Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2016 i PhotoPlus : The Canon Magazine

BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE The prolific Scott Kelby does it all, from educator and author to pro photographer and Photoshopper. See his portfolio and revealing interview on page 70 Editor Canon DSLRs are like buses. You wait ages for one to come along, then two turn up at once. Yes, this issue we can reveal the new top-of-the-tree EOS-1D X Mark II, and the new enthusiast-level EOS 80D. I tried out pre-production samples of both cameras at two top-secret Canon press events this month. The 1D X Mark II may appear more revolution than evolution on paper, but in practice it’s a good step up in specs – and yes, the 14fps burst mode is awesome! The 80D also might seem modest in terms of tech changes, but it’s…

01 TEKAPO LUPINS BY RICHARD BLOOM On the way to Lake Tekapo, on the South Island of New Zealand, in early summer the already-amazing landscape was scattered with drifts of naturalized lupins, which gave it an almost-psychedelic, wonderland feel. The banks of this stream were bristling with masses of different-coloured lupins stretching toward the distant hills and out of shot to the west, giving the sense that they went on forever. Lens Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM Exposure 1/4 sec, f/16, ISO160 02 POPPIES ON WHEAT II BY MARK BOYD I was returning from a day on the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire when, in the corner of my eye, the bright sunlight illuminated a hidden cornfield. I stood watching the corn move slowly in the breeze, then it stopped and…

THE MISSION Reduce blur in your images caused by camera shake Time needed 10 minutes Skill level Easy Kit needed Photoshop Elements 14 Softly focused images are counted among a photographer’s worst nightmares. We’ve all been disappointed by a seemingly great shot just not being crisp enough on closer inspection, often due to camera shake. Help is at hand, however, with the latest instalment of Adobe Photoshop Elements 14’s new Shake Reduction tool, which is a great fallback to save shaken-up images. As its name suggests, the Shake Reduction tool is designed for correcting camera shake caused by involuntary movement on the part of the photographer. It is not designed for counteracting blur due to the subject moving too quickly, and can’t fix images that are simply out of focus.…

Scott Kelby’s phenomenal work-rate puts most others in the shade. First and foremost, he’s the world’s best-selling author of educational photography books, and has written over 60 to date. They include The Digital Photography Book Part 1, which is the biggest-ever-selling book on digital photography to date. Second, he’s a photographer who shoots a broad range of subjects including sport (particularly American Football), fashion, weddings and travel. Third, he’s president of online training, education and publishing company KelbyOne. Fourth, he’s the editor and publisher of Photoshop User magazine. Fifth, he’s the co-host of the weekly online photography talk show The Grid, which airs, you’ve guessed it, on Kelby TV. Sixth… he’ll be over in the UK and appearing on the Super Stage at The Photography Show at the NEC in…

PROJECT INFO NAME: Bella Kotak LOCATION: Oxford MISSION: To capture freespirited, independent, defiant, beautiful, strong-hearted characters in a fairy-tale setting KIT: Canon 5D Mark III Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM www.bellakotak.com Acouple of years ago, I began a portrait project shooting friends in natural settings. The project then grew into a challenge to myself to see if I could capture floral beauty through the seasons. While capturing flora is one storyline, the other is the characters my muses take on. I use Photoshop as a means to recreate what I see in my mind. It’s also a brilliantly useful tool to enhance certain elements that I notice when I shoot. All my pictures are captured on locations that I scout while out and about. It’s not unusual for my pictures…

The new 80D, which replaces the 70D launched in July 2013, sits smack in the middle of Canon’s EOS DSLR line-up. That puts it in prime enthusiast territory, offering the heightened level of control and advanced features that serious amateurs demand in comparison with novices. Inside the new camera is a 24.2Mp Dual Pixel CMOS AF sensor coupled with a Digic 6 processing engine – both a step up from the 20.2Mp sensor and Digic 5+ processing of the 70D. Despite the increase in pixel count, Canon must be confident of an improvement in image quality because it has pushed the 80D’s native sensitivity range one stop further than the 70D’s so that it now spans ISO100-16,000. The maximum expansion setting remains the same at ISO25,600. While the 70D was…

The legendary landscape photographer Ansel Adams famously said, “The negative is the equivalent of the composer’s score, and the print the performance.” Nowadays, the digital darkroom is where the magic happens, whether you’re creating photo prints on paper or enhancing digital images for on-screen viewing. The power, performance and versatility of that darkroom boils down to the quality of the photo software that you’re using. But it’s not quite that simple. Traditionally, digital photographers tended to rely on multiple software programs. You might use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional to process your Raw files and convert them to JPEGs. Another image-editing program, like Photoshop, would then take over, with a bigger toolset for adding drama to landscapes, beautifying portraits and generally making pictures look their best. And, given that digital shooters…

THE MISSION Learn how to shoot and edit for a levitation effect Time needed One hour Skill level Intermediate Kit needed Tripod • Photoshop Levitating portraits have a magical, mysterious quality that forces the viewer to look twice. It may come as a surprise, but there’s nothing particularly difficult about this type of visual trickery. The basic technique here is easy. All you need is a tripod and, if you like, a few simple props. We capture two or three versions of our scene – one of the subject, perched on a stool or ladder, another of the empty scene, and any others we need to build the effect. The trick is to keep all the frames in perfect alignment by using a tripod, and to make sure things like…

THE MISSION Shoot a viewpoint image to describe your lifestyle Time needed 15 minutes Skill level Easy Kit needed Wide-angle or kit lens • Tripod Social media feeds are full of images that seem to document people’s lives for every single moment of the day. Don’t join the crowd and use your phone for a ‘that will do’ photo, use your Canon DSLR to capture a considered point-of-view (PoV) image that will grab the attention of your friends and family as they catch up on Facebook. With some planning, and applying a few simple camera techniques, you’ll have an image that tells a story to be proud of, and will leave people wondering how you took the shot. The key to a successful PoV photo is becoming ‘one’ with your…

THE MISSION Create a gritty monochrome look with Camera Raw and Photoshop Time needed 10 minutes Skill level Easy Kit needed Photoshop CC DOWNLOAD PROJECT FILES TO YOUR COMPUTER FROM: http://downloads.photoplusmag.com/pp111.zip In an era when our lenses are ever-crisper and image resolutions evermore astronomical, we can produce photos that display a level of detail that users of 35mm film could only dream of. But there’s still something to be said for a lack of detail. Just as modern-day blockbuster movies are arguably no more pleasing than old black-and-white classics, photos stripped of colour and detail can sometimes enhance the mood. A grainy, black-and-white treatment is a classic look for street photography, evoking a documentary style that matches the subject matter perfectly. In the days of film, graininess – an uneven…

JOIN IN THE FUN! One of the great things about photography is being able to share your view of the world. This issue: a keen traveller documents his trip to the Lake District as part of a photographic tour of Great Britain; a fan of all things plastic explains how he creates beautiful patterns from mundane objects; and a creative photographer turns everyday settings into a fairy-tale land, with a little help from Photoshop. We want your photos and stories! We’ll pay you £50 for every project we publish. Please send them to… Email photoplus@futurenet.com Online www.facebook.com/photoplusmag www.twitter.com/photoplusmag Post PhotoPlus: The Canon Mag Future The Ambury Bath BA1 1UA UK PROJECT INFO NAME: Rory Wilson LOCATION: Lake District, Cumbria, UK MISSION: To capture the beauty of the Lake District as…

Boston skyline at night On this particular day I was looking to get a shot of the Boston skyline during sunset. The sky had some interesting clouds and real potential for a great sunset and colour. However, after the drive into the city, the sky turned completely grey, so I waited for darkness to fall. That’s when the city came alive. I used the cobblestone sidewalk, illuminated by the lamp, for the foreground and to act as a leading line towards the skyline. To fit in the entire image I used my ultra-wide Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM lens on my full-frame Canon EOS 5D Mark III. I used an ND4 filter to achieve the smooth water effect, with an exposure of 30 secs, f/11, ISO100. Erik Pancyck, Fall…

01 Lastolite Perspective Collapsible Backgrounds Attractive backdrops that’ll take your portraiture to the next level £170/$208 www.lastolite.co.uk Fed up with shooting portraits against boring black or white backdrops? These new double-sided, collapsible designs are available in three style options that give instant depth, each with a pathway scene on one side and an archway image on the other. At 5x7ft (1.5x2.1m), the background is large enough for three-quarter-length portraits, and the pop-up fabric design folds into a 92cm-diameter bag. 02 Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM and optional Power Zoom Adapter PZ-E1 The EF-S 18-135mm gets new Nano AF plus a gadget for smoother zoom control £440/$635 & £130/$190 www.canon.co.uk Canon’s EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM is a new standard zoom lens and the first to feature Nano USM focus…

FREE VIDEOS! In the next Canon Skills chapter… Sand drawings ■ Snowdrop close-ups ■ Portrait blur ■ Tilt-shift timelapses ■ Zoom burst ■ New Photoshop Elements, CC, Lightroom & Canon DPP tutorials PLUS ALL THIS ... LA-based Canon pro Ryan Schude and his incredible ensemble portraits ■ Canon School: learn all you need to know about HD video on your DSLR ■ Super Test: image-editing software ■ Award-winning landscape photographer Andy Farrer on how to shoot coastlines ISSUE 112 ON SALE 29 MARCH Content subject to change…

APPRENTICE NAME: MICK DEMPSEY CAMERA: CANON EOS 70D MICK is a 60-year-old operational delivery manager at a utilities company based in Manchester. He’s been a keen amateur photographer for over 15 years, and bought his first Canon, an EOS 450D, when he subscribed to PhotoPlus back in September 2008. He since upgraded to a 50D and now a 70D, following our test recommendations. He asked for our help to improve his family portrait photography skills. CANON PRO NAME: FRANCES TAYLOR CAMERA: CANON EOS 5D MK III FRANCES, 38, is a professional portrait photographer based in Bristol. She used to manage the largest portrait studio company in the southwest of the UK, has been a full-time pro for over eight years, and co-director of Bristol-based Evoke Pictures for the past two…

The early morning sunrise sets the ancient red rocks afire – David Noton is down under… I am on top of the Land Cruiser at 4am, collapsing the tent in the dark. 12 minutes this morning. It’s a job we could do without this time of the day, but we’re on the road dodging the loitering kangaroos early enough and well before the first glow is visible in the sky to the southeast. We’re headed into the National Park to one of the lookouts over the Murchison Gorge we scouted yesterday. Another Joey appears in the headlights bounding across the road in front and I hit the brakes. Ninety minutes later, at Hawk’s Head Lookout, the tranquillity is tangible; bird calls echo around the gorge in the still air and a…

THE MISSION Create a makeshift light box with greaseproof paper and a window Time needed One hour Skill level Easy Kit needed Greaseproof paper • Window • Tape • Tripod • Flowers You don’t need specialist lights or flashguns to photograph flowers indoors. In this project we’re going au naturel by creating our very own light box using a sheet of greaseproof paper and taking advantage of window light. By sticking the semi-opaque paper to a large window, we’re essentially creating a mini portable home studio. The paper is thin enough to let light filter through and acts as a diffuser, while providing us with a clean white backdrop for our subjects. We’re going to be shooting some flowers and, by using this technique, we’ll be backlighting our subjects to…

THE MISSION Learn how to prepare your images for printing to a specific device by soft proofing Time needed 10 minutes Skill level Easy Kit needed Lightroom DOWNLOAD PROJECT FILES TO YOUR COMPUTER FROM: http://downloads.photoplusmag.com/pp111.zip Most of us would file it firmly in the ‘boring but important’ category of image editing, but soft proofing is a vital skill for anyone wishing to make highquality prints. We put so much time and effort into taking photos and then editing them to perfection, so it makes sense to ensure the finished product is as perfect as possible. A few minutes spent soft proofing can make all the difference. However, without proper colour calibration and the correct printer profiles there’s no point soft proofing, as the image we see on our screen could…

PROJECT INFO NAME: Tony Messner LOCATION: Northumberland MISSION: To capture stress patterns in clear plastic objects arranged in graphic compositions KIT: Canon EOS 600D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II, polarizer, tripod, laptop www.viewbug.com/member/jam66 01 FORKS This was the graphic composition I was after; the diagonal angle works well Lens Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II Exposure 1/2 sec, f/5, ISO100 02 X-KNIVES Positioning the knives at different angles produces different colour patterns Lens Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II Exposure 1/4 sec, f/5.6, ISO100 The stresses in translucent plastic can create an amazing rainbow effect. But in order to capture these colours, a simple setup must be followed. Firstly, the object must be sandwiched between two polarizers, one of which must be backlit. A laptop screen is perfect as…

Professional photographers reveal their top six tools of the trade they couldn’t shoot without “I treat my equipment like tools and never wrap them up in cotton wool, they are designed to do a job” Ilike the fact I can see something rare or unusual and have my camera at hand to record and share it. I like nothing more than working in remote locations, and rise to the challenge of capturing the landscape or animals that live there. To cope with a wide variety of situations, I have a range of lenses from 24mm to 500mm, and always carry a couple of EOS DSLRs. I shoot in very challenging environments, such as mountains and the high Arctic, so my kit has to be reliable and able to withstand what…