Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2023 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

As if we all need an excuse to get out with our Canon cameras, autumn is the season that offers an abundance of photographic opportunities. In our big Canon photo skills guide this issue, we have 10 exciting photo projects for you to try in your local areas. Shoot a misty autumn sunrise, capture parkland wildlife, head to town for urban scenes, or get down low for colourful canopies in forests full of fiery red foliage. Alternatively, for bad weather days, capture close-ups indoors of autumn leaves with a shallow depth of field. See page 28. Our PhotoPlus Apprentice has a great time in Canon pro Russ Tierney’s cool photo studio, learning how to capture six creative portrait styles, with a mixture of models, simple lighting and different backdrops, on…

MANUAL MODE TO BEGIN, Russ asked Jonathan to start with his Canon EOS R5 set to its Manual mode to take full control of the exposure. He suggested starting with ISO100 for best image quality as the lights can be made more or less powerful instead of changing the ISO. The aperture was set to f/9 to provide a large depth of field to ensure all of model Natalia’s body was in sharp focus. Shutter speed was set to 1/125 sec, which was below the maximum sync speed so that it wouldn’t cause any issues with flash sync. SETTING A MANUAL WHITE BALANCE RUSS SETS a manual white balance setting on his Canon EOS R5 to make sure the colours look perfect. Shooting in RAW also gives you the ability…

JONATHAN’S COMMENT “Russ has a brilliant ‘neon’ lights wall in his studio that makes for an incredibly vibrant and unique backdrop. He’s spent years cultivating the LED and neon signs, and he explained that the various signs have a different brightness and colour temperature which can throw up curveballs. He uses LED lighting rather than flash to light the models, making it easier to balance the foreground and background, as well as using a wide aperture to transform the signs behind into lovely blurry bokeh. We used a blue LED and green LED to Emma’s left and right to add colour and create a ‘sci-fi’ look. I then shot at f/2 to blur the background.” RUSS’S VERDICT “Jonathan was a great Apprentice and I was eager to show him as…

To create your own seasonal still life, collect a handful of fallen leaves and set up indoors on a table. We’re going to use a macro lens, so depth of field will be limited, meaning we can make a complementary background from the extra leaves that will fall out of focus. For the main focal point, place a few drops of water on the main leaf with a fine-tipped brush, and focus on the droplet that you’d like to be the focal point. You can light the still life using natural window light. For more directional lighting, use an LED light, too. Even with extra lighting and a wide aperture, such as f/4, the shutter speed is going to be slow. To counter this, put the camera on a tripod…

A typical woodland scene is busy and complicated. With time you can always find a way to simplify the scene to get a good shot but one surefire way to do this is to use intentional camera movement and reduce its form to shape and tone. Autumn is an especially good time for this technique because the colours and reduced leaf canopy mean you can create some really interesting compositions. For consistently successful shots, choose your scene well. Close one eye and squint the other to visualize the tonal contrast in the scene. You want a range of tones, but some extremes for strong shapes to form. Set a shutter speed of 1/15 sec. To get this, make sure you are at your lowest ISO for the best image quality…

When the leaves really turn, you’re presented with a fleeting opportunity to catch a shot that’s awash with colour and texture. We say it’s fleeting, because if the wind gets up, that moment will pass, as all those leaves will soon be on the ground! To increase your chances of bagging a colourful canopy, take the time to recce possible locations where the leaves are already on the turn. Pick places close to home that you can get to quickly, and don’t worry about the surrounding environment – for this shot, a copse of trees planted as a noise suppressor next to a dual carriageway is just as good as a fairy glade! You’re only interested in the canopy, so what lies adjacent to it is outside the frame. Once…

TIP 1 Experiment with White Balance One of the main reasons autumnal images fail is because the camera selects a white balance that neutralizes the strong colours we expect from them. The dominance of reds and oranges often fools the camera into adding blues and cyans. To maintain colour with the iconic autumn ‘wow’ factor, instead of the Auto White Balance (AWB) or Daylight setting, manually select the Shade or Cloudy white balance preset to hold those warm colours and exaggerate the colour bias. This can create perfect autumnal colours in one easy step. TIP 2 Use a polarizer We’ve already mentioned this in project 5, but it’s an important fact that this photographer’s secret weapon is also ideal for boosting autumn colour. When shooting in an autumn environment, the…

01 HARD LIGHT vs SOFTBOX In general, it’s better to use a large light source like a softbox over a small light source like a bare flash. Look at the difference here between the bare flash used in this image and the softbox lighting in Tip 3. The larger the light source, the more gentle the shadows will be. 02 SETTING THE FLASH POWER With your camera settings locked in, don’t change them; alter the power of the lights to suit your exposure. With more than one light, turn just one on and work out the right power and position for it using test shots, then add a second light and build it up. 03 GET THE LIGHT IN CLOSE You’ll get the best results if you bring your backlight…

Autumn makes me think of with wet woodland walks, the fiery glow of leaves turning yellow and orange before falling to the ground, some of the best comfort food Britain has to offer with seasonal veg and cosy days spent indoors as the days get both shorter and cooler before we begin to hunker down for the winter. While there’s no shortage of photogenic subjects to turn your Canon EOS towards outside this autumn, it’s easy to overlook the bounty of still life opportunities you can have indoors too, perfect for those rainy days where you’re not able to get outdoors with your camera. In this project I’ll give you the inspiration and key settings to shoot your very own seasonal still life scene indoors, oozing with autumnal atmosphere. Speaking…

01 MINIATURE TRIPOD A mini tripod like the Leofoto Ranger LS 223C pictured here, or a JOBY Gorillapod helps you cut down on space and weight when travelling and is ideal if you know you need the convenience of a tripod but will only be shooting from ground level. 02 INVERTING CENTRE COLUMN Many professional tripods have the ability for the centre column to be inverted, rotated or swapped out for a shorter one (more over the page on these options). This helps you lower your camera closer to the ground when shooting low down. 03 CANON EOS CAMERA While you can shoot street scenes with any Canon EOS camera, lighter models like our 100D DSLR are ideal as miniature tripods may have a lower max weight. Lighter bodies are…

01 CHOP IT DOWN TO SIZE We had an old unused tripod gathering dust and we wanted to give it a second lease of life as a miniature tripod. The first step was to mark out four inches for the top leg sections and cut them down to size with a hacksaw. 02 SHORTEN THE COLUMN Next, you’ll want to modify the centre column to make it shorter so it doesn’t get in the way when shooting so close to the ground. Some tripods come with one, but if yours doesn’t you can again cut it down to size with a hacksaw. 03 BOND IT TOGETHER All that was left was to bond everything together - we used super glue as it wouldn’t be load bearing and ideal for adhering…

The eye is generally attracted to the brightest thing in a photo and is also drawn to sharper and more saturated areas – you can use this information to direct where your viewer goes first. Normally, vignetting is bad. It’s a form of lens distortion where the photo’s edges become darker. It can look okay, but unless your subject is in the middle, it’s not great for creative control. Vignetting can be corrected using Lens Profiles in Lens Corrections – applied for mirrorless cameras automatically. Lightroom Classic CC does have a Vignetting option in Effects, but it’s centred only (though it is crop aware). A better option is the Radial Gradient tool, which is now one of the Masking options. You can still use this filter in older versions of…

01 THE ACTIONS PANEL Go to Window>Actions to bring up the Actions panel. After making an action, it’ll appear in the list. Expand the action to see every step that went into creating it. You can drag to change the order of steps, delete them or toggle the tick icon next to each step to disable them. Double-click a step to re-enter the setting or dialog box and tweak the controls – these new settings are then saved into the action. 02 MAKE A NEW ACTION Press the New Action button, give your action a name and hit Record. Now, until you hit the stop button in the Actions panel, everything you do in Photoshop will be recorded into the action. You can also assign keyboard shortcuts to your most-used…

JAMES Musselwhite is a professional photographer (and videographer) who’s hard to pin down, at least in terms of genre. When I speak to James from his home in Portsmouth – his commercial studio is based nearby – he’s just returned from shooting a big wrestling event in London and is still riding high on the excitement. James’s huge passion for wrestling (www.portraitofawrestler.com) has followed him throughout his career and makes up a part of his portrait business alongside weddings, pets, newborns, and even commercial headshots. James’s work might be varied, but it’s portraiture and, more importantly, the story behind the portrait, that he loves most. His approach to gear, lighting and client consultations is also similar – no matter the subject. “Working out how famous portraits have been shot is…

I’ve long associated travelling with photography. Even at a young age, my grandmother would provide me with a camera and roll of film when we went away on holiday. I work for a European fashion retailer and get to visit the countries where clothes are made as part of my job. The first time I visited Bangladesh in 2004, I was positively surprised with the beauty of the people and the country. Before arriving, I did some research and a lot of the reviews were not favourable, but I found the country to be very special. I saw people’s hard work, resilience and strength. I wanted to show the beautiful aspect of this country to counter the negative news I read and to show Bangladesh in the best light using…

01 Canon EOS 5D Mark III & IV WEB: www.canon.co.uk THE Canon EOS 5D Mark III was my first full-frame Canon EOS camera and was my workhorse for many years, I’ve now upgraded to the 5D Mark IV and use my 5D Mark III as my backup camera. After working with APS-C bodies prior, both of my 5D bodies have shown me the significant improvement to image quality and low light performance. 02 Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM WEB: www.canon.co.uk A 100mm macro lens is a must-have for photographers looking to shoot detailed close-ups, whether that’s food, still-life or even insects. The quality and detail in my close-up food shots with this lens are simply incredible and might just be my favourite lens when it comes to food photography.…

If your camera offers Multi Shot noise reduction, you’ll find it listed in the High ISO Speed NR menu screen (scroll through the strength settings to find it). It tackles image noise in a similar way to focus stacking: when you press the shutter release button, four images are taken in quick succession. These are then aligned and compared. The camera retains the details that are in the same place in each frame, and attempts to remove the noise that appears randomly in each picture. Multi Shot can give a high degree of noise reduction while delivering better image quality than a single hit of high-strength noise reduction applied to a single image. The main drawback is that it’s designed to be used on stationary subjects, as any movement detected…

IT CAN be worth putting up with a bit of noise when you increase the ISO, if it means that you’re able to record a picture in low light or freeze a moment with a fast shutter speed. But if you’re concerned about image quality then you might want to avoid the highest ISO settings on your camera. You can set the maximum sensitivity that the camera’s able to select using Auto ISO for example, but some cameras also enable you to reduce the ISO range that’s available when you’re manually setting the sensitivity. You’ll find this option in the red Shooting menu. PART 33 Next issue: Indoor photography setups at home…

“I have an EOS R8, and want to know if it is normal for the single AF point to keep moving around the frame when I recompose my photos?”Will Murray, Great Malvern BRIAN SAYS… The EOS R8 AF works differently from a DSLR or even the EOS R5. When in one shot AF, the green AF point stays where you locate it. The default behaviour with Servo AF is that the blue single point is used to locate the primary subject and then the AF point moves to track that subject as you recompose. If you’re using AI focus then you might see both behaviours if the camera determines that the subject is moving or not, even if you simply recompose. You can change this to make it work like…

Compared with the DSLR focused Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM III, this RF-mount lens is a millimetre shorter at the wide-angle end of its zoom range. As such, it has a maximum viewing angle of 110 degrees, outgunning the 108 degrees of its EF counterpart. Both lenses have an identical physical diameter and 82mm filter attachment thread, the RF lens being a millimetre shorter but 50g heavier, at 840g. The Nano USM autofocus system is lightning-fast for stills while enabling smooth transitions when shooting video. The 5-stop optical image stabilizer gets a boost to 7-stop effectiveness when using EOS R system cameras with IBIS. There’s a tertiary control ring which you can customise for functions like aperture control, ISO and exposure compensation, and the optical layout includes two UD elements,…

Telephoto lenses often won’t fit in a small photo bag but, amazingly, this 70-200mm is only about the size of a can of drink, at least for stowage, thanks to its retractable design. That’s great news 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. The classic 70-200mm zoom range comes complete with a constant f/4 aperture rating and 5-stop optical image stabilization, boosted to 7.5-stop stabilization with cameras that feature IBIS. That’s great news for beating camera-shake, which can often be a problem in telephoto shooting. The autofocus system is superfast, based on dual Nano USM motors, adding the usual bonus of smooth and virtually silent focus transitions when shooting video.…

There’s a wealth of super-tele zooms that you can fit to an EOS R-system camera via an EF-EOS R mount adapter but, as an RF lens, the 100-500mm is naturally a perfect fit. It takes its cues from the perennially popular EF 100-400mm and is physically slightly longer but a little lighter. It adds an extra 100mm of telephoto reach, albeit with a slowing in aperture by two-thirds of an f/stop, to f/7.1. There’s nothing slow about its autofocus system however, which is based on dual Nano USM motors. As such, it’s blazing-fast and virtually silent in operation. The optical path incorporates no fewer than six UD (Ultra-low Dispersion) elements and one Super UD element, while the image stabilizer is rated 5 stops, rising to 6 stops with IBIS. As…

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…

01 GLISTENING-GREEN TANAGER BY NICOLAS REUSENS BEST PORTRAIT: GOLD “Venturing into the tropical forest in the Mashpi Amagusa Reserve, Ecuador, I was excited to spot the rare glistening-green tanager. After hours of waiting, I saw the vivid-green bird on a perfect heart-shaped leaf. Its shimmering feathers reflected a dazzling array of colours. I captured every detail, grateful for this magical moment amid the lush jungle backdrop.” Lens Tamron 100-400mm f/4.5-6.3 Di VC USD Exposure 1/500 sec, f/7.1, ISO400 02 A MOTHER’S LOVE BY QIUQING MU BIRD BEHAVIOUR: BRONZE “A great grey owl adult was hunting in a wheat field, and a juvenile flew to the edge of the field to be fed. Suddenly, the parent caught some prey. I quickly pressed the shutter and captured a heart-warming moment between the parent and…

There are lots of parkland locations where red deer roam free. Although these animals are captive, their ability to move around such a big space means you need to exercise some solid skills to get close enough for a good image. Luckily, autumn is the perfect time to do this, as it’s when they breed. It’s important to remember that red deer are large animals and during the rutting season they can be dangerous, so keep your distance by using a telephoto lens. As your subject is likely to be moving, make sure you have your AF mode switched to Continuous (AI-Servo), and that you can take a burst of shots in quick succession rather the default single-shot mode. A lot of wildlife shooting is reactive, so you need to…

There’s often the assumption that good autumnal images can only occur in natural environments. This of course isn’t the case but we all think about leaves and colours and don’t consider how they can be used in context. Although the visual aspects of what we perceive as ‘autumn’ can be short-lived, when it happens, it happens everywhere! That means the warm colours and carpet of fallen leaves give you the opportunity to add seasonal context to manmade environments as well as natural scenes. When the season is under way, revisit familiar urban settings like towns and villages, and capture how their character is transformed under the autumnal veneer. PRO GEAR POLARIZERS A polarizing filter lets you tone down or remove reflections in glass or water, and filters out any stray…

It’s not always easy to arrive at a location at the right time – often the light isn’t right, or the angle of the sun too high, or the colours too dull. While there’s no substitute for nailing the shot in-camera, if you want to change the mood after the fact then there are a few tools in Adobe Photoshop CC that can help. In this tutorial, we’ll explain how to totally alter the atmosphere in our woodland scene here with a combination of brush skills, layer blending modes and adjustment layers. With these simple Photoshop tools, you can change the colours to give the scene a dreamy atmosphere, add in spots of flare and even suggest mist floating through the forest. We have suggested specific colours and settings for…

Place a light behind a person to one side – or two lights either side and the light glances off the edge of the subject in the most wonderful way. This is one of the simplest, yet most powerful lighting skills you can learn. Get to grips with backlighting and you can craft sensational portraits. We’ve used a set of lights from a home studio kit here, each fitted with a softbox. But you don’t necessarily need to go and buy a whole load of new kit for this project. Any light source can be used for backlighting. A Speedlite and a cheap white umbrella will give amazing results, but even a household lamp can be used to great effect. Then of course there’s the sun. When it’s low in…

01 TRY BLACK AND WHITE Backlighting creates a wonderful sense of mood and depth, which often goes hand in hand with a black and white treatment. Colour can sometimes be a distraction, and without it you can emphasise the form of the subject and draw attention to the expression. The black and white panel is Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom is the ideal place to convert to mono. 02 FIX STRAY HAIRS One of the pitfalls of backlighting is that it shows up lots of distracting stray hairs around the edge of the head. Sadly, there’s no quick fix for this in Photoshop CC, you simply have to get stuck in with the Spot Removal tool to remove unwanted hairs. The new Remove tool is great for getting rid of…

01 SET UP YOUR STILL LIFE SCENE Put some autumnal objects on a table and rearrange them to your liking. We used some hessian fabric to complement the autumnal brown and orange tones and added a vinyl background to make the backdrop clean and uncluttered. 02 SET UP ON A TRIPOD Now it’s time to set up your Canon EOS camera on a tripod. This will help you lock off the composition while you move elements of your still life around the frame. A tripod will also eliminate camera shake in low light scenes indoors and help you nail the focus. 03 PLAY WITH DEPTH OF FIELD Start in Aperture priority (Av) mode and experiment with different aperture values and take shots both wide open such as at f/1.8, or…

01 MINI TRIPOD A miniature tripod such as the Leofoto Ranger LS 223C is perfect for low angle shots and is ideal for saving space and cutting down weight. While it isn’t as versatile as a full-size tripod, it’s perfect if you’re intentionally heading out for low angle shots. 02 LEG ANGLES On budget tripods you’ll usually find the legs are bound together for sharper video footage. One of the big differences with a pro photography tripod is the ability to change the leg angles, usually with a button found at the top of each leg. 03 STUBBY CENTRE COLUMN Some professional tripods come with a short centre column that can be swapped out so that it doesn’t get in the way when you set the legs to their lowest…

Over the past few years focus stacking has gone from a niche, little-known trick used in macro photography to an everyday technique called upon by all kinds of photographers, from those shooting architectural scenes to landscapes, product photography, fine art and more. There are two key benefits to focus stacking. The first is the obvious one. It lets us expand our depth of field beyond the capabilities of our camera and lens. By shooting a series of frames while incrementally adjusting the focus distance, we can record sharp details across the entire scene from front to back. Merging these photos is easy with Affinity Photo’s Focus Merge command. This automatically combines the sharp parts from each frame for us, and lets us manually perfect any mistakes in the blend. The second…

This image was utilized to launch wrestler Aluna onto a wider stage, and more prominent promotions both here and across Europe. Shot in the studio with two assistants, we used high-speed shutter sync flash to create a heart-shaped powder explosion and represent her character as a feelgood babyface inside the wrestling ring. The colour palette created a complementary scheme and her symmetrical, open pose, leads to a balanced composition. Dust in the background acts as both a heart and wings, representing her love of performing.…

I’ve been doing photography for around 20 years. Originally, I was a hater of digital as I thought it was the easy way out, I used to shoot on a Pentax 67ii film camera and was very much inspired by Joe Cornish who used to shoot film on a large format too. My big old film camera breaking yet again was the last straw so I made the switch, picking up a Canon EOS 5DS. I haven’t looked back, I have come to love the digital perks: it is instant, cheaper than film and much more practical. The interval timer is a must if you want to take self-portraits, unless you have a friend who is willing to pose for you. However, I’m sometimes running into scenes where there are…

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LONG Exposure NR is designed to remove the fixed-pattern noise that you typically see when the sensor is exposed for extended periods of time. Unlike the two other types of noise reduction, Long Exposure NR can be activated whether you’re shooting either JPEG or RAW. This type of noise reduction sees your camera make a second exposure. The camera shuts off the shutter for the second exposure so no light reaches the sensor. The second shot contains only a noise pattern, which the camera uses to map where the noise is in the main image in order to remove it. After this, your image is saved to the memory card. Note the second exposure may last as long as the exposure for your image. Like High ISO Speed NR, you’ll…

The compositing tool in Digital Photo Professional combines multiple images to make a new composite. While many advanced EOS cameras have an in-camera multiple exposure function, the compositing tool can replicate that capability for any EOS camera and provides additional control when combining images. The compositing tool even works with images from different cameras and different resolutions. When EOS cameras added multiple exposure capabilities, there were options to create an additive style multiple exposure, but also averaging each digital exposure and for some blending only the lighter or darker elements of the subsequent captures. DPP’s compositing tool provides all of these plus a weighted blending. This is where the photographer decides how much of the image needs to blend with a base image. The compositing tool can work with both RAW…

Back button AF is one of the polarizing topics that keeps coming up. I used back button AF with my DSLR cameras for many years, but since the launch of the EOS R, I’ve drifted away to the point of not using it at all. It is time to look at how you work with a modern mirrorless and determine if back button AF is necessary at all. Back button AF is where the camera buttons are reconfigured so that the half-press of the shutter no longer initiates focus, but instead the photographer presses another separate button to actuate AF. Conventionally this was a means to avoid switching from one shot to Servo focus. Set the camera for Servo AF, then press and hold the back button to focus and…

A part from the oddball RF 5.2mm F2.8L Dual Fisheye for VR creation, the RF 14-35mm gives the widest viewing angle of any lens in Canon’s current RF line-up. It also stretches from 114 degrees at the short end of the zoom range to 63 degrees, covering off the classic 35mm focal length often preferred for street photography. Weighing in at 540g, it’s easily manageable for all-day handheld shooting and is super-slim for a full-frame ultra-wide zoom, with a 77mm filter thread. There’s some seriously up-market glass shoehorned into this diminutive lens. The total count of 16 elements includes three GMo (Glass Moulded) aspherical elements, two UD (Ultra-low Dispersion) elements and one UD aspherical element. Fluorine coatings are applied to the front and rear elements to repel moisture and grease,…

As we said at the outset, the advanced processing power of EOS R-system cameras and lenses enables highly effective control over distortion. As with other manufacturers, Canon has designed many of its RF lenses for mirrorless cameras with compactness in mind, shrinking the physical size and relying more heavily on in-camera correction to deal with distortion. Even so, most of the lenses on test deliver fairly low amounts of barrel or pincushion distortion, with the exception of the RF 14-35mm, which still gives virtually distortion-free results straight from the camera. Distortion…

Relatively big and weighty, compared with the RF 24-105mm lens on test, this one weighs in at 900g, and its 89x126mm dimensions somewhat dwarf most EOS R-system bodies. It’s not just the build that’s big either, as the asking price is far higher than for Canon’s similarly pro-grade EF 24-70mm zoom for DSLRs and about double that of the RF 24-105mm on test. Build quality is exceptional; as well as feeling rock-solid with superb handling, it comes complete with a full set of weather-seals plus the now usual fluorine coating on the front and rear elements. The optical path includes no fewer than three moulded aspherical elements and three UD elements, plus Air Sphere Coating. The additional customisable control ring is placed at the front, there’s super-fast Nano USM autofocus…

Every lens in this test group delivers impressively low amounts of colour fringing, even out at the extreme edges and corners of the image frame. With no in-camera correction applied, the pricier versions of the standard and telephoto zoom lenses are slightly better than the more budget-friendly options. Conversely, the lower-priced wide-angle and super-telephoto zoom’s control over colour fringing is more effective than the more expensive options. Fringing…

Less than a quarter of the price of Canon’s RF 100-500mm lens on test, the RF 100-400mm is much more compact and lightweight, as well as being much more affordable. Apart from the RF 14-35mm on test, this lens is the most lightweight in the entire group, weighing in at just 635g. All in all, it looks and feels more like a traditional 70-300mm telephoto zoom. Typical of Canon’s non L-series lenses, the RF 100-400mm doesn’t have any weather-seals and the hood is sold separately, but build quality feels solid and there are plenty of enticing features. Unlike both of the RF 70-200mm zooms on test, this one is compatible with Canon’s RF 1.4x and 2x Extenders. The latter naturally gives you epic reach with up to an 800mm focal…

Choosing lenses Key factors to watch out for The main factors to consider in a lens are its focal length, maximum aperture, and if it’s full-frame compatible or not. We’ve categorized lenses by focal length range from wide-angle to telephoto. The larger a lens’s maximum aperture, the ‘faster’ it is. Zooms are more flexible than primes, but tend not to have such fast maximum apertures. Full-frame lenses will also work with ‘crop-sensor’ EOS DSLRs, but crop-sensor lenses aren’t compatible with full-frame cameras. For Canon EOS R mirrorless cameras the dedicated Canon RF lenses are best, but using Canon’s Mount Adapter EF-EOS R enables EF-S and EF lenses to be used on EOS R cameras. Contacts Canon www.canon.co.uk Peleng www.digitaltoyshop.co.uk Samyang www.samyang-lens.co.uk Schneider www.linhofstudio.com Sigma www.sigma-imaging-uk.com Tamron www.tamron.co.uk Tokina www.tokinalens.com Zeiss…

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APPRENTICE NAME: JONATHAN PEARSON CAMERA: CANON EOS R5 JONATHAN, 54, is a self-employed pest controller from Chester who loves to take portraits. He’s been using a camera since he was 17, first practising on his friends when he was still in school. Nowadays, he devotes his spare time to arranging photoshoots with models, and loves to experiment with indoor and outdoor setups. In addition to his latest Canon EOS R5 he also shoots on several film cameras too as he sometimes prefers the look. See his lovely work on Purpleport.com under the username jukeboxjohnnie. CANON PRO NAME: RUSS TIERNEY CAMERA: CANON EOS R5 SHOOTING for more than a decade as a professional portrait photographer, Russ works in his cool Splash Point Photo Studio in Rhyl, North Wales. He’s won and is regularly commended on photo competition…

Every season has its pros and cons when it comes to new photographic opportunities, but when you look at autumn’s long list of benefits, you can understand why it’s a time of year that has been getting creative people excited for centuries. As the green canopy of summer begins to evolve into more muted but highly evocative oranges and reds, and the skeletal shape of woodland starts to appear, the transformation of the natural world seems made for inspirational photography. With sunrise and sunset occurring at more civilised hours, and changeable weather that can bring glorious sunshine one minute and dark, stormy skies the next, autumn’s appeal is undeniable. Of course, there are some downsides, though. Unpredictable and cooler weather can drive you indoors, but the bonus here is that…

Misty conditions are a common feature of autumn scenes, and the type that often makes for the best images happens after a clear but cold night. Although it’s hard to predict, we often get a few mornings of misty conditions in a row, so keep a watchful eye on the weather in your area and get out there before sunrise if you think it’s a possibility. Mist that hugs the ground is often best photographed from a higher vantage point, and shooting into the light as the sun starts to appear can add an extra creative twist to your shots. PRO TECHNIQUE EXPOSING FOR CONTRE-JOUR SHOTS 01 CHECK YOUR HISTOGRAM The camera’s meter is likely to underexpose your misty landscape shot. Take a test shot at the exposure the camera…

No photographer can resist the appeal of an autumnal scene reflected in a calm lake, but conditions need to be right for the reflection to have depth and be well-saturated. That calls for strong sunlight and ideally this will be early or late in the day when the sun is lower. Although a polarizing filter will intensify the colours present, they will also suppress any reflections, so if you have one fitted, you’ll need to back it off to its minimum setting or remove it. One of the trickier aspects of reflection shots is deciding where to place the horizon. It’ll be tempting to place it in the middle of the frame to show the symmetry between the real and reflected content, but while this can work, it can also…

The idea that applying an effect that desaturates an image to increase detail may sound impossible, but by applying a bleach bypass effect to your images, you will see how this effect is much more useful than simply applying a movie-style colour effect to your shots. It will change the colouring of your images slightly, but they will maintain a natural look, and the effect can be controlled with ease. The bleach bypass effect has been around for a long time, first used in the movie industry as a colouring effect. As the name suggests, when processing the transparency film the bleach step was missed out, resulting in increased contrast with desaturation and washed out-looking mid-tones. The effect has been replicated in Photoshop, and while there are several ways to…

Castle Crag, Lake District. 11:14am. 3 November 2012 The year is 2012 and my pilgrimage to the Lake District has just begun. After a quick visit in an exceptional autumn focused my attention the year before, a return to this spectacular mountainous region was inevitable. I have travelled up with my good mate Justin, whose Mercedes estate is now filled with black bags, tripods and Gortex. It’s another grey afternoon as we approach Penrith. As a passenger (which is a rarity) I have been monitoring trees all the way up, my anxiety rising and falling with every bare branch. The Lakes can be a really glorious, but with wind and rain also likely to ravage the October run up, we have decided to stay in Borrowdale. The geography of this…

01 LIGHT SOURCE The key piece of kit is a moveable light source, ideally with a light stand. We’ve used an Elinchrom home studio head here. A mains-powered light like this is perfect for a home studio set-up. The lights can be triggered either with a wireless trigger or optically when detecting another flash. 02 DARK BACKDROP A dark, uncluttered backdrop will help to focus attention on your subject, and contrast with the edge highlight created by the backlighting. We’ve used a roll of vinyl here which is white on one side and dark grey on the other. A plain wall or a blanket strung up will work just as well. 03 CAMERA SETTINGS Here’s a good stock setting for a studio flash set-up like this. Set your camera to…

Why not try fitting coloured gels over your light sources to tint them different colours? A simple shift in colour can create an entirely new mood. Here we fitted our backlight with an orange gel, and our frontal fill light with a blue gel. Complimentary colours like this can work well together. So pick colours that sit opposite one another on a colour wheel. The fun thing about using orange and blue is that we can also get creative with our white balance to make the image cooler or warmer, so the balance shifts towards vibrant oranges or blues. We adjusted the white balance so that the blue gel has a minimal cast, which makes the warm light from behind even more vibrant. As well as tinting the light sources…

MANY PRO tripods have the ability for the centre column to be inverted, so check the specs to see if yours can. Sometimes they flip over, while other times they need to be removed entirely and then re-inserted the ‘wrong’ way around. COMPOSING on an inverted centre column can be tricky with your camera and all of its buttons upside down. But you can buy an inexpensive adapter that allows you to hang your camera from its hotshoe so you can shoot the right way up.…

WHAT’S BETTER than one focal point? Two of course! Look out for reflections in puddles of water on rainy days, or bring a large bottle of water with you to create your own! Flat pavements and tarmac tend to work best for creating silky smooth reflections in your street scenes. Using a wide-angle lens on your Canon EOS camera, you can get low down and close to the pool of water. This will allow you to compose including both your main focal point and its reflection, such as the church in our example. You can then decide whether to focus on your main subject, or its reflection. You could also experiment with using a shallow depth of field by opening up the aperture to turn either focal point into an…

Photoshop Actions allow you to save and reuse a sequence of edits, commands and settings. As such, if you carry out a task once, you need never to do it all again. In practice, you can use Actions to automate tasks, speed up your workflow and access your most used Photoshop features. It only takes a moment to create an action for a sequence of edits, then the same sequence can be applied to other images with a click. But what if there are certain points in the sequence where you want to change things manually? Thankfully, you can build stops and pauses into your actions. In this tutorial, we’ll explore some of the key features and show you how to create custom Actions. As an example, we’ve used a…

01 START A FOCUS MERGE Open Affinity Photo 2 then go to File>New Focus Merge. Click Add, navigate to your folder of photos and drag to select them all and hit Open. Click the OK button and sit back while Affinity Photo seeks out and combines the sharp parts from each photo for you. 02 INSPECT THE RESULTS At this point you might find that you’re done. But sometimes the merge will not be perfect. Landscapes can often have issues, as patches of background detail between stems or branches may be blurry, or the wind may make plants to move like the flower here. 03 FIND A SHARPER FRAME The Sources Panel lets us view each image in the blend, so we can click through the original frames to try…

James Musselwhite has been shooting professionally since 2013, and is a multi-talented photographer, mentor and speaker. Starting out in a high-street portrait studio, he soon taught himself how to light people and understand exposure, becoming the experienced professional he is today. Based in Portsmouth, James now runs his own studio and successful business, photographing newborns and family portraits, corporate headshots, and more. Outside of the studio, he also shoots video content for events and weddings. James is passionate about wrestling, and well known for ongoing personal projects such as Portrait of a Wrestler, which has been ongoing since around 2014. James is also an experienced photographic educator, offering 1-2-1 tuition as well hosting popular group workshops that have been called practical, honest and thoroughly fun. Endorsed by Canon, he regularly…

1. GET THE APP Scan the QR code (left) or go to the App store on your Apple device and search for ‘photoplus’ and then install the app. Now you can open the app on your iPad and/or iPhone. Any issues you buy will be stored in My Library. 2. USE THE APP In the app you can then buy any single issues, preview the current issue, scroll to find and buy any previous issues, as well as buy a selection of our great camera and photo bookazines available. 3. START YOUR FREE TRIAL Tap Subscribe for a 30-day FREE trial and get instant access to the current issue – plus your second issue also free! After the trial, it’s only £3.99 per month, or save more by subscribing for…

The more powerful processing and nuanced noise reduction tools available in image editing software can produce excellent results – particularly if you’ve shot RAW. Rather than simply having a ‘remove noise’ button, you will have individual sliders for reducing luminance noise and colour noise. Typically, when you open a RAW file, the software will automatically apply a small amount of colour noise reduction, but the luminance slider will be at zero. Some software goes deeper. In Lightroom Classic for example, you get sliders for luminance and colour ‘detail’ (which allows you to adjust the threshold of what the software detects as noise), luminance ‘contrast’ (which adds more bite at the expense of less smooth tonal changes) and colour ‘smoothness’ (which can cause some colour bleeding and remove a little detail…

01 PREPARING THE PORTRAITS For this you will need two images of the same person, ideally in different parts of the frame. You could ask your subject to change their appearance for each of the two images to replicate the effect shown here. Edit the photos in DPP if required then select the base image and choose the Compositing tool from the Tools menu. 02 CREATING TWINS IN PORTRAITS Select the image to use as the foreground over your selected image. Choose the composite method to combine the two frames. These pictures have a light-coloured background, so darken mode makes the darker parts of both images show through. If your pictures are on a black background, use the lighten method. Save the image as a JPG or TIFF. 03 SILHOUETTES…

Various EOS R-system full-frame cameras are available as a complete kit with this lens. Typically, it takes full advantage of the RF mount’s wide flange and close proximity to the image sensor, compared with EF lenses for DSLRs. It’s physically a little shorter and lighter than the EF 24-105mm f/4L, at 84x107mm and 700g, making it an ideal match for slim-line mirrorless bodies. Typical of L-series lenses rather than more modest ‘kit’ zooms, it has excellent build quality with extensive weather-seals and comes with a hood. Optical highlights include aspherical and UD elements, a 9-blade diaphragm and fluorine coatings. As in the more upmarket RF 24-70mm lens, there’s a 5-stop image stabilizer that gets a boost to a whopping 8 stops when paired with IBIS in compatible cameras. As with…

A long with a constant aperture rating that remains fixed throughout the zoom range, the physical length of 70-200mm f/2.8 lenses is also fixed. At least, that was the case before this new RF lens came along. Uniquely, it has a similar telescoping design as relatively low-budget 70-300mm telephoto zooms, therefore having an inner barrel that extends forwards at longer zoom settings. Some might feel that the design compromises quality, not least because air (and potentially dust and moisture) are sucked into the barrel every time you extend the zoom setting. The plus side is that it’s remarkably short at the 70mm zoom setting, making it easy to stow away, and it’s also relatively lightweight at just over a kilogram, making it very travel-friendly for a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. As…

Letter of the Month Thanks for providing a great magazine, which I have only missed one early issue before I subscribed. Since buying a weather-sealed Canon EOS 90D three years ago I have been looking for a weather-sealed lens to replace my Canon EF-S 18-135mm. These two provide a great ‘Go to’ combination. When I saw the Super Test in issue 209, Lightweight Lenses, I was really interested. However, I was very disappointed to see that none had weather-seals, they were all Canon, and mostly EOS R mounts. Norman Hill, Southampton You’re right, Norman, none of the lenses in last issue’s Super Test have any weather-seals. Canon has never made any weather-sealed EF-S or RF-S lenses, even with just a rubber gasket on the mounting plate. Some of the early…

Five years on, Canon’s EOS R system is now the ultimate camera platform Sponsored: From beginners to pros, stills to video, and APS-C to full-frame, Canon’s EOS R cameras and RF mount lenses are unrivalled. See DigitalCameraWorld.com via our quick link for more Canon news bit.ly/dcw_eosr Canon teams up with Reuters in a bid to crack down on AI-generated images Since AI has become so advanced, it’s never been more crucial to be able to identify authentic photos from AI-generated ones. Learn more news at DigitalCameraWorld.com via our quick link at bit.ly/dcw_canon_ai Canon PowerShot Pick review The Canon PowerShot Pick is a ‘smart’ camera that automatically captures images for us, allowing us to get on with living our life. Check out more of our great tests at DigitalCameraWorld.com via the…