Table of contents for Spring 2025 in Digital Camera Magazine

Spring has finally sprung so dust off your pride and joy, grab a lens or two and get busy with some of the seasonal creative ideas in this month’s cover feature (p50). From bluebell woods to butterflies, plus ducklings and daffodils, our techniques will help you blossom as a photographer. More tempting projects are waiting in Photo Active (p16), you’ll receive a monochrome masterclass in Camera Clinic (p62) and glean some invaluable insights into high-end garden photography from Jason Ingram, in our interview (p116). This month’s camera and accessory reviews include the Leica SL3-S (p100), a 135mm premium prime from Viltrox (p106) and Radiant Photo 2 editing software (p108). Enjoy the issue. SUBSCRIBE AND GET A LOWEPRO NOVA AW II SHOULDER BAG WORTH £88!* Have Digital Camera delivered to your…

Editor-in-chief of the Digital Camera World website, James Artaius has been a portrait photographer for over a decade, working with Aston Martin Racing, Elinchrom and L’Oréal. Instagram: @jamesartaius YouTube: @Artaius As the editor-in-chief of the Digital Camera World website, I was recently invited to take part in a professionally organised portraiture shoot. Camera readers should get to hear about it. There wasn’t time for my magazine colleagues to arrange travel to the location, so in a slight departure from the typical One-to-One format, they asked me to recount my experiences on the day instead. I have been a portrait photographer for over a decade and dare say that Digital Camera readers would love to have images like these in their portfolio. So what if I told you that they were…

An imaging journalist and freelance photographer based in London, Cheung has a wealth of experience over several decades. www.williamcheung.co.uk This month: Black and white It’s time to leave our colourful world and embrace the joys of monochrome We’re blessed to live in a colourful world so you may be wondering why bother making black and white photographs. For me, though, the question is not why make them, but why not? In the spirit of openness, I am biased. My photographic upbringing was at a time when shooting black and white film was the only affordable option and, even in the digital age, I find it magical exploring my images in shades of grey. Not only that but my influences, all photographic greats in my view, excelled at monochrome. Check out…

MEET YOUR TRAINERS Edit like a pro with their expert insights 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 LRPS The author of over a dozen books on the subjects of photography, CGI and Photoshop, Wendy Evans has used Photoshop since version 3.0. DOWNLOAD FILES & VIDEO AT www.digitalcameraworld.com/dc293…

Mood and atmosphere can come in many forms but the classic moody sky and contrast in the scene create the archetypal moody look, which is commonly seen in landscapes and cityscapes in particular. Some photographers choose to underexpose at the point of capture to maximise moodiness, but ‘correct’ exposure allows you to capture more shadow detail with the ability to darken and enhance shots during editing. We’re going to look at four techniques that will enhance the moodiness of shots that are already moody. These don’t follow a particular editing style and are varied in how they affect moodiness – you can even stack them in different combinations to further increase their creative potential; all four together create an incredibly moody and dark black and white image. Of course, you…

This month, we have curated another T collection of bonus software extras to help transform your images. Once they are installed in Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom or Affinity Photo, these Actions and presets will have a huge impact on your photos in a matter of seconds, saving you time at the editing stage. Rather than having to manually adjust a photo to give it a certain look, these Actions, presets, brushes and LUTs will get you there in just a few clicks. In this issue, we are giving away 20 Art History brushes for natural media painting, two contrast mask presets to make your images stand out, four Actions to enhance the mood of your photos and four funky LUTs to quickly tone your photos in Affinity Photo. 20 ART HISTORY…

An award-winning garden photographer based in Bristol, Jason Ingram travels widely photographing gardens, plants and people for the UK’s leading magazines. He has also provided photography for numerous best-selling gardening books by top garden designers and been awarded ‘Garden Photographer of the Year’ by The Garden Media Guild six times. Ingram’s personal work has seen him photograph the landscape and coastline of Britain for over 25 years, and in 2008, he was awarded ‘Landscape Photographer of the Year’ for the ‘Living the View’ category. He is also an educator, lecturing about his work and teaching garden photography courses, and his work is held in numerous private collections.  www.jasoningram.co.uk If you’re into gardens and own a few books that showcase the best gardens in the UK and further afield, the chances…

1 Which iconic breed of camera celebrates its 100th birthday this year? A Leica rangefinder B The single-lens reflex C The twin-lens reflex D Box Brownie 2 What is another name for a camera trap? A Flash trigger B Portable hide C Timelapse camera D Trail camera 3 What is the name of the new retro-style camera from OM System? A OM-1 B OM-2 C OM-3 D OM-4 4 In which decade did Jim Domke introduce the first Domke bag? A 1950s B 1960s C 1970s D 1980s 5 Who is the singer (left) holding her Polaroid 250 Land camera? A Chrissie Hynde B Stevie Nicks C Sheryl Crow D Patti Smith 6 What’s the name of the GFX cine camera Fujifilm is launching this year? A Reala B Eterna…

The Art History Brush lets you target and sample a colour from a certain state in your document history. This might not sound all that interesting, but it gets much more exciting when we use this function in combination with brush controls. These allow us to use bristle-shaped brush tips to make it look as though we’re applying colours with an actual brush. The best thing is, you don’t need any artistic skills to give it a go. To get you started we’ve included 20 free brushes amongst the project files. These are designed to be used with the Art History Brush to give you a painterly look in seconds. To use the Art History Brush, you need to understand the brush settings, so we’ll explore the important features here.…

Lookup tables (LUTs) have traditionally been used in cinematography to give a film a consistent look from scene to scene. Think of The Matrix and that green sheen that covers everything. LUTs are useful in photography, not just commercially where you want a set of images to all have the same tone, but also for enthusiasts as they can be a quick way of giving your images a specific look without spending any time creating it. Affinity Photo 2 lets you save your own custom LUTs that you can then load as adjustment layers on other images. Here, we’ll show you how to do it… 1 Create the adjustments Firstly, load an image that you’re going to create a LUT with. It’s best if it has fairly generic lighting conditions…

Jon is a professional photographer, videographer and technology journalist. Ownership is a critical subject that may come into focus over the coming years. With the rise of cloud storage and services, I worry that we are moving into a world where we own nothing that we create. It has long been understood that whoever takes a photograph owns it. This premise was tested when PETA [People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals] filed lawsuits against British wildlife photographer David J Slater for his image of a monkey taking a selfie. Slater had travelled to Indonesia to shoot endangered macaques but PETA argued that copyright should be assigned to the monkey. Courts ruled a non-human couldn’t assert copyright, but a US Copyright Office ruling stated works created by a non-human weren’t…

Camera: Fujifilm GFX 50R and GF45mm F2.8 R WR Exposure: 1/125 sec at f/14, ISO 200 Patagonia, as viewed through the window of a cruise ship cabin. Looking out of my cabin window somewhere off the coast of South America, watching the light through the net curtains and sea salt-stained glass has become something of an obsession on my current trip. A new appreciation of natural light has inspired me to photograph my room with a view. This wasn’t what I expected to be shooting in Patagonia, although, in fairness, I have been photographing other things, too. My newfound appreciation of available light is driven in part by necessity. I pride myself on my disciplined camera bag packing; however, none of the four USB-C cables I packed seem to charge…

Title: ‘Sunkissed Boy’ Location: England Date: Summer 2024 Camera: Canon EOS 90D Lens: Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG HSM Art Instagram: @capri_mcpherson Leading UK photographic kit retailer London Camera Exchange announced the winners of its LCE Photographer of the Year 2025 competition at The Photography & Video Show, held at ExCeL London in March. Now in its second year, the 2025 contest attracted over 10,000 entries from around the world in 14 different categories. The overall winner was London-based Capri McPherson-Noel with her portrait ‘Sunkissed Boy’, which was taken last year in a sunflower field close to where she lives. “I wanted to create the connection between humans and nature, and had always wanted to capture a photo against sunflowers,” said McPherson-Noel. “Something about how vibrant they are has always attracted…

Perfect photos happen occasionally, but you often have to make the most of the conditions you’re given. In editing, you have the chance to direct the viewer’s attention, overcoming limitations you had at capture. Contrast is one of the main keys to drawing the eye to your focal point. You might think of contrast as being rich blacks and crisp highlights, but there’s more to it than that. That form of contrast is luminance-based, but there are others. You can create contrast using saturation as the eye will look to areas of greater saturation first. You can also use sharpening to draw attention – sharpening is micro contrast, creating more contrast along edges. This will draw the eye, while blurring removes interest. Finally, you can create colour contrast using complementary…

Originally, Nikon provided two apps for photographers: one for viewing and sorting images, and the other for editing. NX Studio blended the two apps so that as well as processing your raw files you can rate and organise your images. To focus on what you actually want to edit, firstly create folders for the Favorite Folders panel by right-clicking on any folder in the Folders panel and then clicking on Add to Favorites. A quick and easy method of cleaning up the Filmstrip is to click on the first icon below it to show both raw and jpeg versions of the same photo as one thumbnail. To further simplify the Filmstrip, you can also show sequences of images as just one image by clicking on the icon next to it.…

Matthew Richards is a photographer and journalist who has spent years using all manner of photo gear. Get a perspective Q I’ve been taking architectural photos recently but the outer walls of tall buildings often look like they’re leaning inwards. How can I stop this happening? Zoe Parfitt A Getting the right perspective is the key to good architectural photography. If you’re shooting a tall building from ground level at a fairly close distance, its top is much further away from your viewpoint than its base. You’ll have to point the camera upwards to get the whole building into the image frame and the walls will appear to slant inwards towards the top. Professional architectural photographers often favour a tilt-shift lens that can correct perspective but they’re generally expensive to…

Celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, Leica is one of the most storied names in photography. Its cameras and lenses are out of the reach of the majority of enthusiast photographers, but there’s no denying the impact the brand has had on the evolution of the medium. A century after the Leica 1, a 35mm film camera with a fixed 50mm lens, went on sale, Leica’s latest body is the SL3-S, a 24MP full-frame mirrorless hybrid that offers some tempting technical specs for well-heeled content creators. Also under scrutiny this month is the Lumix TZ99 (SZ99 as sold in the US), a new point-and-shoot with a 1/2.3-inch sensor and a versatile zoom range, which should make it an option for shooters looking to go beyond their smartphone while travelling. We…