Table of contents for August 2019 in Digital Camera Magazine

With warmer and longer days upon us, what better time could there be to get out and about with your camera? Having a particular focus will mean more hits than misses being saved to your memory card, so this month we’re on hand with tips and tutorials to help you get the most from shooting in the holiday season. Covering landscapes, nature and weather plus some cool creative techniques, they’ll definitely help you take your best summer shots. As this time of year is also big for weddings, join Lauren as she shadows Tara Statton in our One to One pro masterclass (page 8), before shooting her first nuptials in Photo Active (page 24). Summer is also an ideal time to indulge in astrophotography, the focus of this month’s group…

10 things to shoot, edit or create this month, including wedding bliss, stunning ceilings and folded faces Poppies make beautiful and diverse subjects at every stage of their life cycles, although sweeping fields of flowers have become a much rarer sight than they used to be, thanks to farmland now being used in so many different ways. That being said, you can still find these flaming flowers throughout the summer months if you know where to look. The peak of the season is July and August, but some plants continue to flower long into September. In this project, we’re featuring Kate Southall’s macro approach to poppy fields. Her gorgeous images were taken during the golden hour, and use backlighting to outline individual flowers. The vivid red and green hues of…

In this Photoshop project, I’m going to show you how to adapt one of your landscape scenes into something more intriguing – and with only three simple editing steps required. The technique really enables you to zone in to your creative side, and there are many different options to make the end result your own. Whether you want to spice up an old landscape from your archive, or go out and shoot some new ones, you can use any landscape shot for this tutorial. I found that going the extra mile and adding small details will really boost the final image. For instance, you could add birds, leaves or even stars to produce a more earthy effect. All you need to do is copy and paste them on to the…

While it might require less brainpower to take most of our shots at eye level, if we only gaze skywards once in a while, there are fascinating textures and compositions to be found. Vadim Sherbakov has dedicated a whole ongoing project, Look Up, to the approach, and his resulting images show just how beautiful it can be. “The best locations are building interiors,” he says. “This is the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, a beautiful small church near Notre-Dame. I used an Irix 11mm f/4 ultra-wide lens with a Canon 5D Mark IV to shoot this unique angle. I shot handheld, since no tripods are allowed inside the chapel.” You don’t necessarily need to change your own gear to start shooting, says Vadim. “A kit lens such as an 18-55 mm will…

Much as we might like to think of summer as endless days of wall-to-wall sunshine, it’s important to recognise that the season has its fair share of rainy days and stormy skies, too. Far from putting a dampener on things, we want to encourage you to head out in ‘bad’ weather and embrace the dynamic elements that rain and cloud can give to your landscapes. Just remember to cast a keen eye over the weather forecasts, and keep yourself and your kit protected from the damp. In terms of composition, try to include seasonal clues in the foreground of your images, such as floral details or vegetation. Poppies and sunflowers, for example, will add a bold splash of colour. Even in the rain, it’s possible to capture stunning images that…

You can get a ‘compressed’ perspective even if you don’t have a long lens, by simply cropping an image that’s been shot with a shorter focal length from the same distance as you would if shooting with a telephoto. In this example, the crop taken from the wide shot shares a perspective that is the same as the image taken with a telephoto from the same spot. There are some differences in the depth of field and cropping the shot has slashed the resolution, but the end result is nearidentical. Perspective really is all about where you stand, and not the lens!…

It’s often tricky to fit a subject in while still keeping it a reasonable size in the picture. Wide-angle lenses allow you to get close and squeeze a lot in at the same time; the trouble is that once you angle the camera up or down slightly to get the best composition, any vertical lines in the scene end up being distorted. It’s a common problem with shots of buildings and architecture: when you point the camera up to get the full structure in, the walls appear to point inwards and the subject looks as though it’s falling over. There are several options open to you, should you wish to remove this ‘keystone’ effect. You can reduce the effect in software, but this means you’ll lose parts of the image…

Professional photographers don’t always start shooting their specialist subjects from the moment they pick up a camera – and they don’t always take to their future specialisms like fish to water. “I started wildlife photography rather late in life, and decided that I had spent enough years shooting on Auto and should really start to use the cameras I had properly,” says Bedfordshire-based wildlife pro Greg Coyne. “My gear was mainly point-and-click gear, so I acquired a Nikon D7100 and a 70-300mm VR telephoto lens and decided to practise on garden birds. The results were disastrous – it was so disheartening!” Greg tracked down Danny Green, having seen one of his images in a newspaper, and emailed him for some advice. Danny replied and, after an hour on the phone,…

GDT Nature Photographer of the Year Run by the Society of German Nature Photographers, this prestigious annual contest celebrates the best in wildlife imagery. 4,600 images were submitted in 2019. The shortlisted winners will be on shown at the GDT International Nature Photography Festival in October. www.gdtfoto.de…

Often it can be the unintentional event that really makes a photo – the happy accident, as it were. Back in the heyday of film, avoiding light leaking into the camera was a huge deal. Film, clearly being light-sensitive, could be ruined by any stray light. Sometimes, though, this could result in a happy accident where a light leak could add a lot of character to a photo. With the Lomography movement railing against the perfection of digital, people can buy really basic plastic cameras, like the Holga or the Diana, and deliberately let light in to create these effects. For those of us in the firmly digital realm, you can still create the effect of these random visual intrusions to inject more of the organic into your photo. While…

Nik Collection is recognised as perhaps the definitive set of image correction plugins made with photographers in mind. It’s had an eventful history that’s seen it pass from its original developer Nik Software to Google – and now to DxO, a software developer known for its commitment to making innovative technology easy for anyone to use. With the release of Nik Collection 2 in June 2019, DxO has started to make its mark on this famous software suite. Nik Collection is comprised of seven plugins that work within Photoshop and Lightroom, as well as DxO’s own image editor PhotoLab 2 – the Essential Editon of which is included with Nik Collection, making the software ready to use without an Adobe Creative Cloud plan. The integration of DxO PhotoLab 2 brings…

High-contrast conundrum Q When I shoot highcontrast landscape scenes, I still rely on filters – but is it better to shoot several exposures and get the balance I want in post-production? Kim Delaney A The answer to this question is partly down to personal choice, and partly down to how much time you want to spend in post-production. I believe physical filters still have a place in my kit bag – but if I’m being honest, I no longer come out in a cold sweat if I’ve been daft enough to forget to pack them! I’ve written about shooting three or more images to blend them into a naturallooking finished image many times, and a good finished result is certainly the most important thing. Both methods still require good technique…

Peaty paths through heather become disconcertingly bouncy when you’re above sheer 100-metre cliffs. I look up to see plumes of smoke rise from the headlands, as wildfire burns along the horizon. I try to dispel thoughts of being caught in the blaze while walking – or worse, while in a tent. The following day, the fire has died down by the time I reach the charred landscape. Fence posts have been burnt away, leaving their wires draped exhausted across the landscape. Peat still smoulders in places, sending up twirls of smoke. This unexpected transformation makes an interesting photographic subject: what one expects to be green is now black I reach Greenstone Point under a full moon, and enjoy the rare luxury of being able to delay putting up the tent,…

Nikon Z 7 Panasonic Lumix S1R Colour Colour rendition is extremely similar from both cameras, and auto white balance often yields near-identical results. In standard photo style, the S1R’s images can sometimes look marginally less saturated than from the Z 7. Digital rendition To represent the resolving power of these cameras, this is a pair of 2MP crops (1,800 x 1,200 pixels) taken from the full image. There’s precious little to choose between the S1R and the Z 7, throughout the sensitivity range. ISO Again, these images are 2MP crops, this time to show JPEG noise at ISO 25,600, the highest standard sensitivity setting for both cameras. As with our lab tests of raw signal to noise, the S1R produces cleaner images. Exposure and dynamic range In high-contrast scenes, both…

£2,799/$2,699 The ultimate portrait lens www.canon.co.uk The Canon RF 85mm f/1.2L USM combines a fast f/1.2 maximum aperture, for soft background blur, with the 85mm focal length reckoned to give the best balance between flattering facial perspectives and a useful working distance. An important addition to the Canon RF lens roadmap, it’s likely to be categorised solidly as a ‘portrait’ lens by most photographers, although Canon says it’s also suited to street and low-light photography. That f/1.2 lens aperture is quite something. It’s roughly half a stop faster than the f/1.4 maximum aperture commonly seen in portrait lenses. The optical design uses Canon’s cutting-edge BR (Blue-Spectrum Refractive) glass material to ‘negate’ colour aberrations, and an aspheric element to eliminate the spherical aberration in ultra-wide-aperture lens designs. Performance Canon’s old 85mm…

In this project, I’ll be showing you how to turn a printed face photograph into a folded one, while challenging and enhancing your origami skills. (Warning: some patience is needed!) Not all photo projects need to be complex, and this is a simple process that won’t break the bank. All you need is a printed portrait image, scissors, your hands and a bit of luck. I found that the final result was slightly trial and error, but there are a few tips to bear in mind while you construct this paper structure. The first is to make sure you accentuate the eyes by folding them in or out of the face, as this produces a better three-dimensional effect. I also established that you need to cut the face shape out…

Wedding season is already in full swing, and this year I was lucky enough to photograph a friend’s wedding – my first wedding, in fact. I was a little terrified at the thought of capturing someone’s special day without any prior experience, but had garnered plenty of advice from pros before the big day itself. There were several key tips that kept cropping up from them all: enjoy yourself, stay calm, and let the photos flow. After all, they wouldn’t have asked me if they didn’t trust me. I’m a wildlife photographer by training, and photographing people has only come as an offshoot of working for years on a photography magazine. That being said, I find that there’s always also something inherently curious and satisfying about documenting people. What better…

Seascape photography is one of the most enjoyable sub-genres within landscape photography. Photographing the ocean is dynamic and exciting as we dodge the breaking waves, shield our cameras from sea spray and chase the ever shifting tide. Coastal photography can also be incredibly relaxing as we spend hours meandering along the shoreline, while waves gently lap at our feet. One of my favourite things to do when I photograph the sea is to use the breaking waves to my advantage and manipulate them into building my composition. It’s very tempting to find a strong composition and throw on a 10-stop ND filter to capture silky smooth water over a five-minute exposure, but I find it far more enjoyable and challenging to look for compositions that only appear for a couple…

To enter your best ‘Urban Landscape’ image either email your entry to digitalcamera@futurenet.com, putting ‘Urban Landscape’ in the subject line; or go to our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/digitalcameraworld, look for the ‘Urban Landscape’ FB post, and upload your entry into the feed. By entering your image onto our Facebook feed you confirm that you own the copyright to the image and agree that Digital Camera can publish your image in the context of the ‘Urban Landscape’ Facebook competition. Full copyright of the image is still retained by you, and you will be credited. The closing date is 22nd August 2019. The winner will receive a copy of the magazine!…

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Most landscape pros carry a range of filters in their bag, so that they can adapt to any lighting situation. It’s always better to get exposures right in-camera, not only to save you time at the editing stage, but to record the scene in front of you as it really looks – there are some filter effects that editing just can’t recreate after a shoot, such a polariser used in strong sunlight. Some filters cause you to lose several stops of light, so keep an eye on low shutter speeds if you’re shooting without a tripod. 1 Exposure mode Most filters alter the amount of light that reaches the sensor, even in tiny amounts. For more control over the final exposure, it’s best to choose settings using Manual mode. 2…

Summer photography isn’t a distinct genre in itself, and it can be overwhelming to think about the array of possible techniques and subjects available to you at this time of year. That being said, infrared photography is a technique superbly well suited to this season. In summer (particularly the earlier months), trees, shrubs and foliage such as grass and plants are at their greenest, meaning they reflect a large amount of infrared light and will appear very bright in your final infrared images. Why? The simple explanation is that there’s more chlorophyll in the foliage, and the transparency of this chlorophyll allows any infrared light to pass through into the cells of the plants and be reflected back again. Infrared is suited to landscapes with big skies or bodies of…

Using forced perspective allows you to play with scale and make objects look bigger or smaller in a picture than they really are. This technique requires little more than choosing a camera position and focal length that will make objects in both the foreground and background appear to be in the same plane. Using a long focal length will make distant objects appear larger, with shorter focal lengths making them look smaller. With careful positioning, you can bring a large structure down to the size of a human (like a tourist holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa) or make a small feature appear giant-sized. Aerial or ‘atmospheric’ perspective is commonly used in painting to add a sense of depth. Objects are made to look more distant by making them…

All the power, half the weight Greg Coyne says: “Olympus cameras and lenses have changed the way I work in one big way: I now enjoy my photography even more. I no longer dread the thought of having to carry 14 kg on my back, with a heavy tripod in one hand and a supplementary bag of lenses in the other. I know I can get all the gear I need for an assignment in one bag, and walking distances with that bag now is no problem. I also know that at the end of the assignment that the equipment will produce great images.” 2x crop factor = 2x the reach “The reach is a huge advantage for me, and any wildlife photographer. It means that I can handhold for…

As the Earth spins on its axis, the stars in the night sky appear to rotate above us. Even though we’re spinning at a speed up to 1,000 miles per hour (depending on our latitude), the movement is still too slow to register on our eyes without additional help. The best form of assistance is photography, as a long exposure will turn the stars into streaks of light. Recording these star trails isn’t easy, however: it requires a cloudless night, dark skies that are free from light pollution, and very long exposures several hours in length. Nowadays, the long exposures are usually broken down into hundreds of continuous 30-second exposures that are then stacked together, but a good star trail shot is still a considerable undertaking with many variables that…

Around sunrise and sunset are the most common times of the day where you’ll find landscape photographers braving the elements in pursuit of the perfect light. These times are widely known as ‘the golden hour’. On many occasions, seemingly more often than not, the clouds come in and no colour floods into the sky – but on those occasions where the elements align perfectly for detail-filled colourful skies, it can almost feel like winning the lottery. With colourful light bathing the scene it’s often tempting to leave things exactly how they are. And why not? If all the elements are in place, your work as a photographer is almost done. But what if you could make the shot look even better by accentuating and controlling those amazing colours? Here are…

So you’ve discovered how Nik Collection 2 can transform your images. Now we’re giving Digital Camera readers the chance to win one of five copies of this fantastic software, which is normally on sale for £125. To be in with a chance of winning, just go to: www.bit.ly/nikprize and correctly answer the following question: Q. Which of these is not a Nik Collection plugin? A Color Efex Pro B HDR Efex Pro C Visual Efex Pro *Terms and conditions: The closing date for individuals entering the competition is 31 October 2019. Employees of Future Publishing, DxO and their subsidiary companies, their families, agents and other parties directly involved with this promotion and the prize are not eligible to enter. By entering this competition, all participants are deemed to have agreed…

Sigma fp “The world’s smallest and lightest full-frame mirrorless camera” is unveiled Sigma has been teasing its new full-frame mirrorless camera for a while, but the official announcement is a bolt from the blue. The Sigma fp will feature a 24.6-megapixel sensor and it will use a classic Bayer colour filter array, not Sigma’s own multi-layer Foveon technology. Designed to be the smallest and lightest full-frame mirrorless camera ever, it will take interchangeable L-Mount lenses (including three just announced by Sigma; see sidebar) and is designed to break the pattern of current camera design. Sigma’s idea is “how a camera can be”, not conforming to current categories and hierarchies. The Sigma fp’s user interface is intended to allow easy transition from stills to cine shooting modes for a seamless experience.…

Nikon Z 7 £2,799/£2,999 (body only) www.nikon.co.uk VS Panasonic Lumix S1R £3,399/$3,699 (body only) www.panasonic.co.uk In the battle of full-frame mirrorless heavyweights, this is like an armoured car taking on a tank Perhaps the key selling point of mirrorless cameras is that they’re smaller and lighter than conventional SLRs. Sure enough, the Nikon Z 7 packs its high-resolution 45.7MP full-frame image sensor into a less-than-full-fat casing that weighs a modest 695g. Throwing the rule book to the wind, however, the Panasonic S1R is the size and weight of a high-end full-frame SLR like the Nikon D850, tipping the scales at just over a kilo. Naturally, any system camera is only as versatile as the range of lenses that are available for it. It’s a clear win for the Z 7…

Both cameras are capable of resolving even the finest detail on our resolution test chart throughout the majority of their sensitivity scales. Panasonic’s full-frame sensor is clearly at the cutting edge of sensor performance. Even so, real-world differences are more subtle than the graph implies. The S1R wins here, but tests are conducted with all image enhancements disabled. Enable Nikon’s Active D-Lighting, and the Z 7 gets a big boost.…

Light is arguably the most important raw material for photography, so things get a bit tricky when there’s not much to play with. Naturally, shooting outdoors in the middle of the night is particularly challenging, even when the subject in question is the Milky Way on a clear, star-studded evening. The night sky is not only very dimly lit, but it’s also very large and constantly moving. You’ll have to choose a suitable lens wisely. To take in a generous portion of the Milky Way and avoid the further difficulty of stitching multiple images together, you’ll need a wide-angle prime or zoom lens. A focal length of around 7-10mm is ideal for Micro Four Thirds; or 10-14mm on an APS-C format camera; or around 14-20mm on a full-frame body. You’ll…

Calumet Speedlight Modifier System £99 www.wexphotovideo.com Calumet’s kit consists of a diffuser for softening light, a snoot for focusing it, and a compact beauty dish for flattering portraiture. The elliptical diffusion dome is a rigid plastic design that’s bulky compared to flat-pack alternatives. It blocks around three stops of light, which is a lot, but at the same time it does produce excellent light softness. The corrugated snoot is also bulky; while its metal construction enhances durability and heat-resistance, this is one modifier that could really benefit from having a collapsible design without compromising functionality. At least two honeycomb end caps are included to create an even tighter beam. For optimal portrait lighting, the 150mm metal beauty dish does a decent job of softening light while still preserving some catchlight…

Tara Statton Wedding photographer Tara covers the south-west of England to capture beautiful and informal wedding imagery, engagement shoots and portraits. She favours natural light, and has a soft and romantic style. www.tarastattonphotography.com Wedding season is now truly upon us in the UK, running from around May to October. (Turn to page 24 and you’ll find more marital bliss in our Photo Active section.) This is because the summer months mark the best weather (supposedly), as well as a time when venues and suppliers can show off their wares in the best light (literally). I’d come across the work of this month’s pro, Tara Statton, in a more organic way than I often do for these masterclasses. She’d photographed a mutual friend’s wedding in Cornwall, and I was captivated when…

If you love documenting people and places, summer festivals are a great place to do just this! Not only do you have excellent light available, from the natural ambient environment to stage lights, but you also have thousands of people at your fingertips ready to photograph in many different scenarios, from dancing to watching music. The great thing about music festivals (as well as food festivals, airshows and other events) is that people let their guard down and are usually happy to have their photograph taken. The best images, however, are the ones where the people are unaware, so try to blend in and move around the crowd to get the best shots. On my shoot, I found if anyone caught me then I would simply smile and be open…

With the 50th anniversary of the moon landing (20th July 1969) having just taken place, we thought it would be fitting to share some top tips on how to shoot the moon in a landscape setting. Alex Nail took this shot of a full moon at Great Staple Tor on Dartmoor. However, it wasn’t an easy task! The image took him 18 months to get, and he also had to invest in a 400mm telephoto lens and a tele extender. To keep the blue tone in the sky Alex reveals the image had to be taken relatively soon after sunset, with the moon high enough at the right time to get above the tor. This only gave Alex one evening every third full moon to get it right. Of course…

When summer’s balmy months roll around, they provide a cornucopia of shooting inspiration. The days are long, which doesn’t bode well for late risers, but does mean more photo opportunities throughout the day – plus the chance to shoot well into the evening if you’re at work around midday. In this feature, we’ll be looking at creative ways to photograph the golden season, when the days seem to last forever and the sun (in our memory, at least) seems to be eternally shining. Of course, we all know that bright sunshine can play havoc with landscape photography, with high-contrast scenes often resulting in drab colours and focal points. We also know that in reality, summer offers up its share of unsunny, cloudy and even stormy days – all of which…

Photography is all about light. In summer there’s much more light – both in intensity and duration – than any other season. With this in mind, these quickfire shooting options should inspire your creative juices. The ways to make any style of photography more dynamic include changing the perspective and shooting angle (and height) and experimenting with exposure. While lens flare is usually an unwanted addition in a photo, it’s something that screams ‘summer sunshine’ when you use it in the right way, and it works equally well in portraits or detail shots. The best way to add flare is to shoot when the sun is low in the sky. If it’s still high at the time you’re shooting, get down to a low angle and point the camera so…

It is the distance that you shoot from rather than the focal length that determines the perspective effect in a photo. When you’re using a long focal length, you have to stand further away from the subject in order to frame it in the same way as you would when standing close with a short lens. If you were to stand at the same distance when using both lenses, the perspective will be the same even though the subject fills more of the frame with the longer lens. Standing further away with a long lens creates ‘compression distortion’, where objects in the background appear much closer to the subject. This is due to the narrow angle of view of the long lens; it records a much smaller area of the…

The idea for this image first came to me while listening to Dead Can Dance’s 2012 album Anastasis. The track ‘Return of the She-King’ (which I named this piece after) evoked a vision of a goddess gliding across an ethereal plane, and has stuck with me ever since. It evolved into this image – an astral goddess, empowered, bold and decidedly feminine, with a ring of flowers orbiting her as she steps into the future. I captured the shot in the Pacific Northwest during low tide and sunset – I’d planned out the day and timing of the shoot using local tide charts. My aim was to get a glassy, mirrorlike surface for the setting. I’d also foraged for local flowers the day of the shoot alongside my friend and…

Of all the tonal tools available to you in Photoshop, Curves is without doubt the most powerful. In fact, it can do most of the things that the other tonal tools do: it can lighten, darken, alter colours, set whites and blacks, boost contrast, correct colour casts and more. Curves might just be the ultimate tonal tool. Unfortunately for some, there’s another curve that gets in the way: the steep learning curve. Curves can be difficult to grasp for the uninitiated. You might even be tempted to disregard the tool and return to the simpler sliders and settings elsewhere. But anyone who spends a little time experimenting will be rewarded with a responsive, highly versatile tool that offers a degree of finesse like no other. The Curves command features in…

Every month two of our resident expert Photoshop experts are challenged to interpret one raw file in anyway they see fit. Over the following pages, they reveal their rationale and show how you can achieve their look… The original raw by Lauren Scott This bracing coastal scene was shot with a Nikon D800 using a 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 lens at 35mm. The exposure was 1/1,250 sec at f/4.5, ISO 100 and ⅓ stop of negative exposure compensation. Sean McCormack Sean McCormack is a photographer and writer, based in Galway on the west coast of Ireland. Raw warrior 1 wants to create… An interplay of light and shade Jon Adams Jon is a professional photographer and writer. He also provides one-to-one and small-group image-editing tuition. Raw warrior 2 wants to create… A…

This lone tree was shot on a day lacking in contrast, and the resulting image is flat and uninspiring. However, the ingredients are there for a moody monochrome. Working in Lightroom, I can start on the sky area 1, which is currently much too light. Taking Highlights and Whites back to-100 will restore the detail hidden within the raw file. I can further darken this detail 2 by burning it in with an Adjustment Brush painted over the top of the sky and Dehaze pushed to 20. The image is still lacking in contrast, so I add impact to it by going to the Tone Curve Panel and changing the Point Curve dropdown from Linear to Strong Contrast 3. Finally, I paint a second Adjustment Brush over the foreground 4…

Nikon Z 7 Top 5 features 1 Two customisable function buttons on the front panel fall naturally beneath the fingertips. 2 The electronic viewfinder is very easy on the eye and the touchscreen has a vertical tilt facility. 3 Quick access to various shooting controls is available via the ‘i’ button and the touchscreen. 4 Simple but effective, the Z 7’s shooting mode dial is a departure from the button array in most Nikon ‘professional’ cameras. 5 An attractive and helpful OLED info display is positioned on the right, along with direct-access ISO and exposure compensation buttons. Panasonic Lumix S1R Top 5 features 1 As well as two customisable function buttons, the S1R also has a switch for electronic/mechanical shutter modes. 2 While the Z 7’s electronic viewfinder is great,…

Specifications Sensor: 12MP BSI CMOS Image processor: TruePic VIII Lens: Olympus 4x optical zoom f/2 Video: 4K at 30p, Full HD at 120p LCD: 3-inch 1,040k-dot Weight: 253g (with battery and memory card) Size: 113 x 66 x 32mm £449/$449 The everything-proof outdoor camera www.olympus.co.uk Olympus has earned a stellar reputation for its Tough cameras, which are widely regarded as the premier all-weather compacts. The Olympus Tough TG-6 continues the tradition of best-in-class waterproof, impact-proof, everything-proof cameras, although it’s only a modest refresh of 2017’s TG-5. The TG-6 is waterproof to 15m, dustproof, shockproof to 2.1m, crushproof up to 100kg, and freezeproof to-10°C. It also features dual-pane protective glass construction for superior anti-fogging. In fact, the glass on the rear LCD screen appears quite a bit thicker than that of…

Calumet WT1905 Water Tight Rolling Hard Case £189/$237 www.wexphotovideo.com Calumet’s hard case range includes numerous size options, but the WT1905’s 55x 35x 25cm exterior dimensions are ideal for sticking within most airline carry-on limits. At 6.5kg with an untouched cubed foam interior, it’s on the heavy side for its size – but that’s no big deal, as there are smooth roller wheels and a stout one-piece extending handle to take the strain. The build quality of the case itself is also extremely rugged, with very little flex in the lid despite our best efforts to jump on it with gusto. The whole case simply exudes solidity. Our only minor complaint with the design is that the two catches securing the lid need a bit of a whack in order to…

The images (or perhaps we should call them works) of Dutch visual artist Ruud van Empel are instantly recognisable, and like no other photographer. We say this, but then the photographer himself tells us he chose photography because “it does not have a recognisable style of its own. Drawing or painting do, but for me, photography is neutral. I like that.” Where realist painters might strive to create a photographic quality with their brush, Ruud turns this notion on its head, creating a sort of photoartificialism with his camera. You’re more likely to take Ruud’s photographs for paintings at a glance. Ruud van Empel is one of the more innovative and influential contemporary photographers working today. He has just exhibited for the third time in Huxley-Parlour Gallery, London (which represents…

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