Table of contents for April 2017 in Digital Camera Magazine

12 photo projects to get stuck into, including how to transfer an image onto wood NATURE lover Roeselien Raimond says she always shoots subjects that move her... It’s easy to see why she captured this cute gosling! “I just have this weak spot for baby animals. I adore their enthusiasm, their eagerness, their frankness. It’s inspiring and contagious,” she says. Spring is just around the corner, so this is the perfect time of year to be inspired by new flora and fauna bursting into life. Why not stay local and see what cheeky characters you can find? Roeselien needed a spot to approach the goslings (and their overprotective parents): “A park where the birds have gotten used to human visitors works well.” She knew that warm backlighting would complete the…

NEW MONTHLY PHOTO PROJECT! Aerial abstracts NEXT time you head to the shops and park in a multi-storey car park, make sure you pack your camera – or at least have your smartphone camera to hand. These types of settings might seem dull, but they’re actually full of abstract shapes, as well as interesting perspectives where you can get up high and shoot from a viewpoint to create an abstract shot. Avoid using your tripod, as often car parks are private land and you don’t want to draw attention to yourself. Oh, and if you do point your camera over the side of a drop, just make extra-sure that you’ve secured the neck strap! Shoot close-ups around the home YOU may think you need to travel far away from home…

The histogram on your camera’s display tells you everything you need to know about the brightness range in your scene, and whether your camera can capture it. HISTOGRAM SHAPE LOW-CONTRAST SCENES With average subjects, the histogram peaks in the midtones, in the middle of the graph. Without any particularly bright or dark areas, you have more exposure latitude, and HDR imaging won’t be required. HIGH-CONTRAST SCENES When there’s a big difference between the brightness values in a scene, the histogram may be ‘clipped’ off at either side of the graph. The darkest areas will become pure black, the brightest pure white.…

Enchanted bamboo forest NAME: Kei Nomiyama LOCATION: Shikoku, Japan KIT: Canon 5D Mark III with EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens EXPOS URE: 30 sec at f/2, ISO 1,600 WEBSITE: http://keinomiayma.smugmug.com MAYFAIR REFLECTIONS NAME: Linda Wisdom LOCATION: London, UK KIT: Panasonic Lumix G3 with 14-42mm lens at 42mm EXPOS URE: 1/160 sec at f/5.6, ISO 800 WEBSITE: www.lindawisdomphotography.co.uk CIRCLE TRACK NAME: Yik Keat Lee LOCATION: Singapore KIT: Canon EOS 6D and DJI Phantom 4 drone EXPOS URE: 1/250 sec at f/2.8, ISO 100 WEBSITE: www.leeyikkeat.com…

HOW TO 1 Start a Snapshot Open your raw image in Camera Raw, and work on it until you want to save your work as a stage you might want to return to later. Here I’ve done some basic work and want to ensure that I can get back to this stage before I do something more radical. Click on Snapshots (the little icon showing three squares.) 2 Make a Snapshot This opens the Snapshots workspace. Click on the little symbol that looks like a square with a corner folder, in the bottom-right corner. A dialog box opens, and you need to type in a name for the Snapshot. In this case I called it ‘process1’. Click OK, and that saves all the stages of processing you’ve just done. 3…

£3,050/$3,200 SPECIFICATIONS Sensor 42.4MP full-frame Exmor R CMOS sensor (35.9 x 24.0mm) Focal length conversion on lens 1x Memory 1x multislot for Memory Stick Pro Duo/SD, 1x SD card slot Viewfinder XGA OLED, 2,359k dots Max video resolution 4K (UHD) 3,840 x 2,160 ISO range 100-25,600 (50-102,400 expanded) Autofocus Hybrid Phase Detection AF, 79-point/399-point, 15/79 cross-type Max burst rate 12fps Screen 3-inch articulating TFT, 1,229k dots Shutter speeds 30-1/8,000 sec, Bulb Weight 849g (body only, with battery and memory card) Dimensions 143 x 104 x 76mm Power supply NP-FM500H lithium-ion battery (supplied) The brand-new 79-point/ 399-point hybrid phase detection system is only possible with the SLT design Just when we all thought the Alpha 7 series was the future for professional full-frame Sony stills and video photography, the company drops…

£1,140/$1,500 The Anova Pro comes in two versions: a Bi- Color unit or a brighter, fixed-colour unit (5,600K) which offers a useful 2EV (two stops) more illumination. We’ve reviewed the Bi-Color model, which mixes the output from two LED types to provide a continuously adjustable colour temperature from 3,150K to 6,300K. It’s made in the UK to tight specifications in a market where, according to Rotolight, many panels do not offer a continuous and consistent spectrum in important colour ranges for portraits, such as reds and skin tones. The Anova Pro’s continuous spectrum is a feature Rotolight is keen to stress. It also has an innovative strobe feature that can fire the LEDs at 150 per cent of their normal continuous output, for durations as short as 1/2,500 sec. There’s…

Windows/macOS £65/$80 P hotoshop Elements is actually two programs, not one. You import, tag, organise and search your photos with the Organizer; but when you need to carry out more advanced photo manipulation tasks, you open photos in the Editor instead. The Organizer is now touchenabled for supporting hardware. Its search feature has been enhanced to include combinations of places, events and favourite subjects, and a new Smart Tags feature can automatically tag common subjects like sunsets, birthdays, dogs and cats. The Editor has three operating modes. The Quick mode offers simple everyday adjustments; the Guided mode offers interactive walkthroughs for more complex effects; and the Expert mode is like a mini-Photoshop. Elements 15 brings five new Guided Edits – Photo Text, Painterly, Effects Collage, Speed Pan and Frame Creator –…

Windows/macOS £80/$100 P hotoDirector 8 looks a lot like Lightroom initially, with integrated photo cataloguing tools, non-destructive image enhancements and a selection of preset image effects. But it goes a step further with an Edit mode for pixel-based adjustments too complicated for non-destructive editing. If you get the Ultra or Suite editions, there’s a Layers module for combining images and text in more elaborate composites. PhotoDirector doesn’t attempt to play the ‘no need to import images’ card. Like Lightroom, it uses a database style image catalogue for flexible organisation and faster searches, so you do need to import your photos before you can work on them. Once that’s done, you can browse through your images according to the physical folders they’re stored in, create Collections of related images or Smart Collections…

Windows/macOS £40/$50 A ffinity Photo has been designed from the ground up to be a professional-level Photoshop competitor, offering featurefor- feature parity with highspeed, real-time previews. It’s the cheapest program on test, but this is down to Serif’s highly competitive pricing, rather than any lack of power or capability. Initially this was a Mac-only product, but version 1.5 is available for Windows too. Other new features include built-in HDR Merge, a Tone Mapping Persona, built-in Focus Merge, macros and batch processing. Affinity Photo is purely an image-editor, not an all-in-one photo cataloguing and editing tool. While it does have an effective little Media Browser, you’ll have to look elsewhere for photo filtering, searching and cataloguing tools. Regular adjustments are carried out using adjustment layers. These come with masks and blend modes,…

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THE Photography Show opens its doors from 18th-21st March at The NEC, Birmingham. Promising a feast of photography talks, training seminars, demonstrations and show deals, there will also be the chance to get hands-on with the latest cameras and accessories. This year’s Super Stage hosts some serious photographic talent, with Albert Watson, Nadav Kander, Frans Lanting, Jill Furmanovsky and more providing revealing insights into their approach to photography. There’s something for everyone at the show – from beginner, student and pro masterclasses to dedicated zones for video, mobile and social media, drones and Virtual Reality. Digital Camera will be there too, so do come along and say hello! www.photographyshow.com Don’t miss your free show guide with this issue, and find out more at: www.photography show.com NEW RANGEFINDER WHAT’S NOT TO LEICA?…

THERE are many portrait photographic opportunities to be had when you visit the seaside. In the warmer months (or even winter – we shot this in mid-January), there are always those brave (or nuts) enough to go swimming. Sea-swimmers often go out in groups, and there are many organised clubs you could get in touch with first. Although it can seem daunting to ask a stranger to take their portrait, people are often willing if you approach with a smile. You need to be quick taking this type of image. Have your camera fully set up before your subject comes into frame. Look for where the light is coming from and how it’s going to sculpt the face and body. We took our portrait during the early hours of a…

THIS creative project enables you to create a masterpiece that is different from the norm in a few simple steps. There are a couple of considerations to take into account when you transfer an image onto wood: there are some images that work best (abstract and less complicated scenes are preferable); and you’ll also need to consider the tone and grain of your wood. (Pine plywood is good.) You may think you need loads of fancy kit to do this type of thing, but the items you require are either around the home or readily available from hardware stores. To create your very own wooden masterpiece, you’ll need: a laser printer, your photo print, scissors, a cloth, a newspaper, two paint brushes, a piece of wood, Mod Podge or PVA…

YOUR 9 FREE NIGHT SHOOTING TIPS CARDS Take your free cards out on location A is for Astro-photography If there’s one thing that makes us humans feel small, it’s the stellar display arcing above our heads on a dark, clear night. Atmospheric conditions and proximity to towns and cities affect how many stars we can see, but if you can see them with the naked eye, you can capture them on your camera’s sensor. Shooting the night sky takes you into the realm of astro-photography. Although you can make a sizeable investment in highly specialised kit, capturing constellations and broad star fields requires nothing more than a SLR and a tripod. Set a high ISO of 1,600, use a wide-angle lens set to its largest aperture, and set the exposure…

HDR pictures can look more subdued than a standard exposure, as the shadows and highlights have been respectively opened up and reigned in, lowering the contrast as a result. You may find that your camera has a variety of HDR effects or modes that attempt to add some impact to the final image. For instance, more advanced Canon EOS cameras offer four ‘Art’ effects in addition to the more subtle Natural look. The results can be interesting to say the least, with the more extreme Art embossed effect likely to appeal to only the most hardcore HDR advocate. You’ll need to set the effect before you start shooting in HDR mode, as the look is baked into the final JPEG and you won’t be able to undo it. If your…

GET RATED! Email your shot to digitalcamera@ futurenet.com (subject line: Rate My Photo) PAUL SAYS: This was taken at Cape Split, Nova Scotia. While most people stick to the spectacular views from the top, I like heading down to the beach to get a sea-level view of the impressive 100m cliffs. Because of the extreme tides in this area, the location for the shot is only accessible a couple of nights each month, when sunset and low tide occur around the same time. I’ve always enjoyed sunset shots on wet rocky beaches just before the sun sinks below the horizon. The wet rocks intensify the colours of the sunlight and make for a more dramatic image. I used a Canon EOS T6s (760D in Europe) and a Sigma 8-16mm wide-angle…

We’re giving away this versatile Lowepro daypack worth £99 to the winner of our new assignment. The Photo Hatchback BP 250 AW II is a 22-litre pack that can swallow an SLR with an attached lens, plus two additional lenses and accessories in its camera compartment. Remove this, and the pack converts to a full daypack. The hatchback design gives peace of mind, as your camera gear can’t be accessed while you’re wearing the pack, while the CradleFit™ tablet pocket and built-in All Weather AW Cover™ provide additional protection.…

DAVID Alan Harvey is an acclaimed photojournalist, best known for his long-term projects documenting Latin American culture. A long-time contributor to National Geographic, he has been a full member of Magnum since 1997. What’s his background? Harvey was born in San Francisco in 1944 and brought up in Virginia. He started taking pictures aged 11, and later bought a second-hand Leica with his paper-round earnings. He went on to study at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of Missouri. He graduated in 1969 and began working on the Kansas publication Topeka Capital-Journal before being awarded a grant that allowed him to shoot his own personal projects. What was his first photo-essay? His first project focused on a black family living in a slum in Norfolk, Virginia. Harvey lived…

£1,150/$1,100 SPECIFICATIONS Sensor 24.2MP APS-C CMOS (22.3 x 14.9mm) Focal length conversion on lens 1.6x, Memory 1x SD/SDHC/SDXC Viewfinder EVF, 2.36 million dots Max video resolution 1,920 x 1,080 ISO range 100-25,600 Autofocus Dual Pixel CMOS AF, 49 points Max burst rate 9fps, 7fps with AF Screen 3.2in, 1,620k, tilting touchscreen Shutter speeds 30-1/4,000 sec, Bulb Weight 427g (body only, with battery) Dimensions 116 x 89 x 61mm Power supply LP-E17 lithium-ion battery (supplied) The aim is to provide enthusiasts with the speed, quality and handling of an EOS camera in a much smaller body While camera makers like Sony, Olympus, Fujifilm and Panasonic have been forging ahead with their highprofile mirrorless camera ranges, Canon has been quietly pottering away on a different path. Its M-series models to date have…

A dobe’s Photography Plan includes Photoshop and Lightroom, and is now a compelling proposition for any serious photographer. But do any of the rival programs on the market do enough to tempt people away from the obvious photo-editing choice? First, are there any programs that can achieve the same things for considerably less money? We’ve got a couple of candidates for this, notably Affinity Photo and PaintShop Pro. The other common complaint against Photoshop and Lightroom is that they’re not very novice friendly, and both Photoshop Elements and PaintShop Pro are designed for non-experts. But can you get better quality? Camera Raw, used as the raw engine for both Photoshop and Lightroom, is certainly powerful, but two strong rivals here are Optics Pro and Capture One Pro. Lightroom offers cataloguing…

Windows/macOS $149 Y ou can use Exposure X2 as a plug-in filter for Photoshop or Lightroom; but it also works as a stand-alone app. It has built-in folder browsing tools and the ability to add keywords, ratings and colour labels, batch-rename photos, and sort and filter photos on various different criteria. The multitude of analogue, retro, low-fi and cinematic effects that form the backbone of the software can be applied via single-click presets, arranged in categories in a vertical panel on the left of the screen. They’re applied non-destructively, so you can change the settings at any time. The effects are built from a whole series of adjustments which include regular tone and colour adjustments as well as light leaks, textures, image frames, film simulations and more. These tools can be…

Windows/macOS €199 O ptics Pro is designed around a single core concept – optical perfection. It achieves this using lab-developed correction profiles for a vast and ever-increasing number of camera-and-lens combinations. It fixes lens distortion, corner shading, chromatic aberration and even edge softness. And if it doesn’t have the necessary correction profile already, it checks the DxO site and prompts you to download it. Optics Pro works on both JPEG and raw files (provided both come straight from the camera), and its raw conversion quality is every bit as impressive as its optical corrections – particularly its noise control. Earlier versions of Optics Pro had perspective correction controls built in, but these have now been spun out into the separate DxO ViewPoint application. If ViewPoint is installed, it integrates fully with…

Most of us are on a constant quest for quality, either with a new camera or new and more expensive lenses – but the software we use is a third factor we often overlook. By taking such a diverse approach to photo-editing tools in this round-up, we’re inevitably going to be comparing programs that don’t really do the same things. Please keep this in mind when comparing comments and ratings. We award Capture One Pro our top prize with the understanding it’s not for everyone. It doesn’t do special effects in the way that Exposure X2 does, and it can’t create composite images like Affinity Photo. But if your primary interest is single photographic images and extracting the best possible quality from them, it’s brilliant. WHAT’S GOOD: Superb raw conversions,…

BIRMINGHAM | 1 8-19 March 2017 Whether you are looking to further improve your photography skills, or to be inspired by other photographers, the city’s photography community will offer a range of photo walks, workshops and gallery exhibitions to add a little extra zest to your stay. JEAN PAINLEVé EXHIBITION Ikon Gallery, Brindleyplace The first UK exhibition of work by pioneering French film director and biologist Jean Painlevé (1902 – 1989). His cinematographic and photographic portraits of octopi, lobsters, starfish and seahorses were at the centre of the avant-garde movement of the 1920s. C12 EXHIBITION AND RAFFLE Millennium Point All the donated prints in this exhibition will be won as raffle prises to raise money for the Disabled Photographers’ Society. Photographers include the late Adrian Flowers, John Claridge, Lorentz Gullachsen,…

ABOUT INTERNATIONAL GARDEN PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR International Garden Photographer of the Year is the world’s premier competition and exhibition for garden, plant and botanical photography. The competition runs from February until October every year, with a first prize of £7,500 for the overall winner and £2,000, plus a gold medal from the Royal Photographic Society, for the portfolio winner. An all-new web experience is due to launch with this year’s competition, with brand-new categories including My Garden Stories and Outdoor Living, plus Gardens on the Go for mobile devices. The launch exhibition of IGPOTY 10 is at the Nash Conservatory at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, until 12th March. www.igpoty.com SEND US YOUR SHOTS Your photograph could appear here! Send your best recent shot to digitalcamera@futurenet.com (subject line: Hotshots) OVERALL…

NEW MONTHLY PHOTO PROJECT! PINHOLE cameras are the simplest cameras you can find. They’re basically light-tight boxes with a tiny hole (pinhole) and a lightsensitive surface such as film or a digital sensor. You don’t actually need a lens to make an image. You can easily convert your existing SLR into a pinhole camera too, although the final image won’t be as sharp as a camera made specifically for pinhole photography. You’ll need a camera body cap, standard household materials and some basic tools. We picked up a spare body cap online. Here’s how to make your own pinhole lens at home. Once it’s finished, keep it in your kit bag for when the mood takes you. Step 1 Drill a small hole directly in the centre of the body…

NEW MONTHLY PHOTO PROJECT! SHARE YOUR PROJECT digitalcamera@ futurenet.com (subject line: Photo Projects) IT SEEMS that the further we get away from the past, the more we want to replicate it. What was once considered old and shabby is now seen as trendy and rustic. In this photography project, we’re going to show you how to turn a modern-day portrait into a toned and tinted 1970s-style family snapshot using Photoshop. We’ve used a mixture of Curves and Color Balance adjustment layers, which can both be located under the ying-yang symbol on your Layers panel. The trick is to stain the image with a yellow tint, and reduce the contrast. (Both these jobs can be done with the same Curves adjustment layer). When it comes to selecting a starting image from…

HIGH-DYNAMIC range photography: words that will send a shiver down the spines of many photographers. It’s fair to say that images of overcooked sunsets and landscapes with post-apocalyptic levels of saturation and glowing details have tarnished the image of this technique. But, applied with subtlety, HDR is a useful tool for taking photos where the brightness range is high, say when you’re shooting into the sun or trying to record detail in both a window-lit interior and the daylight scene outside. Without HDR, the chances are that you’ll end up losing some detail in the darkest part of the photo, the brightest parts or both. That’s because a digital camera sensor can only record detail across a fixed brightness or ‘dynamic’ range, and the dynamic range of high-contrast scenes can…

ONE of the problems you’ll encounter when you use a camera’s HDR mode is that the final result can appear a little flat at times – not surprisingly, as the camera is essentially reducing the contrast between the brightest and darkest parts of a scene. While you can share an image straight from the camera, a little extra image editing may be needed to perk things up. You may find that the camera’s automatic bracketing function doesn’t go far enough to open up the shadows or hold onto detail in the highlights, so you may need to use the manual settings or dial in some exposure compensation. But the most important thing to remember about HDR mode is to keep the camera in the same position while it takes the original…

£719/$769 Today’s smartphones can match or exceed the image quality of regular compact digital cameras. They offer a different way of engaging with both the camera controls and your subject. The big news right now is the innovative twin-camera iPhone 7 Plus, which adds a 2x ‘telephoto’ camera to its existing 28mmequivalent wide-angle unit. It’s not just a twin-lens camera. It uses both cameras simultaneously and computational imaging to provide a seamless 10x zoom range well beyond the 2x optical limit of the telephoto camera – albeit a digital zoom. Build & handling The built-in Camera app is simple to operate: you can leave it to set the focus and exposure automatically or tap anywhere on the screen to set the focus and exposure for that area. The on-screen zoom…

Windows (macOS: ACDSee Pro 3) $100 ACDSee Ultimate 10 is billed as an all-in-one digital asset manager and editor, so at first glance seems to cover similar territory to Lightroom. There are, however, some important differences. First, doesn’t have to catalogue your images in a central database. It can work as a folder browser like Adobe’s Bridge, complete with ratings, tags and labels. You can create Collections to group related images without moving them on your hard disk and apply batch processing, and metadata templates with adding keywords and copyright information. If you want to create Smart Collections or use the program’s Photos timeline view, you need to import them into ACDSee’s image catalogue, which takes about as long as importing into Lightroom. ACDSee also has a pixel-based Edit mode…

Windows £54/$64 P aintShop Pro is one of the faithful standbys of the photo-editing market. It’s an independent alternative to Adobe software that combines an all-in-one, novicefriendly approach with a good deal of power at a lower price point. Beyond the standard edition, there’s also an Ultimate edition that includes Corel’s higher-end AfterShot Pro 3 Lightroom rival, offering more sophisticated raw conversion and editing tools than those built into PaintShop Pro. You also get PerfectlyClear 2 SE for quick, automated image corrections; Live Screen Capture recordings; and the Corel Creative Collection, featuring brushes, textures and royalty-free images. PaintShop Pro is split into three modules. The Manage module is for browsing and organising your photos, the Adjust module for enhancements, and the Edit mode for more in-depth manipulation. The full range of…

Windows/macOS €349 Capture One Pro comes from Danish medium-format specialist Phase One, a company that also makes high-end medium-format cameras. Capture One Pro has traditionally been used as a tethered shooting tool for studio photographers for controlling cameras remotely and making on-the-fly image adjustments. The software supports camera raw files from other brands and works as a regular stand-alone raw conversion and image enhancement tool. (It works with JPEGs too.) It now incorporates an image cataloguing database and powerful localised adjustment tools, making it a very close rival to Lightroom. Version 10 brings improved processing speeds; a new threestep sharpening system, including diffraction correction and halo control; improved Auto Mask support; and easier folder management. There are also more sophisticated proofing tools, which join a powerful set of global adjustment…

BEGINNER’S MASTERCLASS Saturday, 18 March and Sunday, 19 March, Toute Suite £10 Start your photography journey by learning some essential lessons from the experts. There’s a charge of £10 for this four-part programme, in addition to the show entry fee; choose Saturday or Sunday morning. The Toute Suite is located just outside Hall 5 (see map on p19). 10:30 - 11:05 Choosing the right camera A look at what camera is best for you, including a run down of the key features and what you do and don’t need Angela Nicholson 11:05 - 11:40 Choosing a lens Learn the basics of choosing a lens to suit you, including what different focal lengths and apertures are for Damian McGillicuddy 11:50 - 12:25 Getting to grips with imaging software A starter session…

Monday, 20 March, Toute Suite 10:15 - 10:30 OPENING KEYNOTE: Clive Arrowsmith Clive Arrowsmith 10:30 - 11:05 Marketing and finding new business How to find the right market, research leads and make sure that you stand out from the crowd Hat Margolies 11:05 - 11:40 Pricing your photography and valuing yourself What are you and your work worth? Working to a day rate vs working to a budget explored Nick Dunmur 11:50 - 12:25 When calamity strikes Plan for unexpected events and ensure that you have the right insurance cover for your business Clare Sugden 12:25 - 13:00 What you need to know BEFORE you fly your drone Discover the regulations you need to follow and how to get licensed to use your drone for photography Matt Williams Tuesday, 21…