Table of contents for October 2019 in Practical Photography: Lite

Nikon APS-C mirrorless According to supposed leaked patents, Nikon is set to create an APS-C version of its Z range of CSCs. While nothing is officially known, other than the omission of a viewfinder, we would expect a 24.2MP sensor and in-body image stabilisation to be standard. We’d love to see a 180° tilting touchscreen and serious video specs, however, making it highly sought-after for videographers. nikon.co.uk Canon’s new 70MP EOS R The internet’s alive with the rumour that Canon is set to usurp Sony’s megapixel lead with a 70MP EOS R. It’s also believed to add features that have been absent from the line-up thus far, including dual card slots, in-body image stabilisation and physical autofocus controls, to name a few. We would suggest this release is also set…

Stephen Cheatley is a semi-pro photographer from Blackpool. His image won the Royal Meteorological Society Weather Photographer of the Year award. “This is a night I will never forget because we had the most intense thunderstorm I have ever seen. After failing to capture a previous storm earlier in the week I was determined to go out and finally capture lightning strikes for the first time. I decided the best place to go was Blackpool Promenade because it is such a famous location, and any lightning strikes captured would make a great photo. The image went on to appear in several national newspapers and went viral on Facebook and Twitter. I was recently invited by RMetS to judge this year’s competition, which was a great experience for me. Winning has…

If you’re in any doubt as to how essential this cover is, take the example of wedding photographer Daniel Cooper. He said: “While on a shoot I decided to switch to a wide-angle lens, but dropped the other one on some concrete steps. I was devastated. “Thankfully, Ripe Photography Insurance put my mind at ease. I got in touch with them and the lens was repaired quickly. The claim process was much easier than I thought it would be and everyone was really helpful.” Daniel would’ve been hundreds of pounds out of pocket without specialist photography insurance. This instance only goes to show that, as careful as we try to be, sometimes we’re just unlucky – but having specialist photography equipment insurance means peace of mind.…

Very long exposure images, such as Chris’ shot of the pier, are very popular but they do throw up a unique technical challenge. At normal shutter speeds, your camera is completely light-tight, but when the shutter is open for a long time there is the potential for light to get into the camera and ruin your shot. The biggest culprit is the viewfinder of a DSLR, so always tape up the viewfinder when making long exposures or use a dedicated cover (left). Light can also get into the camera via headphone ports and other input access points, so it is good practice to use black tape to cover these areas if you are planning to shoot long exposures.…

With your photographer’s eye, it’s easy to see the aesthetic value in golden sunsets or bouquets of flowers. So to stretch your creativity and develop your skills, we’re asking you to find the beauty in the resolutely ordinary for this Camera School module. By scouring your local environment with a focus on interesting textures, you have the opportunity to create high-impact mono photos that celebrate the everyday objects that can be found all around us. Find a suitable subject The two most important things to keep in mind for this module are that your subject must be flat and that it should fill the frame entirely. Every part of your image needs to be in focus, so if the object you’re shooting has even the slightest curve, this will make…

Best for versatility Perfect for shooting a wide variety of subjects, the 18-55mm f/2.8 kit lens is the equivalent of a 27-84mm focal range on a full-frame sensor. With a close focusing distance of 40cm from the sensor, this lens can help you capture high-impact macro-like shots. Make sure you’re zoomed in fully to the lens’ maximum focal length of 55mm to achieve the most powerful effect. Best for quality With a minimum close focusing distance of 25cm from the sensor, the 80mm f/2.8 delivers an impressive 1.0x magnification, which allows you to reproduce objects at life size on the camera’s sensor. Plus, if you’re using an APS-C camera, you’ll experience even greater effective magnification, thanks to the crop factor of the smaller sensor in your camera body.…

YOUR BRIEF For your homework, we’re asking you to shoot one mono texture photo. Your image should be shot with a wide aperture and a fast enough shutter speed to prevent camera shake. The lines leading through your texture should be arranged diagonally from the bottom left corner to the top right. Your focus should be placed in the centre of the composition. The image must be shot in black & white. While we do allow light editing, your image should appear natural . Once you’ve taken your shot, resize it to within the 10MB limit and then upload it to camera-school.com/module-4. JUDGING CRITERIA ■ Your image should be shot with a wide aperture and a fast shutter speed for a shot free from camera shake. ■ Make sure your…

■ Why is black & white such an important photographic subject to try? Switching to black & white in-camera aides your ability to see and think about the composition of pictures in a more dynamic way. Mono images are essentially about light, contrast and tonality rather than the ever-present colour. Removing colour helps the photographer and viewer focus on why the shot was taken. Generally, I look for a light-toned subject with a darker-toned background, as this immediately creates contrast, which is essential for successful black & white images. Strong foreground textures give the viewer a heightened sense of the tactile nature of the chosen subject. Compositionally, pictures are made up of shapes, lines and textures, and so accentuating textures plays a key part in the picture-taking process. ■ What’s…

WHAT YOU NEED ■ A tripod and a camera that lets you alter aperture and focus ■ Photoshop CS6 or newer ALL GOOD LANDSCAPE photographers go to great lengths to improve sharpness in their pictures, and the goal is often to get a picture that’s perfectly sharp from foreground to background. That usually means using a very small aperture like f/16 or higher to extend the depth-of-field. However, there’s a compromise in that. Lenses aren’t at their best, optically, at such small apertures, so ultimately sharpness is lost to diffraction. Conversely, wider apertures like f/8 and f/11 offer greater sharpness, but don’t have the depth-of-field to match, especially when focusing close to the camera. A solution can be found in focus stacking, a technique wherein you shoot multiple, identically framed,…

Camera: Ricoh GR III Price: £799 Effective resolution: 24.2MP Sensor: 23.5x15.6mm Processor: GR Engine 6 LCD: 3in 1037k-dot fixed air-gapless touchscreen Shutter: Bulb, 30-1/4000sec Autofocus: Hybrid Phase Detect AF system ISO: 100-102,400 Shooting speed: 4fps for up to 25 RAWs Video: 1080p Full HD at 60fps, Pop-up flash: No Other features: Face Detection and Tracking, Interval timer, Exposure bracketing, Macro mode, In-built ND filter effect, Digital crop, Interval composite, Multi-exposure, 3-axis in-body image stabilisation Battery life: 200 shots Card type: 1x SD/SDHC/ SDXC and UHS-II Size (WxHxD): 109x62x33mm Weight: 257g Web: ricoh-imaging.co.uk…

IMAGE QUALITY Despite featuring three different sensor sizes, we ensured that each camera was capable of capturing great shots in their given genres, including dealing with higher ISO, and producing pleasing colours. FUNCTIONALITY AND USE We divided our camera recommendations into separate categories, and based our rankings on each camera’s genre-specific abilities. So, for portraits the Eye AF was a major bonus, while dynamic range helped in landscape shooting, and speed in action photography.…

Before you leave a location with your competition entry shots on your camera, consider these key points for excellence: IS IT SHARP? Focus is vitally important. Review every image on the rear screen and zoom in to check sharpness. If your autofocus is struggling consider switching over to manual in Live View. IS IT WELL EXPOSED? Your image should have detail in the shadows with no blown-out bright areas. Expose for the highlights as you can recover shadow detail from RAW files, and always check the histogram. IS IT SHAKE-FREE? Camera shake can ruin an image. Use a tripod where you can and turn on image stabilisation when handholding a shot. Try to keep your shutter speed above the reciprocal of your focal length (1/60sec for a 50mm lens). IS…

Nicky Goodfellow is a medical and landscape photographer from Perthshire. She won the ‘Your View’ category in the 2018 Landscape Photographer of the Year competition. “This is one of the ‘easiest’ competition images I have taken, and it was just pure luck I had a compact camera with me. When I reviewed the image I thought ‘that’s got something about it’ and knew it would be a perfect entry for the ‘Your View’ category. When I received the news, I was absolutely flabbergasted. It meant such a great deal to me, as I had entered the competition for a number of years with the aspiration to win a place in the awards book. I was thrown into the media spotlight, and the support I received was amazing. I did feel…

WITH THE RELEASE of Luminar 3 came the powerful Library feature. This organisational module allows you to sort your images into folders, and then rate, tag and cull your shots to let you know which are keepers, and which just don’t quite make the cut. “LIBRARIES WORKS ON SKYLUM’S ETHOS OF POWERFUL, YET SIMPLE” Thanks to a series of simple controls – on the Skylum ethos of powerful, yet easy to use – you can instantly review your day’s thumbnails, and assign ratings from one to five, as well as attach handy tags using a range of colours. You can even get pragmatic, rejecting any that don’t cut the mustard. The other great thing about this intuitive database is the fact that you don’t need to manually import anything. Luminar…

If there’s strong directional light in your scene, but the lens flare effect just isn’t quite working, you can give it a boost in Photoshop. While you can apply this technique to any image, it’ll look the most realistic on images that include direct light. If you apply the effect on a photo taken on a cloudy day, it’ll be obvious that the lens flare effect is fake. Open your shot in Photoshop and then go to Filter>Render>Lens Flare. This will open a separate window where you can adjust the positioning of your flare, the brightness and what lens type you want to mimic. Before you begin adjusting any of the settings, you must determine where the light is coming from in your scene. If it’s flooding in from either…

“Selecting the appropriate shutter speed to control movement can be the difference between a good shot and a great one. Waves, waterfalls, clouds and trees are all elements that could be moving, and a decision has to be made whether to render these as frozen in time, using a faster speed, or blurry by using a slower speed. It’s difficult to give specific speeds because it depends how fast these elements are moving, but to freeze water you should be using at least 1/125sec and to achieve the blurry look try 1/15sec or longer. So, take control of movement in your shots, try out some different shutter speeds and see the difference it can make.” ■ Award-winning landscape photographer Chris Upton is a Fujifilm X Series ambassador. He also lectures,…

While Andy did a brilliant job balancing out the light and creating an even exposure – no easy task when shooting through glass – the water level cuts the viewer off mid-way. This is an unwelcome distraction, and it’s very easy to remove in post-processing. Click on the Crop Tool and ensure you have the Aspect Ratio drop-down set to Original Ratio. You’ll notice there’s a bounding box around the shot. Click and drag a corner point until you’ve cropped below the line.…

Composition is key when it comes to capturing texture images. You may find you have a large area of texture to choose from, so use this to your advantage by selecting the best section of the texture, and frame up to shoot it at the perfect angle. Create a diagonal composition First, locate lines that lead through your texture. This is why your choice of subject is so important. While there are fantastic textures in stone, moss and other patterns found in nature, you may not be able to distinguish clearly defined lines. Take a close look at leaves, tree bark, palms of hands or other textures with clearly defined lines. Once you’ve located the lines leading through your texture, it’s time to compose your shot. We want to see…

As you’ll be shooting a flat surface, your depth-of-field will be much more forgiving on your focus than a scene with more depth. This does also mean that if you miss the focus in your shot then none of it will be sharp. To give yourself the best chance of achieving an accurate focus, set your camera to single-point AF mode, so you’ll have one AF point that you can move around and place wherever you like in the scene. Position it in the centre of your composition, as this is the most important part of the shot to be rendered absolutely tack-sharp. Don’t be tempted to leave your camera in auto-area AF, as you’ll have no control over where the camera will focus. Next, set your camera to single…

By now, you should have a shot that’s pretty close to perfect and follows the brief, so in this section, we’re going to give you one great tip to help boost the contrast of your mono texture, and reveal extra detail using Affinity Photo. Thanks to the Levels Adjustment Layer, you can instantly add a touch of contrast, making the blacks darker, and the whites lighter. This works to add an extra depth to your texture, helping it really leap off the page. It’s important to ensure you don’t make the highlights or shadows pure white or black. Edit to enhance your shot Adding contrast can be very effective, but also easy to over-do. While it’s a matter of personal taste, there’s a great tip built in to Levels to…

EVER SINCE I WAS A LITTLE GIRL, I’VE always had a strong interest in art, and my passion for photography is a natural extension of that. Before beginning my A-level, I had very little experience in photography. The first shot I took on the course was with a pinhole camera that I made myself; the teacher was really impressed and told me that I was a natural. Since then I’ve experimented with many types of photography, including film and studio, but the strongest connection I’ve found is with the documentary style. This genre forces me out of my comfort zone, and took me beyond just taking photos of people, objects and locations to trying to weave a story with depth and detail. I try to portray my subjects in an…

■ There’s no point in using this elaborate technique to increase sharpness across the image and then letting poor technique affect the results. So make sure you always use methods of increasing image sharpness, like using your camera’s self-timer, a remote release and exposure delay mode to offset vibration from the shutter on high-resolution cameras. ■ Only the sharpest parts of the separately focused images will be visible in the finished image. Therefore, pay attention when you’re shooting, and make sure each shot gets a similar quality of light so the scene matches up.…

Adding a misty feel to a background can really make the subject stand out. To do this, click on the Create new fill or adjustment layer icon in the Layers panel and pick Curves from the list. In the Curves palette, click and drag the bottom left of the curve up to lighten the picture. Press Ctrl+I to invert the mask, turning it black. Then with the Brush Tool, using a soft edge at 100% Opacity, paint white over the middle of the image where you want to add the misty look. Don’t worry about painting over the subject. Switch to a smaller brush and change the colour to black, then paint over any parts of the subject, seeming to bring them in front of the mist. For our example…

CyberLink’s PowerDirector 16 LE is a brilliant video editing software, perfectly powered for beginners and advanced users alike. You can create smooth transitions and creative timelines, and even colour grade like a Hollywood pro. To claim your free software, worth £45, enter the URL below into your web browser’s address bar, and use the unique code PPMAGPDR16LE at checkout before 26 September 2019. Download at cyberlink.com/event/PPMAGPDR16LE…

KIT PRICE £799 VIDEO FULL HD 1080P IMAGE RESOLUTION 24.2MP 1 GLASSY EYED The 28mm equivalent lens boasts a wide fixed f/2.8 aperture and produces some brilliantly sharp images. You can also use the digital crop to shoot at 35 and 50mm. 2 PICK A POCKET Weighing a slight 257g, the GR III will happily sit in your pocket between shots. It also comes with the benefit of utmost discretion – a huge bonus for blending in. 3 N-DELIGHTFUL Ricoh has packed in an ND filter effect. This digital ND can be set to automatically darken exposure in brighter scenes, allowing you to shoot wide open at f/2.8. 4 SCREEN QUEEN The 3in 1037k-dot touch LCD is great for framing subjects on the fly, and the air-gapless technology makes it…

Rich Walker is a landscape photographer from Plymouth. One of 20 winners of BBC Radio Devon’s photography contest, he also won our autumn contest. “I was informed by a family member that BBC Radio Devon was holding a photography competition to promote the beauty of Devon. Obviously this was a very open brief, and I already had a shot that I thought would fit the competition, taken at Wembury beach, which is about ten minutes away from my home. After finding this composition, I spent the next hour waiting for the incoming tide to produce the flow of water I was after. Luckily the sunset ended up being pretty good as well. To say I was surprised to hear I was one of the 20 winners of the competition was…

Sarah Plater is a pro photographer from Oxfordshire. She was awarded Master Photographer Association Newborn Photographer of the Year for 2019. “The judges award points to each image based on five criteria: creation and control; technical competence; lighting; impact; and post-production, and this image scored the highest out of all the entries. It was taken at my home studio using a newborn posing beanbag, some fabrics and an Elinchrom D-Lite RX One. The baby, Ethan, is securely swaddled to enable the pose, and mum is right next to the beanbag, acting as a spotter. In this instance everything came together perfectly. Winning this award demonstrates that I take what I do seriously, act professionally and create images of a high technical and creative standard.” sarahplater.com WHAT DID SARAH WIN? A…

Mark McNeill is from Lancashire. He placed highly commended in the People and Space section of the 2018 Astronomy Photographer of the Year. “This shot was taken at the Sycamore Gap on Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland on a freezing cold night in the winter. When I got home I had a colour version of this image of me stood under the tree, but I decided to try it in black & white as I had not seen many mono astro images. I received an email saying I had been shortlisted, then on the night at London’s Greenwich Museum I found out I had been highly commended. I collected a prize and my image was displayed in the museum, and then it travelled around the UK. I have since sold a…

WE’VE COMBED LUMINAR’S LIBRARIES TO BRING you this definitive working guide. Thanks to these eight great tips and tricks, you’ll be able to get the most out of your library function, organise your shots in moments and even improve your workflow between the Library and Edit modules – an important step in mastering Luminar. LET LUMINAR DO ALL THE HARD WORK When it comes to other library software, you’ll know that importing your shots can feel like a chore. With Luminar, the software automatically syncs with your system folders to give you instant access to your shots. It saves a lot of time, which leaves you more to spend where it matters – in the edit. SYNC SETTINGS OVER MULTIPLE SHOTS If you’ve just made a great edit that you…

While you can create amazing images by combining exposures, remember that you’re not limited to just two shots. Most cameras with a multiple exposure mode will take up to ten images, so take advantage of this to create an abstract landscape photo. A multiple exposure landscape is created by taking several similar images and allowing the camera to merge them together. As with any technique, there are scenes that suit this method better than others. While vistas with clear focal points make great landscapes, you may find that leaving out a focal point will help boost the power of your multiple exposure. Moody beaches, dappled woodland and stormy wheat fields can all make fantastic subjects, or any other composition that’s relatively low contrast with similar tones to help each exposure…

Joby GorillaPod 1K Stand £24 A handy and portable solution to lighting stands. You’ll need a hotshoe adapter to mount your flash to this, but once set up you’ll be surprised at how versatile it is. joby. com/uk-en/ Lastolite Ezybox Speed-Lite 2 Plus £59 Pop a softbox or diffuser like this on your speedlight and you’ll turn your flash into a mini studio light to help soften the light from your flash. manfrotto.com/uk-en/ Yongnuo YN-622N Wireless Trigger Set £67 An affordable radio transmitter/receiver set to get you up and running with off-camera flash. The range extends up to 100m. hkyongnuo.com…

Ben Hawkins PP’s editor is a massive fan of moody black & white landscapes, abstract art and edgy fashion. Also loves flapjacks. Richard Collins PP’s deputy editor has an eye for the unconventional. He loves street photography and mono portraits. Kirk Schwarz With over ten years spent as a wedding, fashion and product photographer, Kirk has an eye for finer details. Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier by Chris Sweet “The dusky, magenta tones permeate the image, while the glow of the sun offers a warm counterpoint” Knowing that the sun was going to set to the right of the pier, my plan was to catch it reflecting off the side of the glass along the walkway and main building. High tide was due at the same time as the sunset so…

Settings are key for turning a good image into a great one. Here are our suggestions to help you get the most from your camera. 1 APERTURE-PRIORITY This mode gives you full control over your aperture. 2 SINGLE-POINT AF Single-point AF allows you to choose the right focal point for your mono texture image. Turn to p94 for more. 3 AF-S AUTOFOCUS This is the default drive mode and will take one photo when you press the shutter. Half-press the shutter to engage autofocus. 4 LIVE VIEW When shooting mono textures, work in Live View. With your camera set to a black & white shooting mode, the screen will display the scene in mono, making it easier to visualise the result. 5 EXPOSURE COMPENSATION The…

If you can’t clearly see lines running through your chosen texture, then you may want to search for a different subject. If you’re unsure if you’ve found a suitable object or not, try shooting a variety of textures and then choosing the best one to submit afterwards. Remember that textures such as leaves, tree bark and palms of hands will work really well for this technique. However, avoid objects such as stone (unless it’s something like marble), rugs, scratched metal, leather, or animal fur, as these won’t have any clearly defined lines running throughout them.…

1 Set your focus mode Set your camera to its autofocus mode, then navigate to the menu and select the single AF mode. This means the camera will only focus once when you half-press the shutter button. To set up AF-S, check your camera’s manual, as methods vary between different camera models. 2 Use single-point AF Go into your camera’s AF Area menu and select single-point AF. This will give you a single focus point that you can move around for an accurate focus. Use the D-pad while looking through the viewfinder or the back screen using Live View to move the AF point around your composition. 3 Focus and shoot Half-press the shutter button to bring your image into focus. The active focus point will be…

With your image open, head to the Adjustment tab and select Levels from the list. You should now see the Levels dialogue box (left). Click and drag the Black Level slider right, making sure the white line doesn’t go as far as the plateau. Now, move the White Level slider left, once again ensuring you don’t move the white line beyond the ascending curve. You should now have a boost in contrast. To increase or decrease the overall brightness, move the Gamma slider left or right, but be sparing.…

On my earlier shoots, I’d used a Nikon D3200, but this prevented me from being able to be discreet I found it quite difficult to capture the candid photos I was looking for when carrying a DSLR. On the day I took this shot, I used the Sony α 6400 compact system camera, which drew much less attention than my Nikon. I ensured that the shutter was silent and the flash was turned off, as this helped me avoid being noticed and enabled me to discreetly take photos in the confined space of the train carriage. This allowed me to capture this candid moment shared between three people in close proximity for a short time and purpose, but who will likely never meet again.…

WHAT YOU NEED ■ Photoshop or Elements ■ A full-length portrait where the subject is in the middle of the frame WHEN WE THINK ABOUT portrait photography we usually concentrate on the subject – and with good reason. We want them to look their best, be sharply focused, well lit and prominent in the frame. But backgrounds can make or break a portrait image, too – they need to work with the subject, making them the focal point of the image, and not drawing attention away from them. For this reason, you’ll often see formal portraits shot against plain backdrops, so there’s nothing to distract the viewer’s eye. Of course, we can use backgrounds more creatively, but they still need to work with the subject, focusing the viewer’s eye on…

WHAT YOU NEED ■ Photoshop or Elements ■ A youthful portrait ■ A portrait of a weathered face IF YOU HAVE ANY SOCIAL media accounts, you may have noticed the latest trend of using a smartphone app to try to predict the ageing process of a face. It’s a fun game, but if you’re reluctant to hand over your images under the terms of usage and ownership set out by such apps, we’re bringing you the knowledge you need to create the effect in Photoshop with a couple of photos and a few simple, yet powerful, techniques. With nothing more than a photo of the person you want to age, and a photo of someone with a more weathered face, you can easily take the rugged features from the latter…

HAVE YOU EVER FINISHED OFF EDITING a killer shot, only to think it’s missing that little extra something? Well, our free overlays are ideal to add the finishing touches to your shots. You simply apply them to your image and set the appropriate Blending Mode for brilliant results. We’ve included unique textures, classic film burns, cinematic-looking flares and even creative, dreamy-looking bokeh overlays. The great thing about these overlays is that they work with any software that allows layers and either Overlay, Screen or Lighten Blending Modes. This includes Adobe Photoshop, Elements, Affinity Photo and Luminar. WHAT YOU NEED ■ Software with layers and Blending Modes ■ An image that needs an atmospheric addition 1 Download and browse the free overlays pack Find your overlay pack on the disc in…

Olympus 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7 £479 With a whopping 150-600mm equivalent focal length, and costing under £500, this lens will get you close to the action – perfect for when you’re sheltering in the stands but still want those high-octane shots. olympus.co.uk Sony 55-210mm f/4.5-6.3 OSS £189 Sony’s native superzoom arms you with a pretty beefy 83-315mm focal length. The lightweight design is perfect for precision panning, and the long end helps picking out players while standing on the sidelines. sony.co.uk…

Nikon 10-20mm f/4.5-5.6 G AF-P £219 Another case of high-quality kit at beginner-friendly prices, this wide-angle zoom offers a 35mm equivalent of 15-30mm and is designed specifically for APS-C cameras, such as the D3400 – a perfect companion. nikon.co.uk Samyang 16mm f/2 ED AS UMC £306 Samyang is known for its range of manual primes, and this ultra-wide 16mm boasts a fast f/2 aperture. It’s wide enough to capture stunning vistas, and the aperture makes it ideal for capturing astro shots. samyanglensglobal.com…

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM £99 The nifty fifty is the perfect first prime lens and has an ultra-wide f/1.8 aperture without breaking the bank. It can be used for anything from close-up shots to environmental portraits, and it blurs backgrounds with ease. canon.co.uk Fujifilm 50mm f/2 R WR XF £429 Offering a 75mm equivalent focal length and wide f/2 aperture means this lens is ideal for creating sharp shots with dreamy blurred backgrounds, but also compact enough to carry around on your travels. fujifilm.com…