Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2024 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

CANON PRO NAME: PAUL GROOM CAMERA: CANON EOS R5 PAUL GROOM is a Canon professional photographer based near Bristol. With extensive knowledge from shooting the city and its buildings and bridges over the past 20 years, he was ideally placed to teach our Apprentice how to capture great night shots of the modern architecture. “After starting in graphic design, I’ve been working as a full-time photographer since 2005. I now proudly work with many clients including National Grid, Channel 4, Burges Salmon and various charities.” See more at paulgroomphotography.co.uk APPRENTICE NAME: PAUL WAY CAMERA: CANON EOS R5 KEEN CANON photographer Paul Way is based in South Wales, and has been shooting wildlife for many years. “My job as a UK sales manager takes me all over the country, giving me opportunities to visit some great…

media://hotshot-5.jpg/ PAUL WAY’S COMMENT “Thank you PhotoPlus and pro Paul for the opportunity. I thoroughly enjoyed my evening and learned a lot. It was such a positive experience and has opened my eyes to expanding my portfolio beyond wildlife. For this shot, we set up in rush hour, in a prime position at street level to capture lots of busy Bristol traffic. I was taught that the trick to these light trail shots is a wide 16mm focal length and a 30-second shutter speed, and timing it to include double-decker buses to fill the frame top to bottom with their lights as they pass through our long exposures.” PAUL GROOM’S VERDICT “Paul was an attentive Apprentice and, although totally out of his comfort zone, he quickly picked up the different…

ONE OF the biggest advantages to using red and blue as our two main colours here is that they can be easily altered to other shades if we want a different look. There are lots of colour-changing options in Photoshop, but perhaps the easiest to use is the Color Mixer Panel. Available in Camera Raw and Lightroom (and also through Filter>Camera Raw Filter in Photoshop) this panel lets you target eight different colour channels and change the Hue, Saturation and Luminosity of each. Set it to Hue, then grab the target tool and drag left or right over colours in the image to instantly shift them. Then right-click and change to either Saturation or Luminosity to tweak the results as needed.…

Photography is all about the light and how you use it. You’ll also need to decide when you shoot too as different scenes will suit a certain type of light at specific times. Photographing your scene before sunset or after sunrise, with warm side light bathing the scene can create long shadows, while shooting before sunrise and after sunset in the blue hour will give your images a cooler feel as well as subtle, pastel colours. The above two choices are the main magical hours for landscape photography, but there’s a third timeframe too: twilight. This is split into three stages that encompass some of the golden and blue hours: civil, nautical, and astronomical twilight, before, it’s finally classified as nighttime. Photographing your scenes in any of these timeframes will…

THERE’S nothing worse than having the best light if you’re not ready to capture it in its full glory. Researching locations before you go is one of the most important aspects. Not only to find a brilliant scene with a great composition, but also try to predict the light angle and direction. Here’s where online tools and maps come in. Every photographer should have a goal in mind and learn the landscape before you attend your shoot, also it is important that you’re at your location and set up ready as you don’t want to miss anything. Envisaging locations and scenes that will work seems difficult at first, but will come with time and experience. Use planning tools such as weather-online.co.uk, clearoutside.com or apps such as PhotoPills – invaluable for…

There’s more to white balance than getting the whites balanced; it’s about every colour in the image. There are two ways to do this: you can set the white balance in the camera, or shoot in RAW and set it afterwards. Best practice is to set it in-camera, but sometimes this isn’t practical. By shooting in RAW, you can leave your white balance set to AWB, safe in the knowledge that you can tweak it after if necessary. Photoshop’s Camera Raw and Lightroom offer near-identical white balance tools, either in the Basic panel in Camera Raw, or within the Develop module found in Lightroom. The tools are very simple, but there are some essential tricks to learn that can help you get the most out of them. What’s more, one…

STORY BEHIND THE SHOT Love Birds Sam captured this pair of puffins after a long wait for good weather “I had wanted to visit Skomer for a long time and photograph puffins for even longer. We had six failed attempts to go, and had driven four times from Devon to Pembrokeshire before the weather prevented our travel. Finally, we got lucky. This was one of the last images I captured before leaving Skomer and it has become one of my favourites. I call it Love Birds, and whenever I’m struggling to stay motivated or I’m feeling frustrated, I look at this image and remember that with effort comes reward,” says Sam. WE OFTEN hear about the negative impacts of using social media, but for photographers like Sam Hazell, platforms such…

Access our amazing discount offers on our digital editions. Scan the QR code to get the app today! It’s easy to get PhotoPlus for your iPad and iPhone Wherever you are in the world, you can get new issues when they go on sale in the UK! 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…

“What kind of situations would it be beneficial to switch from Evaluative to Spot or Partial metering?” Clive White, Derby BRIAN SAYS… Evaluative metering with mirrorless cameras appears to be highly reliable and accurate for most situations, but for some shoots switching to Spot or Partial metering will help you capture correct exposures more readily. Strongly backlit subjects, especially if small in size subjects, are the most challenging for Evaluative metering. Choose Spot or Partial metering to suit the size of the area you want to meter from, and remember that Spot metering measures from the centre of the frame. Use the camera AE lock to retain the metered exposure before recomposing. Make sure to meter from a part of the subject that is mid-toned for the best results. It’s not…

GuruShots is billed as the world’s leading photo game. It’s an online platform conceived to give global exposure to people who love taking photographs. GuruShots members start out as Newbies and compete with other photographers to win challenges, increase their ranking on the site and eventually progress to coveted ‘Guru’ status. Challenges are voted on by Gurus and the wider GuruShots community, and there’s a fresh photo challenge every day – like ‘Spring Photos’. Winnersreceive prizesfromGuruShots’ sponsors, includingLowepro, Kodak and Lensbaby. Check out www.gurushots.com to find out more.…

The new Canon RF 24-105mm F2.8L IS USM Z is the trinity lens to end all trinity lenses – with Canon putting the rest of the camera industry on notice when it comes to lens development. Far from just upgrading a DSLR lens to a mirrorless mount, or adding a bit more bokeh to a portrait lens, Canon has achieved what was believed to be optically impossible – increasing the range of a 24-70mm F2.8 lens by 50% while still retaining the f/2.8 aperture and optical performance. It’s truly incredible and unique. The Z signifies this is a Power Zoom lens. By adding one of the two new modules, the PZ-E2 (with USB-C input) and PZ-E2B (with additional 20-pin connector), the 24-105mm F2.8L becomes a motorized zoom that can be…

THE NO.1 MAGAZINE FOR CANON USERS! FREE VIDEOS! In the next Canon Skills chapter… ◼ Self-portraits in scenes ◼ Simple seascapes at sunset ◼ Bolster your landscape shots with filters and compositional tips ◼ New Photoshop, Lightroom and Affinity Photo tutorials PLUS ALL THIS… ◼ PhotoPlus Apprentice: Learn to take pet photos with pro Laura Galbraith ◼ Super Test: Eight great new printers ◼ My Kit: Underwater photography specialist Rafał Makiela ◼ Canon Gear of the Year: The best Canon EOS cameras, lenses and kit ISSUE 213 ON SALE 4 JAN 2024 * Content subject to change…

CORN EXCHANGE, LEEDS TO CAPTURE this architectural wonder, I waited until the crowds had gone, and used my wide TS-E 17mm f/4L lens to capture the scale inside. EDINBURGH CASTLE I LOOKED for an alternative approach to photographing the iconic castle, using conflicting interest with the passing train below. CABOT CIRCUS, BRISTOL I TRIED to get to the highest spot to take this interior because I wanted to show off the public areas but also the amazing roof design.…

01 MONKEY BUMPS BY RICHARD BAYBUTT CATEGORY: CREATIVE, TOP 250 “This was a classic evening down at the Monkey Bumps trails in Sheffield. A great crew, loads of laps, playing about with my camera with absolutely zero agenda in terms of work, commissions or photo competitions. Loving seeing my friends get the session firing. Joe Camus was warming up with his 360s – this might have been the first of the evening for him. Luckily I was in the right place on the right jump; or maybe he saw me and had a burst of courage. Either way it worked out!” Lens Canon EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye Exposure 1/1000 sec, f/5.6, ISO25,600 Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2023 All of the images in this month’s gallery are from the 2023 Red Bull…

Change your tripod feet 05 MANY pro-level tripods have the ability to swap their feet to suit different shooting conditions. On some models, the usual rubber feet can slide or twist to reveal built-in spikes, which can help dig into slippery, icy terrain. Clawz from 3 Legged Thing have been designed to give you better stability on snow, ice and rocky terrain, and they replace the standard rubber feet on 3LT tripods, which unscrew and allow a variety of alternative options to be attached. Flowers in a block of ice 06 A GREAT wintry still-life shot to try is freezing flowers in a block of ice and then lighting it dramatically. Frozen water usually has a cloudy appearance, so for clearer ice, use deionized water. It’s worth pouring some water into your…

If you want to bring an extra level of dynamism to your still life or product photos, why not try playing with gravity and motion like this? With a combination of shooting skills, precise placement and a little Photoshop CC magic, images like this are within the reach of anyone with a camera. As for the lighting, we used three flashes to light our scene here, but if you want to keep things simple you could forego the flash altogether and use the ambient light from a window. Over the next few pages we’ll go behind the scenes to see how a gravity-defying still life can be achieved. From the lighting setup to the careful posing to the simple post-processing, we’ll look at each stage in the workflow, and explain…

Bokeh is the Japanese word we use to describe aesthetically pleasing out-of-focus highlights that give your images a cinematic quality. Bokeh takes the form of your aperture; Canon’s budget EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens is known for its pentagonal-shaped bokeh due to its five-bladed aperture. But bokeh usually has a more circular appearance, with the aperture being made up of a higher number of rounded aperture blades. A 50mm prime lens is ideal for this technique because these optics usually have super-wide apertures of f/1.8 or even wider – this makes it easier to blur the background with a shallow depth of field to exaggerate the effect. While some 50mm lenses can be pricey, luckily they’re also some of the most affordable optics on the market, too. Canon’s EF 50mm…

QUICK TIP! Landscapes often have tricky lighting conditions so it’s best to shoot in the RAW file format to capture all the data for extra editing options…

Since version 12, Adobe Lightroom Classic CC has offered boosted masking powers for portraits. Before that, you could use Select Subject masks, and then by using shortcut trickery, you could intersect a Color Range mask to select skin tones. But, of course, it was all about skin, when you might prefer that the face and body have different edits. No more. The latest versions of Lightroom Classic CC detect face skin, body skin, eyebrows, eye whites (sclera), iris and pupil, lips, teeth and hair, and let you create masks for each, or a combination of them. These would usually take sophisticated techniques in Photoshop to achieve, but they’re available to every photographer of any level in Lightroom. If that isn’t enough, Lightroom can do this face feature detection for every…

What better way to send season’s greetings to friends and family than with a homemade Christmas card? In this photo project we’ll show you how to craft a vibrant festive effect in Affinity Photo, bringing together snowflakes, colourful bokeh and eye-catching sparkles with simple layer skills, before capping it off with a Christmas message. To speed up the process, we’ve supplied a range of images among the project files (download link left) that we can bring together with simple layer skills. We’ve also included our furry friend for you to practise on, but of course, the idea here is to use your own festive portrait. Try shooting a pet in an xmas hat or someone carrying a wrapped present, then follow the steps to create a merry masterpiece. We’ll begin…

In 2019, my mum got me my first camera and I took it up as a hobby. After taking some portraits of friends and family, I was surprised to find them offering to pay for my photos. I was shocked and thought perhaps I’m actually good at this! Today I run my own photography business and have commercial clients and high-street brands wanting to work with me, so my message to anyone starting out is don’t give up! I took these fun festive photos in Leicester city centre the week before Christmas with model Daise Garcia (@da_garciamo). I wanted to capture the same magic you see in Christmas movies set in New York, to give my portraits a cinematic quality. I like to tell a story, with my images, props,…

When you’re buying a new Canon lens, first think about how it can complement your other lenses. There’s no point having both a 24-105mm and a 24-70mm, for example, as they cover the same focal lengths pretty much. It’s one of the reasons that Canon offers different variations on a ‘trinity’ of zoom lenses – a wide-angle 15-35mm or 16-35mm lens, a 24-70mm standard zoom, and a 70-200mm telephoto. These three lenses allow you to cover most day-to-day photography, from landscapes to portraits. The three lenses in the pro full-frame EF and RF trinity all have fast f/2.8 apertures throughout the zoom ranges. There’s also a trinity of zooms that have an f/4 maximum aperture, for those who have a smaller budget and don’t need the extra brightness or weight…

Reviewing your pictures on the camera is such a common activity yet most photographers only use the review to check if the frame is well composed, suitably exposed and in focus. The reality is that there are many more capabilities on the camera that many photographers don’t use. The first is that pressing the Info button changes the display to show different information including simple or detailed camera settings for the shot, and a histogram to check the exposure is not unexpectedly clipped in highlights or shadows. Histograms show the frequency of tones, with the darkest on the left and brightest on the right. The histogram does not have to resemble the typical bell curve for the exposure to be correct. Toggle on the highlight alert for a visual indication…

Canon has leveraged the power of its RF mount to produce the world’s first super-telephoto zoom lens that boasts a reach of 800mm. The Canon RF 200-800mm F6.3-9 IS USM will enable you to “reach the unreachable”. Even better, it’s also compatible with Canon’s RF 1.4x and 2x Extenders, giving it a supreme reach of an astounding 1600mm. While this is one of Canon’s Big White telephoto lenses, possessing weather sealing and a white coating for heat dissipation, it is not an L-series lens. Instead, it is an “affordable” super-telephoto that sits between the Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM and the Canon RF 600mm F11 IS STM – offering a massive focal range without a massive price. That reach is bolstered by a robust optical image stabilization system, offering…

DSLR CAMERAS PRICES QUOTED ARE BODY-ONLY UNLESS STATED BEGINNER DSLRs CANON EOS 4000D TESTED IN ISSUE 140 PRICE: £370/$N/A CANON has stripped everything down to its bare essentials for the 4000D, and it’s a great if basic DSLR for beginners. And at only £370 (body), it’s the cheapest EOS DSLR. Sadly, it’s let down by a cheap kit lens that’s tough to tolerate, so we suggest buying the better IS lens. Sensor 18MP APS-C CMOS Viewfinder Pentamirror, 0.8x, 95% ISO 100-6400 (12,800 exp) AF 9-point (1 cross-type) LCD 2.7-inch 230K dots Max burst (buffer) 3fps Memory card SD/SDHC/SDXC CANON EOS 2000D (REBEL T7) TESTED IN ISSUE 194 PRICE: £349/$479 THE 2000D is a better-spec Canon camera than the 4000D, but comes with a modest step up in price. It’s arguably…

With shorter days and cooler temperatures, it’s easy to think at first that winter might not be a great time to be a photographer, but it’s actually the opposite. While it’s true that there are fewer hours to shoot with natural daylight, the sun rises and sets at much more sociable hours for landscapes compared to the summer, when you might need to get up at 4am for a sunrise. Plus, the cooler weather brings frost, fog, snow and ice that can all transform your outdoor photos into magical winter artwork. Frozen landscapes, abstract ice patterns, snowy family portraits and winter wildlife can all add an extra dimension to your camera skills and portfolio. Because it gets darker earlier in the evenings, it’s also easier to shoot after dark, such…

Snowflake details 09 ON A SNOWY day, you’ll have the opportunity to photograph tiny snowflakes. A black glove makes for a dark and contrast-rich background; place one outside in the snow and wait for some snowflakes to fall on it. A macro lens is a must, and even adding some extension tubes to a macro lens helps the snowflakes to fill the frame. When it comes to lighting, an LED ring light is useful. Depth of field is very limited at these close focus distances, so it’s a good idea to take a series of photos at different focus distances and stack them together for sharper snowflake shots. Keep snow white 10 THE EVALUATE metering mode on your Canon EOS camera does a fantastic job of producing a well-balanced exposure in a…

Vittangi, Kiruna, Sweden. 22:41pm. 26 February 2012 In 2010, my early days Aurora Borealis tours were truly some of the most memorable experiences of my photographic life. Those days were golden; a time of great photo-verbiage, planning and excitement with fellow tour-leader Antony Spencer. My weapon of choice was the Canon 5D Mk II. When combined with the Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L, the camera was capable of reaching a jaw-dropping (at the time) ISO1600, although performing better at ISO800. It wasn't uncommon for us to drive from Lofoten to Sweden in search of the Northern Lights. We had an unbroken record of seeing spectacular displays, sometimes in the most unlikely of conditions. One memorable winter trip in 2012 was with clients who bonded under the frozen night sky and became…

CONSISTENT LIGHTING When shooting still life photos in stages like this it’s crucial that the lighting stays consistent throughout. We made the mistake here of angling our rear flash to better light the watering cans to the left of the frame. It was only when we came to edit the photos we realized this had made the backdrop lighter, which took time to fix in Photoshop. So ideally once the lights are set up, don’t touch them at all, and be careful not to block the light with your body as you move around the frame. WATCH VIDEO ONLINE http://bit.ly/pp_212_1…

QUICK TIP! When changing from landscape to portrait orientation, make sure you turn your bokeh template around so it’s the correct way up…

ON-PHOTO SHORTCUTS If you’re more of a visual person, it may be easier to use an on-photo shortcut to change the amount of your applied settings. Hold down the Alt/Option key and click and drag over the mask pin to change the amount. If the pin is hidden, press H.…

THE GLYPH BROWSER Affinity Photo might be geared towards photo editing, but it still offers a powerful array of tools for adding text. After adding your text with the Artistic Type tool, go to Window > Text > Character to adjust the sizing, change the colour and tweak things like kerning, tracking and leading. The Glyph Browser (Window > Text> Glyph Browser) can also be very useful, especially for decorative text like we’ve used here. It offers variations on lettering and other design elements like the flourish below the words here. Simply highlight text then double-click a glyph to add it to your text layer. QUICK TIP! As everything here is layered, you can drop in a different portrait (cut it out first) to try out the effect on other…

CANON CAMERAS have coloured indicators on the lens mount that show you which types of lens can be natively attached. The mount on full frame DSLRs such as the EOS 5D Mark IV share the same red dot as full-frame EF lenses – simply line up the red dot and rotate the lens to lock it in place. An APS-C DSLR has both a red dot to show where to attach a full-frame EF lens, and a white square that matches the white square on EF-S lenses. Lens mount adapters have two sets of marks. Line up the coloured mark on the rear of the adapter with the mark on the lens mount, then line up the lens with the corresponding mark on the front. As a precaution, switch off…

JIM FRANCE, SEDGEFIELD SAYS… I took my Canon EOS R7 on a wildlife photography trip to Spain, where I captured this shot, and others of the region’s birds of prey. I did five sessions of four hours in a hide that was set up to observe this area favoured by this Iberian lynx and her two cubs. Iberian lynx were on the verge of extinction, with fewer than 100 individuals by the turn of 21st century. But with intensive conservation efforts, they number around 1500, yet are still classified as vulnerable. BRIAN SAYS… This is a super wildlife shot of a rarely seen animal with a suitably natural setting. The lynx’s eyes and face are super-sharp and detailed, with a catchlight in the eye. Your long lens and choice of…

Meet Canon’s ultra-wide, ultra-cheap APS-C zoom lens for EOS R mirrorless cameras. The new RF-S 10-18mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM brings a much-needed wide-angle perspective to Canon’s APS-C range of EOS R cameras. When you buy a Canon camera with a kit lens, often the next lens you buy is a wide-angle optic. While it’s sure to draw comparisons with the old Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 wide zoom for EOS DSLRs, the new RF-S 10-18mm version is better in every way. In terms of image quality, edge sharpness in particular has been improved, thanks to the pair of larger elements situated to the back of the lens (made possible due to the shorter flange distance and larger throat of the RF mount), which significantly improves detail. The RF-S lens is also…