to the Inpainting and paint over the rest of the branches. 03 FIX UNWANTED WIRES Cables can be removed with Inpainting. Use the] and [keys to resize the brush tip so it’s slightly larger than the…

I consider myself to be a storyteller – one with a long career as a producer, director, cinematographer, and photographer. Back in 2016, I was a Canon Explorer of Light and tasked with creating a series of images to support the launch of the EOS 5D Mark IV. The series of pictures I came up with for my Aces High theme were inspired by a replica P-51 Mustang fighter one whose full-sized WWII original might have flown out of England as a bomber escort. The existence of a single inspirational element – be it a prop, an interesting bit of wardrobe, or a striking new muse – is enough to kick my imagination into overdrive. In this instance I had all three! With so much beauty at hand I quickly…

IF YOUR camera is equipped with the Digital Lens Optimizer (DLO), enable this to automatically correct a range of lens aberrations. It’s disabled by default on a DSLR because it can lead to much slower shooting speeds once it’s activated. But the RF mount of EOS R cameras, with their additional lens contacts and faster, higher bandwidth data handling, don’t suffer from this slow-down in the same way. Some EOS cameras allow you to set the strength of the optimization; if you set it to High, then the image processing time and the burst rate will take longer. Digital Lens Optimizer can also be applied when you process Raw files in Canon’s Digital Photo Professional software. As with the camera version of DLO, if the lens correction data isn’t available…

Canon has announced the new EOS R8 full-frame mirrorless, and could this be the best ever entry-level full-frame camera? With blisteringly 40fps high-speed continuous shooting and 4K 60p video packed into a compact chassis, it could well be. The EOS R8 is also Canon’s lightest full-frame mirrorless model and borrows its diminutive and petite proportions from the older, entry-level full-frame EOS RP, while inheriting some of the more desirable features from the recently announced EOS R6 Mark II, so sits somewhere between these two bodies in the EOS R lineup. With the launch of the EOS R8, this takes the number of camera bodies in Canon’s EOS R range to a grand total of 13. Features carried over from the EOS R6 Mark II include its 24.2Mp full-frame sensor, a…

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 tested just on cameras like the EOS 90D and 7D Mark II. EF-M, RF and RF-S lenses are tested on respective EOS M and EOS R system bodies. In-camera corrections for chromatic aberrations, distortion and peripheral illumination are disabled, throughout lab-testing, to better reveal the true optical performance of each lens. In our lab, we test lenses under controlled…

The latest and greatest in a long line of Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 lenses for SLRs and DSLRs, the STM edition is by far the best yet. The previous edition had a noisy autofocus system and a 5-blade diaphragm that gave pronounced pentagonal shapes to defocused lights. The mounting plate was lightweight plastic but not exactly robust. The STM edition puts all those wrongs to right. It has an STM autofocus system that provides fairly speedy yet very quiet operation for stills, with smooth autofocus transitions during movie capture. The focus ring no longer rotates with autofocus, which improves handling, while also giving the bonus of manual override in Single AF mode. Further upgrades include a metal mounting plate, and a more well-rounded aperture based on seven diaphragm blades. Despite…

One of the key attractions of a full-frame mirrorless camera is that it enables optimum image quality in a relatively compact and lightweight package. The RF 35mm follows suit with slimline dimensions and a weight of just 305g. It’s actually smaller and lighter than the Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM for DSLRs, despite having a faster aperture rating of f/1.8. As usual for lenses with stepping motor autofocus systems, there’s no focus distance scale or depth of field markings, which are sometimes preferred for manual ‘zone focusing’. However, a distance scale, focus peaking and focus guide options are all available in the shooting displays of Canon R system bodies. Indeed, both autofocus and manual focusing work brilliantly well when using these cameras’ electronic viewfinders or vari-angle rear screens. Further…

The natural perspective delivered by a 35mm prime on a full-frame camera, combined with a fast f/1.8 aperture rating and highly effective 5-stop stabilization, make the RF 35mm a superb lens for walkabout shooting. Handling, performance and outright image quality are simply superb, and the lens also works brilliantly well as a ‘standard’ prime on APS-C format EOS R system cameras, with an effective 56mm focal length. It even takes extreme close-ups in its stride with the bonus of 0.5x macro magnification. The 7Artisans 50mm f/1.05 is a great manual ‘nifty fifty’ with a superfast aperture, while the Canon RF 16mm proves you can shoehorn a hugely wide viewing angle into a really compact construction. The Canon EF 50mm and RF 50mm are both the perfect add-ons to ‘body and…

FREE VIDEOS! In the next Canon Skills chapter… Reflector techniques for great portraits ■ Learn all about colour ■ How to use different 'plamps' ■ New Photoshop CC and Affinity Photo image-editing guides PLUS ALL THIS… ■ The Apprentice: Canon pro Clive Nichols on how to take vibrant shots of flowers at RHS Wisley ■ David Clapp: The Netherlands ■ Photo Stories: Inspiring images ■ Super Test: Ultra wide-angle zoom and prime lenses tested ISSUE 203 ON SALE 4 APRIL 2023 * Content subject to change…

MANUAL MODE FOR STUDIOS THE CAPTIVELIGHT studio is set-up for macro photography with flash heads so Andy’s in complete control of the lighting. “This means we need to shoot in Manual mode, and can fix our aperture, shutter speed and ISO. I got Sue to set her R7 to Manual mode, with 1/160 sec for flash sync, f/18 for good depth of field, and ISO100 for the best image quality,” says Andy. “Once exposure settings were dialled in, Sue could leave them alone for the duration of the photoshoot, and I adjusted the lighting power and positions for different brightness. This enabled her to concentrate on composition.” WHITE BALANCE KELVIN FOR CONSISTENT results, Andy showed Sue how to set her White balance manually to 5500 Kelvin. “We know when shooting…

01 SUMMER LITHOGRAPHY BY CHRISTINE BLANCHIN DOS SANTOS ABSTRACT VIEWS - FINALIST “I captured the background photo in the Stockholm Archipelago, which I then overlaid with the dandelion seed head which I captured in Burgundy, France. I used DxO Nik Analog Efex to overlay the two images for this dreamy double exposure and applied a solarization filter in DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4 to create the lithograph effect. My intention was to convey the sense of lightness, harmony and beauty that I feel when walking in nature with my camera.” Lens Tamron 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD Exposure 1/400 sec, f/5.6, ISO200 02 BEDDED ON ASTERS BY CLAUDIA GAUPP BEAUTIFUL GARDENS - 2ND PLACE “This image shows the perennial borders of the Höhenpark Killesberg, Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany –…

In the next set of adjustments, you’ll really start to see the full potential of shooting Raw files. It’s easy to change the exposure by a few stops if it’s too bright or dark, and pull back some highlight detail to stop bright areas like clouds from clipping to pure white, while simultaneously lifting the shadows to reveal detail in darker areas. This process simply wouldn’t be possible with JPEG files, which are compressed and would have lost this information captured at the point of shooting. As JPEG files are processed in-camera, they have contrast and colour adjustments baked in. Raw files are untouched and leave you to apply contrast and colour adjustments at the editing stage – this is why Raw files often look flat when compared to a…

01 CHANGE TO MONO Black-and-white conversions can look striking and are a great way to get the most from a capture that was taken with poor exposure settings, or in this case, very flat lighting. Just above the Basic panel, you’ll need to change the Profile to Adobe Monochrome to get started on working up your mono shot. 02 EDIT MONO ‘COLOURS’ Having access to the colour channels with a black-and-white conversion may sound a little odd, but it’s very handy. Here you can fine-tune the contrast of certain tones, making the green grass lighter or a blue sky darker by adjusting the colour channel sliders in the B&W Mixer panel (under Detail). 03 ADD SOME CONTRAST TO YOUR B&W EDIT WITH A CURVE You may be familiar with Photoshop…

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VIEW THE VIDEOS WHENEVER YOU see this icon, you’ll find an accompanying video to watch online, so you can follow along. You can view the videos on a smartphone, tablet or computer. See the links on the project pages.…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_202_1 WORKING WITH GELS As well as colour temperature gels that let you warm or cool your light source, there are also green gels that correct for fluorescent lighting. Use these under fluorescent strip lights to balance your subject with the ambient light. When using correction gels, sometimes it makes more sense to balance the lighting by controlling the ambient light. This might involve covering windows with sheets of warming gels to match with tungsten interiors, or gelling tungsten lamps with blue gels to correct for overly warm colours. 01 ORANGE AND BLUE These gels are Colour Temperature Orange (CTO) and Colour Temperature Blue (CTB). They come in different strengths, like 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 and full – and you can double up the gels to make them…

01 TRIPOD LEGS SETUP Getting the right tripod will make life a lot easier. A bigger tripod with just three leg sections will be quicker to set up if you’re not travelling far, but a ‘travel tripod’ with five leg sections will be smaller and lighter to carry around. 02 TRIPOD HEAD Most of the time it really won’t matter. Ball heads are very compact, quick to position and have just the same rigidity and load-bearing capacity. But while three-way heads are bulkier to carry, they do offer more precise adjustments. 03 ALUMINIUM OR CARBON FIBRE Carbon fibre tripods are all the rage because they are lighter and more appealing to travel and adventure photographers. But aluminium tripods are more affordable so would be a good option if you’re on…

Depth of field is designed around ‘acceptable’ sharpness, not ‘maximum’ sharpness. Even if you shoot at a small lens aperture, only the thing you’ve focused on will be totally sharp. The rest will be ‘nearly’ sharp or ‘acceptably’ sharp. With close-ups in particular, you will never get complete front-to-back sharpness, so you might as well make background and foreground blur a feature with a combo of a longer focal length and wider aperture. Focusing becomes much more important at wider lens apertures. Sometimes you’re better off with a one-point focus area because then you’re not hoping the camera will guess correctly. If you use Zone or Area AF, how do you know the camera will focus on the right thing?…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_202_4 For new photographers, landscapes offer an easy path to gaining mastery. You can go from your doorstep and find a composition around you quite easily. Once you’ve learned the basics of composition, it’s easy to combine foreground, leading lines and other techniques to create an interesting photo. You just need the light and some patience. Going back to basics, we’re looking here at the process of creating a black-and-white conversion of a landscape photo. Historically this is where photography started: long exposures were required to capture any image, and static scenes like landscapes made that possible. But why would you then opt to remove colour today? Well, colour can be a distracting element. If there’s a clash of colours, or if the image contains very little…

WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_202_5 01 CUT OUT THE SUBJECT The Harmonization Filter will only work when you have a document with two or more layers, and the currently selected layer must have areas of transparency or a Layer Mask. To begin the compositing process, open the image you want to cut out then click the lock on the layer to unlock it. Go to Window > Properties then click the Remove Background button. 02 PERFECT THE COMP The images are now likely to match more closely than before, but it’s worth perfecting the tones. One simple way to make two or more images look like they belong is to add a tonal effect on top of everything. For a quick tonal change, merge a copy of the layers with Ctrl/Cmd…

HAVING delivered an engaging and very colourful Super Stage talk at The Photography Show at the NEC in the UK last September, it would have been remiss of us not to bring Canon pro Kaylee Greer’s work to the wider PhotoPlus audience. Judging by the length of the queue at her post-talk Dogtography book signing, it was clear that there’s a lot of interest on this side of the pond in Kaylee’s work, which brings out the character and soul of her inevitably cute canine subjects. Taking a photo of a dog can appear relatively easy, especially if it’s a family pet, but Kaylee’s work is next-level. To find out how she established, finessed and found an audience for her furry and characterful captures, we caught up with Kaylee for…

The 5D Mark II launched in 2008 was the first EOS camera to feature full-HD movie capability, and all EOS cameras since then are able to capture quality movies. But a lot of established photographers haven’t taken advantage of their camera’s movie functionality, partly because they aren’t sure what to do. Photographic skills including exposure and composition transfer to movies, but there are some additional points to know to make the best results. Firstly unlike a still image, movies need a sequence of clips to build the story. If you just capture a single viewpoint for a couple of minutes the resulting movie won’t hold the viewers attention. Use different camera angles, wide and close-up shots and even move the camera while shooting to create a dynamic engaging movie. Having…

The Canon EOS R50 is here, effectively folding Canon’s brilliant and bestselling EOS M50 compact mirrorless into the EOS R system, while adding some of the stunning upgrades only made possible on RF-mount cameras. In many ways, the Canon R50 in takes the Canon M50/M50 Mark II and adds the RF mount. So you get essentially the same tiny APS-C crop-sensor body that was the M50’s calling card, but now you get to use the best Canon RF lenses – a list that dwarfs the number of available EF-M optics (and you can, of course, user the adapter with your EF DSLR glass as well). This should be music to the ears of the casual photographers, travel shooters, smartphone upgraders and, crucially, vloggers and content creators for whom the M50…

This ultra-wide-angle zoom designed for APS-C format DSLRs is amazingly small for its type and is less than half the weight of most directly competing lenses. Its 67mm filter thread is also a lot smaller than usual, so filters are relatively inexpensive. One weight-saving feature is that it has a plastic rather than metal mounting plate, but build quality feels robust nonetheless. Typical of many recent Canon lenses, it has an STM (Stepping Motor) autofocus system which is fast for stills, smooth for video capture and virtually silent in operation. The electronically-coupled focus ring enables manual override of autofocus but, typically for an STM lens, there’s no focus distance scale. Less than half the price of Canon’s veteran EF-S 10-22mm ultra-wide zoom, this lens adds the bonus of image stabilization.…

Much smaller and more lightweight than the up-market RF 24-105mm F4L IS USM standard zoom, this one is particularly convenient for walkabout shoots. It has a slower, variable aperture rating compared with its constant-aperture sibling, shrinking to f/7.1 at the long end of the zoom range. Canon’s EOS R system cameras maintain fast and accurate autofocus in dark conditions, and deliver impressive image quality at high ISO settings. And you can still get a reasonably tight depth of field when shooting at fairly close range, especially at the long end of the zoom range. For extreme close-ups, the lens features an impressive 0.5x magnification ‘Centre Focus Macro’ facility. Other neat features include a 5-stop image stabilizer, and the same ‘Focus/Control’ switch as in the RF 16mm and RF 50mm lenses…

Sigma released a trio of 16mm, 30mm and 56mm fast primes a while ago, all in Canon EF-M mount to fit EOS M-series cameras. All have a speedy f/1.4 aperture rating but, for us, the 56mm is the pick of the bunch. The focal length equates to a portrait-friendly 89.6mm in full-frame terms. Typical of Sigma’s Contemporary line-up of lenses, it’s designed to be relatively compact and lightweight. It’s remarkably small for a 56mm lens with an f/1.4 aperture and weighs just 280g, making it a perfect match for slinky EOS M mirrorless bodies. Although small and light, the lens is beautifully turned out and has a really solid feel. The only external moving part is a wide manual focus ring, electronically coupled to the stepping motor autofocus system and…

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…

Letter of the Month I bought your magazine for the first time yesterday. I don’t think that I will buy it again as I found it snobbish and elitist. I’ve been taking photos since I was 16, on and off over the years, and I am 73 now. I have a Canon 2000D at present. I totally resent you calling it a “beginner’s camera”, to me it’s an affordable camera. I can’t afford expensive cameras, lenses etc, and even if I could afford it, I wouldn’t waste money just to get more bells and whistles. And the lens that came with my camera takes perfectly good photos. I also don’t use Photoshop, I think that’s cheating. If you need to correct your photos in Photoshop, then you’re a very bad…