Indice dei contenuti per July 2015 in Digital Camera Magazine

Welcome to this bumper issue, which is jampacked with exciting adventure, travel and exposure tips, tricks and techniques to try. Travelling to Iceland, one of the world’s ultimate photo destinations, we explored the breathtaking scenery through long exposures using Big Stoppers, Little Stoppers and more. Find out how you too can get best out of a photo trip on page 38. I wouldn’t normally get too excited about a tripod, but I was lucky enough to use a Gitzo Mountaineer on our trip. And what an utter joy to use it was – so much so that we thought you should have a chance of winning one. See page 51 for details. There’s also a whole host of exciting gifts for you, with a special-edition set of exposure tips cards…

1 THE WEATHER The weather is easily your biggest consideration. Check the forecast and be ready to adapt your plan. Don’t despair if gorgeous sunsets look unlikely: try a moody monochrome instead. 2 ONLINE MAPS Google Maps or OpenStreetMaps are great places to start. In Google Maps, you can turn on photos in the bar at the bottom, where helpful photographers have posted images and location data. You can digitally scout out your locations in advance, and prioritise the best spots for photography. 3 PRINT MAPS Photographer’s shooting guides and maps are becoming increasingly available, particularly for popular destinations like Iceland. International Photographer’s Iceland Map showed us the best spots. 4 APPS Planning where you want to be at sunrise and sunset will help you be in the right place…

OFFER 1 Print FREE Manfrotto Lumie Play LED Light and Accessories worth £44.95* (new subscribers only) Save up to 35% 13 issues a year delivered to your door; get your mag before anyone else Free gifts in each issue, including your video disc From £23.49 (Based on a 6-month subscription) Quote code DLPRINT15 OFFER 2 Digital Interactive content, including videos and galleries Digital versions of all gifts included with the Print edition 13 issues in a 1-year subscription Always have your new issue to hand, wherever you are From £19.99 (Based on a 6-month subscription) Quote code DIGITAL15 OFFER 3 NEW – worth £267! Ultimate Photographer’s Pack Enjoy a Digital Camera subscription PLUS more goodies – worth a total of £267. Get the most from your camera! The pack includes…

FREE Manfrotto LED light when you subscribe* Creating a surreal world from nails, screws and bolts (or anything you can get your hands on, really!) is great fun to do. When we constructed our city from nuts and bolts, we found it works best if you arrange them in height order (putting the biggest at the back) and don’t go more than a few lines deep. As we were shooting at such close proximity, we needed to focus-stack the image. This is where you take an image of the furthest point away in the scene, then keep shifting the focus forward to record multiple exposures. We took four images and blended them together in Photoshop to ensure we had one sharp shot. To light our city of nuts and bolts,…

1 FOCAL LENGTH Prime lenses offer a fixed focal length, while zooms include a range of them. This is expressed in mm, with 50mm representing the ‘standard focal length’ for a full-frame camera. Lenses with smaller focal lengths than this are known as wide-angles, while lenses of 70mm or more are called telephotos. 2 FILTER SIZE Lenses have different diameters for their filter threads, typically ranging from 58mm to 82mm. You may need to factor in the cost of additional filters or filter adaptor rings when upgrading. 3 MAXIMUM APERTURE The widest aperture offered by a lens is usually expressed alongside its focal length. Many zoom lenses have a ‘floating’ aperture, which means it gets narrower as the lens is zoomed closer. 4 LENS ELEMENTS Lens designers use multiple elements…

HELP ME CONTROL MY LIGHTING AND TAKE BETTER PORTRAITS “I love taking portraits of people, and even have ideas of trying to make money at some stage by photographing people. However, I’m finding it difficult to use and set up my entry-level continuous lighting and external flashguns. I find my images have light and shadows all over the place. Highlights, dark spots, uneven skin tones – the pictures are everywhere. Please help me!” Alex Ford, Shropshire FIRST IMPRESSIONS Take control of lighting Alex wrote to Digital Camera earlier this year – and his letter was hard to ignore. Alex had taken redundancy from the forces to care for his disabled wife, who was injured while in the army. He’s found the transition extremely difficult and suffered from some mental health…

GLYN DEWIS Glyn is a commercial photographer, retoucher and Adobe Community Professional trainer. He’s also the author of The Photoshop Workbook. www.glyndewis.com SOFTWARE Photoshop CC GET IT FROM www.adobe.com/creativecloud GET START FILES FROM www.bit.ly/dc166files Color Range 1 Open the Color Range dialog by going to Select > Color Range. Position your cursor over the original image, not the dialog’s thumbnail image, and click to make a selection, which shows up in white in the Color Range preview. Make a broad selection 2 To add to the selection, hold down Shift as you drag over part of the image. Use the Fuzziness slider to narrow or broaden the chosen range of colours that are forming the selection. Don’t worry if you’re capturing parts of the image you don’t want. Click OK…

Digital Camera is brought to you by the UK’s most experienced team of photography journalists, which means you can trust everything you read on our pages, and compare kit with confidence. We believe the best way to test a product is to use it as it was intended. Our real-world testing involves taking equipment on a proper shoot – whether outdoors or in the studio – and using it exactly as you would, to let you know whether it’s fit for purpose. Although scientific data won’t tell you everything about a product, it’s a great way to make comparisons and sense-check our real-world conclusions. We have a series of controlled tests for cameras and lenses that deliver objective benchmarks. Digital Camera is 100% independent – and never swayed by the…

Lynsey Addario Photojournalist This Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist talks to us about her dramatic career in areas of conflict around the world on page 94. Henry Bourne Pro photographer There’s more to the UK’s folklore scene than Morris men, as this pro shooter reveals in his portraits of British eccentrics on page 32. Scott Kelby Photo guru This month Scott reveals how to harness the delightful qualities of natural light with gaffer tape, shower curtains and more. Turn to page 68.…

1st Zay Yar Lin Nikon D700 with 24-85mm lens at 72mm; 1/640 sec at f/6.3, ISO 200 Ben says Well done to Zay Yar Lin, who has taken a creative approach to our ‘Sea’ themed competition. The bird’s-eye composition creates an interesting result that makes excellent use of abstract shapes and colours. The photographer has shot in bright sunlight, enabling the intense blue of the sky to contrast pleasingly against the bright red boat. This is broken up by the bright white railing that splits the image down the middle. Zay has done well to keep the exposure even and not blow any highlights. This is a fun and playful image that fully deserves first place. 2nd George Digalakis Nikon D7000 with AF-S Nikkor 17-55mm lens at 55mm; 5 seconds…

Any lens can be used to shoot any subject, but there are often practical reasons for choosing one focal length above another. For instance, wildlife photography usually requires very long lenses – super telephotos – because it’s hard to get close enough for a frame-filling image of a skittish wild animal or bird with lenses that are south of 200mm. To help you get a feel for which lenses are best suited to popular types of photography, here’s our guide to the lenses you should have in your kit bag… FOR LANDSCAPES… TRY 11-24MM Focal lengths in the 11-24mm range are typically used to capture scenics. Use longer focal lengths to compress views, such as forests or mountain ranges. FOR STREET PHOTOS… TRY 35-70MM Street photographers frequently favour shorter lenses…

SOFTWARE Lightroom 6 GET IT FROM www.adobe.com/creativecloud ALISTAIR JENNINGS Ali has been a regular contributor to Digital Camera since 2003, as a photographer, writer and digital expert. Two updates to Lightroom’s tagging feature have vastly improved what used to be a mundane task. They’ve even made the process enjoyable! The updated facial recognition and location tagging features enable you to sit back and relax as Lightroom sifts through your images and automatically picks out people and locations that you’ve shot, then tags and organises them for you. This form of tagging can be infinitely useful when it comes to locating a picture that you need. All you need to do is search by the tag and Lightroom will draw out the image from your collection for you. The geotagging feature…

Fujifilm X-T10 The hottest cameras and gear Fujifilm’s affordable new SLR-style X-series camera promises to be a little beauty CSC £500 / $800 > www.fujifilm.com The big challenge for camera manufacturers introducing a model beneath an existing one is to give the new arrival appeal without wiping out the attraction of the original camera. I think Fujifilm has done a remarkably good job with the X-T10. Its price is attractive, and significantly lower than the current street price of the X-T1, yet the overall build and feel of the new camera is very similar. The main differences between the X-T10 and the X-T1 are the lack of weatherproofing, the smaller electronic viewfinder and the loss of the sensitivity dial. The traditional exposure controls are present, along with many of the…

CSC Samsung NX500 > £599 / $799 with 16-50mm kit lens > www.samsung.co.uk The Samsung NX1 really impressed me when I tested it in issue 160, so the fact that the NX500 has the same backside-illuminated (BSI) APS-C format CMOS sensor with 28.2 million effective pixels, hybrid autofocus (AF) system and 4K video recording capability for a fraction of the price is pretty exciting. Add to this the fact that the slightly pared back version of the Drime V processing engine enables a maximum continuous shooting rate of 9fps for 40 JPEGs or five raw files (when a UHS-1 SD card is installed) and a native sensitivity range of ISO100-25,600, with an expansion setting of ISO 51,200 for stills, and you start to see what I’m talking about. There’s also…

1 Billingham 307 Price: £300 / $500 Web: www.billingham.co.uk The classy 307 is beautifully made from weatherproof canvas, with leather accents and handles. The main compartment’s aluminium and fibreglass rim holds the bag open for access. There’s space for a large SLR and attached lens, plus two to three more lenses. Two generous front pockets can swallow a couple of flashguns and smaller accessories. We say: Lives up to Billingham’s reputation. 2 Domke Chronicle Price: From £270 / $300 Web: www.tiffen.com This is a clever design. Expandable side pockets help keep the bag compact, yet there’s space inside for a large SLR body and up to four lenses, with fast access via a zip slot. Velcro silencing for the main flap keeps you inconspicuous. The bag comes in weatherproof black,…

MISSION FACTFILE Who: Henry Bourne What: Henry is a regular contributor to Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and T: The New York Times Style Magazine. Other editorial work has also appeared in The Condé Nast Traveller, Numero, W, and Wallpaper, Vanity Fair, and The Wall Street Journal. Henry mainly shoots portraits, but also some architecture, landscapes and still-life work. Where: Henry is based in London, and has travelled all over the UK for the Arcadia Britannica project featured here. He has taken part in several exhibitions, including ‘Folklore & Photography’ at the Towner Gallery, Eastbourne and ‘British Folklore Portraits’ at the Central Exhibition Hall Manege in St Petersburg. Kit list: The portraits for Arcadia Britannica were all shot on a Phase One camera with a Phase One P45+ digital back. More info:…

1 Wake up early The best light is usually first thing. Strike a compromise between late-night fun and getting up early to catch the sunrise. 2 Hire a car Mobility is vital for getting to the best spots at the ideal times of day. And in bad weather, the hire car becomes a shelter and an airing cupboard in one. 3 Do your research Know how many hours’ drive that waterfall is from your hotel? Are the roads good? Find out. 4 Plan your days Time is limited on a trip, so maximise it by planning your itinerary beforehand, and don’t try to fit too much in or you’ll spend the entire trip in the car. 5 Travel light… Carrying heavy gear all day will leave your back aching, and…

ESSENTIAL PHOTOGRAPHY SKILLS STEP BY STEP WHAT YOU’LL LEARN THIS MONTH • What focal length actually means • Which focal length is best for the type of photography you do • What to look for when buying a lens Kit lenses have steadily improved, with many capable of producing sharp images and offering image stabilisation. But they’re limited in terms of their focal range, autofocus speed and maximum aperture. Investing in lenses that offer more extreme focal lengths or faster glass will give you more options. Faster glass? Fast lenses don’t necessarily focus faster, but they have wide maximum apertures. Wider apertures let more light in, so enable you to use faster shutter speeds to freeze movement. Today’s cameras perform well at high ISOs, but a wider aperture enables you…

Except for a short period about twice a day, the sun is a pretty harsh light source. Nevertheless, natural lighting can be soft and beautiful, especially when you give Mother Nature a hand with an inexpensive trick. For this photo shoot, I visited an abandoned old Florida mansion in the middle of nowhere. The mansion is currently being restored using money raised by renting it out for the day for location shoots. As soon as I heard it was available, I set up the shoot, with my wife Kalebra doing the art direction. My wife handled everything from picking the make-up, outfits and hair, to directing and posing. This left me and three assistants to focus on nothing but the lighting and shooting, which really made my job easy. The…

JAMES PATERSON Editor of Practical Photoshop and with a decade as a working pro behind him, James knows exactly which Photoshop techniques matter most to you. SOFTWARE Photoshop CC GET IT FROM www.adobe.com/creativecloud GET START FILES FROM www.bit.ly/dc166files STEP BY STEP Improve a sky Plot a gradient 1Open an image in Camera Raw. Grab the Graduated Filter tool from the toolbar. Click the minus icon next to the Exposure slider on the right, then hold down Shift and drag down from the sky towards the land to create a darkening effect. Tweak the tones 2Go to the tonal sliders and adjust Exposure until the sky looks right. Blue skies will often benefit from a drop in Temperature, so bring this down to -10. Clouds will look crisper with increased Clarity,…

Got a photographic problem? Send the details to digitalcamera@futurenet.com and let us provide you with a solution CAMERA SKILLS WALK FOR INSPIRATION Q Every now and then I get what I can only call photographer’s block, and need inspiration. Any tips on how to find it again? Stevie Saint Andrew says Obviously, my first suggestion has to be to look at the images in Digital Camera for some added inspiration. Just studying what other creative photographers get up to is often enough to spark an idea in my head or give me that extra kick of enthusiasm, so I am sure this will work for you too. The other way to reset your mojo is to give yourself some simple little challenges. I regularly go on short ‘photo walks’ with…

Four great reasons to subscribe to Digital Camera World today 1 Save up to 42% off the newsstand price in your region 2 Get a FREE disc of video lessons plus a selection of other great gifts every issue 3 Get your copy before it hits the stores and delivered direct to your door 4 Get photographic inspiration all year long! In the US or Canada? Save up to 42% when you subscribe securely online at www.imsnews.com/dcm-a056 Or call TOLL-FREE on 1 800 428 3003 and quote code A056 6-month subscription: $62.49 Save 35% 1-year subscription: $124.99 Save 42% 2-year subscription: $224.99 Save 42% Readers in the rest of the world** can subscribe securely online at www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/dcmp2x Or call +44 1604 251045 and quote code DCMP2X…

SLR Canon EOS 760D > £608 / $849 > www.canon.co.uk With three cameras in its entry-level range Canon already had plenty to interest novices and enthusiast photographers on a budget. Now the company has replaced the 700D with two models, the EOS 760D and 750D, rather than one. As the 700D continues in the line-up (for now at least), this means that there are five cameras in what Canon calls its beginners’ range. The new 760D and 750D, known as the Rebel T6s and T6i in the US, sit at the top of this group above the 700D, 100D and 1200D. The 760D is designed with more experienced photographers in mind than the 750D, and has a few features from Canon’s high-end cameras. In this review we’re going to concentrate…

GET BONUS VIDEOS AND START IMAGES www.bit.ly/dc166files Skill #1 Layers Discover how to get to grips with the cornerstone of image-editing in Photoshop Image-editing hardly ever follows a linear journey from A to B. It will almost always involve a few dead ends, untried routes and unexpected side roads. This kind of experimentation wouldn’t be possible without layers. Layers are simply images and effects that sit within a document, allowing for each to be edited, repositioned or removed independently of all the other elements. Any task that involves putting more than one image together will involve layers. But they’re not just useful for composites. They complement all types of image-editing by enabling you to make duplicates and try out different adjustments, all the while safe in the knowledge that anything…