Table of contents for April 2022 in Digital Camera Magazine

This month, we’ve curated a creative projects special, with a fabulous selection of fun and inspirational ideas to see out the rest of winter. Turn to our cover feature (page 50) for 10 top techniques that can be tackled in the warm and dry of your home, and will really exercise your creativity. You’ll find another compelling raft of projects across a range of genres in Photo Active (p18), while Camera College will walk you through taking your first steps in flash photography (p60). Other highlights in this issue include an action-packed reader Shootout (p90), an update on the Remembering Wildlife conservation project from Daryl Balfour (p118) and some of the finest panoramic photos of the last year in Hotshots (p42). This issue’s camera tests see the Leica M11 rangefinder…

ENTER THIS URL www.digitalcameraworld.com/dc253 Enter the URL www.digitalcameraworld.com/dc253 into the destination bar of your internet browser – we’re using Google Chrome, but other browsers work in a similar way. Please do not enter it in any search field or search bar. This will take you to a page on our website. JUST CLICK THE HIGHLIGHTED LINK Here you’ll find all the gifts and videos to accompany this issue of Digital Camera. Click on the link labelled ‘Download the disc for Digital Camera 253’ and your download will start, delivered from our own secure server. It may take a few minutes. ACCESS YOUR FILES Open the .zip In your Downloads folder, or wherever you chose to download your files to, double-click the dc253-disc.zip file icon. Then when it expands, double-click DCM_253.iso.…

Wildlife and nature in and around London have been under my lens for about eight years. One of the best tips I can give is to diversify your subjects and have a toolbox of skills. Macro photography is very accessible: you can do it any time of the year, and you don’t need to go far. You don’t need the fanciest lenses or camera gear either. Butterflies and odonata (such as dragonflies) over spring and summer, fungi over winter: these have given me opportunities to photograph nature all year round. The challenge with nature macro photography is that to get the best light or to get closest to your subject, you need to go during the golden hour, which is dusk or dawn. The subjects can be hidden deep within…

Although there’s a whole industry dedicated to fancy light-painting gadgets and gizmos, all you really need to get started is a pen torch, such as a Mini MagLite. This can be used as a regular light source to play over areas of a scene from different angles; you can also remove the lens bezel to expose the bulb and use it as a point light source to trace around subjects. To further enhance your light-painting kit, a set of battery-powered LED string lights gives you a great tool for swirls, streaks and criss-cross grids of light. If you want to be more innovative still, you can use anything that emits some kind of glow, from a sparkler to a smartphone.…

1 Cut out your shape Grab some black card. If you want to be really precise, trace around the outside of the lens you’re using and cut inside the line to produce a circle that holds itself snugly in place within the filter thread. If you want to be quick, just cut a square of card big enough to cover the lens. Cut out a shape in the middle – if you fold it in half first, as shown, you can get a symmetrical shape. 2 Attach to a fast lens You need a fast optic with a large, maximum aperture to get the best results, but the effect will work with any lens. We used a 50mm f/1.4 prime lens, and set the aperture to its widest setting of f/1.4. You…

From drizzling to drenching, pouring shots are a staple of food and drink advertising. But to freeze the motion and communicate the freshness of the subject, you need light – lots of it. The easiest way to introduce lots of light is via flash, but although studio flash is the way to go for complex setups, a single flashgun can bring lots of ideas within range – provided you can use it off-camera. A set of wireless flash triggers or a sync lead is all you need to get studio-style shots from a flashgun, and its compact, battery-powered build means you can do it anywhere.…

Combining a relatively long exposure with a burst of flash gives you the potential to combine both a sharp flash-lit subject with blurred streaks of motion blur. The results can be highly effective, making slow-moving subjects appear to be travelling at light speed. Your camera and flash unit may give you the opportunity to select a ‘second curtain sync’ or ‘rear curtain sync’ flash mode. This triggers the flash at the end of a longer exposure rather than at the start. The advantage is that any streaks of motion are recorded before the flash fires, so the blur appears behind the subject in the photo. The drawback to second curtain sync is that it’s hard to know where the subject will be when the flash fires. With a standard flash…

Challenge 1 Paul Brewer Welcome to the ShamXross track in Keynsham, Somerset, for the penultimate race of the season. It may be the last weekend in January, but the weather is more spring-like: mild and windless, it’s great for the spectators, but the cloudless skies aren’t going to be favourable to our two photographers. As we are shooting around midday, the sun is high in the sky and casting very harsh shadows. “I faced away from the sun to get blue sky in the background,” says Paul. “Getting down low allowed me to exaggerate the height the riders were reaching, and having tried a range of shutter speeds, 1/100 sec worked the best. “In Lightroom, I added more saturation and vibrance, adjusted the tones a little to give the image…

Having brought you our best-buy budget lenses for mirrorless cameras (issue 252, page 108), it’s only fair that we follow this up with our recommendations for DSLR users. We know that the majority of our readers shoot with an optical viewfinder rather than an electronic one, but the gap between the two types of camera will narrow as Canon and Nikon continue to put more eggs in their mirrorless baskets. But if you are a DSLR user and have no intention of moving over to mirrorless anytime soon, you shouldn’t view investing in a DSLR-mount lens as a short-term move, as widely available lens adapters will extend the life of DSLR glass well into the future. So if you find a lens in this month’s group test (page 110) that…

With all the mirrorless malarkey going on recently, it’s easy to lose focus on DSLRs and just how great they can be. Recent models are typically fabulous in terms of image quality and all-round performance – plus the small matter of battery life. Naturally, though, any camera is only as good as the lenses you mount on it, and that’s the subject of this month’s group test. When it comes to great glass, we all want the best we can get without spending over the odds. Sure, there are some superb own-brand Canon and Nikon lenses to choose from, but they’re certainly not always the best buys. If you’re after truly epic ‘trinity’ wide-angle, standard and telephoto f/2.8 zooms, Sigma comes up trumps. And for an ultra-wide-angle zoom for APS-C…

Lens mount Nikon F If you have a DX (APS-C) format DSLR, you might be tempted by Nikon’s AF-P DX 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3G ED VR, a solid, good-value performer. If you can stretch the budget, this FX format lens is far superior. The latest in an acclaimed series of full-frame compatible 70-300mm Nikon zooms, it has stronger, weather-sealed build quality and an rapid yet silent stepping motor-based autofocus system. Further highlights include a 4.5-stop VR system, which boasts Nikon’s latest Sport VR mode. This enables you to track erratically moving objects more easily in the viewfinder, as well as avoiding any slow-down in continuous drive rate. Performance The autofocus and stabilisation systems work brilliantly well for sport and wildlife photography, and image quality is excellent in all respects. Sharpness Our close-range…

Lens mounts Canon EF, Nikon F The long-running Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 DG OS HSM lens was a popular, budget-friendly option. The replacement ‘Sports’ edition is completely redesigned, with a new optical path that features 24 elements in 22 groups, incorporating nine FLD elements and one SLD element. There’s also a particularly wellrounded aperture, based on 11 diaphragm blades. The new optical stabiliser has switchable static and panning modes, the latter working in landscape, portrait and even diagonal orientation. Two ‘Custom’ modes can be set up via Sigma’s optional USB Dock. Performance Sharpness and contrast are scintillating throughout the zoom range, even wide-open at f/2.8. Autofocus is rapid, and stabilisation works really well when panning. Sharpness In our real-world tests, both static and panning, the Sigma delivered epic sharpness. Fringing Short…

Our overall winner is the Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 DG OS HSM Sports. It’s a phenomenal lens that works brilliantly well for sport, action, wildlife and event photography, and even for portraiture. It feels right at home on full-frame DSLRs, and works equally well on APS-C bodies, where it gives more generous ‘effective’ telephoto reach. Sigma’s 14-24mm f/2.8 DG HSM Art and Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 DG OS HSM Art lenses make up the perfect trinity for both Canon and Nikon DSLRs, with fabulous performance and great value across the board. As a low-budget no-brainer, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM is the latest edition in a classic line of acclaimed standard primes, and the best. It’s simply a must-have lens whether you shoot with an APS-C or full-frame Canon DSLR. Specifically…

Daryl Balfour Wildlife photographer South Africa-based Daryl has fused his two greatest passions into a successful career. We talk conservation, safaris and the wonders of wildlife. Page 118 Lloyd Evans Travel & outdoor photographer Sustainability and environmental protection inform the choice of assignments that pro shooter Lloyd takes on. We tag along as he shoots a landscape, from page 8 Anna-Marie Coster Dog photographer With a four-legged friend as a constant companion and a pocket camera always to hand, it seems unlikely that Anna-Marie would have chosen another job. Page 38 Jon Devo Photographer and writer Jon enjoys celebrating the upsides of fast-developing camera tech, and he’s in clover this month, with so much to admire in the Panasonic Lumix GH6. Page 104 Sofia Stiffell Fashion photographer Sofia co-opts the…

Photographing landscapes in the United Kingdom can be a love/hate affair. With our weather changing without warning, we’ve come to rely on weather apps more and more to avoid wasted trips or unnecessary hikes. It’s almost the end of January and I’m on my way to meet Lloyd Evans. It’s a particularly beautiful morning as I drive to Cheddar past Somerset’s photogenic Chew Valley lake. I almost stop to fire off a few frames myself, but I don’t want to be late. As we park up in a spot just outside Cheddar’s quaint little town along Cliff Road next to Black Rock nature walk, surrounded by rocky paths and dense woods each side of a quiet winding road, Lloyd jumps out and says, “Did you see the views on the…

10 things you can shoot this month, from street style and seascapes to captivating dog photos If I’m not shooting to a brief for a client, I’ll shoot just for kicks – I suspect that’s not unusual for a lot of photographers! I just love making images. I’m lucky to know lots of creatives, performers and visual artists who are invariably full of ideas – or are at least amenable to mine – so I’ve no shortage of inspiration and projects that keep me constantly busy and trying to improve my craft year on year. Combined with my recent move to In Camera Studios in Bristol, I have ample space and opportunity to experiment without compromise. I get to have a lot of fun and learn new tricks that I…

Shooting a wide range of subjects for both editorial and advertising purposes, I have worked in photography studios for the last five years. I cover a variety of subject matters from musicians and actors to automobiles and trainers. Each client I work with requires adjusting my style of photography, adapting my lighting, and altering my editing process to fit their brief. Simple yet versatile setups are an effective tool when you’re working in a variety of locations and under time pressures. They are a great starting point to build on, to create more elaborate lighting arrangements to fit your brief. For this portrait of model Meghan, I went back to basics using just one flash (a Profoto B2 and D4 power pack) and a plain backdrop. www.prbphotography.co.uk Instagram: @prb_photography_ Lighting…

1 Where to shoot The shoreline rocks and waves are ideal for long-exposure shots. While you certainly wouldn’t call it ‘extreme photography’, you do need to pick your way carefully to the shoreline. Take a sturdy backpack with a tripod clip to keep both hands free. Thanks to Anthony Blake for guiding me here. 2 When to shoot This was shot some 30 minutes before sunset, in early November last year, with an incoming tide and (for once) perfect weather and some clouds on the horizon making my job a lot easier. Refer to tide tables and photo apps (such as PhotoPills) to plan your outing: you don’t want to arrive and find a featureless stretch of sand! 3 Set up your gear I used my trusty Nikon D5600 and…

1 Create your scene A black backdrop and somewhere safe to light a match is the only ‘studio’ you need for this ultra-simple but really effective photo. Push your matchstick into a ball of Blu-Tack, so that it‘s held firmly and won’t fall over. We placed a non-flammable tile underneath to make sure we could ignite the match as safely as possible, and we recommend that you take similar precautions. 2 Set up your camera You‘ll work in Manual for this shot, as it’s impossible to meter as the match flares. Set an ISO of 800, a shutter speed of at least 1/800 sec and an aperture of f/11. You can tweak these settings depending on how brightly your match burns. Focus on the tip of the match manually. It’s really important…

1 Select the best shots Take a bunch of shots with your camera locked off on a tripod (8 sec at f/11, ISO 100) and shine the torch from a different angle each time. After this, take some more shots using the string lights, dragging them through the frame and shaking them around. Ctrl/Cmd-click on your five or six best shots in Bridge, and select Tools > Photoshop > Open in Photoshop Layers. 2 Blend in Photoshop In Photoshop, the shots will be put into a layers stack; provided you didn’t move the camera while shooting, they will line up perfectly. Click on the top layer, then hold Shift and click on the bottom layer to select them all. Now click where it says Normal and select the Lighten Blending Mode. This…

Hands up who likes having their photo taken? No-one? OK, we photographers prefer to be on the business side of the lens – but for once, let’s throw caution to the wind. Pick a wide-angle focal length – about 24mm on a full-frame model is ideal – to fit yourself in at arm’s length, and you’ll need a pop-up flash or a flashgun on the camera. For our shot we used Manual mode, with a shutter speed of 1/8 sec and an aperture of f/11. The flashgun was set to 1/4 power, so the flash freezes us, but the slow shutter captures the movement. If you’ve got an office chair with wheels on, that’s perfect for the daft bit! Holding the camera carefully, and with all AF points active, tilt…

Flash isn’t just useful for lighting up the dark, it’s great for getting rid of shadows on sunny days. One of the challenges of shooting with flash in daylight is that you may not be able to set a fast enough shutter speed to expose the rest of the scene correctly. This is because you’re limited to the flash sync speed – also known as the x-sync – which is the fastest shutter speed that can be used with flash. It’s typically 1/200 sec, but you should check your camera manual to be sure. If the scene requires a shutter speed that’s faster than the flash sync speed in order to expose it correctly then the picture may end up looking too bright. This is because with the flash switched…

Many flashguns are able to automatically zoom the flash head to match the focal length of the lens, but you can also manually make adjustments. In fact, changing the zoom is a creative way to control the look of your flash pictures. Zooming to a focal length that’s wider than the lens, for example, can help to soften and spread the light (and is also recommended when the flash is used with some softboxes).…

With over a decade’s experience as a writer and photographer, James is also an accomplished image editor – and an expert in Affinity Photo. SPONSORED BY FILE & VIDEO www.digitalcameraworld.com/dc253 Retouching is the next step up from basic image correction: with correction, you adjust the overall look of the image, adjusting the exposure or contrast, for example. Retouching is when you edit the details, perhaps removing blemishes from skin or erasing stray hairs. Affinity Photo has much to offer the modern retoucher. Powerful tools like the Healing Brush and the Inpainting Brush let you remove unwanted details with ease, while fantastic commands like Frequency Separation make advanced retouching techniques accessible to everyone. Here we’ll explore an array of retouching techniques you can use to boost your portraits, from fixing small…

James is a professional photographer who specialises in landscape and portraits. He’s an advanced Photoshop user and has created hundreds of tutorials. FILE & VIDEO www.digitalcameraworld.com/dc253 Shooting portraits, whether they’re indoors in a studio or outdoors under natural light, always produces interesting images, because of the human element we can all relate to. As always, it’s best to get your images looking at good as possible in-camera to reduce the amount of editing required later on. The thing about portraits, though, is that there can still be a few editing tasks required beyond the basic processing of your raw files, even with the best start images that were shot perfectly. We’re going to cover four useful techniques that maintain natural-looking portraits and avoid the over-edited and unrealistic look often seen…

Challenge 2 Paul Brewer For the second challenge, we felt that a dedicated panning round would produce some distinctive images of the event’s action. “This was one of the first shots I took when I arrived, of the seniors and women race,” Paul says. “I wanted to capture the contrasting colours of the dry grass and the colourful kit of the rider. The first part of the winter has been unusually dry, so there wasn’t too much mud flying about, but the colourful cycle kits did look cool under the winter sun. “I used a slow shutter speed of 1/50 sec to lend a sense of acceleration as this rider sped away from one of the obstacles on the course. The image stabilisation on my lens steadied the shot well…

What is firmware? Firmware is the name given to the software that’s built into your camera, and it controls the operational functions of your camera, including the menus. Why do I need to know about it? You don’t need to know how firmware works, but it’s useful to know that it exists – and that it can be updated. Why would it need to be updated? There may be times when a manufacturer releases firmware updates to fix errors in the original software, or increasingly to add functionality after the fact. Do I have to update firmware? You don’t have to, and your camera will continue to function – but since some firmware updates are often in response to potential technical issues, it’s best to ensure that your firmware is…

www.leica-camera.com The Leica M11 is the latest edition in Leica’s long-running M-series rangefinder line-up. Unlike the mirrorless Leica SL2 and SL2S, and the compact Leica Q2, this is a real old-school camera with manual focus only, and not even a through-the-lens viewfinder (though it does have LCD live view if you don’t want to use the direct vision viewfinder). Leica M cameras are a breed apart, using a decades-old design that takes a bit of mastering and a price that puts them out of reach for all but the most enthusiastic amateurs and collectors. But while the latest Leica M uses a very old physical design, its digital tech is bang up to date. This latest model boasts a 60MP sensor, which puts it right at the top of the…

Lens mount Canon EF The so-called ‘nifty fifty’ is one of the most popular types of prime lens on the market, and with good reason. You can get a much tighter depth of field than with a kit zoom lens, for blurring the background and focusing all attention on the main subject. While this lens is full-frame compatible, it gives an effective 80mm focal length on APS-C format bodies, perfect for portraiture. This STM edition adds a gear-type stepping motor autofocus system which is much quieter than the more basic electric motor of its predecessor. Handling is also improved, as the manual focus ring no longer rotates during autofocus. Performance There’s some noticeable axial (or longitudinal) chromatic aberration when shooting wide-open at f/1.8, but overall image quality is very pleasing.…

Lens mounts Canon EF, Nikon F It’s a tough choice between this lens and Sigma’s even wider 12-24mm Art zoom. The 14-24mm’s maximum viewing angle is naturally less extreme, but the faster aperture rating is a bonus. Other similarities include high-tech glass with an ultra-high-precision moulded glass aspherical front element, the 14-24mm boasting three FLD (‘Fluorite’ Low Dispersion and three SLD (Special Low Dispersion) elements. The lens is immaculately engineered. Handling is excellent, with a smooth and precise feel to the zoom and focus rings, the latter enabling the usual manual override of autofocus. Performance Sharpness and contrast are very impressive, even when shooting wide-open. Sharpness towards the edges and corners is particularly impressive for such a wide-angle zoom. Sharpness Levels of sharpness are superb, even wide-open at f/2.8, right…

Lens mounts Canon EF, Nikon F Despite having an identical zoom range and aperture rating as Sigma’s 150-600mm Contemporary lens, the Sports edition is rather larger and heavier. At nearly 3kg, it’s certainly not a lens to be taken lightly, especially when it comes to long periods of handheld photography. The control layout features switchable options, including dual-mode auto/manual override priority for autofocus and dual-mode static/panning optical stabilisation. There are also two switchable custom setups. You can engage the zoom lock switch at any focal length on the zoom ring. Performance Making the most of its top-grade dual FLD (‘Fluorite’ Low Dispersion) elements, this lens delivers excellent sharpness for a super-telephoto zoom. There’s no beating this Sigma for all-round performance. Sharpness Levels of sharpness are highly impressive throughout the zoom…

“I’ve had the Sony A7 IV for a while now and really love it. It’s always a good idea to experiment with customising the controls, no matter which model you shoot with. Here, I’ve reassigned the ISO to this righthand side dial rather than setting it via a button or the shooting menu. It just speeds up everything for me – – shooting outdoors means the sun could pop out at any second, and I can quickly adjust for it. It’s just second nature for me to work the camera this way now.”…

Whenever you take pictures of birds, it is worth looking at your surroundings to see how you can get the most out of your photos. Try to get yourself into a position where few disturbances will impinge on the frame, like branches of trees or other obstacles. Shooting from a position with a clear view of your subject will produce rewarding results. Also consider the positioning of the sun: having it behind you will help to lift the colour and detail of birds. Look at the backgrounds, too: a contrasting colour or backdrop is a great help to make the bird pop from the image. Try to find colours other than greens and browns, which tend to make images look quite flat: the yellow of this field (above) is highly…

Believe it or not, I had owned my camera for about four years before I even attempted to shoot a landscape photo. I really had very little interest in the genre at all – and when I did try, they weren’t very good. I had come from a background of predominantly photographing people. The first problem was composition: as soon as there wasn’t a face or a body in the scene, I really couldn’t find a way to frame up my shot. With portraits, you don’t often worry about the rule of thirds, leading lines or negative space. The penny eventually began to drop, and I realised that I needed a subject. It didn’t even matter too much what it was: I just needed something in the frame as a…

Dogs and photography are two of my favourite things in the world. I grew up with a four-legged best friend constantly by my side, plus a pocket camera, often using the entire roll of film to take photographs of my companion. I finally put my two passions together and became a professional dog photographer in 2013. I have since been fortunate to capture thousands of dogs; although the equipment and concept is the same for each, every photo shoot is different. Each dog has its own character. They have different personalities, emotions and stories to tell, and that’s what I love to capture on camera. You will often find me lying in the muddy grass or covered head-to-toe in dog fur, all while holding a camera in one hand and…

About the Pano Awards The Epson International Pano Awards was founded in 2009 by David Evans (2015 AIPP Australian Landscape Photographer of the Year) with the support of Epson Australia, and has since grown into a collaboration between dedicated photographers, industry professionals and sponsors. It is a labour of love for all involved. www.thepanoawards.com Epson Digital Art Prize ‘Anatomy Lesson’ Manuel Enrique González Carmona, Spain “Minerals, water and water currents are the ingredients with which nature creates these ephemeral landscapes. With each rainy period, the canvas is transformed. This canvas is actually a raft of toxic waste from a copper mine, located in the province of Huelva, Spain, which was captured by aerial shooting. I live only one hour away from this scenery. There are always completely new structures and…

All photography is concerned with capturing the light reflecting off a subject. When you work indoors, you can use multiple light sources to illuminate the scene. Lighting from the top, back, sides or front changes the character of a subject dramatically, but mixing them together to get just the right balance generally requires a complex setup with a lot of lights, stands, and light-modifying kit. That’s not the case with this technique, though: provided you can keep the camera still, you can take multiple shots with different lighting effects, then blend them together using Photoshop layers to get the effect you want. The shot on the right was lit by one Mini MagLite torch and a bunch of string lights, and the six separate shots were then blended together to…

When it comes to classic still-life shots, it’s not often that the light source itself will be part of the picture. But if you have an angle-poise desk lamp with a circular reflector, you can give it the dramatic look of a rising sun behind your subject. We arranged a chess set on a reflective surface and angled the rows of pieces inwards slightly to exaggerate the perspective. If you try this, a handy trick is to use a ruler to keep the rows lined up. You’ll find that the strong backlighting will dominate the scene, but the pieces on the extreme left and right will fall into shadow: a couple of LED lights will pick out their edges and pull them out of the gloom.…

If you have a polarising filter, you can get amazing shots that reveal the stresses in plastic items. You do need a polarised light source as well as a filter, though – but, as luck would have it, you already have at least one in the form of a laptop screen or computer monitor! Just fill the screen with white using a blank canvas in Photoshop or a zoomed-in Word doc: when you look through a polarising filter and rotate it, you’ll see the white screen turn black. Place plastic items on this, and you’ll see an oil-slick of colours that change as you rotate the filter. Geometry setup We placed a humble geometry set onto a laptop screen and arranged the items into an interesting composition. Then all that…

A flashgun gives you greater power and more control than the small built-in units commonly found in digital cameras. It also makes it possible to take the light source off camera, enabling you to choose the optimum angle to light your subject from. You’ll need a trigger on the camera to fire the flash remotely, which can be either another flash unit, a wireless trigger or even the pop-up flash of a compatible camera. Alternatively, you can maintain a physical contact between the flashgun’s foot and the camera hotshoe using an off-camera cable.…

Flash power You can adjust the flash power on a flashgun, or on a trigger unit that’s attached to the camera when you’re working with wireless flash. You may also be able to adjust the flash power on the camera display when a compatible flashgun is used. Flashgun distance In this example, with the flash at 1/4 power and the aperture at f/8, the subject will be exposed correctly at around 4 metres. Moving the flash unit closer to the subject will give a brighter exposure; moving it further away will have the opposite effect. Aperture / ISO Selecting a small aperture (such as f/16 or f/22) will reduce the flash light coming into the camera, so you may need to increase the power to compensate. Opening the aperture will…

1 ‘You Looking at Me?’ by Keith Smith “Taken at Bullers of Buchan, Aberdeenshire – a great spot for seabirds. Looking back, these two puffins could well have been talking about me!” Digital Camera says: We love the use of negative space here. It really makes for an intimate shot of two puffins in their environment. 2 ‘Chatelherault Lodge’ by Jordan Graham “The rear of Chatelherault House in Lanarkshire, Scotland. I was fascinated by the perfectly groomed greenery of the gardens and the way the hedges were framing each corner.” Digital Camera says: Symmetry within photography can be extremely powerful, and that’s demonstrated well here; Jordan’s shot wouldn’t be out of place on a poster for the latest Netflix period drama. Bringing in the foreground bushes at the left and…

With over a decade as a writer and photographer behind him, James knows exactly which Photoshop and Lightroom tools and techniques matter most. FILE & VIDEO www.digitalcameraworld.com/dc253 Even though Photoshop has offered video tools for several years, many users still don’t know they exist – and those who do may assume that Photoshop is unsuited to editing videos. But not only is it possible to edit video in Photoshop, it can also be a sensible way for photographers to work with moving images. The great thing about using Photoshop for video is that you can take lots of the things you already know about editing photos, and apply them to video in a similar way. Your can use brilliant tools like the Camera Raw filter to tone your footage, and…

Reader 1 James Clarke Camera: Sony A7R IV Location: Street Having recently established his own photography business to improve his work/life balance following a career as a civil servant, James specialises in shooting sport and fitness. As passionate about photography as he is about sport, James can draw on over two decades of experience in the sporting world, and says that there is no challenge he won’t accept – which is just as well, because the challenges will be coming thick and fast today… www.justjamesmedia.com Reader 2 Paul Brewer Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV Location: Weymouth Paul is a professional photographer based in Dorset, and although he specialises in shooting weddings, he also shoots a variety of other genres, including commercial, architectural and interiors, lifestyle and landscapes. Photographing sport…

Our ‘action’ dog diving into the North Sea just before sunset is a little underexposed! In fact, it’s almost silhouetted, and it would be great to see a little bit of the fur detail. First, let’s deal with the composition 1. There’s a slight lean to the horizon, and we could crop in a bit. We’ll do this in Geometry with Rotate, then push in on Scale to tighten it up. Now we can just select the dog 2 via Masking and Select Subject, lifting the Shadows slider by +45 to bring out enough detail and avoid introducing unwanted noise. The sky looks washed out 3 so, back in Masking, let’s use Select Sky, then make it a little richer by taking the Exposure slider to -50. Finally, in the…

www.canon.co.uk Canon faced some initial criticism for its big and hefty RF-mount lenses, which somewhat negated the slimline advantage of mirrorless EOS R-series cameras. More recently, though, a spate of compact and lightweight lenses have seen the pounds drop off: these include the RF 35mm f/1.8 IS Macro STM and the RF 50mm f/1.8 STM. The RF 16mm f/2.8 STM is the latest prime to join the catwalk club, with slinky dimensions and a weight of just 165g, while delivering an ultra-wide viewing angle that’s ideal for shooting everything from cramped architectural interiors through sweeping landscapes to the starry night sky above. Optical highlights include an aspherical element to boost sharpness and reduce distortion, and Super Spectra Coating to minimize ghosting and flare. To help with the latter, you really…

Lens mount Canon EF Canon’s original 70-300mm IS USM had a mediocre stabiliser and a pedestrian, noisy autofocus system. The Mk II features upgraded optics, a new four-stop stabiliser and a revolutionary Nano USM autofocus system, which is very rapid for stills, yet enables smooth focus transitions during movie capture. Another novel feature is the LCD info screen on the barrel. The adjacent mode switch enables you to cycle through display modes for focus distance and depth of field, effective focal length on an APS-C format camera, and the level of vibration. Performance The Mk II delivers much better image quality than its predecessor. Sharpness is impressive across the whole frame, throughout nearly all of the zoom range, although corner-sharpness drops away at 70mm. Sharpness Excellent centre-sharpness is maintained throughout…

Lens mounts Canon EF, Nikon F Sigma’s 24-70mm Art goes head-to-head with own-brand Canon and Nikon counterparts – and beats them both for sharpness, while featuring image stabilisation lacking in the Canon lens. It also massively undercuts both own-brand lenses for selling price. Although the Sigma isn’t a fully weather-sealed lens, it has a rubber seal on its mounting plate and a fully pro-grade feel. The zoom and focus rings are silky smooth in operation, and the ring-type ultrasonic autofocus system is superfast and highly accurate. Better still, it comes with switchable options for regular or manual-priority override. Performance Image quality is simply stunning, combining superb sharpness and contrast with beautiful bokeh. Colour fringing and distortions are minimal, and vignetting is low. Sharpness Sharpness across the entire frame is excellent…

Lens mounts Canon EF-S, Nikon F DX Originally launched back in 2008, Tamron’s 10-24mm zoom received a major revamp further down the line. The updated optical path includes enhanced aspherical and LD (Low Dispersion) elements. There’s also a new HLD (High/Low toque-modulated Drive) autofocus system and VC (Vibration Compensation) stabilisation, both of which were lacking in the original lens. Not just faster and quieter, the HLD autofocus refines handling as the focus ring no longer rotates during autofocus, while also enabling full-time manual override. Performance Shooting at very close range, the Tamron delivered fairly mediocre results in our lab tests. It was an entirely different story in our real-world tests, where sharpness proved excellent across the whole frame. Sharpness In ‘real-world’ shooting, sharpness proved excellent across the frame. Fringing Short…