Table of contents for August 2017 in Digital Camera Magazine

T’S a dream of many enthusiast photographers to ditch the day job and make a living out of their camera. It’s not easy. I know this first-hand: I was a pro for many years before working on magazines. At times it was utterly rewarding; at others it was pretty humdrum. So it’s important to think carefully about what you really want before taking the leap and making a complete career change. There are plenty of ways to get started without diving in at the deep end – or maybe you just want make a bit of cash on the side to fuel your expensive hobby. Either way, our cover story will get you started, as we take you on a whistle-stop tour of some great ways to make a bit…

To celebrate Nikon’s 100th birthday this month, we’re giving away this gorgeous compendium of highlights. It features 100 Nikon milestones that have helped to push the world of photography forward. Packed with iconic images, famous fans, film cameos and, of course, technical innovations, it’s not to be missed. The 100 Nikon Milestones ebook is provided as a PDF, which you can download via www.bit.ly/dc193bonus 162-PAGE BUYERS’ GUIDE If you’re after some new kit this year, you won’t want to miss your free Camera Shopper ebook, with the best buying advice around. This ebook is provided as a PDF, which you can download via www.bit.ly/dc193bonus 69 MINUTES OF VIDEO We’ve packed the Video folder of your disc full of expert tutorials to help you improve your photo editing skills. This month…

I N COLLABORATION with the Munch Museum in Norway, Adobe has photographed seven brushes used by Edvard Munch – painter of The Scream – and turned them into digital brushes that can be used in Adobe Sketch and Photoshop. Award-winning Photoshop brush-maker Kyle T Webster has had the task of using the high-res image source ?les, along with data about Munch’s artistic style and brushwork, as well as the brushes’ ?exibility and bristle types, to create the digital versions, which are now available to download via Creative Cloud. www.adobe.com FOCAL POINT Rounding up what’s new and exciting Saramonic Vmic Pro shotgun mic This directional shotgun microphone comes complete with an integrated shock mount and a 3.5mm headphone jack. www.kenro.co.uk; £199.14 Whitewall Acrylic Mini prints These acrylic prints are compact –…

PROJECT 6 W ITH the wealth of photography apps out there nowadays, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by them all. That’s why we’ve picked out our three favourite apps on the market for you to try. VSCO [1] VSCO is an app that delivers as an all-round editing experience. It contains a vast range of editing tools, presets and social features. Among our favourite features are the filmlike presets, which achieve analogue looks and are named after famous film types such as Kodak Portra 160. You can also share your images with the app’s 30 million other users on VSCO’s in-app social platform. In its most recent update, VSCO has enabled you to edit raw photos shot from smartphones or uploaded from cameras. The app is available in the…

I F YOU’RE serious about photography, the chances are that you’ve considered trying to make cash from your imagery. While the world of professional photography may seem scary, the truth is there’s never been a better time to put your skills to use. With many different genres on offer and kit more affordable than ever, now is the time to take your first step onto the pro ladder. This feature will break down some of the ways you can make cash from your camera, the right kit to invest in and how to market your images to the masses. Let’s get started… 43  EXPERT TIPS ON MAKING A LIVING WITH YOUR PHOTOS!…

EVENT photography is a broad umbrella term that encompasses many different genres. From sports photography or shooting live music to fun runs or car shows, events are anything where you, the photographer, are not in complete control of proceedings. Event photography can be especially fruitful for anyone wishing to make money from their camera on a part-time basis, because the majority of events are either at weekends or in evenings. Here are some important things you need to know about this exciting genre of photography... 1 GETTING ACCESS The common factor in all event photography is your ability to get access to the event in the ?rst place. This access gives you permission to photograph the event and, in the majority of cases, it gets you access to special areas…

IF you’re thinking about making money from your camera after a few years of enjoying photography, chances are that you have a hard drive full of impressive images. Stock photography is one option, as we’ve seen, but if your work has evolved in more creative and esoteric directions, breaking into the world of fine art could net big returns. 1 THE RIGHT PLATFORM These days, selling fine-art prints couldn’t be easier, with a selection of websites providing a full-circle buying experience for customers visiting your galleries. Most sites allow you to create private galleries that are password-protected, and give your customers the ability to choose print products and pay securely online. This technology enables you to get paid for your fine-art photography much quicker, so you can keep the profit…

F EELING inspired and ready to make the jump so you can make money from your camera? Here’s some extra advice on how to take your first step and give yourself the best chance of success… Make a plan Work up a business plan of how you launch your photography business. Decide which genre (or genres) best fits your skill set and how you are going to attract customers to use your skills or buy your work. Set monthly targets to stay motivated, and share your plan with trusted friends to see if they can offer any constructive feedback. Make it work Crunch some numbers and work out if you can afford to upgrade equipment (and still pay the bills). One way to mitigate kit costs is to use the…

PATTERN 1 This is just a representation of the zones in pattern mode. In reality, the scene may be split into hundreds or even thousands of zones. 2 The central area will not necessarily get priority over other areas – it depends on the light distribution across the rest of the scene. 3 It can tend to give priority to dark areas to prevent underexposure, although it’s still a good choice for quickfire, everyday photography. CENTRE-WEIGHTED 1 This can be a good choice for portraits – particularly backlit ones – and photos where the subject is towards the middle of the picture. 2 The outer areas play a smaller part in the exposure measurement, but they are still taken into account. 3 Centre-weighted doesn’t apply its own compensation before giving…

ROAD TO ETERNITY NAME: Devesh V Tripathi LOCATION: West Virginia, USA KIT: DJI Phantom 4 Pro EXPOSURE: 1/2,000 sec at f/2 .6, ISO 100 WEBSITE: www.devishtripathi.com Down the middle The rule of thirds is often a benchmark for landscape composition, but Devesh chose a central placement that suits the straight bridge and generates a calming frame. “Powerful images can be created by placing your subject in the centre,” he says, “especially when there is symmetry and a strong point of reference.” Game of two halves The eye is always drawn to the brightest area of a photo. Devesh used this principle while editing the shot, increasing the shadows in the bottom half and the exposure in the upper half. “The viewer’s eyes follow the road from darkness to brightness thereby…

P ROPERLY in the North now, folks I pass on the path greet my “hello” with a “how do”. I leave Chester by following the canal path, past a cascade of locks and Roman walls leading to the Wirral Peninsula. Neston feels bereft, having a quayside but no sea: it’s been silted up and replaced by a salt marsh. The raw humanity of New Brighton, immortalised in Martin Parr’s The Last Resort, is nowhere to be seen. On the beach sits a cluster of obedient school kids with lanyarded teachers hovering over them. The concrete is smooth and extensive, and a large Morrisons dominates the promenade. I can see the Liver birds across the Mersey – what a thrill to see Liverpool so close! Pedestrians can’t take the tunnels (although…

W HEREAS most travel tripods come as complete kits, the Benro legs and head are sold separately. The B0 ball head is a perfect match and, when coupled, the total weight is pretty much the same as that of the carbon-?bre Kenro, Nest and Novo tripods, despite the main construction materials being aluminium and magnesium alloy. The carbon-fibre version of this Benro is 600g lighter in weight, but costs about double the price. Ticking just about every conceivable box on our wish list, the Benro has a modest folded length and generous operating height, coupled with a hefty maximum load capacity. It’s one of only two tripods in the group to feature a pivoting centre column, the implementation of which is better than in the Kenro tripod, as it enables a…

T he MeFoto Air is the lightest tripod on test, at just over 1kg, and folds down the smallest, to a length of just 28cm. Nevertheless, it stretches to a decent maximum operating height of 156cm, thanks to having ?ve sections in each leg, rather than the usual four, plus an extending centre column. Like the Velbon tripod, there are no external locking clamps in the extending leg sections. Instead, you simply hold the foot of each leg and progressively twist it to release successive clamps for each section. To lock the sections, twist in the opposite direction. Unlike in the Velbon, however, the centre column is made from four telescopic sections that extend and lock with the same twisting action. A bonus for self-portraits is that you can remove the…

T HE Vanguard weighs in at 1.5kg and measures just 38cm long when folded, making it one of the smallest and most lightweight tripods here. However, despite having ?ve sections in each leg, rather than the usual four, it only reaches 147cm at full extension, talleame this mechanism couldn’t be adapted to offer a horizontal boom mode. You can only use the centre column in vertical upward or downward orientations, the latter for low-level shooting. It saves the need to remove the centre column, invert it, and re?t it. However, you need to retract the centre column upwards a little when inverted, so that it can be locked, which proved ?ddly. Plus points include retractable spikes within the rubber feet pads, and a ball head with a separate panning lock. PERFORMANCE…

SEAN McCORMACK Photographer and writer Sean McCormack is a photographer and writer based in Galway, Ireland. He’s the author of The Indispensable Guide to Lightroom CC. seanmcfoto.com Lightroom SOFTWARE Lightroom CC/6 GET IT FROM www.adobe.com GET START FILE FROM www.bit.ly/dc193files ARCHITECTURE and cityscapes are fantastic things to photograph. Often you’re shooting them in tight spaces, though, which means you’re forced to point the camera up in the air. This makes the parallel lines of a building converge in, and looks odd at the best of times. Unless you’re shooting such shots professionally, it’s hard to justify the expense of tools like tilt-shift lenses, which use sophisticated optics to help keep the vertical lines straight. Fortunately, Adobe has been working away to provide tools that can help correct for this distortion…

EXPERT TIP The easiest images to convert with this technique are head shots, but it is possible to use slightly wider shots if you adjust the settings and take care when masking the head rather than just the face. If you try a wider shot, you’ll need to reduce the High Pass sharpening amount in step 1 to 5px. Blur will also need to be stepped back a touch, with Lens Blur Radius at 25 and Motion Blur at 15px. These are approximate settings, but a good starting point.…

90  THE BIG INTERVIEW SEBASTIÃO SALGADO The ‘world’s greatest living photographer’ looks back 98  THE PERIMETER QUINTIN LAKE The roving photographer comes across jokers and heavy industry up North 78  QUESTION MASTER ANDREW JAMES Our pro demystifies key terminology, offers inspirational tips and more 10  HOTSHOTS DIGITAL CAMERA READERS Your stunning shots from around the world continue the travel theme 76  PORTFOLIO SHIRREN LIM Global adventures enthrall in the travel shooter’s mono collection 64  IMAGE ANALYSIS DEVESH TRIPATHI We examine this symmetrical, misty shot for technique and artistry 126  PHOTOSHOP JON ADAMS Our editing pro shares a technique for creating impressionist images 138  CREATIVE JAMES PATERSON Our regular contributor shares four ways to create distinctive landscapes…

PROJECT 4 Quickfire project 1 Use your surroundings as a frame THIS quickfire project is all about composition. Here are some rules to try, and some to break. The next time you’re out shooting, take an extra look around you for features you could use as natural frames. Buildings, trees and people can often be positioned so that they frame the main subject of your photograph and add an interesting twist – it’s like a frame within a frame. A tripod can be helpful for this, as the trick is to get a precise composition, particularly where straight lines are involved. Artful composition can be used to make even seemingly dull settings or banal subjects, such as these cables in Iceland, more interesting. Look for the objects you might often…

WHILE some genres of photography have shrunk in recent years, portraiture photography has held strong. Parents will always want pro images of their kids, and aspiring models will always need prints for their portfolios. While competition in this ?eld is intense, there’s no reason why someone with solid technique and a flare for self-promotion can’t excel. 1 PARENT POWER Family photography is big business, and tapping into the genre can bring decent rewards. Parents are always looking for bargains, so a savvy approach is to offer discounts, particularly around school holidays when it’s more likely that parents and kids are free for a photo shoot. Listing your website or Facebook page details on school boards can increase interest too. 2 SCHOOL SUCCESS Speaking of schools, an alternative form of portraiture…

WHEN papers, magazines and websites need an image, they often don’t have the time or budget to commission a pro photographer. In these instances, editors often turn to stock websites, where there’s always a wide selection of images for specific subjects. For example, if a story calls for an image of a specific flower, stock sites such as Alamy and Getty will have a strong supply of such subjects. Most stock sites allow instant sign-ups, while others review your work before publishing images on their sites. 1 PERCENTAGES Be aware that stock sites take a percentage of any sale, which cuts down on pro?ts. It can certainly pay to do some research on different stock sties and work out which gives the best deal for the photographer. Percentages range from…

PROFESSIONAL-GRADE kit isn’t just about highmegapixel counts: build quality is just as crucial. After all, the chances are you’ll be using this kit day in and day out, so it will need to stand up to the knocks and bumps of professional use. Let’s take a look at the various essentials that should feature in every professional’s kitbag… 1 CAMERAS Most professional photographers use DSLR bodies equipped with full-frame sensors. These physically bigger sensors offer more resolution than their alternatives, so images contain more detail and can be used at larger sizes – essential if you’re looking to create poster-size prints Today’s full-frame sensor cameras offer up to 50 megapixels. Most also offer dual memory card slots so you can instantly back up images or extend the amount of time…

REFLECTIVE INCIDENT Y OUR camera’s metering system measures the intensity of the light reflected by the scene that you’re photographing and determines the appropriate settings that will be required to record that light. This is known as a ‘through the lens’ reflective light reading. You can also take an incident light reading using an external light meter, and set the suggested exposure manually on the camera. Incident light meter readings have the potential to be more accurate, but the process isn’t as convenient as using your camera’s meter. Lightly tapping the camera’s shutter release button activates the meter, and a suggested aperture and shutter speed combination – one that should give a ‘correct’ exposure, based on the lighting and the ISO sensitivity – is displayed in the viewfinder. There are a…

NAME: Shirren Lim LOCATION: Jakarta, Indonesia SUBJECT: Travel and documentary EQUIPMENT: Nikon D810, Ricoh GR, Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR, Nikkor AF-S 50mm f/1.4G, Nikkor AF-S 85mm f/1.8G, Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 IF ED UMC, Lensbaby Composer Pro, Manfrotto tripod WEBSITE: www.instagram.com/shirrenlim SHIRREN Lim stumbled into photography completely by accident six years ago. “My friends thought I was becoming a workaholic and needed a hobby!” she says. “Back then in 2009, I didn’t know anything about photography, so I bought myself an entry-level SLR. I talked to some people and read up on everything to do with photography and design – and after I got the hang of it, I was in love.” Shirren is from Penang, Malaysia, but she has spent much of her life moving around and now…

FLAT lighting hasn’t helped with this coastal scene, and the lack of a graduated filter over the sky has resulted in missing detail. The first thing we need to do in Lightroom is drop a Grad Filter at an angle over the sky and reduce the exposure by -1.0 to rescue the detail in the raw file. As part of the Grad Filter is over the building, you can get rid of its effect by selecting the Erase brush (while still in the Grad Filter) and rubbing out the part over the building. Press O to see the mask. Next we use the Tone Curve to add contrast across the image. It only needs a shallow S-curve. We boost the blues in the image by selecting Saturation from the HSL…

T his certainly isn’t the only tripod on test that’s available in both aluminium and carbonfibre, but the relatively little extra expense of the carbon version makes it the more attractive buy. It has an identical weight to the Benro outfit, and the same maximum load capacities of 10kg for the legs and 8kg for the head. Being made of lighter carbon-fibre, however, the diameters of the Kenro’s four leg sections are noticeably wider, ranging from 19mm to 28mm. A further similarity to the Benro is that you can pivot the Kenro’s centre column for use as a horizontal boom. However, the Kenro’s pivot mechanism is more clunky in its design, and it doesn’t enable you to lock the column at alternative angles apart from vertical or horizontal. Again, the Kenro…

T HE carbon edition of this Nest tripod has the biggest maximum load rating of any legs on test, at 20kg, and the ball head isn’t far behind at 15kg. It’s chunky, strong and remarkably inexpensive for such a well-made carbon kit. While the girth of the carbon leg sections is among the widest of any tripod in the group, the Nest nevertheless undercuts the Benro and Kenro for weight by 100g, the complete kit tipping the scales at 1.85kg. The maximum operating height is about the same, and the folded carrying length is pretty small at just 45cm. As in some of the other tripods, one leg is removeable for use as a monopod. Like the Kenro, there are two spirit levels on the ball head, and the kit is…

T HIS tripod is only a couple of centimetres longer than the tiny MeFoto when folded, yet reaches a respectable maximum height of 158cm. This is thanks, in part, to having no fewer than six leg sections. As in the MeFoto, there are no external clip or twist clamps: instead, an internal mechanism releases and locks each section with progressive twisting of the foot. There’s also a separate twist-action lock for the uppermost section of each leg. The design sees the addition of a horizontally rotating clamp where the centre column meets the legs. By raising and twisting the clamp, the legs are locked in their operating position, or freed to be hinged upward for folding away. It’s simple and effective. Like only the Manfrotto Befree on test, the Velbon uses…

www.bgrip.com B-Grip Uno £36/$37 The Uno lets you suspend your camera from your belt or a bag strap. It attaches easily to either, although the camera release mechanism is fiddlier than Capture Clip or Spider Pro systems. Despite being predominantly plastic, the build quality is robust. OVERALL www.lowepro.com Lowepro S&F Light Utility Belt & Toploader Pro 70 AW II £54/$50 & £65/$66 Attaching your camera to a dedicated utility belt helps improve comfort, while your camera is cossetted inside this well-padded, weather-sealed holster bag. This is big enough for a pro DSLR, but consequently it’s relatively bulky and awkward to access. OVERALL www.spiderholster.com SpiderPro Single Camera System £119/$135 The Spider Pro is a joy to use thanks to its instant camera access. Forget clips and clamps; here you get a beautifully designed…

EXPERT TIP Perspective correction in post-processing changes pixels and often removes parts of the images. You can mitigate this when you take the original shot, however. If you’re shooting indoors, place the camera a little above mid-room height and keep it level and centred. This will help keep the line straighter with less cropping needed. For outdoors, get the camera as high as possible and leave room at the top and bottom for cropping. Try not to have the line bend in too much. This is harder in tight spaces, but can save time later. In processing, there’s another slider in Transform that can help: Scale. Use this to zoom out and help get more room for cropping later.…

JAMES PATERSON Editor, Practical Photoshop With a decade as a working writer and photographer behind him, James knows which Photoshop and Lightroom tools and techniques matter the most to you. Photoshop SOFTWARE Photoshop CC GET IT FROM adobe.com GET START FILES FROM www.bit.ly/dc193files PUNCHY AND VIBRANT Tweak exposure and white balance in Camera Raw, then try increasing Vibrance: this boosts the less-saturated colours in a scene, while holding back the strong colours, so it’s good for enhancing colour without overdoing it. In sunset scenes, it can be hard to balance land and sky exposures. Use Camera Raw’s Graduated Filter tool loaded with negative Exposure to darken the sky, then dial in positive Shadows to lift land areas that jut into the sky. MOODY MONOCHROME A moody black-and-white treatment can transform…

PROJECT 2 B ACK in the 1980s, artist David Hockney pieced together Polaroid photos into collages that showed a subject from multiple angles. Hockney’s ‘joiners’ captured the public imagination. Since then, the technique has been much imitated, to the point where it has almost become a bit old-hat. There’s even a phone app – The Hockneyizer – that will do the job for you, which is probably about as far from the original spirit of the idea as you can get. Experiment with this photo collage technique and you’ll find there’s still life in it, though, thanks to the unusual point of view that it creates and the effect that it has on an everyday scene. Hockney’s joiners were all about playing with space and time – he was interested in…

WELCOME to the ultimate in high-pressure photography. By shooting a wedding, you are responsible for recording the biggest day in a couple’s life. Reshoots and second chances are not on the table, so a high level of proficiency is needed to deliver results of a high standard. Along with great photography skills, excellent communication is needed to organise your day and ensure you get all the right shots in the small windows of time you’ll have. The best wedding photographers make it seem effortless, but it’s a genre that requires total commitment and focus. 1 SECOND SHOOTER If you are looking to take your first steps into wedding photography and don’t yet feel confident enough to figo solo’, acting as a second shooter for an established wedding photography can prove…

IF your photo skills are solid and you enjoy talking to people, one alternative way to make money from your camera is to run a photography workshop. This is where you coach fellow photographers to give them the bene?t of your experience and help improve their own skills. 1 PLENTY OF CHOICE This sector of photography has increased dramatically over the last 10 years, with photographers keen to learn from professionals. From landscape courses and studio workshops to masterclasses on post-processing and printing, there is still plenty of room to grow in this area. Some workshops are halfor full-day affairs, while others stretch over multiple days. Likewise, some workshops require the attendees to turn up on the day while others offer overnight accommodation. 2 FIND A USP Just like composing…

THERE’S no point in shooting amazing images if people are never going to see them! As a pro photographer, your job isn’t just to press the trigger. You have to wear several hats: accountant, photo editor, location researcher and, of course, chief marketing officer. Nobody else is going to do the hard work of promoting your photography for you, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few simple things you can try to drum up business. Many people think marketing is a dark art, but it’s quite straightforward: just use every means at your disposal to tell people what you’re shooting and why they should hire you or buy from you. Here are six ideas to get you started… 1 ALWAYS CARRY BUSINESS CARDS One of the cheapest and most…

PATTERN The default metering mode measures light distribution across the whole frame, and often takes colour and focus data into account too. It then calculates whether the scene needs to be made brighter or darker before it arrives at a suitable exposure for the shot. With pattern metering, the shape of the graph changes with each scene. Your current focus point is one of the criteria used by pattern metering to work out the best exposure. CENTRE-WEIGHTED This mode measures the light across the whole picture area, but strongly biases the resulting reading to the centre of the viewfinder. On more advanced digital cameras, you can change the size of this central area, and hence affect the overall bias. This graph is higher in the middle, where it’s heavily ‘weighted’.…

THE reason why your camera doesn’t always nail the correct exposure is that it meters the light reflected by the scene – and some subjects reflect more or less light than others. Camera meters are designed for 18% reflectance – in other words, if a subject reflects about 18% of the light that falls on it, the camera should produce a ‘correct’ exposure. Mid-tone subject such as grass and grey pavements reflect roughly 18% of the light, and many scenes average out close to this value. But when it’s faced with an overall dark subject, the camera will read this as a mid-tone subject that’s not receiving enough light, and will extend the exposure – making the subject look too bright. With a bright subject, the camera will see a…

GET INVOLVED! If you’d like to take part in any of the features in Photo Active, please send us an email at digitalcamera@futurenet.com with one of the following in the subject line: Rate My Photo, Shootout, Portfolio or Photo Answers. Please include your full name, contact details (including a daytime phone number) and a sample of your work (max 10MB) ENTER TODAY! Enter this month’s assignment over at www.photocrowd.com/a/current Closing date: 11th August 2017 FACEBOOK www.facebook.com/ digitalcameraworld TWITTER www.twitter.com/ digitalcameraw INSTAGRAM www.instagram.com/digitalcameramag…

ANDREW JAMES Our expert photo advisor is here to help PERPLEXED BY A PHOTOGRAPHIC PROBLEM? CAUGHT UP IN CAMERA CONFUSION? Send your question to digitalcamera@futurenet.com and let us provide you with a solution Crop factor Q What does the term ‘35mm equivalent’ actually mean? Josie Hall A THIS is a common question for newcomers, Josie, so you are not alone with this confusion. Basically, it is all linked to the fact that digital cameras have different-size sensors. If all sensors were the same size, we wouldn’t really need the term ‘35mm equivalent’, which essentially gives us a standard measurement to work from. 35mm dates from pre-digital days: it was the physical width of the most commonly used ?lm, and was therefore adopted as the standard field of view. No doubt…

RATE MY PHOTO GLORIA SAYS: I took this photograph in a community garden after watching the blackcapped chickadee fly up for a seed, then down to a perch below the flower and up again. I was shooting with a 100mm macro lens because I was there to shoot flowers rather than birds. I was using a Canon EOS 5D Mk IV, and my exposure was 1/2,500 sec at f/6.3 and ISO 1,600. ANDREW SAYS: Great to hear you were able to react to something that happened in front of you to capture a lovely shot. Some people will probably baulk at the flat white sky behind the subject but I think it gives the whole image an illustrative look, rather like a Dorling Kindersleystyle encyclopedia. The 100mm macro wasn’t ideal…

A cclaimed as one of the world’s greatest photographers living today, Sebastião Salgado is known for the epic scale of his photo projects, which involve years of planning and editing; a painstaking devotion to the creation of books as heavy as coffee tables; and exhibitions that fill the world’s grandest museums. Salgado’s first great book, Workers, published in 1993, is a prime example of his ambition: over a six-year period, the Brazilian-born photographer travelled across 23 countries, taking more than 10 thousand negatives of what playwright Arthur Miller described as “the pain, beauty and brutality of the world of work on which everything rests”. For Salgado, who also wrote the text accompanying the 350 black-and-white photographs, Workers was “a farewell to a world of manual labour that is slowly disappearing,…

102 NIKON D7500 An enthusiast all-rounder that attempts to combine features, image quality and value 106 CANON EOS 77D Canon’s latest imaging tech is packed into this compact, user-friendly DSLR body 108 IRIX 11mm BLACKSTONE This new ultra-wide prime lens pushes the viewing angle envelope 111 SONY FE 100mm F/2.8 STF GM OSS Get beautiful bokeh from this lens, which is smoother than its aperture rating implies 112 TRAVEL TRIPODS GROUP TEST Eight portable tripods that pack up smaller and weigh less than ever before Also reviewed 110 SONY FE 85mm F/1.8 A sharp, fast portraiture lens that’s compact, light and well-priced 120 RING LIGHTS Get silky-smooth macro illumination as we test six encircling lights 122 CLIPS & HOLSTERS Keep your camera close at hand with these five clever solutions…

L ike most tripods, the aluminium and carbon-fibre versions of the Befree were originally only available in black. That’s still the case for the carbon edition, but the aluminium kits now come in a range of colour options including grey, red, blue and green. With a folded length of 41cm and a weight of 1.5kg, the Manfrotto is one of the smaller and lighter tripods here. With four leg sections, it only manages to reach a maximum operating height of 144cm – the shortest of any tripod on test. The maximum load rating is also lower than in almost all the other tripods and heads, at 4kg. Unlike most competitors, the Manfrotto uses clip rather than twist locks. It’s one of the only two tripods not to have an Arca-Swiss compatible…

W HEREAS some tripods on test are available in both aluminium and carbon-fibre options, the Novo is only manufactured in carbon, so there’s no cut-price aluminium edition. Compared with the carbon Nest, most of the leg sections are a millimetre thinner in diameter, and the weight of the kit is 50g less. The folded length is 3cm longer, matching the Kenro at 48cm, but the Novo has the tallest maximum operating height of any tripod in the group, at 174cm. The load rating is beefy too, at 15kg for both the legs and ball head. Attractions also seen in some competitors include four sections for each leg, with twist-action clamps; three lockable leg angles; and one removeable leg that can be used as a monopod. The tripod is supplied with interchangeable…

G ETTING the right balance between weight, cost and rigidity is tricky, but it’s the GoPlus that does it best. The killer feature is its pivot facility (completely lacking in Benro’s Travel Angel range), enabling the centre column to be locked at many incremental angles through a complete 180-degree arc. The Kenro Karoo Ultimate Travel also has a pivoting centre column, but it’s more basic in other respects, and can only be used in fully vertical or horizontal orientations. Even without taking the pivot facility into consideration, the Benro is superbly engineered from aluminium and magnesium alloy, and it combines a small and lightweight build with rock-solid stability in operation, even at its lofty maximum operating height. For a carbon-?bre tripod, the Nest Traveller is unbeatable value at the price, although…

JAMES PATERSON Editor, Practical Photoshop With a decade as a working writer and photographer behind him, James knows exactly which Photoshop and Lightroom tools and techniques matter the most to you. Photoshop SOFTWARE Photoshop CC GET IT FROM www.adobe.com GET START FILE FROM www.bit.ly/dc193files STEP BY STEP MIX 3D WORDS WITH YOUR PHOTOS Go from flat letter shapes to objects with depth, colour and texture 1 EXTRUDE A WORD Open the skate_before start file. Go to Filter > Vanishing Point. Plot a plane over the floor. Grab the Horizontal Type tool and make a word, then go to 3D > New 3D Extrusion From Selected Layer. In the 3D panel, click Current View and set Vanishing Point Grid. Go to 3D > Move Object To Ground Plane. 2 STYLE THE…

EXPERT TIP This is an optional step that can be applied after step 8, and will give your portrait a more authentic look and feel. Open the texture image; press Ctrl/Cmd+A to Select All, then Ctrl/Cmd+C to copy before clicking on the portrait image. To paste the texture over the portrait, select the top layer and press Ctrl/Cmd+V. If the texture is smaller than the image, press Ctrl/Cmd+T to open the Transform Tools, then click on each edge of the bounding box and drag them out before clicking OK once you’re happy with the result. Change the Blend Mode to Multiply, add a Layer Mask and mask out some of the texture.…

www.ruudvanempel.nl Why did you turn to photography? Because it does not have a style of its own (like drawing or painting) that can be recognised. That‘s what I like about it. What would you say is your favourite place on Earth? My studio. Who is the first photographer that comes to your mind, and why? Eliot Porter. He did such wonderful photography of nature in the 1950s. What did you want to be when you were five years old? I remember I wanted to be an adult. It looked like that was enough. What’s the proudest moment of your career so far? My first big solo exhibition in 2011 at the Groninger Museum, Groningen, The Netherlands. Be honest – what kind of photography are you bad at? Documentary photography: I’ve…