Table of contents for December 2024 in Digital Camera Magazine

How well do you know your local landscape? That’s the theme of this month’s cover feature (p46), which shows how returning to photograph familiar scenes can boost your creativity. In other outdoor photography-themed content, we watch climbing photographer Sam Davis scale the heights in One to One (p8) and round up eight best-buy tripods (p106). Discover how to shoot your best after-dark photos in Camera Clinic (p64) and enjoy winning entries from the Epson International Pano Awards (p40). Plus, go behind the scenes of an Accidentally Wes Anderson adventure (p118). Enjoy the issue.…

BONUS SOFTWARE EXTRAS! Turn to page 83 ENTER THIS URL www.digitalcameraworld.com/dc288 Enter the URL www.digitalcameraworld.com/dc288 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 Click on the link labelled ‘Download the files for Digital Camera 288’ and your download will start, delivered from our own server. Please override any browser warnings about downloading from a non-secure source – our server is safe! ACCESS YOUR FILES Open the. zip In your Downloads folder, or wherever you chose to download your files, double-click the dcm288-files.zip file icon. Then when it expands, double-click Digital…

What does ‘local’ mean to you? This may sound like a trick question because most people would consider a radius somewhere around 30 miles from their home to be local. It’s pretty simple in everyday terms but when you throw photography into the equation, locality typically tends to extend further. Many of us, myself included, live in places that aren’t ideal for landscape photography. I live in Cambridgeshire, which is a typically flat and featureless landscape with only a few places worth shooting. To give you an idea of travel times to more interesting locations, driving to the middle of the Peak District takes three hours, the Lake District takes 5.5 hours and Northumberland 4.5 hours. So in this context and because the furthest distance in the UK from the…

When we talk about landscape photography, W we most commonly think of stunning vistas taken at golden hour, but landscape photography encompasses much more than this archetypal yet narrow view of the genre. What’s more, breaking from this traditional approach opens up many more possibilities because this way, shooting alternative landscapes doesn’t rely so heavily on having to be in a honeypot location. So what is an alternative landscape? Quite simply, it’s a way of capturing a landscape location in a way that breaks from the traditional conventions of landscape photography. Here we have three suggestions to get you started, but once you have begun thinking outside the box, you’ll naturally come up with more ideas of your own. One of the great things about shooting these types of images…

PROJECT 9 CAPTURE INTERESTING BUILDINGS Interesting buildings, whether piers at the coast, lighthouses, castles or even bothies in national parks, can provide a strong focal point as well as helping to add a sense of scale to the surrounding landscape. Cromer Pier, pictured here, is well known and even made an appearance in the Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa film in 2013. The façade of the Grade II listed building and the sweeping steps provide a great photo opportunity with the sea behind. TOP TIP: With buildings like this, shoot at dusk when the lights get switched on so that there’s still a visually pleasing blue glow in the sky that contrasts with the warm artificial lighting. PROJECT 10 GO URBAN AND GRITTY This location is an old petrol station that’s no…

Forget all the fantastical image generators, bulldogs in bowler hats and Trump deepfakes. Rather than conjure new, vapid images out of nothing, what we photographers need are AI tools that let us enhance our own photos. In this regard, Photoshop has been on something of a roll lately, releasing all manner of powerful AI tools designed to augment what we capture and speed up our editing process. The latest is the Remove Distractions feature and, in this project, we’ll take an in-depth look at how to use it. Over the past year or so, the Remove tool has quickly become one of the best retouching tools. Now, with the recently added Distraction Removal feature, it’s even better. Previously, we would have to paint over objects to remove them but now…

You can’t rely on the weather, especially when you’re on holiday or on a planned photographic jaunt. It’s almost as if those dismal skies are challenging you to make anything useful from the conditions on offer. Sure, there’s always black and white, but even mono will look better if you get a little spicy with the tones in your image first. And that’s where we are going with Affinity Photo 2 this month. So load up your image and make any basic corrections, such as cropping, straightening and cloning out stray crisp packets. Then, duplicate the background layer so it can be blended or masked at the end. 1 Tone mapping Click on the Tone Mapping Persona icon at the top left. Once loaded, there are some presets in a…

Fur sure Q I’ve just started getting into wildlife photography and wondered if there was a good way to increase the detail of fur in my raw images. Barry Dutton A I don’t think you need to treat fur detail differently from any other detail; it’s simply a case of accurate focusing and the right aperture choice at the time of shooting, followed by some subtle improvements to the raw file in whatever software you use. In many cases, if you get the first bit right you shouldn’t need to do much in the post-processing stage anyway. If you really feel your wildlife image needs a bit of a boost – specifically in the fur or feather areas – then your changes should be targeted. In Lightroom or Adobe Camera…

New Fujifilm compact Brand launches a 26.1MP APS-C camera that targets content creators, plus two new lenses: the XF 16-55mm f/2.8 R LM WR II and XF 500mm f/5.6 R LM OIS WR Aimed at ambitious creators eager to move beyond smartphone content by entering the realm of high-quality photography and videography, the Fujifilm X-M5 is built around the 26.1MP APS-C X-Trans 4 CMOS sensor used in the brand’s popular X100V. Fujifilm says the X-M5 captures intricate details with vibrant colours and performs impressively in low-light conditions. Other headline features include AI-powered autofocus technology and 20 classic film simulation recipes, all easily accessible from a dial on the top plate. Also launched at the brand’s October X-Summit event was a new version of a popular standard zoom, and a new…

£1,399/$1,499 www.sigmauk.com Everybody loves a trinity standard zoom, right? With a typical zoom range of 24-70mm, coupled with a relatively fast and constant f/2.8 aperture, they’re great for everything from urban and landscape photography to portraiture and even astrophotography, though the maximum focal length of 70mm can feel a bit short for portraiture, especially for head-and-shoulders compositions and tight headshots. Tamron stretched things a bit with its Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 Di III RXD, which was also repurposed as the Nikon Z 28-75mm F2.8, before Tamron upped the ante with its subsequent Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 Di III RXD G2 (Generation 2) lens. All three are conveniently compact and lightweight, tipping the scales at a shade over half a kilogram. This Sigma lens goes more properly into telephoto territory, stretching to 105mm…

Published in 2020, Accidentally Wes Anderson took a social media sensation into book form and was translated into eight languages. P For anyone not familiar, the Accidentally Wes Anderson Instagram account was started by Wally Koval in 2017 and is a community of people inspired by the visual aesthetic seen in the celebrated American film director’s work. Best known for quirky and whimsical feature films including The Royal Tenenbaums, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch and Asteroid City, Anderson’s distinctive visual grammar complements the narratives of the movies and makes them even more immersive. The Accidentally Wes Anderson Instagram community has almost two million followers, and spin-offs from it include photo trips with the Kovals, called ‘AWA adventures’. Attending these will be Marjorie Becker, AWA’s Chief Adventure Photographer, who…

Sam Davis certainly lives up to the ‘adventure’ aspect of his job title. In addition to spending time underground as a caving photographer, he also specialises in climbing photography. In each case, his childhood passions for caving and climbing paved the way for documenting both pursuits as a photographer, as neither activity can be tackled by the uninitiated. Having heard Davis discuss caving photography at The Photography & Video Show last March, a talk that was trailed in issue 279 (April) of Digital Camera, it felt like the end of summer would be a good time to see him in action on the rock face. Davis arranged a day’s climbing on a crag near where he is based on England’s border with Wales, allowing him to capture some new portfolio…

With the UK’s furthest inland point being just 70 miles from the coast, it’s fair to say that the seascapes are local to everyone. Of course, it may take an hour or so to drive to the sea, but that’s not that long in the grand scheme of things. The UK coastline is incredibly diverse and even the most featureless beaches have photographic potential, although rocks, groynes, piers and lighthouses make shooting much easier and provide potential for interesting and dynamic compositions. What’s more, the coast doesn’t change much from season to season, so you can shoot at any time of year. 1 Use a tripod When shooting around sunrise and sunset, which are the best times for coastal shots, a tripod is essential for supporting the camera during the…

One of the benefits of staying local is that you don’t have to travel too far to shoot, which can be a blessing when capturing early morning sunrises. But it also allows you to quickly and easily respond to the weather conditions so that you can capture scenes exactly how you intended. This image was taken a couple of days after I had first visited this location. On my initial visit, the light wasn’t right and there was no mist to add to the atmosphere. But it wasn’t a wasted journey, as I took a test shot to check the composition. When the weather forecasts suggested better conditions were on the way later in the week, it was simply a case of setting an alarm and driving to the location…

1 ‘Red Sky in Dyke’ by Mike Morcher “This was taken on a trip downriver from Great Yarmouth very early one morning at sunrise. It was shot with a wide-angle lens at 24mm, with a 1/60 sec exposure and f/8 aperture.” Instagram: @mikemorcher Digital Camera says: We love the colours and the way the water leads the eye through the photo to the sunrise in the distance. This is a fantastic capture, Mike. 2 ‘Spaniel Energy’ by Lee Pullen “These energetic pups are known for their incredible speed and agility, making it a challenge to time the perfect shot. So I decided to use a fast shutter speed and burst mode to maximise my chances of success. I took several hundred photos before I got this one.” IG: @leepullenphotography Digital Camera says: Capturing a puppy in…

After tone, colour is the main source of impact in your photo. Light has three main properties: hue, saturation and luminance. Hue is the base colour. Is it red or is it blue? Luminance is how bright it is, which is more about the tone. Saturation sets the intensity of the colour. Is it a muted red or a vibrant red? In Lightroom Classic’s Basic panel, there’s a Saturation slider. This allows you to decrease as well as increase the saturation in your photo. Decreasing it completely removes the colour, giving a basic black and white image. Increasing it will add saturation to all colours, irrespective of how saturated they were in the beginning. The tool can also be particularly harsh with skin tones, very quickly making them look ugly…

In recent years, AI-based sky swapping has become popular in image editing programs – Photoshop offers it, as does Luminar Neo. ON1’s Photo RAW has this feature but with a difference. Photo RAW ships with a library of 125 high-resolution skies from Ocudrone that will transform featureless, grey skies into something more striking. Of course, to make the new sky look realistic, you will need to make a few other adjustments to the tone and colour of your image. So let’s have a look at what else ON1 Photo RAW’s sky replacement tool can do. 1 Choose your sky Go to the Sky tab and choose a sky from the Library. We’ve gone with an Ocudrone Moody Sky. The sky mask will be created as part of the process. Choose…

What is the Highlight Alert function? The Highlight Alert/Mode, sometimes referred to as ‘zebras’ or ‘blinkies’, is an in-camera function that warns you if any of the highlight areas in your exposure are potentially too bright. Why is this information important? If you overexpose areas of your image too much you can lose detail, whereas underexposing areas will render them darker, but the detail may still be recoverable in post-processing. Should I have the Highlight Alert warning switched on all the time? When you are starting out, having this function enabled is a good idea because it gives you an instant and visible sign of potential exposure issues when you are reviewing your photo. With experience, however, you may find this function becomes annoying. If that’s the case, you can…

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From £399/$399 (camera) www.gopro.com GoPro has been in the action camera game for around 20 years now, and in that time, it has cemented its reputation as the best brand for absolute top-quality footage. But with plenty of competition coming for its crown and beating GoPro to higher resolutions and bigger sensors, the brand can’t afford to rest on its laurels. The market has possibly never been tighter – yet it has probably never been more stale. Over the past few years, we have seen more and more iterative updates with much less to get excited about. And a year after GoPro’s last flagship release, the latest GoPro Hero13 Black seems to follow suit, with another minor spec update. But don’t write the Hero13 off just yet. To see what’s…

Just as with lenses, photographers need different types of tripods to suit varying needs. Some will favour a compact travel tripod that folds down really small and can be easily stowed, as well as being fairly lightweight to lessen the load. Others will want a high and mighty tripod that extends to a lofty maximum height and puts the emphasis on top-end stability and rigidity. Either way, ball heads are generally preferred, as they enable quick and easy adjustment over a wide range of movement. Then there are material gains. Aluminium tripod legs are perfectly serviceable and keep costs to a minimum, which is a key factor for many nowadays. If you can stretch the budget, however, carbon fibre tripods can offer a noticeable saving in weight, especially with larger,…

Marjorie Becker Photographer As the latest Accidentally Wes Anderson book goes on sale, its official photographer takes us behind the scenes to explain how she got involved. Turn to page 118 Will Cheung Photographer and writer A fellow of the Royal Photographic Society and the former editor of many photography titles, Cheung is the man behind Camera Clinic, which continues on page 64 Sam Davis Outdoor photographer Davis returns to Digital Camera, this time to give us a masterclass in how he photographs climbing. If you have a head for heights, then turn straight to page 8 Jon Devo Photographer & writer Our resident tech columnist considers the latest developments in photography and digital imaging. His latest dispatch, about the limits of camera phones, is on page 94 James Abbott…

1 | MACRO Prepare for war! Rather than slogging up a beach in France under withering simulated fire, Wendy Evans re-creates the action and drama of the D-Day battlefront in miniature This year saw the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the largest amphibious invasion in history. It formed part of Operation Overlord, the invasion of northern France in the summer of 1944. Our project this month is to recreate a scene after the initial landings when German Waffen-SS tank divisions were dispatched to prevent the Allies from breaking out from the beachheads. For this, I’m making use of the D-Day Battlefront set, which was supplied by Airfix and retails at £40/$52, though resellers stock it at around £35/$46. This box is 1:76 scale and has everything you need to create a…

Simplicity is often the key to success in photography, and shooting landscapes is no S exception. So if you’re unable to travel far and would like a technique that you could perhaps shoot during your lunch break in a local park, we have the perfect subject for you. Shooting up into the canopy of trees is incredibly simple, but depending on the shape and height of the trees, you can capture both interesting and unique images. A wide-angle lens is ideal for accentuating depth but beyond that, it’s an approach that anyone can shoot with ease. 1 Shooting position When shooting this type of image, you can shoot handheld standing up and looking up, lying on the ground or by attaching your camera to a tripod facing upwards. 2 Find…

When shooting a location that works well in both landscape and portrait formats, capture both. This provides more choice when it comes to editing and presentation – and it’s better than wishing you’d captured the scene differently afterwards. Whenever you’re shooting landscapes, it always pays to capture the scene in both landscape and portrait format so that you have both options available. This scene works equally well in both formats on a visual level, but having both available means that you can select the best format for how you’re presenting your shots. Some social media apps seem to favour uprights, while for others it doesn’t matter. Another bonus is that if you sell your shots as prints, you’ll have more options available for customers.…

To be able to capture the potential of the location and to enjoy the full scope of golden hour, you ideally need to be on location at least 45 minutes early. Sometimes, the best part of sunrises and sunsets is when the sun is above the horizon. At other times, it’s when the sun is just below the horizon and in some cases, it can be when the sun is well below the horizon and the blue hour sky is filled with red or pink. On some occasions, the entire golden hour can be amazing. 1 Early colour After a long day of bright sunshine in the morning and then thick cloud all afternoon and into the evening, a sunset was looking unlikely. Fortunately, a break on the horizon allowed…

This month: Night-time photography With winter’s shorter days, now is the time to explore the darkness Thanks to digital capture, shooting at night has never been easier. The incredible image quality possible with super-fast ISO speeds means that you can walk around shooting night photos handheld. The main benefit, though, is digital itself. Sensors can record details in scenes that may not even be visible to the naked eye. What’s more, this sensitivity is linear, unlike film. Film emulsion is formulated to provide consistent results within a particular exposure range, which might be, for example, 1 sec to 1/2000 sec. Make exposures outside that range and there is an effective loss of speed. If you’ve worked out a film exposure as 8 secs, you might need 16 secs or even…

James Abbott Specialising in landscapes and portraits, James Abbott is an advanced Photoshop user and has created hundreds of tutorials. James Paterson With over a decade as a writer and photographer, James Paterson knows which Photoshop and Lightroom tools and techniques matter most. Sean McCormack A photographer and writer based in Galway, Ireland, Sean McCormack is the author of books including The Indispensable Guide to Lightroom CC. Wendy Evans The author of over a dozen books on the subjects of photography, CGI and Photoshop, Wendy Evans has used Photoshop since version 3.0.…

This has been a relentless year of camera and imaging T technology releases, with 2024 marked by the long-anticipated arrival of Canon’s flagship mirrorless camera, the EOS R1. Other companies focused on appealing to the ‘creator’ market, with products such as Fujifilm’s X-T50 and X-M5, Panasonic’s Lumix S9, DJI’s Osmo Pocket 3, Sony’s ZV-E10 II and Nikon’s Z 6III. Features including open gate, proxy recording, camera-2-cloud, frame markers and, of course, AI dominated every camera-related announcement this year. AI has not only infiltrated camera hardware but has also taken over the software side. Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite and DaVinci Resolve are now AI-powered, Topaz is rapidly iterating its AI tools and many new creative AI platforms launched and evolved in 2024. The focus on AI reflects a broader shift in…

£499/$499 https://pentax.eu The Pentax Film Project has been in the works since 2022 – inspired by a resurgence in the popularity of film, Pentax decided to start producing new film cameras once again. Instead of dragging some blueprints out of storage for one of its old legacy models (of which there are many incredible entries), Pentax decided to call on all its engineering history and develop something completely new. Key features The first camera to emanate from this project is the Pentax 17. Perhaps not what many photographers envisioned as the first model, based on the iconic cameras Pentax is most renowned for, the Pentax 17 is a half-frame 35mm film camera with a rangefinder-style design. This makes sense, though: the resurgence of film can be credited to social media,…

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