Table of contents for December 2018 in Digital Camera Magazine

Having become firmly invested in the Apple ecosystem over the years, I recently upgraded to an iPhone Xs Max – tempted by its impressive camera offering – and I certainly haven’t been disappointed. Portrait mode with the Depth effect looks fantastic on the phone’s large OLED screen, and not far behind it when viewed on a computer. After taking some pictures of my children, they asked me if I still needed my ‘real’ camera. Of course, I replied. Camera phones just get better and better (see our Mini Test, page 142) and some of their benefits – the convenience, the connectivity and the pace of technological advances – are giving the camera industry plenty to think about right now. But it all comes down to flexibility and control, so for…

10 things you can shoot this month, from macro on a budget to perfect portraits and moonlight seascapes HDR stands for ‘high dynamic range’, and is a photographic technique that enables you to capture a greater range of luminosity in the scene. It works by taking three or more separate exposures of the same scene that expose for the shadows, highlights and midtones. Old classic cars are a great candidate for the HDR treatment, and they are such a pleasure to photograph with their lovely curves and iconic features. When you are trying to find the right model, there are a few key features that help enhance the HDR effect. The first is rust, as rusty cars create a even better result. For our photoshoot, we used an old Triumph…

For this project, we’re going to be creating a tilt-shift effect in just a few Photoshop steps. The key to success lies in starting with the right image that means that the final edit has the maximum effect. This is because tilt-shift lenses are generally used for architecture, or for images that show an expansive view from a high vantage point. When you’re flicking through potential starter images, try to imagine how that photo might look in miniature style. For this tutorial, our main image shows the rooftops of Florence, was taken from a high viewpoint across the city. Perfect! Once you’ve got your frame selected, you might want to pre-edit it first in Camera Raw to make any changes before you add the additional tilt-shift effect. For our image,…

It’s not easy to get the energy to head outdoors when the temperature drops, but the results can be amazing if you do! Take a look at the incredible scene photographer Jakub Rybicki captured at Lake Baikal, Siberia, Russia. “It’s one of the biggest and the deepest lakes in the world, and the biggest ice skating rink,” he says. “You wouldn’t have thought so, but it’s also good for cycling! For three weeks with a friend, we rode around 900km from the northern to southern shore.” As Jakub often spends many of his photographic adventures travelling to remote places, one of his priorities is to ensure his kit is light yet study. “On the Baikal expedition I used a Nikon D7000 with a 18-200mm 3.5-5.6 lens. However, I always take…

This month’s shooting challenge gives you a great opportunity to experiment with your composition. There are many subjects that lend itself to this brief – for example bridges, piers, buildings or aerial photography of any sort (which could be from a drone or simply a high vantage point). We’re looking for creative compositions that stand out from the crowd. Think about what kit you might need before you head out on your shoot. If you’re going up high, then using a wide-angle lens might not be the best option, as the scene below can appear very small. You may get better results using a telephoto lens. Equally, from below a telephoto lens might not give you that dynamic result and a wide-angle could be the better option here. How to…

So far, we’ve been talking exclusively about metering, but there are other areas where you can take back control from the camera. Modern autofocus systems are very sophisticated, but there will still be times when AF will struggle. It’s difficult to achieve focus on a subject when it’s one of several elements in a frame that don’t appear on the same plane, for example. Autofocus systems also tend to ‘run off’ (the focus ring spins from side to side) while trying to lock on to the subject. Reducing the amount of focus points being used will help pin-point focusing, but if you’re still having problems, you can disable the AF system and switch to Manual to get the subject sharp. As a backstop, use Live View or focus peaking to…

Cityscapes at sunset surely don’t come much more picture-perfect than Pulteney Bridge in Bath. Locating myself on the east bank of the River Avon, I looked to capture the fading ambient light as it made way for a range of artificial sources. With the camera on a tripod and the aperture set at f/16 to get a ‘star’ effect in the street lights, I chased the decreasing light levels with lower and lower shutter speeds. Although 6,000K (the Cloudy white balance preset) gave the most pleasing results when I viewed the resulting raw files, I thought that images captured at 3,200K (Tungsten) and 4,000K (White flourescent) were quite fun – the latter really emphasised the pink clouds. And at 7,000K (Shade) the fingers of street lights spilling across the sheen…

As an additional precaution for avoiding overexposed pictures, you can activate a highlight alert. This will cause areas that are at risk of being too bright to blink when you play back an image. Some cameras also offer a ‘zebra pattern’ – a feature inherited from video cameras – that does the same job during Live View.…

Category 5 Black & White Winner Inge Schuster The simplicity of the image construction caught my eye straight away, as I enjoy the space in the photograph, and the relationship of the figure to the space. But the most wonderful detail in the shot is the separation between the silhouetted figure and the black wall, together with the space between the figure and the magazine on the bench. 2nd Ange I was almost put off by the amount going on in this image, but as I looked in more detail, the order and simplicity shone through. The image is brilliantly seen and executed; there’s so much going on, and yet essentially it’s just a picture of the most beautiful windows. 3rd Kim Ayres An intriguing image with hints of Picasso…

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Challenge 1 Ash Wroughton The day selected for this month’s Shootout coincided with the start of the academic year, and the arrival of the new intake of students at Oxford University. The overwhelming number of parents navigating their way through the city’s lanes in their luggage-laden cars made it more challenging than normal to pick out clean shots of interesting individuals on the streets – but at least there was no shortage of subjects. The hustle and bustle also suited our first Shootout challenge – to capture people on the move. “As we were in Oxford, I almost felt obliged to capture a cyclist one way or another,” Ash admits. “I decided to look for a kerb that had a dark shadow, to help distinguish between the pavement and the…

1 Keep it simple Like so many things in photography, simplicity is the key to success. Don’t clutter your composition with too many objects when one carefully placed and well-lit subject will create a cleaner and more effective photograph. 2 Direct lighting Use direct lighting to accentuate shape, form and texture. You don’t need expensive lighting equipment: try illuminating your subject with a desk lamp or even a torch. Play around with the lighting direction to see how it changes the object’s shadow. 3 Just add water Spraying water onto the shiny surface of the cutlery can look great, and the dampness can also add some interest to the surface they are sitting on. Water droplets can form on fork prongs; you can use these as points of focus in…

Our reader Egidijus Rupeika My photograph was taken during a walk along the fields with a friend. It was a beautiful sunny day and I saw a large area of dandelions, so I asked my companion to play with them. I took a lot of different shots, but with this one I found something deeper, and I think there is a bit of space for imagination. You can see a kiss, a blow of dandelions, a woman spreading the seeds of future life. It was taken with my Nikon D5500 with a 35mm lens, set to 1/4,000 sec at f/1.8. Our expert Andrew James You are absolutely right when you say you’ve left something for the imagination. Your decision to shoot wide open at f/1.8, the radical crop that removes…

’Shop and awe Adobe unveils a ‘real’ version of Photoshop CC for the iPad, complete with layers and masks At its annual Adobe Max conference, the creative software company announced a string of innovations and improvements to its Creative Cloud products. Photoshop CC, for example, gets a Content-Aware Fill upgrade, allowing you to select the source area for the fill. along with live Blending mode effects and an overall boost to usability (dubbed ‘workflow velocity’). The big news from the event, however, is that ‘real’ Photoshop CC is coming to a whole range of devices – starting with the iPad. Adobe’s dream is that you will be able to open and edit a PSD file on an iPad and then carry on working on it seamlessly on your desktop computer…

www.nikon.com The press release for the P1000 makes for entertaining reading. A fixed-lens bridge camera with 125x optical zoom, equating to 24-3,000mm in 35mm terms? Tell me more! Weight: 1.42kg, length: 181mm. Yikes, this thing is huge! You see, the P1000 isn’t blessed with a big sensor. Deep within lies a tiny 1/2.3-inch 16MP chip, the same size you’d find in a budget compact or a smartphone, and unlikely to set any image quality records. Then my already slackened jaw descended into freefall. RRP: £1,000/$1,000. At least you get a lot of camera for your money. The P1000 is roughly as bulky as a D750 with a 24-70mm f/2.8 attached, but with much more girth around what would be the lens mount. It’s a comfortable camera in the hand, though,…

www.samyanglensglobal.com The Korean manufacturer Samyang (also badged Rokinon in the USA) has been making lenses since 1972. They’re best known for their manual-focus primes, which have included offbeat optics like mirror telephotos and tilt-and-shift lenses. Competing against more mainstream fare, Samyang recently started making autofocus lenses, most notably for Sony full-frame E-mount bodies, namely the A7 series and the A9. Choices currently include 14mm, 24mm and 35mm f/2.8 lenses, as well as 35mm and 50mm f/1.4 options, the last of which is featured in this month’s group test. While the hefty 50mm f/1.4 dwarfs Sony’s mirrorless bodies, the 24mm f/2.8 is much more compact and manageable, weighing in at just 93g – less than a sixth of the weight of Samyang’s 50mm lens. It packs a lot in, though. The…

Lens mount Fujifilm X Available in black or silver, there’s no denying that the Fujifilm XF50mm looks a bit pricey for an f/2 lens. Indeed, it has the slowest aperture rating of any lens in this test group. However, it’s impeccably built, with comprehensive weather-seals, a physical aperture ring for refined Aperture Priority and Manual mode shooting, and a high-grade optical path that includes an aspherical ED (Extra-low Dispersion) element. The nine-blade diaphragm is well-rounded. Autofocus is virtually silent. As with other ‘stepping motor’ systems, the focus ring is electronically coupled and, in this case, enables particularly precise manual control. Performance On Fujifilm X cameras, the lens has an effective focal length of 75mm and delivers a tight depth of field at f/2, making it a great portrait lens. Sharpness…

Lens mount Sony E (FE) Renowned for its quality yet reasonably priced manual-focus prime lenses, Korean manufacturer Samyang has recently started making autofocus lenses, mostly for Sony’s full-frame E-mount fit. There are currently five E-mount lenses to choose from, plus two Canon EF and one Nikon F. This 50mm optic gives the ‘standard’ perspective on Sony’s A7 and A9 cameras, with a fast aperture rating of f/1.4. Physically, it’s about twice as long as the Canon and Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lenses for full-frame DSLRs, more akin to the Sigma and Zeiss. The solid construction features mostly metal barrel parts and, at 585g, the Samyang is more than double the weight of the Nikkor. Performance From f/2 and onwards, sharpness and contrast are excellent, but vignetting is quite severe until you…

Lens mount s Canon EF, Nikon F (FX) Autofocus cameras have been around since 1977, so it might seem strange that Zeiss is still doggedly making manual-focus lenses. However, the range of Milvus prime lenses certainly gives a hands-on, feel-good factor. The 50mm f/1.4 is typical in having a beautifully engineered metal barrel and a full set of weather-seals. The optical design is based on Zeiss’s legendary Distagon principles. The long rotational travel of the focus ring helps focusing precision, and its super-smooth fluidity makes focusing a joy. The Nikon edition has a physical aperture ring with a de-click facility, to enable smooth aperture transitions during movie capture. This ring is absent on the Canon edition. Performance Living up to its reputation and price tag, the Milvus delivers gorgeous image…

Audio-Technica AT8024 £186/$249 www.audio-technica.com The Audio-Technica AT8024 is a shoe-mount shotgun mic that offers a broad array of features. It sports a rubber mount to insulate the mic from camera and handling noise, and offers two pickup patterns for either wide-field stereo or cardioid mono. This means you can use it for recording ambient tracks like traffic or birdsong in full stereo, or home in on a tight pickup pattern for speech and spot sound effects. Given that it’s the most expensive option here, it’s good that the AT8024 comes with both a foam windscreen and a furry windjammer that’s very effective at cutting out wind noise – even in a strong breeze. This is a real bonus, as windjammers (also known as ‘dead cats’) often have to be purchased separately.…

1 Canon 5D Mark III Catherine has played around with mirrorless cameras, but still loves her DSLR above all. The full-frame sensor and weather-proofing of the Mark III make it a good candidate for outdoor shooting. 2 Canon 50mm f/1.2L Catherine mainly uses this L-series lens for portraits. “I enjoy shooting with my prime the most (although my legs will ache more at the end of the day). When the light, background and subject all fall into place, this lens can achieve beautiful bokeh.” 3 Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L “Sometimes the flexibility of reach that my 24-70mm gives me is just what I need.” Catherine can use this zoom lens to fill the frame with subjects quickly (and without moving herself). This pro-grade lens performs well in low-light situations, too, because…

Specialist macro lenses can be pricey, but there are ways to capture close-up shots of everyday subjects without one. We shot a life-size reproduction of this leaf using just our existing kit lens and an extra accessory. How? All you have to do is turn the lens around, attach what’s called a reversing ring to your camera body, and screw your usual lens on backwards. It sounds a bit bizarre, but when you reverse a lens, its minimum focusing distance suddenly becomes incredibly close, and this gives you some high-magnification capabilities. The affordable reversing ring screws onto the filter thread of your lens, which means you’ll need a different ring for each lens you want to use. We found that a standard lens such as a 50mm prime works best…

As winter kicks in and the light begins to drop earlier in the day, now is the perfect time to try your night shooting skills. The beach is a wonderful location once the sun has set: the moving body of water, the curves of the bay and the natural surroundings create a match made in heaven! For our photo shoot we were down at Blackpool Sands near Dartmouth, Devon. We decided not to photograph the moon as our main subject, but use the moon’s light to illuminate our seascape. The result is wonderful, as the light is much softer and has a different tone to sunlight. We opted to shoot when the moon was full, and luckily the conditions that night were perfect! We had no clouds, the temperature wasn’t…

Photographing the night sky is easy, but there are a few tricks to getting great images. The first trick is to have a tripod and a camera set to Manual, which allows you to manipulate focus, shutter speed, ISO, and aperture. To photograph the night sky you need to let in as much light as possible, so set a wide-angle lens to its lowest f-number (such as f/4 or f/2.8). Manually set the lens to infinity focus. You also need to use a long exposure, so set the shutter speed to around 30 seconds – no more, otherwise the stars will blur (Earth is rotating, after all). You also need to make your camera as sensitive as possible, which means pushing the ISO up to about 800 or 1,600 (or…

Recently I’ve travelled quite a bit, and I’ve found myself working in new ways. On this trip I was lucky enough to be transiting the Panama Canal. I nearly missed capturing the first lock as I waited for my lens to acclimatise from the cool environment of my cabin to the humid, tropical heat. There’s not much you can do other than wait for the glass to heat up and defog. Trying to capture the impact the Canal has had on the world through a lens proved a real challenge. Everything I was shooting was OK but, frankly, not much more than good-quality ‘record’ shots. It was after the first set of locks, while the ship was in Gatun Lake, that it occurred to me I needed to be approaching…

Your camera’s metering system will offer a choice of modes for use when taking exposure readings. Although the names vary slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer (Pattern metering is also known as Evaluative or Matrix), the modes are designed to offer varying amounts of precision. Pattern metering is often the default mode for many photographers, and gets it right most of the time. It meters the whole scene in the viewfinder, but adds weighting to what is being focused on. The camera takes a wide range of readings across the scene, compares them to images in its memory then effectively applies its own exposure compensation. Centre-Weighted takes a reading across the whole scene, but places more emphasis on subjects situated in the middle of the frame. Use it for scenarios when…

To the human eye, white objects always look white. But to make white appear as white in digital photographs, colour temperatures need to be adjusted – a process called white balance (WB). The default Automatic White Balance (AWB) setting chooses one of several presets from the camera’s memory (Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten or Fluorescent), but if one colour in the scene is predominant, these settings won’t give you the best results. Instead, go manual and create your own WB setting. Simply photograph a piece of white paper or card under the same light source you’re going to use for the photos, then save the data generated – displayed as Custom White Balance in most camera menus – and load it before shooting. Alternatively, you can dial in a colour temperature…

Brent Stirton was one of the earliest pro photographers to put the EOS R, Canon’s first full-frame mirrorless camera, to the test. His photography documents cultures often ignored by the headlines. He took it to one of his ongoing projects to document tribes in Namibia, southern Africa to shine a light on a disappearing world. “If I have the opportunity to see what makes people unique, if I can photograph it well,” he says, “we get to keep that alive – at least in some form.” His trip to Namibia gave Brent the ideal opportunity to find out how the EOS R could improve his photographic workflow. “I’ve been waiting for a smaller camera from Canon, and now I have it.” The EOS R’s full-frame image sensor and sharp, stabilised…

1 Camera’s tonal range The horizontal axis represents the 256 brightness levels that the camera’s sensor can record, from 0 (pure black) on the left to 255 (pure white) on the right. 2 Scene’s tonal range The width of the histogram represents the brightness range of the scene captured through the lens. If the histogram shape fits within the width of the graph, detail will be recorded throughout the image. 3 Shadows The left side of the graph is where the darkest tones are registered. 4 Midtones A mid-grey scene should show a peak in the centre. 5 Highlights The right (bright) side of the graph is where the palest tones of your shot should be positioned. 6 Number of pixels The histogram is actually a densely packed bar graph,…

FREE TO ENTER! Now is your chance to bag some amazing prizes and test your photographic skills to the limit. Digital Camera Photographer of the Year is a major competition to discover exciting and talented photographers. With some great prizes to be won (courtesy of mpb.com, Rohan, Sony, Rotolight and Cewe), pro judges will choose winners across themed categories, as well as the overall winner. We want as many readers as possible to enter, so we’re revealing all of the categories now. You can enter as many categories as you like! Easy photography kit trading MPB.com is changing the way that photographers trade equipment online, forever. Open to EU and US customers, it offers a hassle-free and secure process for sellers, and makes buying used kit as simple and enjoyable…

Corel AfterShot 3 is a brilliant way to edit and enhance your photos. Designed for use with raw image files, AfterShot enables you to adjust exposure settings in a non-destructive way, meaning you can go back at any time and undo the edits you’ve made if you change your mind. Quick Presets let you add effects instantly and experiment with different looks, while the Blemish Remover lets you clean up dust marks and spots. Courtesy of Corel, AfterShot 3 is the latest release of the software, which means it supports many new camera models. Follow the instructions to the right to get your copy today! Please note that only the Windows version is available through this offer: macOS and Linux versions are not provided, but are available to buy. The…

This photo has the makings of a lovely landscape but underexposure means that tonally the old building and its reflection merge together in a way that is dull and unattractive. Although there is some good light, shooting in the Daylight white balance setting has accentuated the blues too much, giving it a cool feeling. We’ll select an Adjustment Brush and mask over the building and the reflection 1. It’s important when you work on shots with reflections that you cover both areas with the same brush, so any changes you make will stay in sync: the reflection should always be slightly darker than the object it’s reflecting. We’ll increase the Shadows and Whites sliders by +50 and nudge the Exposure slider up by +25. This gives us better balance and…

Two gentlemen from the Finnish Lighthouse Society nail the experience of staying in most British B&Bs: “Very small, very dirty, very expensive.” At least the latter won’t be an issue for me tonight in the tent. Heading down the Kintyre peninsula, I pass a hill marked on the map as ‘The Bastard’. Only in Scotland do even the hills get blamed for spilling your pint. There’s a mewing call of a buzzard overhead as I pass dry stream after dry stream, hoping to refill my bottle. I detour to a larger burn (stream) marked as The Snout on the map, which I think will be a dead cert but is a barely perceptible trickle due to the hot summer. I can only just identify the water by lying on my…

Prime 50mm lenses mean different things to different people. If you’re shooting with a full-frame camera, it’ll be a standard prime that gives an entirely natural perspective for general shooting. On an APS-C format body, the same lens will have an effective focal length of 75mm (80mm for Canon), making it a better fit for portraiture. Shrink down to a Micro Four Thirds camera, and a 50mm lens will have an 100mm effective focal length, more suitable for really tight portraits and short telephoto shooting. In fact, the MFT lens in this test group is a bit less than 50mm: its 42.5mm focal length equates to 85mm in full-frame terms. Many regard that as spot-on for portraiture. Whichever camp you’re in, a ‘nifty fifty’ might well be the only prime…

Lens mount Nikon F (FX) Compared with the Nikon-fit Sigma and Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 lenses on test, Nikon’s own-brand lens is only half the physical length and about a third of the weight. It’s simpler than the Sigma, with eight rather than 13 optical elements, and rather less robust than the metal-jacketed Zeiss. A further sign of the downsizing is that the Nikkor only has a 58mm filter thread, which is quite small for a 50mm f/1.4 lens. The straightforward optical path doesn’t contain an aspherical element (as featured in Nikon’s more budget-oriented 50mm f/1.8), and there are neither any ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements nor any Nano Crystal Coat. Performance Autofocus accuracy is more critical in very wide-aperture lenses and the Nikkor does well in this respect, unlike Canon’s f/1.4…

Lens mounts Canon EF, Nikon F (FX), Sony A + Sony E (FE), Sigma Sigma’s previous 50mm lens was renowned as being a heavyweight, but the replacement ‘Art’ edition really piles on the grammes. It gains 50 per cent in physical length and rises from 505g to 815g in weight. The main reason for the Art lens’s weight gain is that it has a much more complex and sophisticated optical path than its predecessor, based on 13 rather than eight elements. These include one complex aspherical element and three SLD (Special Low Dispersion) elements. Build quality feels superb, although there are no weather-seals and the focus ring doesn’t quite have the tactile fluidity of the Zeiss Milvus. But you can count on the Sigma’s autofocus system to be fast and…

For outright image quality and top-drawer construction, along with superb handling and all-round performance, the Sigma 50mm Art lens is currently our favourite standard prime on the market. It’s not completely perfect, as it lacks weather-seals and is quite big and weighty, but it’s an epic lens. The Zeiss delivers similarly sublime image quality and adds weather-seals, but many won’t like the lack of autofocus – and, in the UK at least, it’s nearly twice the price of the Sigma. For Canon and Nikon DSLR shooters who are determined to stick with own-brand lenses, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM and Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.4G are best buys. The Tamron 45mm is an excellent alternative, however, and adds the bonus of optical stabilisation. For a top-quality Sony full-frame E-mount lens,…

Sir Don McCullin is one of Britain’s most prolific photojournalists, known for capturing the international conflict zones of the late 20th century in The Sunday Times Magazine. Don’s new book The Landscape might encompass the entirety of his working life, but the subject is more pastoral in nature. The corners of rural England come alive under his preference for moody, metallic skies. Speaking at the Martin Parr Foundation, it was only fitting that Martin Parr himself should interview Don about the new book, his work and a life-long love affair with taking pictures. “You are the most honest photographer I know,” says Martin to end the evening. “Thank you.” Martin Parr: I think all photographers have a moment where they decide they want to be a photographer. What was yours?…

Never work with animals or children might be a famous maxim, but some photographers find joy in capturing the everyday moments of family life. Our creative pro Catherine O’Donnell has always loved taking pictures (as well as painting and drawing), but she became obsessed with photography after she had her first baby five years ago. “I had an SLR, but I’d pretty much always kept it on auto,” she says. “I set about the long task of teaching myself how to use it (as well as going on many a workshop)”. Catherine cuts a long story short to tell us that her passion grew, and a friend of a friend asked her to photograph their wedding. “Although petrified, I agreed; then another friend asked, and before I knew it I…

1 “Put your little subjects at ease. Introduce yourself, and make a point not to pick up your camera straight away.” 2 “Build a rapport with your subjects (even if they’re your own children).” 3 “Let them tell you a joke: kids often find their own jokes to be the most hilarious ones.” 4 “Children don’t always need to be smiling to make for an interesting portrait. Look out for beautiful quiet moments, and capture those too.” 5 “For beautiful smiles, I find asking kids ‘not to smile’ is a trick that can often bring about a burst of laughter.” 6 “Read the mood and personality of the children you’re photographing. If they are naturally shy, don’t be overly loud or you’ll end up frightening them.” 7 “Be observant and…

Most of wedding photographer Dominic Lemoine’s favourite shots are captured like this one – on the fly, without much planning. This shot of the bride’s daughter was taken during the wedding prep. “She was reluctant to let someone else than her mum to do her hair,” says Dominic. “When the hairdresser put the hairspray on, she immediately pulled that face and I was ready to capture it. “I’d just captured a photo of the bride, so my flash was already positioned behind the subject. What made the photo work is the mirror the girl was holding: it reflected some of the light onto her face, giving me enough light for the final edit.” www.dominiclemoinephotography.co.uk Camera settings As he was using flash to backlight the subject, Dominic didn’t need a high…

1 Use depth Depth is two things - depth of the subject and depth of field. One is about the character of the image, the other is the camera setting. DoS will ensure that your subject is suited to the location, lighting and styling. DoF will ensure that your image has a foreground, a middle ground and a background that show the subject in the way you intend. 2 It’s not a race, but don’t hang about Let’s face it, who likes being photographed? It can be an intrusive thing to do. Work as quickly as you can, but never rush: take all the time we need, just not a moment longer. Be clear about your needs and once you have the shot, let your subject relax and carry on.…

As you have seen in this issue’s One to One (p8) and various projects in Photo Active (p14), using manual settings allows you to take control of your camera and shoot like a professional. Whichever type of digital camera you use, your DSLR or mirrorless is optimised to capture appealing images in as many situations as possible. But there are times when it will need a little assistance. Getting a pleasing early-morning landscape shot like our main image here isn’t always as easy as it looks, as this kind of scene will confuse a camera’s metering system. Left to its own devices, the camera will produce an image that’s darker than what you’re seeing with your eyes. Dull and lifeless, the resulting shot really won’t be worth getting out of…

Consider the scene of a polar bear against a snowy background. With so much brightness being reflected into the exposure meter, the camera will tend to underexpose the image, even while indicating that the exposure is ‘correct’. This will result in the polar bear looking grey rather than white. Faced with this situation, it’s clearly time to over-ride the camera and switch to Manual mode. Select M on the exposure mode dial and you’ll get the benefit of an always-on exposure indicator, usually displayed in the viewfinder or on the top plate of the camera. This is a scale that typically runs from-3 to 0 to +3. Point the camera at something else and you’ll see that the exposure indicator moves. Even with the indicator showing 0, the scene could…

For this pleasing shot of a Gloucestershire vale, taken in mid-autumn, I got into position just after sunrise. Several mornings around that time had been misty – but with no break in the clouds for the sun to peek through, things looked a tad gloomy. On my second revisit to the location, that had all changed, with the sun popping in and out of play while I was there. Shooting in Manual exposure mode, and noting the aperture value and shutter speed at halfway along the exposure level indicator, I shot a succession of frames either side of 0. Checking the images afterwards, I found the most pleasing images were taken around one stop under the camera’s ‘correct’ exposure, which was over-exposed. 1 Aperture value & shutter speed To get…

In addition to a brightness or ‘luminance’ histogram, you can also view an image’s RGB histogram. As the name suggests, this enables you to see separate histograms for the red, green and blue primary colour ‘channels’ that make up the digital picture. Being able to judge the strength of each of these colours separately is useful, as even when the brightness histogram shows a ‘perfect’ exposure, one of more of the colour histograms may be clipped. As with the brightness histogram, it’s best to avoid clipping a colour histogram on the right, as the colour will be oversaturated and you may lose fine detail in some areas of the picture. The brightness histogram typically mirrors the shape of the green histogram, so it’s worth checking the RGB histogram if the…

Resting briefly on a stone seat, a male Qinling golden snub-nosed monkey has been joined by a female from his small group. Both are watching intently as an altercation takes place down the valley, between the lead males of two other groups in the 50-strong troop. It’s spring in the temperate forest of China’s Qinling Mountains, the only place where these endangered monkeys live. Although they’re accustomed to researchers observing them, they are also constantly on the move. As Marsel couldn’t swing through the trees, the steep slopes and mountain gorges proved challenging. Whenever he did catch up and found the monkeys were on the ground, the light was seldom right. The only way to show both a male’s beautiful pelage and his striking blue face was to shoot at…

Category 5 Black & White Winner Heidi Elena Captivating! I would have this on my wall at home, printed really big. I simply love the detail contained within the frame and the random nature of the crystals; but a delightful composition seen in black and white keeps the eye moving around the frame in such a way that I just wanted to look at it for ages. 2nd Linn Yan Kha This is a brilliantly executed image. The lines, shapes and textures are wonderful, and having the figures there gives scale and direction. I also love the separation between the figures and the fact their shadows aren’t crossed by anything else, which lends a simplicity that would have been missing if any of those elements had touched. 3rd Anuruddha Das…

With a decade as a writer and photographer behind him, James knows exactly which Photoshop and Lightroom tools and techniques matter most. The Levels command has long been one of the most useful tonal tools on offer in Photoshop. Not only can you use it to lighten or darken an image, you can also correct colour casts, increase contrast, fix exposure, and introduce colour shifts. It’s worth noting that if you shoot in raw, it’s best to make as many tonal edits as you can in Camera Raw before opening the image into Photoshop. But if you need to alter tones once your image is open, Levels offers a fine degree of control. There are two ways you can apply Levels to your photo: either directly to your pixel layer…

Reader 1 Ash Wroughton Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III Location: Nottingham Ash is an award-winning photographer who is enthusiastic about photographing city life and urban scenes in the city of Nottingham. Like many photographers, Ash started out taking portraits, but he soon discovered that his real passion was outdoor photography, with a particular interest in capturing urban landscapes and street photography. Since closing his studio back in 2013, Ash is now best known for capturing the mood and atmosphere around Nottingham in black and white. www.facebook.com/ashstreetphotographer Reader 2 John Barton Cameras: Fujifilm X-T2, Sony RX100 IV Location: Wigan A former schoolteacher, John began to take photography seriously again when his retirement in 2010 meant he had more time to spare. He is a mirrorless camera enthusiast, and bought into…

Our reader Basil Warren This is a photograph I took of a young kingfisher with a Canon EOS-1D X and a 500mm lens set to 1/500 sec and f/7.1. The kingfisher had just caught the fish and was throwing it to kill it, prior to eating it for breakfast. It was very early in the morning, and I was in my free-standing dome hide on a private woodland pond, close to the Devon/Somerset border. The light was not good, as the sun hadn’t yet reached the perch the bird was sitting on, so I had to use an ISO of 3,200 to get a fast enough shutter speed to shoot with. Getting up early was well worth it to be treated to a display by one of the most beautiful…

www.fujifilm.co.uk Fujifilm announced the X-T3 straight after the full-frame Nikon and Canon mirrorless camera launches, so it was unlikely to attract the same kind of attention. After all, it’s just a routine upgrade of the existing Fujifilm X-T2, right? Well, that just shows how appearances can be deceptive: the exterior might be quite similar, but inside the X-T3 has had a pretty massive overhaul. There’s its new 26.1 megapixel sensor, for a start. This is barely two megapixels more than the previous X-T2, but the extra resolution isn’t the point. This is Fujifilm’s first back-illuminated X-Trans sensor, which means the electronic wiring is at the back of the sensor, not obscuring the photodiodes at the front. This means better light-gathering power and better overall image quality. More importantly, the new…

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CANON PIXMA TS 850 Print a borderless 6 x 4in print in seconds with this all-in-one A4 Wi-Fi printer. £200/$253 www.canon.co.uk KENRO ULTIMATE TRAVEL Four-section sticks with a very impressive 187cm operating height. £219/$278 www.kenro.co.uk THINK TANK SIGNATURE 13 Made to carry a full-frame DSLR plus lenses, flash and laptop. £219/$278 www.thinktankphoto.com CAMRANGER MINI Control your Canon or Nikon camera from a phone or tablet over Wi-Fi. £229/$290 https://camranger.com G-TECHNOLOGY G DRIVE MOBILE SSD R-SERIES 1-TB Compact, built to last and very fast. £230/$291 www.g-technology.com FORMATT HITECH FILTERS SET Three popular types of filter, as chosen by the renowned Elia Locardi. £263/$334 www.formatt-hitech.com SAMYANG MF F/1.8 ED UMC CS Manual focus-only medium telephoto that’s just 8cm long and weighs 300g. £320/$406 www.intro2020.co.uk METZ MECASTUDIO BL-400 SB Build your first studio…

Lens mount Canon EF Canon’s 25-year-old 50mm f/1.4 lens might seem the obvious choice, but we prefer this newer option. It’s two-thirds of an f/stop slower, but is less than a third of the price, is much lighter and has better performance. Unlike previous f/1.8 editions, the ‘STM’ model has a stepping motor autofocus system that gives speedy yet quiet operation. The focus ring no longer rotates during autofocus, which improves handling, as well as enabling manual override in Single AF mode. The lens has a metal rather than plastic mounting plate, and a better-rounded aperture based on seven diaphragm blades instead of just five. Performance After testing multiple samples of the Canon 50mm f/1.4 and f/1.8 lenses, the f/1.8’s autofocus system proved much more accurate and reliable than its…

Lens mount Micro Four Thirds Micro Four Thirds lenses only need to produce a relatively small image circle, and this Panasonic is typically compact and very light at only 130g. To put that into context, the Sigma and Zeiss lenses are six and seven times heavier, respectively. Even so, the Panasonic is a little longer than the Canon 50mm full-frame lens on test. With its effective focal length of 85mm, the Panasonic is ideal for portraiture and the f/1.7 aperture enables a fairly tight depth of field. It’s well-engineered and features an optical image stabiliser. This makes it ideally suited to Panasonic cameras; for Olympus bodies with sensor-shift stabilisation, we’d go for the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45mm f/1.8. Performance Autofocus is quick and accurate, while sharpness and contrast are good…

Lens mounts Canon EF, Nikon F (FX) Not quite a 50mm lens, the Tamron 45mm gives a slightly more generous viewing angle of 51 degrees rather than the more usual 46 degrees on a full-frame body. Unlike competing Canon and Nikon 50mm lenses, it combines an f/1.8 aperture rating with four-stop stabilisation. Physically, it’s smaller than the Sigma and Zeiss lenses, and rather lighter at 540g. The Tamron features extensive weather-seals and a fluorine coating on its front element. The ring-type ultrasonic autofocus system enables the usual manual override. Performance Sharpness is very good even at wide apertures of f/1.8 to f/2.8, although it loses out slightly to the Sigma and Zeiss lenses. Defocused areas look very soft, and the crossover between sharp and blurred areas has a nicely smooth…

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