Table of contents for July 2017 in Digital Camera Magazine

Photography news from around the globe DESPITE its small size, DJI’s Spark is big news. Although it can be operated by a remote controller or mobile device app, the fact that the Spark is the first drone that can be controlled using hand movements alone is the real draw. When Spark launches from the palm of your hand – something it can do automatically once it detects your face – it enters Gesture Mode, allowing you to send Spark away from you to take a selfie and then motion for it to return to your hand. The new QuickShot Intelligent Flight Mode enables you to set the Spark on a preset flight path. Four QuickShot modes are available, including Rocket, which sends Spark straight up into the air with the…

Although it has a lower resolution than its predecessor (12MP vs 16MP), the Tough! TG-5’s new backlit CMOS sensor combined with the TruePic VIII processor are said to deliver a wider dynamic range and better low-light sensitivity. Shockproof to a height of 2.1m, crushproof to a weight of 100kg, freezeproof to -10?C and waterproof to a depth of 15m, the TG-5 is unquestionably a tough cookie; lock it in the optional PT-058 underwater housing (above right) and it can even record images and movies at a depth of up to 45 metres. The TG-5’s four-mode Variable Macro system features an in-camera Focus Stacking Mode, while its 25-100mm equivalent 4x zoom features new anti-fog dual-pane protective glass to reduce the chances of the lens misting up as you the camera moves…

REMEMBERING Rhinos is a book project that will both raise awareness of the five remaining species of rhino and raise money for anti-poaching initiatives. The sequel to Remembering Elephants is once again the brainchild of wildlife photographer Margot Raggett, with the support of the Born Free Foundation. Margot has already raised funding through Kickstarter, so 100 percent of the book’s cover price will be going to projects that protect rhinos in Africa and Asia. The book features images from 65 of the world’s best wildlife photographers, including Frans Lanting, Marsel van Oosten and Steve Winter, working under the banner of ‘Wildlife Photographers United’. In issue 189 we joined with Margot to launch the Remembering Rhinos competition, which presented the opportunity for 10 winning photographers to see their work printed in…

HONEYCOMB grids are a type of photographic accessory that you attach to a light source. The idea is to cut the light so you end up with a concentrated spot-lit area. It’s great to use for portraits, but can also be effective with still-life. It’s mainly used in the studio, but you can make a DIY hack for your flashgun and use it wherever! For this project you will need a pack of straws, ideally black and large in diameter. (We painted ours but this isn’t crucial.) You also need A4 black card, sticky tape, glue, scissors, a ruler and a flashgun. Step 1 Get a piece of the A4 black card. Down the long side, measure a strip that is about 4cm wide. Cut it out. Wrap the card…

THE best thing about LED lighting is it’s easy to use: for example, you don’t need to sync your camera’s shutter speed setting, like you do with flash. You can see the effect it’s having as you move the light around your object and how you can transform something ordinary into something extraordinary! In this project we took a pepper and created a work of art using the Manfrotto Lumimuse 8 LED light. For this type of set-up it can help to convert your image to black and white, but this is a personal preference. If you are going to shoot in colour, be aware of your white balance setting. The light also comes with gels that you can place in front of the light source, meaning you can control…

Every issue, we challenge you to take the most creative and arresting shot around a theme, and share it with the online community at Photocrowd (www.photocrowd.com). Here, you’ll be able to browse the entries and vote for your favourites. The best entries receive a critique from our judging panel – and one winner receives a special prize! Your mission in issue 190 was to capture the beauty in the banal. The judges were looking for shots that showed imagination and a keen eye for composition. The following winners all found an interesting twist on an everyday object or scene that we enjoyed… This month’s photo assignment is to shoot bad weather! You can find all of the details over the page… 1 PASCALE CAD IEUX It really doesn’t get much…

£4,500/$4,500 (body only) The A9’s 24MP fullframe sensor swaps outright resolution for stunning continuous shooting speeds. The ‘quad-VGA’ OLED electronic viewfinder boasts a 120fps refresh rate. The touchscreen display is not fully articulating but does tilt up and down. The controls are well-spaced, despite the A9’s compact size. The stacked drive mode and AF mode dials (left) work especially well. CSC www.sony.co.uk Specifications Sensor 24.2MP full-frame Exmor RS CMOS (35.6 x 23.8mm) Focal length conversion on lens 1x Memory 2 x SD card slot (1 x UHS-II, 1 x UHS-I) Viewfinder OLED EVF, 3,686k dots Max video resolution 4K UHD 3,840 x 2,160 ISO range 100-51,200, expandable to 50-204,800 Autofocus Hybrid AF, 693 phasedetection AF points, 25 contrast AF Max burst rate 20fps (electronic shutter), 5fps (mechanical shutter) Screen Tilting…

Why launch one wide lens when you can launch three? Nikon is broadening its line-up with its first FX fisheye zoom, a fast FX 28mm prime, and an ultra-wide option for its APS-C DX cameras. The £1,300/$1,250 AF-S 8-15mm f/2.5-4.5E ED enables full-frame users to zoom from an 8mm circular image that gives a full 180° horizontal view to a 15mm full-frame fisheye one. The front element has a fluorine coating for easy cleaning, while the lens itself is dust- and splashproof. Canon has had a similar fisheye zoom option in its line-up for six years, but the new Nikon lens is faster. The second FX full-frame lens to be announced is the AF-S 28mm f/1.4E ED prime lens. An update to the classic 28mm f/1.4D, the lens boasts dust-…

Push your photography in new directions, with eight fresh projects to try out THE world takes on a different appearance when it’s viewed from above. Before drones, this type of shot was impossible unless you booked a private helicopter or happened to be flying overhead! Now you can take photographs from the sky with pinpoint accuracy. Aerial photographer Denys Nevozhai knows a thing or two about aerial and drone imagery. Denys has always had an interest in the world above – before moving to sunny California, he lived in Shanghai, where he explored the rooftops of the most prominent skyscrapers in the world. To get this shot, Denys piloted a DJI Phantom drone in downtown Shanghai. This shot was taken at an altitude of 320 metres. “Usually, aerial photography is…

Quickfire project 1 Play with depth of field NO W that the summer is now in full swing, there’s no better opportunity to get creative with your flower photography. By simply opening up the aperture (opening it to the smallest number setting, like f/2.8) you can create some effective results. To get this warm feel, it helps to shoot on a sunny day when the light is low and soft, and to shoot into the light. Also, have a play around with your composition. We placed our main focal point to the side of the frame, enabling the blurred bokeh effect to occupy the space and create an abstract result. Suggested settings: 1/250 sec at f/2.8, ISO 100 Quickfire project 2 Shoot from a moving car For those of us…

AN ARTIST statement can be thought of as any text — written or spoken — by an artist that explains their work. This is sometimes very formal, as in a gallery or academic setting, but may also be very casual. It is based on an artist’s description of how they work, and why. It should answer basic questions that most viewers have, though they may be too polite or too shy to ask them, such as: “What is the artist trying to do? Why are they doing it?” Some people argue that a picture should speak for itself – and in many ways it can. But often an artist statement is required – as in a grant application. At other times it may be optional, but can add to the…

TECH MADE EASY FOR most of us, Wi-Fimakes life a bit less cluttered and that little bit easier, and it’s hard to imagine having to return to a life tangled in snaking cables. Camera manufacturers have been a little slow to react, with Canon being the first to launch a DSLR with built-in Wi-Fi(the EOS 6D) less than five years ago. But what was once seen as a ‘nice to have’ (if ‘slightly cumbersome to use’) option is gradually becoming a standard feature, a footnote in a camera’s specifications sheet. There are a number of accessories on the market that can bring Wi-Fito cameras that don’t have it, but having built-in Wi-Fiadds convenience – it’s one less thing to have to fork out for, and certainly one less thing to…

CLIFF DIVING WORLD SERIES Ratio rationale Dean’s composition is striking and graphic, because he’s roughly applied the golden spiral. The golden ratio is supposedly scanned faster by the brain, which makes it aesthetically pleasing to the human eye. “I focused on just the small form of the diver, and the huge cantilevered roof dominating the frame,” he says. Missing piece The shot was a winner in the Enhance category of Red Bull’s Illume contest. Dean was allowed to edit the shot more drastically, so he removed the diving platform. This retains the clean lines of the building outline. “It was something I did in Photoshop in two minutes: take the platform out, increase the contrast a little bit…” Scouting for shots It’s vital to plan compositions beforehand when you’re only…

1 Leave yourself some room For a lot of sports you need a lens of 200mm or more. This allows you to stand at a safe distance from your subject and fill the frame. A long lens, combined with an aperture of about f/5.6, means the background appears blurred, helping your subject stand out. 2 Accurate focusing If your camera allows you to select different groups of active AF points, choose a small group for accurate focusing. You can move this group around in the frame, but the fastest and most accurate AF point is always the one right in the centre of the frame. Remember to set your AF to continuous/Ai Servo. 3 Keep shutter speeds high If you want to freeze the motion of fast-moving subjects in your…

You might need to pack a mac for this month’s competition, as the theme is… bad weather! Be it drizzly, foggy, stormy, windy or otherwise, the weather can transform all sorts of scenes. This is your chance to get out and celebrate it. It may go against your instincts to shoot in the pouring rain, but it often provides the perfect opportunity to get an atmospheric result. Look around with a photographer’s eye to spot stunning shots around you. We’re imagining dark and stormy seas, landscapes streaked with lightning and city centres packed full of umbrellas. Use your imagination and keep your eyes peeled for opportunities as they pop up. As they say, there’s no such thing as bad weather, just inadequate clothing. Of course, remember to protect your kit…

Gregory Crewdson is one of the most prominent fine-art photographers working today. Influenced by photographers including Diane Arbus, painters such as Edward Hopper and film-makers such as David Lynch, his images predominantly show strange, intriguing or unsettling scenes set in suburban America. Elaborately arranged, the pictures seem to show preoccupied people at moments of reflection, or contemplating strange events that have just happened. What’s his background? Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1962, the son of a psychoanalyst, Crewdson studied at Purchase College, State University of New York, where he discovered his passion for photography. He later studied for his Master of Fine Arts at the Yale School of Art and graduated in 1985. What was his early work like? One of his first series, made from 1992 to 1997…

£1,350/$1,300 Telephoto lens www.tamron.co.uk XLD (eXtra Low Dispersion) and LD (Low Dispersion) elements boost sharpness and contrast while reducing chromatic aberrations. Nano-structure eBand coatings minimise ghosting and flare; a fluorine coating on the front element repels muck and moisture. Switches are on hand for a long-range autofocus limiter and three separate modes of optical stabilization. For nearly five years, Tamron’s 70-200mm VC USD lens, complete with Vibration Compensation optical stabilization and ring-type UltraSonic Drive autofocus, has offered a cut-price alternative to own-brand equivalents from Canon, Nikon and Sony. Combining good build quality and optical performance at a price of around £1,100/$1,100, it’s been a tempting budget buy. The new G2 (Generation 2) edition for Canon and Nikon is a major revamp that really takes the fight to ownbrand optics, while…

Superzoom lenses can take you all the way from wideangle viewing to serious telescopic reach, with just the flick of a wrist. They can save you missing great shots, because you can react instantly to unfolding events instead of wasting time, rummaging around in your bag for the ‘right’ lens. Superzooms also make good sense for a holiday, travel and walkabout lens. You can just grab your camera and go, without having to pack additional lenses that take up space and weigh you down. So where’s the catch? Well, historically superzoom lenses have been somewhat notorious for compromising on image quality in the pursuit of extra zoom range. A loss of outright sharpness and an increase in distortions and colour fringing have been common ailments. They’ve also tended to be…

SALT LAKE AND RED EARTH BEAUTY GRAEME GIBBONS, AUSTRALIA “This was taken about 185 miles south-east of Geraldton, Western Australia. The area has a massive area of salt lakes; some look like abstract art, others like an artist’s paint palette. Farmers plant cereal crops around the lakes, which gives beautiful contrasts of the small coloured lakes amongst the green and yellow crops with earthy reds winding through. “One of my photography genres is aerial photography for both business and landscapes. I charter a Cessna C172 and – safely strapped in – fly with the door off, shooting either side of the wing strut. “For all my flights I use a double BlackRapid strap with both the Canon EOS 5D Mk III with a 24-70mm lens, and an EOS 7D Mk…

nfrared light is not possible to see with the human eye, but in photography, it can be captured in a few ways. The first is to attach an IR filter to your lens; the second is to use a converted infrared camera; and the third (and easiest) is to fake the effect using Photoshop! In this project, we’re going to show you how to do the latter, so you can turn your bright colourful landscapes into surreal Alice in Wonderland-type scenes. We’ll be using a mixture of tools including the Channel Mixer and Hue/Saturation adjustment layers. When it comes to selecting a good starting image, the same rules apply as if you were shooting an infrared image. For example, green foliage and bright blue skies work best once converted. The…

NEW MONTHLY PHOTO PROJECT! MY PHOTO challenge is to ask a stranger in the street for a portrait. The subject should be unique and stand out from the crowd, showing their individuality and charisma, which in turn will create a visually pleasing image. To encourage myself to start having closer contact with the subjects, I changed from a zoom to a prime 50mm lens. It meant that in order to achieve a highquality portrait, I had to take the image at closer proximity. If you’re feeling unconfident with your technical skills, it’s worth setting your camera to an Auto mode, rather than worrying about a specialised setting when close up to your subject. To get the most from my subject, I found a bit of honesty worked well. This includes…

KEW GARDENS This issue, Ben Brain joins two photographers at the world-famous Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, for a day of fantastic floral photography – without the aid of a tripod or a macro lens… READER 1 CameraS: Nikon D7100, D7000 & D60 Location: Kent FOrmerly an engineer and IT specialist with BT, Richard is enjoying some quality photography time in his early retirement. His photographic taste is wide-ranging, although he’s keen on sports and street photography, and can often be found in Belgium and France shooting cycle road racing with his D7100 and 70-200mm VR lens. Richard thought that a Shootout at Kew Gardens would be an interesting opportunity to go outside of his comfort zone – particularly as he doesn’t own a macro lens. www.flickr.com/ richardwestlake READER 2 CameraS:…

MISTY and murky conditions have resulted in a flat, unappealing image, but there is a lovely shot waiting to be brought out. First we need to address the sloping horizon – a tell-tale sign of a handheld ‘grab’ shot. We can rectify this in Lightroom’s Transform panel simply by hitting the Level button. To put some crispness back into the hazy buildings in the background, use the Dehaze slider. A tweak to the right of +40 sorts this out, before using the Tone Curve to slightly lighten the whole image. The Dehaze filter has blocked out some of the darker tones on the boat, so run an Adjustment Brush over it and push the Shadows slider to +60. Finally, it’s all a bit blue and cool, so warm the image…

First of all, congratulations on being the overall winner in the Natural World category of the 2017 Sony World Photography Awards. What inspired you to shoot those images? One of my main focuses for that project, which I undertook in Liuwa Plain, Zambia, was to document the nocturnal side of the plain. It came at a time when I was realising the new low-light capabilities of modern digital cameras were really opening up nocturnal wildlife for the first time. I wanted to seize on this opportunity to try to get some shots that maybe people wouldn’t have seen before – using high ISOs and particularly combining that with wildlife. How did you take these images? I shot them over two different trips in 2015 and they were made possible by…

£2,500/$2,600 Telephoto lens www.sony.co.uk Autofocus lock switches are conveniently placed between the nicely proportioned zoom and focus rings. Auto/manual focus, autofocus limiter and dual-mode optical stabiliser switches are fitted at the rear end of the barrel. Weather-seals are applied to the mounting plate and to all of the joints in the lens barrel. A nice, fast 70- 200mm telephoto zoom is often regarded as an essential component of a camera outfit. Sony’s new range-topping G Master edition for E-mount cameras is about twice the weight and double the price of its older f/4 lens – but is it twice as good? Build & handling The f/4 zoom is undeniably a high-performance lens, but the f/2.8 ups the ante in several key areas. Both lenses contain advanced aspherical and ED (Extra-low…

JON ADAMS Photographer and writer Jon is a photographer and writer, and also provides individual and small group tuition in digital SLR and Photoshop skills. jon@jonadams media.co.uk SOFTWARE Photoshop CC GET IT FROM www.adobe.com Get Start files from www.bit.ly/dc192files dobe Camera Raw is a plug-in that’s built into Photoshop. It allows you to take an image directly from the camera’s sensor, and apply adjustments to vital aspects like colour and contrast. This is fantastic for those who want to take full control of the way their pictures look, as an adjusted raw file will give the best possible image quality. Hidden within the ACR interface is an amazing feature that lets you seamlessly merge multiple images together to create a brand-new raw file. This gives you the option to make…

JAMES ABBOTT Photographer and journalist James is a professional photographer and journalist. He’s an advanced Photoshop user and has created hundreds of tutorials to help photographers improve their skills. jamesaphoto.co.uk Photoshop When you’re unable to capture the best light, it’s possible to replicate the sun flaring bright, hazy light into the lens with some simple editing tricks SOFTWARE Photoshop CC GET IT FROM www.adobe.com Get Start files from www.bit.ly/dc192files Photography is a popular hobby for many reasons. One that stands out is that it’s something you can do whenever and wherever you are. Days out in the city and walks in the forest are just two examples of when you’re likely to have a camera to take advantage of opportunities as they appear. We all like to be out shooting…