Innehållsförteckning för September 2020 från Digital Camera Magazine

As the old saying goes, one spends money on cameras but invests in lenses – no matter how cutting-edge your camera’s tech is, the whole operation will fall apart if you screw a poor-quality optic into your lens mount. So we felt it was high time to celebrate some of the best glass ever made (p95). See if you can spot any of your own lens collection in our line-up – and why not play some best-ever lens bingo with your friends? Also this month, we have a treat for wildlife photographers (p56), some incredible images from the HIPA 2020 awards (p72), and pages of inspirational photo projects to shoot at or near home. Stay safe, stay well and enjoy the magazine. niall.hampton@futurenet.com TERRY DONNELLY We’re delighted to showcase an…

1/100 sec f/16 ISO 250 Photographing landscapes gives me the chance to get out into the freedom of nature and the outdoors, where I most feel at peace. So this year, I made a resolution: to get out shooting much more often, even if it was just in my local area. All started well, but sadly in March my resolution (and life as we knew it) was put on hold. Now that lockdown has been relaxed, I’ve been able to get back to my photographic passion, and return to my favourite locations to pick up where I left off. My go-to place is the Peak District, but I have a list of places I can’t wait to rush back to now that we can travel a bit further afield. I…

Camera Olympus OM-D E-M10 Lens 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 Exposure 1/800 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200 As someone who’s more inclined to shoot straightforward scenes of landscapes and cityscapes, it’s often good to try doing something completely different, just to mix up the thought process a little. Here’s a quick and easy way to add some creativity to any scene. If you’ve looked across social media platforms recently, there’s a good chance you’ll have seen the trend of Lensball photography: clear glass ‘crystal balls’ with what appears to be an upside-down world trapped inside. Capturing images with a field of view far greater than the human eye, it provides an escape from normality – and there’s lots of room for creativity, too! Available in many different sizes, a glass balls is an…

Luckily for me, I first learned the craft of documenting a day through images when I worked on low-budget films as a behind-the-scenes photographer. I learned the art of studying people and their behaviours, and predicting what was likely to happen next. Working on film sets is far easier than covering live events with thousands of people, but the principles are similar. I’ve had the good fortune to cover many marches, celebrations and protests in Bristol: Pride, Extinction Rebellion, St Paul’s Carnival, Harbourside, the Greta Thunberg Climate Rally and, most recently, Black Lives Matter. Prepare your kit – and yourself I typically start off in the morning by checking road closures, making sure my phone and a powerbank are fully charged. 99% of the time I will only take one…

Whether by land, air or sea, human beings have always sought to traverse the earth. The evolution of transportation has taken us from simple canoes to space travel – and that’s what we’re challenging you to capture in this issue’s Shooting Challenge! Whether we’re out trainspotting or rollerblading, we cannot get enough of hurtling past someone or something flying past us. If you’re out to capture speed, think carefully about your shutter speed and whether you want to freeze the action or depict motion through extreme blurring. Night-time light trails are a classic visual – if you can find a new creative angle on it. Speed is an obvious motif, but there are other sides to our transport revolution. According to Guinness World Records, the worst traffic jam to date…

IMAGE PRESENTATION MEGAPACK 97 FILES TO HELP PRESENT YOUR IMAGES LIKE A PRO! LOOK! In the Gifts folder of the digital download We’ve curated some highlights from recent digital gifts and combined them into a themed megapack. See page 6 for how to download it. Another boon of spending more time at home is that you can finally get around to displaying some of your favourite images. In issue 230, we showed you how to configure your printer for getting the best results. But there can be an intermediate stage between editing and printing, and that’s image presentation. This could be adding artistic borders, arranging a series of photos in a grid, or combining thematically linked shots into a triptych. We’ve covered these areas in previous issues, through the digital…

Wildlife has to be one of the most challenging yet rewarding genres that photography has to offer. You have to be up at the crack of dawn to get the best light and sit for hours in uncomfortable hides in cold and wet weather, then rely on luck that the animal you’re photographing will move into the perfect position to catch the light just right. That being said, when it all comes together and you’re able to get the shot that you’ve been working on for months to achieve, there’s simply no better feeling. I’ve learned how to make things a little easier over the years. Here I’m going to share my experience with you to make your wildlife photography more enjoyable, and clue you in on what equipment you…

TRY A TELECONVERTER These optical devices fit between the lens and the camera body to give you extra magnification and zoom. Many models are only compatible with top-tier optics, so double-check they fit your telephoto lens before buying. BREAK THE RULES AND SHOOT WITH A WIDE-ANGLE LENS You don’t always have to shoot with a long zoom lens: you can get shots that stand out from the crowd by getting close and shooting with a wide-angle lens, like a Nikkor AF-S 20mm f/1.8. AVOID BRIGHT COLOURS Be wary of brightly coloured and shiny metallic parts of tripods and accessories, as these will be easy for wild animals to spot. If you have no choice, you can add a camo covering or put black duct tape over it. POP-UP WILDLIFE HIDES…

Achieving pin-sharp shots of flying birds is no easy feat, but I’m going to show you how to bolster your chances of getting top pictures. Some birds, such as barn owls, actually fly rather gracefully and glide slowly through the air; while others, like puffins, are much more agile and acrobatic, darting through the air. They can be much more challenging to keep your active AF point hovering over them accurately. Here I explain how to use the right autofocus mode, to continually track the bird as it moves; how to expand the AF area, to give yourself more of a chance to focus on them; and how to automate your ISO value, to make sure you don’t have to worry about adjusting this variable and to ensure you get…

1st Prize Winner, Portfolio Christian Vizl Mag Gregor Christian was born in Mexico City and has been a photographer for over three decades. He has previously won dozens of international photography awards. “Marlin populations are steadily decreasing,” he says. “Today there are less than 10% in the wild of the numbers just a few years ago. I have devoted my life to exploring and contemplating the amazing beauty of the ocean; it has been an incredible journey that has brought me a deep feeling of connection with nature. Sadly, during my lifetime I have witnessed the ever-increasing devastation that humans are creating on this planet.” 2nd Place Winner, Portfolio Zhoufan Cui The Yalu River is now the border between China and North Korea. Wooden rafts have been transported on the…

Enter the Luminar Bug Photography Awards This new competition is is open for entries until 7 September, and its 11 categories cover all invertebrate species. The Grand Prize winner will bag £2,500, and there’s a category for ages 13-17. www.photocrowd.com/bugawards; from £6 ShiftCam ProLens range for iPhone 11 This six-strong range of pro-quality lenses covers focal lengths from 12mm to 75mm, plus a fisheye. Buy them individually or in a kit comprising five lenses in a carry case. shiftcam.uk; from £85/$85 or £400/$400 (kit) Get geared up with GoPro apparel The action cam king has diversified into lifestyle gear. Shop for clothing, bags and accessories that all showcase GoPro’s signature design and versatlity. gopro.com; from £20/$20 Lowepro adds three new GearUp products The American brand has expanded its GearUp range…

www.fujifilm.co.uk £749/$699 Specifications Sensor: 24.2MP APS-C CMOS Autofocus: Hybrid phase/contrast AF ISO range: 200-12,800 (exp. 100-51,200) Max image size: 6,000 x 4,000 Metering modes: 256-zone, multi, spot, average Video: 4K UHD, 30/25/24p Viewfinder: OLED EVF, 2.36m dots Memory card: SD/SDHC/SDXC (UHS I) Max burst: 8fps Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Size: 121 x 84 x 55mm Weight: 370g (including battery and memory card) Fujifilm is perhaps best known for its classically designed X-series cameras, with external exposure controls and traditional handling. It also makes entry-level mirrorless cameras in its X-A range, designed for first-time users and smartphone upgraders. The X-T200 sits right in the middle between these two camera ranges, with simplified controls for novices but providing an electronic viewfinder like the more advanced models. The X-T200 follows on from the Fujifilm…

The existence of galaxies was not recognised until the early 20th century. Since then, however, galaxies have become one of the focal points of astronomical investigation. Nature has provided an immensely varied array of galaxies, ranging from faint, diffuse dwarf objects to brilliant spiral-shaped giants. These variations result from the way in which the systems were formed and evolved. Here we’ll make our own galaxy without having to use Hubble’s latest telescope to see it. Transform clouds into stars To begin, take a shot of some clouds and open it up in Photoshop. Select Filter > Render > Clouds (turning the clouds into an abstract grey pattern) followed by Filter > Distort > Shear. You’ll be presented with a dialog box; with Wrap Around selected in the checkbox, drag the…

1 Make it stable Make sure the ball is on a stable surface or held steady in your hand. You don’t want it to roll away – or to injure someone if you’re shooting from up high! 2 Go wide Pick a wide-angle lens and set a wide aperture. The ball itself will do the work of keeping everything in the background in focus, so you don’t have to worry about that: you just need the ball itself to be sharp. 3 Don’t forget the background It can be a great addition to the scene if you shoot wide, but you’ll need to get very close to the ball if you want to ensure the background (the actual scene itself!) isn’t distracting from the contents of the ball. 4 Look…

The most difficult part of being creative at home is getting started. As a portrait photographer, I mainly work outdoors, or on location with a larger team. So I initially felt a little stuck creating a project at home. This is usually the case when I’m presented with a project that doesn’t involve other people to photograph or bounce around a few ideas. I always intended to create an abstract project. In the past we used to joke that if something didn’t quite go to plan, “Just turn it black and white, add some grain and call it art.” Joking aside, it’s best not to think about it for too long: just pick up your camera and start taking photos. I recently required a slightly longer lens, the Fujinon 56mm…

1 ‘My Spoons Runneth Over’ by Peter Baker “Searching for inspiration for a camera club competition entry, I spotted a picture with a spoon being tipped and syrup starting to overflow. From there it was a short leap to one spoon with syrup being poured into it and overflowing, but it looked a little empty, so I built up the frame from there. My wife helped me overcome the challenge of all the things that had to be held: three spoons, a syrup bottle, a flash and a remote trigger.” Digital Camera says: From the top of the frame to the bottom, this is a very well-executed image. Aside from the meticulous composition, with the spoons all arranged at complementary angles, and the even lighting, which Peter set up without…

With over a decade as a writer and photographer behind him, James knows exactly which Photoshop and Lightroom tools and techniques matter most. WATCH THE VIDEO! www.bit.ly/dc233edit FILE & VIDEO Download the disc: www.bit.ly/dc233disc Every image requires its own tailor-made treatment – but there are a few general edits you can apply to most, if not all, of the landscapes you shoot. The subject matter and camera settings you typically use for landscapes make some edits essential: this guide covers the key ones you need to make. One important edit is lens correction. To some extent, every lens you use has flaws. With landscapes, these flaws can be more noticeable, because we often shoot with wide-angles, and these tend to display greater fringing and barrel distortion. Luckily, lens issues are…

PERFECT PUFFINS PHOTOGRAPH THE CLOWNS OF THE SEA FROM LATE APRIL THROUGH TO AUGUST 1 RSPB Bempton Cliffs, England There’s a whole seabird city at Bempton Cliffs – full of puffins, gannets and razorbills, to name but a few, in the summer. rspb.org.uk 2 Skomer Island, Wales You can get quite a bit closer to the birds on Skomer Island, and even stay overnight on the limited accommodation. welshwildlife.org 3 RSPB South Stack, Wales This brilliant site on the island of Anglesey is home to puffin, guillemot, peregrine, razorbill and more! rspb.org.uk 4 RSPB Rathlin West Light, NI At Northern Ireland’s biggest seabird colony, see puffins, fulmar and kittiwake, and take in the stunning panorama. rspb.org.uk RED SQUIRRELS THE UK’S RARE AND ELUSIVE NATIVE SQUIRREL Red squirrel numbers are under…

You don’t have to go to a specific bird hide or animal park to capture great wildlife photos. Some of my favourite pictures have been taken in my own back garden. If you have your own green space, why not make the most of it? Set up some bird feeders and photogenic branches for birds to perch on and a makeshift hide they can get accustomed to, so you don’t scare them off. The idea is to place your branches or logs near to the feeders to entice birds to perch on them when they’re not feeding. This will make for a cleaner and more natural bird portrait than a snap of them on the feeders. Set up in a part of your garden that is getting plenty of light,…

Capturing quality action wildlife pictures in the garden without the scene actually resembling a garden can be challenging, but it is possible. Think about the direction sunlight comes from, and what your viewpoint should be. Shooting into sunlight often causes flaring and reduced saturation, and can affect your camera’s metering and autofocus systems. Try to position your camera so the sunlight will come from behind you, taking care you don’t cast a shadow into the scene. For more dramatic light, position your camera with the sun to the side. Next, consider the background to the subject. Try to avoid overly cluttered or busy backgrounds. Ideally you will have a clean background that you can blur through the lens using a wide aperture setting. The greater the distance between your subject…

www.dxo.com £125/$149 Windows Requires: Intel Core 2 or AMD Athlon 64 X2 or higher; 4GB of RAM (8GB recommended); Windows 8.1 or 10 (64-bit); Microsoft Surface is not supported macOS Requires: Intel Core i5 or higher; 4GB of RAM (8 GB recommended); macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) or later Compatibility Photoshop CS5 (64-bit) or later; Photoshop Elements 13 or later (except HDR Efex Pro); Lightroom 3 or later; Affinity Photo 1.8 or later With the release of version 3, Nik Collection is now a set of eight plug-ins. Six were originally developed by Nik Software and sold individually, then bought by Google and sold as a single suite, with the addition of Analog Efex Pro; they were then discontinued and given away free, and finally rescued by DxO and relaunched as…

There’s a new generation of image-editing software, designed to take advantage of modern computing power and technologies to give you complete creative control over your photos. Developed by Skylum, the company behind Aurora HDR, Photolemur and other programs, Luminar combines image-editing and photo browsing in one versatile, powerful package. Import, browse and rate your images, then make enhancements or apply Looks, ready-made effects that transform your photo with a click. Then go beyond the basics with tools to replace skies instantly, enhance portraits automatically, insert new objects or remove them from the scene, enrich your photos with sunrays, reveal detail, and much more! Luminar 4 is compatible with both macOS and Windows, and you can use it both as a stand-alone program and as a plugin for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements,…

10 things to shoot, edit or create this month, including Lensball landscapes and a new twist on sports shots Everyone in the classroom wanted to know what went on behind the black revolving door. Older students went in, but never came out. On occasion, a strange pungent smell would pierce our noses and send everyone wild: “Sir, what is that rank smell?” This was my first introduction to the mystery that was darkroom photography. Little did I know it would become a lifelong obsession. A lot has changed since then. I still have a love of film, but I shoot with my Sony A7 II when I travel. This perfectly formed travelling companion helped me win the Fine-Art People’s Choice category at this year’s British Photography Awards, and later secured…

How did you develop this technique? I was looking out of my window one quiet spring day and wondered what had happened over time on that bit of sidewalk. If I could see it all at once, it would turn black with people, birds, cars, and every other random thing that passed by. I realised I could capture this chaos with a camera. What’s the basic technique? Put your camera on a tripod and take 1,000 to 3,000 pictures. Back in the studio, find an empty scene to be the background. Paste in a whole frame so it registers perfectly, and mask out what you don’t want. I repeat this hundreds of times until I’m happy with the composition. Do some sports work better than others? Yes. The ideal team…

FREE camera bag worth £90! Get this great Vanguard shoulder bag by subscribing today at: myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/dcm/vra1 or call 0344 848 2852 and quote ‘VRA1’ * Terms and Conditions: This offer is only available for new UK subscribers. Gift is subject to availability (MSRP £89.99). Gift colour may vary. Please allow up to 60 days for the delivery of your gift. In the event of stocks being exhausted we reserve the right to replace with items of similar value. You will receive 13 issues in a subscription year. You can cancel your subscription within 14 days of purchase. Payment is non-refundable after the 14 day cancellation period unless exceptional circumstances apply. Your statutory rights are not affected. Prices correct at point of print and subject to change. Full details of the…

PART 5 OF 6 Photo website building 101 Last issue, we showed how to build a photography website from scratch in WordPress, a popular content management system (CMS). It’s a straightforward alternative to enlisting the services of a dedicated website-builder platform like SmugMug, Squarespace or Wix. Websites built on a CMS are more sophisticated than those consisting of ‘static’ pages of text, and are essential for the display of photos. Images are stored in a database and ‘served’ to site users as required; the website’s host CMS accepts requests from a remote computer and instructs the server to send the data. Site development using WordPress favours tech-familiar folk who don’t mind the idea of getting under the hood of websites, although being able to write computer code isn’t a prerequisite.…

With over a decade as a writer and photographer behind him, James knows exactly which Photoshop and Lightroom tools and techniques matter most. When you shoot close-up macro subjects, the depth of field will be very shallow, and the plane of sharpness your camera can capture may only stretch a few millimetres across the subject, even when you use narrower apertures. It can be a struggle to record a sharp close-up from front to back. If you need total sharpness, try focus-stacking. This involves taking a series of shots using a tripod-mounted camera, adjusting the focus ring after each frame so that a different part of the scene is in focus. The sharp parts can then be merged into one super-detailed macro photo. Affinity Photo offers a powerful focus stacking…

WATCH THE VIDEO! www.bit.ly/dc233hair With over a decade as a writer and photographer behind him, James knows exactly which Photoshop and Lightroom tools and techniques matter most. FILE & VIDEO Download the disc: www.bit.ly/dc233disc While Lightroom, Camera Raw and other raw editors have seen huge improvements over the past few years, they still can’t compare with Photoshop in terms of selection tools. In this case, Photoshop blows away the competition with an array of hugely powerful commands that make it easy to cut out complicated subjects – like our model here. Imagine trying to remove the original background behind her by hand: it could take hours – maybe even days – to get rid of all the bits of background showing through her curly hair. But with the advanced selection…

f/2.8 1/200 sec ISO 200 FANTASTIC FOXES Dan spotted this fox visiting his garden regularly in the evenings, so in anticipation of another visit he positioned a flashgun off-camera and aimed it in the general direction where he thought the fox may wander. Although there’s a wide choice of accessories to help you get closer to wild animals, and help you blend into the scenery, you can get started with minimal kit. A basic DSLR or a mirrorless camera with a budget telephoto lens will do the job; you only really need to splash out on a more advanced camera if you need the higher frame rate for fast-moving animals. For shooting stationary subjects, entry-level kit is ideal. Here are some of our top suggestions to consider for capturing wildlife.…

There’s a brilliant choice of deer parks dotted around the UK. They’re home to our six native species as well as hosting breeds from further afield. (See our location guide on page 59.) Whatever type you choose to photograph, they all look fantastic in autumn and winter, when you can use the beautiful golden light at sunrise to illuminate your ‘fallow’ friends. The rutting season starts in late September and lasts until November; but even past this, going into the winter months, deer are ideal subjects for honing your camera skills on. If you have a deer park close to home, then make repeated visits in time for sunrise. After repeated shoots, you’ll realise where the best spots are to shoot from, to capture deer at a distance and understand…

Go to www.digitalcameraworld.com for the latest news, reviews & techniques Nikon launches Z 5 Entry level full-frame mirrorless will sit between the Z 6 and Z 50 and aims to convert DSLR users and drive upgrades from cameraphones The Nikon Z 5 was officially announced last month, and is a 24.3MP full-frame camera that sits between the Z 50 and the Z 6. Unlike those models, the Z 5 features dual memory card slots – and can be bought with a new kit lens. Although it packs a different sensor than the one used in the Z 6, the Z 5 nevertheless borrows many of the Z 6’s features, such as its 273-point hybrid AF system (which can perform Animal AF) five-axis in-body image stabilisation, a ISO 100-51,200 sensitivity range,…

www.canon.co.uk £4,199/$3,899 Specifications Sensor: 45MP full-frame CMOS 36 x 24mm Image processor: Digic X AF points: 5,940 Dual Pixel CMOS AF II ISO range: 100-51,200 (expandable to 50-102,400) Stabilisation: Five-axis, up to eight stops Max image size: 8,192 x 5,464px Metering zones: 384 Video: 8K DCI or UHD at 30p, 24p / 4K DCI or UHD at 120p, 100p, 60p, 50p, 30p, 25p, 24p / 1080p (Full HD) at 60p, 50p, 30p, 25p, 24p Viewfinder: 0.5-inch OLED EVF, 5,690k dots, 100% coverage, 0.76x magnification, 120fps refresh rate Memory card: CFexpress type B, UHS-II SD/SDHC/SDXC LCD: 3.15-inch fully articulating touchscreen, 2,100k dots Max burst: 12fps mechanical shutter, 20fps electronic shutter Connectivity: Wi-Fi 5GHz and 2.4GHz, Bluetooth 4.2, USB-C (USB 3.1 Gen 2), micro HDMI (type D), microphone, headphone, N3 remote, flash…