Indholdsfortegnelse for No. 357 i Photography Week

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A critical component in a successful photoshoot is planning. Whether this comprises physically visiting a location to seek out potential images, or simply making contacts and speaking to relevant experts in a certain field before committing to a trip, planning can be seen as the foundation of a stress-free, highly efficient and enjoyable photography session. Location scouting is an aspect that most commonly applies to landscape, travel and possibly event photographers, since those focused on such genres are aiming to capture extremely context-specific images. For these photographers location isn’t merely a backdrop for their subject, it’s often the subject itself, so it’s of great importance to understand the environment and be able to predict conditions to enable the capture of the best possible perspectives. When we first arrive on location,…

When conducting a first visit to a new location there are certain markers you may look for, to provide creative ideas and confirm it as a place to revisit. While the images you make on such a shoot may be portfolio-worthy, the kit you use should provide the best opportunity for capturing photographic ‘sketches’ rather than final pictures. You may find that using the ‘wrong’ lens for a final composition actually gives more usable, informative reference shots. 1 18-200MM A popular focal range among travel photographers, the super-zoom gives maximum versatility of composition, from wideangle to medium telephoto. There is a trade-off in image quality, with overall lower sharpness and the widest settings often displaying barrel distortion, however this is the perfect lens for trying many different framing possibilities. 2…

1 ND GRAD FILTERS The filter type you should take on location depends on the terrain you find. For complex horizons, a soft grad set is best to avoid over-darkening the foreground, but consider a 0.3 hard grad where the horizon line will be partially visible at sunrise or sunset. 2 TRIPOD TYPE At unfamiliar locations experiment with setting up your tripod on different surfaces to confirm it will be suitable. Confidence that your tripod will support the camera on rock, sand and grass will save rushed position adjustments in changeable light. 3 TRIPOD HEAD Multi-functional heads are useful for everyday photography but may not be ideal for specific requirements. If you find a location that’s suitable for panoramic photography, consider taking only a panoramic head. 4 DIFFUSERS For portraits…

1 WORK WITHOUT A TRIPOD While you may use camera support on your final shoot, working handheld when testing possible compositions allows you greater freedom to try creative framing options. A more rapid re-framing procedure enables a far more efficient visit. 2 VARY THE FOCAL LENGTH Once you’ve secured some standard, ‘safe’ compositions, try changing lenses to experiment with framing options at other focal length extremes. A 70-200mm lens is an effective tool for isolating smaller location details or lightly compressing perspective. 3 ORIENTATIONS Switch to an alternative framing arrangement to see what effect this has on your images’ context. A portrait frame will emphasise foreground and scene depth. For every frame consider rotating the camera to maximise image possibilities in future shoots. 4 BEHIND-THE-SCENES Use your smartphone or a…

LACK OF COLOUR The photographer had hoped to capture autumnal colours in this forest, but these had yet to materialise. A return visit was not possible so software solutions had to be considered. 1 BASIC TEMPERATURE ADJUSTMENTS Open the raw file in Camera Raw, Lightroom or Capture and adjust the white balance. Try selecting Shade from the Preset list and increase Temperature and Tint further, to introduce a warm cast. Increase Vibrance to improve understated colours. 2 OPEN IN PHOTOSHOP Many of the steps in this tutorial can be conducted in Camera Raw, but here we’ll use the power of layer masks in Photoshop to achieve more interactive colour control. Photoshop also offers multiple colour correction features, which can easily be combined. 3 HUE/SATURATION The first step is to strengthen…

It’s true that the best-laid plans rarely solve all problems relating to getting what we want – a notion universally accepted by photographers with experience. Location scouting is an essential step towards ensuring we’re as prepared as we can be to capture the best aspects of a site once we arrive, but there are certain factors we simply can’t account for in our planning. Nature is notoriously difficult to predict, hence the requirement for adaptability to weather, but there are other contributors to the success or failure of a photoshoot. For example, people play a larger role than is perhaps obvious in some genres. Even landscape photography can be impacted on by human factors. Land itself is often owned by an estate or individual, so it’s possible to arrive on-location…

Photographer John Erwin describes his thought process behind location scouting and finding new locations Tell us about yourself. What are your photographic specialisms? I’m a landscape photographer specialising in photographs of County Durham and the north-east of England. I have done commercial work, commissions, markets, retail selling along with online sales from my website and photographic tuition. Flexibility in my work process has opened opportunities for me and enabled me to undertake work for a range of clientele. As things have changed quite a lot over recent years this flexibility has helped me adapt towards the changes in the marketplace. What do you look for when visiting a new location for the first time – how do you decide if it’s worth revisiting? What I look for when visiting a…

Sony has confirmed that a new Sony A7R Mark IV will join its full-frame camera stable. The A7R IV is the latest arrival in the company’s hugely popular A7 line of mirrorless cameras, and follows the A7R III, which was released in 2017. With a new back-illuminated 61MP sensor at its heart, resolution is once again very much the focus here. This pixel count is a significant step up from the 42.4MP A7R Mark III, and ahead of the 47.3MP Panasonic S1R, which has, up until now, offered the highest sensor resolution on a full-frame mirrorless camera. The sensor can also be used in an APS-C crop mode, outputting images at 26MP, while it promises 15 stops of dynamic range. The A7R Mark IV arrives with five-axis image stabilisation built…

The one contiguous element in all images in any genre of photography is lighting. Whether you aim to shoot portraits, landscapes, wildlife or macro images, the intensity, direction, variance and controllability of light will impact on the success of your images. Unless you’re working in a studio, where you have full, unlimited control over every light source and its spread, planning for changes in lighting and learning to adapt your approach to exploit that which is available to you is an essential professional skill. When scouting locations, light should be high on your list of parameters to assess. This may be a case of working out where the sun will be in the sky at the time you intend to conduct your shoot, or when it will appear at a…

1 PRE-DAWN Before the sun rises, the cool hues in the sky complement foregrounds with good contrast and illumination. Cityscapes or landscapes with artificial light sources are perfect scenes for this time, as are reflective bodies of water. Reflective foregrounds can appear dull due to low contrast. 2 SUNRISE Once the sun is up contrast is much higher. The surface of water can quickly lose highlight detail, so look for compositions with a lower perspective to minimise their visibility in the frame, while featuring the sun and its directional lighting in the frame. 3 MIDDAY/AFTERNOON While not ideal for many landscapes, high-contrast midday lighting compliments modern architecture or strong black and white landscapes. This may not be the best time to scout locations, as the light isn’t representative of any…

1 EXPLORE THE LOCATION When you first arrive leave your camera gear packed away and explore the area on foot. If you’re completely unfamiliar with the location check for potential subject matter, or if it’s well photographed, look for the key aspects. 2 SHOOT WIDE Start with a wide focal length and frame images that incorporate a large amount of detail. This compresses the scene into the confines of a frame, which will help you identify where it’s best to try and direct viewer attention. 3 SELECT A LENS Now that you’ve picked out key areas of the scene to focus on, pick a lens you feel will best represent your subject. Unless there’s an obvious need for a specific lens, standard focal lengths form a simple starting point. 4 CHANGE CAMERA…

UNBALANCED FRAMING This image doesn’t adhere to the standard rules of composition, with too much space to the right side of the tree 1 DUPLICATE BACKGROUND To make the process as non-destructive as possible, and ensure we can adjust the results of edits made by the Content Aware tools, make a copy of the background layer (Cmd/Ctrl+J) and work on this. The ability to use layer masking will be useful later. 2 MAKE A SELECTION Use one of the Lasso tools to make a selection of the object you need to move within the frame. We used the Polygonal Lasso here to roughly draw an outline around the tree. Make sure you try to follow the object’s shape as closely as possible. 3 MOVE THE OBJECT Here the tree is…

CORE LOCATION CHALLENGES 1 Unstable terrain 2 Busy foreground 3 Open to the elements 4 Water vibrations 5 Flat horizon SETTING THE SCENE Taking a step back to study this location by eye and via test shots allowed challenges to become clear and avoidance strategies to be calculated. BEHIND THE SCENES Reconsider your choice of shooting position to vary interest in your shoot series. Recording where you captured a successful image from can help plan future images.…

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The UK canine institution The Kennel Club has announced the winners of its 2019 Dog Photographer of the Year competition. The contest, which is now in its 14th year, attracted almost 7,000 entries from dog-loving photographers around the globe. The competition features categories including Puppies (obviously), Oldies, Dogs at Work, Dogs at Play and Man’s Best Friend. This year’s overall winner was Swiss photographer Denise Czichocki for her image Dreaming Merlin, featuring a 14-year-old rescue dog named Podengo, which you can see above along with three more of our favourite shots; the image also took first place in the Oldies category. Click the link to see more photos at the competition website, and to learn more about the Kennel Club. SEE MORE IMAGES http://tiny.cc/idbv9y…

Sigma has announced its eagerly anticipated new full-frame mirrorless camera. The Sigma FP measures just 45.3 x 112.6 x 69.9mm and weighs just 370g without a lens, which qualifies it as the world’s smallest and lightest full-frame mirrorless model. The camera uses a 24.6MP back-illuminated full-frame sensor with no optical low-pass filter. However, while it was excepted that Sigma would employ its Foveon X3 sensor, as in previous Sigma models, it instead adopts the more conventional Bayer colour filter array that’s used in many other cameras. As expected, the camera will also use the L mount, and the model has been pictured with the new 45mm f/2.8 DG DN Contemporary that’s also been announced. Sigma is one of three partners in the L-mount alliance, along with Panasonic and Leica. The…

1 FLICKR While known as a great platform for showcasing work, Flickr’s search features allow rapid recall of images tagged with appropriate keywords. Functionality is simple, while a map can be displayed if the uploader provided location data. The vast number of image contributors creates an inclusive database of preview images even of lesser-known sites. 2 GOOGLE MAPS Providing interactive remote exploration of even the most geographically distant location, Google Maps and Street View offer a fantastic resource for assessing terrain, checking accessibility and planning potential compositions. Due to coverage and challenges of scouting affordability, these are especially useful for travel and cityscape locations. Save permalinks to maps for instant recall. 3 SOCIAL MEDIA While not necessarily the best choice of photographic repository, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram provide an exhaustive…

TPE is an established method of calculating lighting for future shoots. Available as a web interface or as an application for mobile devices, the software enables the photographer to enter information about the time and date of a proposed photoshoot, and will display a diagram of where in the sky the sun or moon will be. This enables a shooting position to be chosen in advance and with accuracy, to deliver images with the ideal composition and an appropriate exposure.…

Composition is likely the foremost ingredient on a photographer’s mind when location scouting, whether the intention is to capture a pre-planned frame, or to seek out effective images at an unfamiliar site. The question we should ask ourselves before heading out to find a location is whether our choice of composition will affect our selection of site, or if the inverse is true and we’re willing to adapt our framing decisions based on the picture opportunities provided by the location. This can help us form a structured plan of what to look for, what we hope to achieve in the final results and therefore the lengths we’re willing to go to capture these target images. More challenging locations often provide image opportunities with a higher perceived worth by viewers, but…

1 OPEN YOUR IMAGE Load an image suffering from camera shake. This image had to be shot handheld due to newly introduced restrictions on tripod use. Use Filter > Sharpen > Shake Reduction to load the filter dialogue to improve apparent detail. 2 ADJUST FILTER STRENGTH Move the Blur Trace Boundary slider to change the radius of the filter effect. For stronger blur use a higher setting. For the best results add more blur sources to customise the effect on a more local basis. 3 REDUCE NOISE Since the Shake Reduction Filter is essentially a sharpening tool, the process can introduce grain. If this occurs, as happened on this high-ISO file, move the Smoothing Slider to compensate. Be careful not to blur too much detail.…

30 MINS There are dedicated accessories called gobos (go between objects) that are designed to fit on your flashgun, to modify the shape of the light falling on your subject. There are a plethora of designs to choose from, but you needn’t fork out cash for a pretty pattern – you can use many objects you may have around the house, like the crocheted blanket we’re using here. The trick to using any kind of modifier to create patterns is to keep it close to your subject – hard light, from small, undiffused light sources, will produce the best results. If you’re shooting with window light, or doing this project outside, you’ll need to make sure you choose a clear day with direct sunlight, as clouds will soften the light,…