Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2023 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

APERTURE PRIORITY MODE TO GET started, James put Gemma’s camera into Aperture priority mode, Av on the mode dial, and set an aperture of f/11. This tends to be the sweet spot for sharpness on many lenses, and will give a deep depth of field, perfect for landscapes. He also set the ISO to 100, which is the lowest native setting on most Canons and will provide the best image quality. It also means light sensitivity is at its lowest so is great for shooting longer exposures, ideal for slow shutter speed waterfall shots. USING LIVE VIEW WHEN shooting waterfalls James suggested using Live View; this is because you can still see your scene and autofocus even when filters like a 10-stop ND are attached. He also likes switching on…

media://hotshot-5.jpg/ GEMMA’S COMMENT “My favourite shot of the day came from these amazing cascades. We started taking shots from the bridge above, but I headed down next to the rocks for a lower, more intimate composition. I put everything I’d learned into practice, using an ND filter to slow the shutter speed to 8 secs, a graduated ND filter to darken the bright background, and a polarizer to cut through reflections and make the greens pop. Thank you so much to James and PhotoPlus, I really feel like this experience has helped me grow as a nature photographer and I look forward to capturing more landscapes in addition to my usual wildlife.” JAMES’S VERDICT “Looking at Gemma’s wildlife portfolio it’s clear to see she’s a talented photographer and has the…

Use One-Shot AF for single photos 06 GETTING your autofocus working how you want it is a two-step process. First, you need to decide WHEN you want the camera to focus and then you need to tell it WHERE you want it to focus. The first step means choosing between One-Shot AF and Servo AF. For single photos, One-Shot AF is almost always best. The camera will focus when you half-press the shutter button and won’t take the shot until focus has been achieved. This is almost always how you will want the camera to behave for single shots. Do you need focus tracking settings? 07 OTHER AF methods can be used for burst shooting and continuous (Servo) AF and there are two approaches you can take – you can…

Don’t use Auto ISO on a tripod 21 IF YOU’RE using a tripod, you don’t usually need a high ISO. If you’ve been shooting handheld in low light with Auto ISO, or you’ve manually set a high ISO, you need to bring that right down for tripod shots. You won’t need a high ISO to prevent camera shake, but you will need a low ISO for the best quality to make the trouble of setting up a tripod worthwhile. And for long-exposure traffic trail shots at night, you need the longest exposure possible, not the shortest! Allow for Long Exposure Noise Reduction 22 THIS IS not the same as High ISO Noise Reduction. Long exposures can produce a different kind of noise that’s not caused by the ISO setting, simply the…

SHUTTER SPEED AND FLASH The key to understanding how this works is in realizing that our shutter speed has no impact on the strength of the flash exposure. Even when using a fast shutter speed, the burst of flash occurs for a minuscule moment within that time, so the length of the shutter speed has no bearing on the amount of light gathered by your camera from the flash. Instead we can use the shutter speed to determine the ambient exposure. Of course, our ISO and aperture play a part in both the flash and ambient exposures, but shutter speed does not affect the look of the flash exposure. 01 THE PROBLEM WITH FIRST CURTAIN The default for flashes is to fire at the start of an exposure, called the…

01 CANON EOS CAMERA & LENS You can use filters with any mirrorless or DSLR full-frame system, plus you can get filters specifically made for APS-C bodies. Screw-in filters are ideal for beginners looking to buy on a budget but a dedicated filter holder lets you get the best results. 02 A SELECTION OF FILTERS It’s a great idea to have an assortment of filters such as a circular polarizer, neutral density and graduated neutral density filters to have more control over the light in your landscape scenes. We explain how they all work together over the page. 03 STURDY TRIPOD When shooting landscapes, a sturdy tripod can help you fine-tune your composition, eliminate camera-shake and can be used to introduce some dramatic motion in moving elements like clouds and…

ADDING additional glass to the front of the lens will inevitably reduce image quality. To mitigate this, use high quality lenses like Canon’s L-series optics and premium filters such as LEE filter. Stacking cheap filters together on any budget entry-level lenses will amplify any imperfections throughout the glass and optics, so it’s a good idea to buy the best equipment you can afford to get the best results. It’s also always best shooting in the RAW file format so you have more exposure data to play with. This makes it easier to correct lens imperfections, chromatic aberration, vignetteing and so on.…

The Smudge tool in Adobe Photoshop might seem as though it has limited uses. However, it can actually be helpful for all kinds of creative effects, including painterly treatments. The tool works simply by smudging colours into one another. But if we combine this with Photoshop’s array of realistic bristle brush tips, we can smudge a photo in such a way that it looks like a painting. As such, even those without any skill in painting can transform a photo into brush-based art. We’ll look at the key features of the Smudge tool here, and explain how to set up your photo for an effect like this. When it comes to painting with the Smudge tool, we can gradually build up the effect, following the natural lines, wrinkles and details…

01 COPY AND PASTE Open the train.jpg and texture.jpg start images into Affinity Photo. Go to the texture image, copy (Cmd/Ctrl+C) then go to the train image and paste (Cmd/Ctrl+V). Grab the Move tool and use the bounding box to resize the texture to fit over the train image. 02 BLEND THE TEXTURE Go to the Layers Panel, click the blend mode drop-down at the top and change the Blend Mode of the texture layer from Normal to Screen. Next click the Adjustment icon in the Layers Panel and choose Black and White. Use the sliders to fine tune the conversion. 03 TWEAK WITH CURVES Click the Adjustment icon and choose Curves. Drag the bottom left point upwards and the top right point downwards. This fades out the black and…

While I may have grown up on the East Coast of the United States and very strongly consider myself a Philadelphian, the images shown here are from my time spent living in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Sometimes when you live somewhere beautiful, it can be taken for granted and the daily local wonders can go by unseen. Photography has allowed me to explore the depth of beauty that can be uncovered in Teton County with just a camera, some planning and most often a terrible sleep schedule. Landscape photography is my favourite, and utilizing certain applications allows me to know the best location and time for capturing alpine glow or the moon rising over the Tetons. In the pictures presented, the viewer can see my desire to showcase the vibrance and wide-ranging…

The autofocus mode also has an impact on how the exposure mode behaves. In One Shot AF the exposure suggested by Evaluative metering is locked in when you half-press the shutter release. This isn’t the case when you’re using one of the other metering modes though, so the meter will remain active – and the exposure may change – even after you have half-pressed the shutter button to lock the focus. In AI Servo/Servo AF or AI Focus AF, the exposure meter, like the autofocus, will stay active – even with Evaluative metering mode. This means that the exposure can change from one shot to the next. The AE Lock function on your camera is one way to ‘save’ an exposure setting. By pressing the button marked by a ‘*’…

You want to be sure that you’ve achieved the best exposure possible when shooting video, as most EOS cameras don’t have the capability to record movies in RAW format. Many now offer Canon Log recording, which allows you to capture a wider dynamic range, but it still pays to keep an eye on those highlights and shadows. You may be able to activate a Zebra pattern over areas that exceed a specified brightness, allowing you to adjust the exposure as you record. A few EOS R system mirrorless cameras also now offer False Colour Display, which uses a six-colour overlay to indicate different exposure levels. Green represents 18% midtone, so you can simply adjust the exposure until your mid-tone subjects are lit up like the Hulk! PART 28 Next issue:…

“When shooting movies, the sound quality is pretty poor. What do you suggest to get better quality?” Penny West, Cambridge BRIAN SAYS… The key to good quality audio is to use an external microphone and put as close to the sound source as possible. For a person talking to the camera, a small tie-clip or lavalier mic is ideal, with either a cable or wireless link back to the camera. A shotgun mic captures sound mostly from in front of where it is pointed, and this makes a lot of sense when mounted on the camera. A microphone like this usually has some suspension or isolation from the camera body to avoid the transfer of vibrations and noise from the camera controls being captured. If using an external microphone that…

Upmarket tripods are usually made from carbon fibre instead of aluminium. They have a more luxurious feel, a smarter looking finish, and can be slightly more resistant to vibrations. Carbon fibre can also feel less cold to the touch. But the main advantage of carbon fibre is that it’s more lightweight than aluminium, giving it a clear advantage when you’re trying to shed weight. However, there can be diminishing returns. Although the weight-saving can be substantial in full-sized tripods, it’s much less noticeable in smaller tripods. For many travel tripods that are available in both aluminium and carbon fibre options, the latter only saves around 200g in weight, little more than 10 per cent. Considering that the carbon fibre editions are often about 50 per cent more expensive, aluminium travel…

All of the tripods on test have legs that can be locked at multiple angles to the centre column. Typically either two or three alternative angles are available, in addition to the legs being able to swing up vertically. This can help when you’re shooting on uneven terrain, or when there are obstacles in the way. For example, you might need to use one or two legs in a near-horizontal orientation and place the feet on a wall or table to get into your desired shooting position. Another bonus is that, by splaying the legs to a wider angle when shooting at low operating heights, you increase stability and reduce the risk of the tripod toppling. Using wider leg angles also gives you a lower minimum shooting height when needed.…

THE NO.1 MAGAZINE FOR CANON USERS! FREE VIDEOS! In the next Canon Skills chapter… ■ Abstract street photography ■ Great train scenic photo tips ■ Master Canon’s super-telephoto RF 800mm lens ■ New Photoshop CC and Affinity Photo image-editing guides PLUS ALL THIS… ■ The Apprentice: Expert wildlife photographer Oliver Wright on macro shots of insects in the wild■ Profile: Great pet photographer Alexandra Robins interviewed Super■ Test: Find out which is best super-telephoto zoom on test! ISSUE 206 ON SALE 27 JUNE 2023 * Content subject to change…

Letter of the Month Your ‘Master RAW – 10 essential RAW edits in Photoshop CC’s Camera Raw’ in PhotoPlus issue no. 202 is the best article I have seen concerning RAW in Photoshop. It was easily followed, to the point, and everything I ever wanted to do with editing my RAW images in Photoshop. Brilliant. I have a Canon EOS R6 (and a very recent EOS R7) with RF 100-500mm lens and I’m mainly into wildlife photography – particularly birds. Mr A E Hovell, Welney, Norfolk Many thanks for getting in touch and letting us know how much you enjoyed our RAW image-editing guide. One thing we’ve learned over the years is many readers shoot in RAW, but a high percentage of you aren’t that confident when it comes to…

01 NAJIN AND ZACHARY BY MATJAZ KRIVIC TPOTY 2022 – OVERALL WINNER Najin is one of the last two northern white rhinos left in the world, with her caretaker Zachary just after receiving carrots, her evening treat. The northern white rhino is all but extinct with the final two males dying several years ago. The two female rhinos are still alive, but are too feeble to bear babies. In an Italian lab, their eggs are now artificially fertilised by sperm from the late males and kept at -196C, in the hope that surrogate rhinos from another sub-species can carry the northern white rhino back from the brink. Lens Sigma 60-600mm f/4.5-6.3 DG OS HSM | Sports Exposure 1/500 sec, f/7.1, ISO400 02 SHRIMP FISHERMEN BY MAGDALÉNA STRAKOVÁ CULTURES – WINNER Magdaléna…

It’s all too easy to start shooting and not realise your camera settings are wrong until it’s too late! This can leave you with blurred or noisy photos, focus errors, missed opportunities or even the incorrect type of image file. It all sounds like a disaster in the making, and very often we do it to ourselves. We set the camera up for one set of conditions, go home and forget to change it back. So this checklist is to help make sure that you go over the basics before you shoot so that you avoid any frustrating errors or holdups. It boils down to five things: choosing the best shooting mode, checking your focus settings, making sure you’re in the right drive mode, checking your image size and quality…

Silence please! 11 SOMETIMES you’ll find yourself shooting in situations where you have to be very quiet, even silent. This might be in a museum, during a theatre production or at a key moment in a sporting event – like match point in a tennis final! You can turn off the autofocus confirmation beep, but that’s not enough – you need to put the camera in Silent mode, a common feature on mirrorless cameras with electronic shutters. Some cameras have this feature in the scene (SCN) modes. Use burst mode for bracketing 12 CONTINUOUS shooting mode isn’t just for action sequences. It’s also very useful if you are using Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB), either to choose the best exposure later or to combine a series of exposures into a single HDR…

Take out a year’s subscription of PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine and start off with 3 issues for only £5/$5/€5 with a no-hassle home delivery Great reasons to subscribe today • Subscribe to PhotoPlus for essential Canon techniques, tests and photography projects every month. • Pay less than you would in the shops! Subscribe now and enjoy your first 3 issues of PhotoPlus for just £5. OPTION 1: £5 FOR 3 ISSUES* PRINT SUBSCRIPTION EVERY 6 MONTHS FROM £24.99* • 13 PhotoPlus print issues a year delivered to you OPTION 2: £5 FOR 3 ISSUES* PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION EVERY 6 MONTHS FROM £32.49* • 13 PhotoPlus print issues a year delivered to you • 13 PhotoPlus digital issues a year for your device OPTION 3: £5 FOR 3 ISSUES* DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION EVERY…

A burst of flash lets us freeze motion, and a long exposure lets us create motion blur. Both are great techniques, but if you’re looking for a creative approach to action shots, the slow-sync flash method lets us have it all in a single frame. Sometimes called shutter ‘dragging’, this is where we use a flash with a longer-than-normal exposure to introduce motion blur. It’s a great trick to try out for action or sports subjects, such as our Taekwondo expert. By using a combination of flash and gelled LED lighting, we can create gorgeous streaks of blur to convey the movement of the subject, along with a burst of flash to freeze the motion. Whenever we use flash, we are effectively making two exposures in one. First there’s the…

01 PAINT WITH CLARITY Open the image into Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom and hit K for the Brush tool. Paint roughly over the blurry parts, then try increasing Clarity using the settings on the right. This crisps up the flowing lines for more defined blur. Of course, you can also lighten or darken the blur with this tool too. 02 TIDY THE EDGES There are likely to be parts of the frame that look messy because you’ve included areas of backdrop or because of lens flare. Hit K again for another brush mask. Paint around the messy areas, then decrease Exposure to darken them. Repeat if necessary until they’re fully black. 03 CHECK THE SHADOWS We can also use the Photoshop Burn tool set to Range: Shadows to make…

01 GET CLOSE Use a close-focusing lens to fill an adequate portion of the frame with the figure. We used a Tamron SP AF 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro, but if you don’t own a macro lens, a kit lens with a short minimum focus distance can work well. 02 SUPER(HERO) GLUE Find a way to fix your figure down, since they’re prone to falling over and must stay perfectly still if you’re shooting a sequence. We used a tiny bit of superglue to stick ours to an old chopping board before surrounding it with chopped lettuce leaves. 03 SET THE SCENE Set your scene (take extra care if you’re using a knife as a prop). Ensure everything is as stable as possible – you don’t want things moving as you…

One of the most difficult things to get right in landscape photography is balancing the light between the land and the sky. In situations where you have more dramatic light, there is a huge discrepancy between the bright sky compared to the dark land. There are software and hardware solutions that try to remedy this. Even with digital photography, a graduated neutral density filter can lower the light entering the camera where the filter is active; you get varieties with hard or soft edges to complement the landscape you’re shooting. It’s not perfect – unless you have a flat horizon, you darken parts you’d rather not. For a software solution, you can use bracketing and HDR. Again, it’s not perfect, as you try to prevent a situation where the contrast…

01 OIL PAINT Before painting with the Smudge tool, our first edit is to apply the Oil Paint filter. This transforms our portrait to give it more of a brush-based feel. Duplicate the background layer with Cmd/Ctrl+J, then go to Filter>Stylize>Oil Paint. Smooth out the original image into painterly strokes – we used Stylization 8.3, Cleanliness 2.6, Scale 7.2 and Bristle Detail 3.2. Experiment to see what works for you. 02 SET UP THE TOOL Make a new layer, then tick Sample All Layers in the Smudge tool options so we can paint on the empty layer while sampling and smudging the colours and details from below. The Strength control determines how far you can push pixels. Start with a strength around 50% (tap the 5 key for 50%, 6…

FOR SOME wildlife photographers, the thrill of travelling to exotic, far-flung locations and tracking down rare species is what keeps the magic alive. But for Sam Rusu, who moved to the UK in 2015, magical moments can be found in the everyday, the commonplace, the closer to home, the unexpected and unplanned; a robin perching in the garden, or a chance encounter in a London park with a kestrel. “I focus on representing scenes that are usually hard to reproduce, capturing those ethereal moments. The technological tools are the brushes that I use to illuminate the surreal elements of nature,” he says. Sam uses the creative and mindful act of photography to relax and escape from what he calls “The madness of adulthood”. He loves to revisit species regularly to…

I have always been creative but I only recently discovered photography. I got my first camera, a Canon Powershot compact, back in 2006 which was a present from my wife. It was for taking holiday snaps but my interest in photography quickly outgrew the camera. A passion for the outdoors led me to shooting landscapes and as I developed my craft, I chose to stay local and explore East Anglia rather than spend my time travelling the country to shoot the ‘classic’ locations. There is, of course, nothing wrong with photographing well-known spots, they are after all popular for a reason, but by staying local I could return to locations time and again responding to weather conditions and getting to know the landscape better. This specialisation eventually helped with my…

The first step towards making reliable exposures is to ensure that you’re using an appropriate metering mode. You can check which mode is currently set by pressing ‘Q’ to bring up the Quick Control screen. Some EOS bodies also have a dedicated metering mode button. Most EOS cameras offer four ways to measure the brightness of a scene: Evaluative, Partial, Spot and Centre-weighted average, although beginner-friendly DSLRs such as at the EOS 4000D and EOS 2000D don’t have Spot metering. Evaluative and Centre-weighted average measure the brightness across the whole picture, while Partial and Spot metering measure progressively smaller areas. You can end up with some unexpected results with the wrong metering – particularly if you’ve slipped into Spot metering – but all the modes can produce a good exposure.…

Exposure compensation allows you to override the camera meter to make the next shot you take either brighter or darker than the camera’s standard exposure. The exposure scale on the camera screens and in the viewfinder acts as a guide to how much compensation you’re dialling in. When the indicator is in the middle of the scale, the image will be recorded at the camera’s standard exposure. If the indicator moves to the right – the bright side – then the exposure will be increased and the image will be brighter. Move the indicator to the left of the centre mark to reduce the exposure and get a darker shot. There are numerous ways that you can set the exposure compensation value. Using your thumb to rotate the Quick Control…

The Canon EOS R5 is a high-end mirrorless camera with several advanced features, including a powerful In-Body Image Stabilization system (IBIS) and a high-resolution 45MP CMOS sensor. The recent firmware update v1.8.1 now adds a new 400MP IBIS high-resolution mode! Conventionally IBIS works by moving the camera’s sensor to counteract camera shake. IBIS high-resolution mode, on the other hand, utilizes the IBIS unit to move the sensor a fixed amount horizontally, vertically and diagonally, capturing an image at each of nine defined positions. Once captured the frames are combined in-camera to create a super-high-res 400MP JPG. One of the main benefits of the Canon EOS R5 IBIS high-resolution mode is the ability to capture incredibly detailed images. This is ideal for photographers who want to print their images at enormous…

Canon has announced the new PowerShot V10, a compact camera aimed at vloggers on-the-go, capable of recording 4K video in UHD at 29.97p and up to 15MP still images. Canon’s new compact truly lives up to its name with petite dimensions of 63.4x90x34.3mm, making it roughly the same size as a deck of cards, so easily fits into a coat or jeans pocket. It also only weighs in at 211 grams. Although small and lightweight, the V10 fits in some impressive features, including a 6.6mm f/2.8 wide-angle lens, this is a full-frame equivalent of 18mm when shooting stills or 19mm when shooting video. Its 1-inch back-illuminated CMOS sensor is considerably larger than those in most smartphones and paired with its bright f/2.8 maximum aperture should deliver good image quality. Although…

We measure the maximum operating height of each tripod we tested, and its folded height for carrying. We also measure the combined weight of each set of tripod legs and head, using electronic scales, and measure the diameter of all leg sections, from the widest to the thinnest, using electronic digital callipers. We check the ease of use, smoothness and precision of all available adjustments in each set of tripod legs and heads. This ranges from adjusting each of the leg sections and pivot facilities (where available), to the locking mechanism of the ball head, as well as independent pan and friction damping adjustments, where fitted. To check overall stability, we shoot with a range of Canon EOS DSLR and mirrorless camera bodies fitted with wide-angle, standard, telephoto and macro…

A time-honoured tradition for carrying a tripod is to strap it to the outside of your photo bag or backpack. It’s a fairly neat solution but can be awkward if the tripod catches on obstacles, and you might fall foul of carry-on restrictions when flying. Some of the latest designs are so small that you can fit them inside a bag, neatly solving the problem. When folded, most of the tripods in this test group go down to around 35cm or less. Some are barely more than a foot long. The upshot is that they’re small enough to fit in a fairly small bag or backpack which helps to keep the tripod safe, dry and out of the way, and avoids you having to advertise the fact that you’re carrying…

Multi-angle legs help to reduce the minimum shooting height but the limiting factor is generally the point at which the centre column touches the ground. The minimum height is therefore the height of the centre column plus the ball head. A two-section extending centre column can help to further reduce the minimum operating height, as well as the carrying height. Better still, the Kenro Karoo Ultimate Travel and Vanguard VEO 3GO 235CB kits are supplied with a short, stubby ‘low angle adaptor’. You can attach this to the tripod head and use it instead of the centre column. The centre column is also removable in the 3 Legged Thing Corey tripod, where the head can attach directly to the spider. For even lower-level shooting, you can invert the centre column…

Stunning symmetrical kites image wins Nature Photographer of the Year Germany crowns its Nature Photographer of the Year winners – and the images are truly awe-inspiring. Check out more winning images and news at DigitalCameraWorld.com via quick link bit.ly/npoty23 Canon’s new ultra-lowlight MS-500 camera can detect individual photons Canon announces the MS-500 interchangeable lens camera with new SPAD imaging sensor that can see in complete darkness! More on this Canon story at DigitalCameraWorld.com via bit.ly/dcw_spad Your eyes are around 124 megapixels. So, it is now time for an 8K TV? The resolution of the human eye can be 576 megapixels, says one scientist. But it can also be less. Or more… Learn about the power of your eyes at DigitalCameraWorld.com via our quick link bit.ly/dcw_eyes INSTAGRAM www.instagram.com/PhotoPlusCanonMag FACEBOOK www.facebook.com/PhotoPlusMag TWITTER…

CANON PRO NAME: JAMES ABBOTT CAMERA: CANON EOS R5 JAMES ABBOTT is a talented landscape photographer based in Cambridgeshire, although you’ll often find him exploring one of the UK’s many hills or mountains, shooting landscapes and teaching workshops. He’s also the author of The Digital Darkroom: The Definitive Guide to Photo Editing. We met up with him at Wyming Brook, one of his favourite spots to photograph waterfalls in the UK’s stunning Peak District. jamesaphoto.co.uk APPRENTICE NAME: GEMMA PEPPER CAMERA: CANON EOS R6 GEMMA is a product photographer as well as weekend bird watcher and photographer. You’ll find some of her lovely birding pictures on Instagram @thebirdnerdx_ but while Gemma has a passion for all things outdoors and is confident with wildlife photography, she’s always struggled with landscapes. That’s why…

Driving the industry forward is a key goal for Canon, and that means improving the support it offers customers and giving you the inspiration you need to take your creativity to the next level. First and foremost, that’s achieved with Canon’s cutting-edge imaging technology – providing industry-leading EOS bodies, lenses and software for stills, video and printing. Beyond that, though, it’s in the ongoing service and relationship between Canon, you and your ever-evolving needs. Canon Professional Services (CPS) now offers targeted benefits for business users, while there’s the new Canon Club, which is an online community for people who want to pursue their passion for photography and craft printing. What’s changing with CPS? If you are a freelancer, registered as a sole trader or any other type of business, then…

Ditchling Beacon, East Sussex. 06:54am. 31 August 2018 One of the ways I produce different formats of imagery is not only by using the fabulous Canon crop modes, but by shooting panoramas. I carve up the results in the office with a nice cup of tea later that day. I have been doing this for quite a few years now as it saves me a lot of time when the conditions are changing quickly, or I really can’t work out the strongest part of the image. It is the summer of 2018, and I head off to the South East to do some video presentation work for Canon. Alongside this I managed to attempt some photos of my own with a few targets in mind – Ditchling Beacon, a quick spin…

01 DARK ROOM & BACKDROP We need our backdrop to be as dark as possible, so the only ambient light is coming from our LEDs. Either close all the curtains or shoot it outside at night. A plain dark background ensures the blur is as clear as possible. We used some black material for the background and floor. 02 CONSTANT LIGHTS The constant lights illuminate the subject from behind to the right side as he moves. Effectively, they’re for the blurry part of the long exposure. We’ve used two LED lights, one fitted with a red gel, the other fitted with a snoot to control the spread of light and set to create a warm colour. 03 FLASHES Two flashes are placed to the left of the subject: a rear…

AS WELL as blurring the motion of the subject, we can also use camera motion to create blur. For this shot, we had the subject stay still and we panned the camera from one side to another to create the blur. There are lots of other ways to get creative with shutter drag, too. If you have a zoom lens, you can get interesting results by zooming in or out during the exposure. You could also try including other lights in the frame, such as fairy lights or coloured LEDs. To take it further, why not experiment by firing the flash at different points, such as halfway through the exposure? Or perhaps experiment by having your constant lights pulse so that the blur is staccato. When you start to experiment, you’ll…

01 EYEPIECE COVER If you’re using a Canon DSLR it’s a good idea to attach the eyepiece cover during long exposures, to reduce the risk of light entering through the eyepiece and causing flare. Just pop off your camera’s eyepiece and attach the eyepiece cover that should on your DSLR’s camera strap. 02 DIAL IN THE POLARIZER Turn your circular polarizer to adjust the amount of polarized light hitting the sensor. These filters help cut down glare on reflections such as water or glass windows and also help to boost blue skies. You’ll get the strongest effect when shooting at 90 degrees to the sun. 03 ADJUST YOUR ND GRAD Once you’ve chosen an ND grad that is the correct strength and also hardness for your scene, slot it in.…

01 CREATE A MASK In our original Connemara.jpg start image you’ll notice the sky is quite light. Click on the dotted circle below the histogram to open Masking. From the options presented, choose Select Sky. Lightroom Classic then uses AI to detect the sky in the photo. The Mask panel popup appears and the photo shows a ruby mask. 02 APPLY SETTINGS So far, the mask has done nothing – you have to apply settings to the mask before there’s any change in the photo. As the sky is too light, use Exposure to darken it. Even as little as one stop less Exposure can make a huge difference. 03 ADD BALANCE Now there’s a problem: the balance between the sky and the hills looks unreal. It’s too sudden –…

If you want to evoke the past in your photos, why not style them to look as if they were captured decades – or even centuries – ago. There are all sorts of tricks we can employ in Affinity Photo to do so. We’ll explore a host of vintage editing techniques here. First we’ll use a texture in combination with a layer blending mode. This is an easy way to add faded areas, dirt and grime to our image, as we can transfer the messy bits from our texture onto our photo with ease. Once done, we’ll use Adjustment Layers to remove the colour and add a tint just like an old vintage photo. We can also use filter effects to mimic the imperfections we’d often see in old photos,…

“I was with someone wanting to learn about wildlife photography and noticed this kestrel perched at the top of a small tree. I remained behind to guide and explain how to read the bird’s behaviour and after a successful approach, this person returned to show me the photos on the back of the camera. The kestrel then had other plans and took off, hovering right in front of us, then rested on this log for a few minutes. At this point, I did have time to grab my camera and got a few shots and some video footage. The whole experience lasted less than 10 minutes, but it was like time had stopped.”…

01 Canon EOS R5 WEB: www.canon.co.uk I SWITCHED to mirrorless in 2021, rather reluctantly at first after my beloved Canon EOS 5D Mark IV consumed more sea water than was good for it. The EOS R5 became an instant favourite though, it is packed full of features, from clever things like Eye Detection AF to simple things like ISO being on a separate dial, that make the EOS R5 an absolute joy to use. 02 Canon RF 14-35mm F4L IS USM WEB: www.canon.co.uk THE 24-105mm is my workhorse lens but I love the dramatic effect of getting up close to the foreground with an ultra wide angle lens so my Canon RF 14-35mm F4L IS USM gets a lot of use too. At 14mm it is super wide, but doesn’t…

It’s not just the size of the metering mode that makes a difference to the exposure, but how it behaves too. As we’ve highlighted, the light meter is tuned to 18% midtone, which means that when you point the Partial, Spot or Centre-weighted meter at a subject, it will suggest an exposure that will make the metered subject a mid-tone value. If the subject is darker, you may want to dial in some negative exposure compensation to make the metered area darker. If it’s brighter than mid-tone, dial in positive exposure compensation. Evaluative metering is an ‘intelligent’ metering mode, and it essentially works out whether the subject needs to be made darker or brighter before it suggests an exposure. It factors in any compensation before displaying the aperture, shutter speed…

Some camera functions can provide a visual guide to exposure and allow you to spot any potential problems in a shoot. If you’re using a Canon EOS R mirrorless camera, you can use the electronic viewfinder’s exposure simulation, which displays the image at a brightness that’s close to the captured image’s exposure. It’s not possible to do this in a DLSR’s optical viewfinder, although exposure simulation does work when you’re shooting in Live View via the rear screen. It isn’t as convenient as the electronic viewfinder option though, particularly as it can be harder to see the image in bright light. With exposure simulation enabled, you’ll be able to see the image brightness change as you dial in exposure compensation or change one of the exposure settings when you’re shooting…

ADDED DEPTH COMPOSITING TECHNIQUES Autofocus must be used for depth compositing and back button AF means you can set the initial focus position as you want, not where the camera focuses. It’s a good idea to save each series of composite images in their own folder on the memory card so that you can easily locate all the images for a single composite. 01 CONFIGURE FOCUS BRACKETING Go to the camera menus and activate Focus Bracketing. The number of shots depends on the subject depth, aperture and how close you are; the model train needed 50 shots at f/4. For consistent brightness, leave Exposure Smoothing on. If your camera offers Depth Composite, a composite image is created in-camera when this is enabled. 02 BATCH ADJUST COLOUR AND TONE Shoot in…

MARK HARRIS, UXBRIDGE, SAYS… I bought the Canon EOS 100D with an EF-S 18-200mm lens as a backup some years ago. I now carry it as my ‘holiday camera’ as it gives me sufficient versatility for just about anything, yet is still small and light, but with great range. The shot was captured in the Maldives, and I was lucky with the skipper of the boat as we shared the same affliction with the need for symmetry. Not speaking the same language, I used my two index fingers to represent the masts of the yacht, and aligning them either side of the sun. This is perhaps one of my favourite images of the entire trip. BRIAN SAYS… You have done well to get the sun aligned between the two masts…

A decade ago, the Giotto’s company launched a series of Vitruvian tripods, named after Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing, ‘The Vitruvian Man’. As in the drawing, the legs swing upwards but, in the case of the Giotto’s tripods they swung up completely, adopting a vertically upright orientation for stowing away. The trick was that, by fully extending the centre column before swinging the legs up, the tripod head no longer extended beyond the length of the legs, making the carrying size much smaller. Another neat trick of Vitruvian tripods was that you could unscrew one of the tripod legs, detach the centre column, and join the two together for use as a monopod, complete with ball head. Both facets of the design have been adopted in many lightweight tripods.…

All but two of the tripod kits on test come complete with ball heads, so the quality of the head is an important buying consideration. Smaller, more lightweight tripods tend to have a lower maximum load rating of around 4-6kg. They’ll typically have relatively small ball heads but can still perform well with the payload for which they’re designed. Some kits have a heftier 8-15kg load rating and chunkier, more heavy-duty heads. They tend to have ball heads that feature adjustable friction dampers and an independent panning release. Exceptions in the group are the Manfrotto Befree 3-Way Live Advanced, which has a conventional 3-way head, and the Peak Design Travel Tripod, which features an integral head.…

What to look for Canon EOS camera ranges Canon splits its EOS range into mirrorless cameras and DSLRs. Its older DSLR line-up includes beginner, enthusiast and pro ranges; the EOS 4000D is the most basic, the 850D for intermediates, the 90D and full-frame 6D Mk II for advanced enthusiasts, and the full-frame pro-level 5D and 1D lines. Over the page are the two EOS mirrorless ranges: Canon’s smaller, older APS-C EOS M cameras, and Canon’s EOS R System APS-C and full-frame cameras that offer the very latest digital technology. The APS-C crop-sensor EOS R50, R10 and R7 are smaller, affordable entry-level options. While the EOS R8 up to the R6 Mark II, R5 and flagship R3 are full-frame for serious enthusiasts to professionals. Canon’s EOS R cameras are packed with…

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…