Innehållsförteckning för October 2022 från Digital Camera Magazine

Today, I’m off to Hampshire to visit Natasha, aka T ‘Abstract Reality’, as she prefers to be known. Some regular readers might already be familiar with Natasha as a model from various tutorials, and also seen her in the remote shooting project in Photo Active from issue 257. Today, however, everything will be live and in person as Natasha shows us around her Neon Dreams studio along with her models Domi and Alicja. Arriving just after midday, I have a quick catch-up with Natasha to finalise some details. We decide to start shooting on her bespoke homemade neon-signed wall – a dark, wooden wall on wheels that’s covered in a multitude of neon signs. Natasha says she’ll be shooting everything on a single lens, the Fujinon XF35mm f/1.4: “This is…

1 Focal length My Olympus 60mmf/2.8 Macro lens (120mm in full-frame terms) is one of the shorter focal lengths for macro, but it has the advantage of a very close focusing distance, of around 10cm. It is perfect for shooting flowers or still objects like these mushrooms, although you would struggle to capture a dragonfly at this focal length. 2 Stop down a little Most macro lenses can be used wide open at f/2.8. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to shoot that way. With macro photography, everything is exaggerated and shooting wide open might leave your image with far more blurry areas than you’d like. I tend to narrow the aperture a little to get slightly more in focus. 3 Get down to the ground This is where macro photography gets…

Any scene that doesn’t rely on colour for its success has the potential to make a great subject for a black and white treatment. Landscapes are an obvious candidate – look to masters of the art such as Ansel Adams, Sebastião Salgado and Michael Kenna for inspiration. There are many different approaches you can take with scenics – from introspective minimalism and luxurious long exposures, to dark, dense and moody. Still life is another area where black and white brings a timeless quality, but portraits of animals and people, plant and flower details, night photography, street photography and architecture all make wonderful subjects. You don’t have to travel to an iconic location to take great mono pictures, either – there will be plenty of opportunities around your own home. Why…

1 ‘Rownhams Woods’ by Stephen Hill-Cousins “This was one of those very lucky cold and frosty mornings where the sun burst through the trees, its rays lit by the fog. I took photo after photo until I was completely gorged.” Digital Camera says: A very peaceful shot, Stephen – we’d love to see a dramatic black and white version. Would it be worth editing out the short stump in the centre? 2 ‘Grey Ghost’ by Korban Schwab “A great grey owl on its morning hunt in Alberta, Canada. I had seen this same owl on previous mornings so I positioned myself and got lucky as it circled around and headed right at me.” Digital Camera says: Capturing birds in flight is never an easy task, Korban, but you’ve absolutely nailed this…

www.sigma-global.com The Sigma 16-28mm F2.8 DG DN | C sets out to beat Tamron at its own game. A while ago, Tamron launched a brace of comparatively compact and lightweight f/2.8 wide-angle and standard zooms in the shape of the 17-28mm f/2.8 Di III RXD and 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III VXD, the latter of which has been replaced by the G2. Sigma has followed suit with a pair of ‘Contemporary’ lenses at the same budget-friendly prices: the 16-28mm F2.8 DG DN | C and 28-70mm f/2.8 DG DN | C. A key feature of any wide-angle lens is just how wide-angle it actually is. Being a millimetre shorter than the Tamron 17-28mm, the Sigma gives a slightly larger maximum viewing angle of 107 degrees, compared with the Tamron’s 103 degrees.…

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Anne Morin Curator and publisher The general editor of a new book about Vivian Maier takes us behind the camera of this extraordinary late-20th century photographer, from page 118 Natasha aka Abstract Reality Fashion photographer Model turned photographer Natasha uses a variety of studio items to create her distinctive take on fashion. Page 8 Laura Shepherd Macro photographer Macro photography can be used to open up new worlds, says Laura. She shows us how, by focusing on the fabulous world of fungi, from page 36 Jon Devo Photographer & writer Jon likes to ponder the impact of technology on photography. Is there an alternative to algorithms deciding what constitutes a good photograph? Find out on page 104 Dan Harnett Photographer Previously a sailor, Dan likes to explore the human relationship…

Also known as the ‘model village’ look, the tilt-shift style of photography is a well-known creative effect. There are different ways to produce it: you can use a dedicated tilt-shift lens to achieve it optically with a camera or, if like most people you don’t have access to such a specialist piece of kit, you can create tilt-shift during the editing stage. A tilt-shift lens us widely used for professional architectural photography, where perspective flaws from a non tilt-shift lens need to be controlled – a glossy property brochure can’t have tall buildings appearing to converge towards the top. In simple terms, to remove these ‘converging verticals’, a tilt-shift optic allows the lens to be tilted one way to move the image so that it’s no longer parallel to the…

I am a self-taught photographer, and first I started practising landscape photography around 10 years ago. I remember seeing some beautiful images that inspired me to get out with my camera, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. There wasn’t a huge amount of information on the internet at the time, so I invested in some photography books to help me improve in some areas, such as framing and composition. As well as reading books, I took my camera out exploring whenever I could. Any spare time was spent practising and developing my craft. This is where I learned my most valuable lessons. Practising with my camera not only taught me what a good photo looks like, but also taught me how to recognise a bad one. In…

My photography is an expression of my life’s voyage, creating images that explore the human relationship with the sea and coast, conjuring images and stories of days gone by. Inspired by my past experiences of life in the merchant navy and of growing up on the Kent coast, I am very aware of how incredibly harsh, beautiful and inspiring this environment can be. My portfolios focus on a particular theme or subject matter, with the completed works being an abstraction of a previous experience or encounter at sea. With a particular project in mind, I spend many hours along the coast in search of suitable subject matter, whether this be abandoned vessels or flotsam and jetsam randomly washed ashore. As an artist I see images within the ruin and decay…

Winner: Grand Prize ‘Gannet Storm’ Henley Spiers, United Kingdom “A northern gannet swims in an artistic shower of bubbles created by diving seabirds. When hunting mode is activated, yellow eyes filled with blue circles are put on alert, then sweep across the water for prey. The gannet’s long wings and streamlined bodies make it easy to fly. When the fish are spotted, they position themselves in the wind and extend their wings as brakes to precisely adjust their position in relation to their prey. The speed of these amazing birds hitting the water reaches 100 kilometres per hour, slashing the surface of the water like a living torpedo, absorbing the huge blow through their strong skull and protective airbags in the head and chest. “The sound of her penetrating the…

There are two ways to go grey with your digital camera: shoot in black and white or shoot in colour and then remove it later in software. If you carry out the mono conversion on a computer then you’ll have more options, such as being able to lighten or darken individual colours for more dynamic results. Plus, you can always revert back to the colour image and start again, should you wish. If you shoot in colour then you’ve essentially got two options: record the image as a JPEG or a RAW file. Shooting RAW preserves your camera’s best quality and enables you to undo decisions you made in-camera. You can tweak the exposure and potentially reveal detail that might otherwise be lost in overexposed highlights or underexposed shadows. If…

Buying a new camera system is just about B that – the system. It’s all well and good getting a great body but, if it doesn’t have the lenses you need, it’s not going to do what you want it to. So if you want to make a Wise Buy, you need to consider the optics as well as the camera. There are some great crop-sensor systems that offer you compact size without compromising quality, from Micro Four Thirds cameras like the Olympus PEN E-P7 to APS-C bodies like the Fujifilm X-T30. If you want a portable powerhouse that can even use your existing DSLR lenses, though, look no further than the Canon EOS M50 II with the Canon EF-M 55-200mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM. Canon’s M50 series is probably the…

With over a decade as a writer and photographer behind him, James knows exactly which Photoshop and Lightroom tools and techniques matter most. The Landscape Mixer tool is one of Photoshop’s new range of filters that uses artificial intelligence to automatically alter your photos. This filter takes elements from other landscape photos and mixes them in with yours. Here, the filter has mixed in a sunset mood from another photo and added a long exposure look to the sea to give the choppy waters a misty quality. Like most automated AI tools, the results are impressive yet far from perfect. The leap in technology here is truly staggering; the ability to automatically recognise the different parts of a photo and splice in another landscape is genuinely impressive. But while marvelling…

www.nikon.co.uk Specifications Sensor: 20.9MP APS-C CMOS Image processor: EXPEED 6 AF points: 209-point hybrid AF system ISO range: 100-51,200 (expandable to ISO 204,800) Video: Uncropped 4K UHD up to 30p, 1080p Full HD up to 120p Viewfinder: None Memory card: SD/SDHC/SDXC, UHS-I LCD: 3-inch vari-angle touchscreen, 1040k dots Max burst: 11fps Stabilisation: Electronic Vibration Reduction (video only) Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, SnapBridge, USB-C, micro HDMI, microphone Size: 128 x 73.5 x 59.5mm Weight: 350g body only (405g with battery and memory card) Nikon’s third mirrorless Z-series camera with a DX (APS-C) sensor has arrived in the guise of the Z 30. It joins the original Nikon Z 50 – launched over two years ago – and the more recent Nikon Z fc, which is essentially the same camera with retro-themed, direct-access…

www.panasonic.com Specifications Sensor: Full-frame CMOS ISO range: 100 to 51,200 (extended: 80 to 204,800) Dynamic range: 14 stops Lens mount: Leica L mount LCD: No Autofocus: Contrast detect, tracking Recording formats: H.265/H.265 Long GOP/MOV 4:2:2 10-Bit 4096 x 2160 at 23.98p/25p/29.97p [100 to 400 Mb/s] 3840 x 2160 at 23.98p/25p/29.97p [100 to 400 Mb/s] 3328 x 2496 at 23.98p/24.00p/25p/29.97p [150 to 400 Mb/s] 1920 x 1080 at 23.98p/29.97p/59.94p [100 to 200 Mb/s] 1920 x 1080 at 50i/59.94i [50 to 100 MB/s] H.265/H.265 Long GOP/MOV 4:2:0 10-Bit 5952 x 3968 at 23.98p/24.00p/25p [200 Mb/s] 5376 x 3584 at 25p/29.97p [200 Mb/s] 5888 x 3312 at 23.98p/25p/29.97p [200 Mb/s] 4096 x 2160 at 23.98p/24.00p/29.97p/48.00p/50p/59.94p [200 Mb/s] H.265/H.265 Long GOP/MOV 4:2:0 10-Bit 1920 x 1080 at 100p/119.88p [150 Mb/s] 1920 x 1080 at…

9 PHOTO TIPS CARDS TO TAKE ON LOCATION! This special autumn-themed selection of tips cards gives wallet-sized advice on topics such as wildlife, landscapes, portraits and fireworks. ALL-NEW TIPS CARDS! ✓ 9 subjects ✓ Techniques ✓ Settings ✓ Kit list Actions, LUTs and a preset for Affinity Photo, Photoshop and Lightroom We’ve curated a great selection of software extras to complement this issue’s tutorials and give your shots a professional look. You can find them with this issue’s other bonus digital gifts – see the instructions below. 15 MONO LOOKUP TABLES! Turn to page 74 Buyer’s Guide ebook Over 270 pages of camera and lens reviews, plus buying advice for accessories! See the Gifts folder in your download. HOW TO GET YOUR DIGITAL GIFTS STEP 1 ENTER THIS URL www.digitalcameraworld.com/dc260…

For me – and I’m sure it’s the same for many other people F – autumn is an incredible time for photography. It gives us the magic of vibrant colours, crisp mornings and beautiful sunsets. Year on year, though, you might find yourself shooting not only exactly the same images as the time before, but the exact same images as everyone else around you. So I set off for Bath’s Royal Victoria Park to try to shoot some alternative images that would still show autumn in a more abstract way. Armed with my Fujifilm X100V, I tinkered with my in-camera settings to create a pleasing black and white style where I could simply go out to find some autumnal textures and shoot. Pretty much anyone can pop out to their…

I have always been fascinated by wildlife. Nature has been present as a source of inspiration in my artistic journey and personal life. I was born in Tandil, Argentina. In 2001 I moved to Spain, where I lived for 12 years and studied an Illustration degree in Barcelona. Photography has always been with me, but it became my main hobby while I was exploring Bristol. I slowly started to upgrade my equipment, first for bird photography, and then after a holiday in Portland I got into macro photography. One thing that is very helpful when photographing wildlife is that you need to know about the habits and behaviour of the species you are pursuing. This sort of pattern works very well for some species of butterfly, as they usually go…

This is another image from my recent trip on a ship. It was taken toward the end of the voyage, and I had been at sea in the north Atlantic for about five days without seeing land. While there were a bunch of passengers and crew, I was travelling solo, which on the whole I don’t mind. However, it can start to feel a bit weird after so many days in the ocean. This lone rock was taken not long after arriving in the Newfoundland port town of St John, conveniently on Canada Day. It was a glorious day, and delightful to set foot on land again. I chose this image to talk about this month as apart from quite liking it, I feel it also has an autobiographical element,…

Every season has its pros and cons when it comes to photographic opportunities, but when you look at autumn’s long list of benefits, you can understand why it’s a time of year that has been getting creative people excited for centuries. As the green canopy of summer begins to evolve into more muted but highly evocative oranges and reds, and the skeletal shape of woodland starts to appear, the transformation of the natural world seems made for inspirational photography. With sunrise and sunset occurring at more civilised hours, and changeable weather that can bring glorious sunshine one minute and dark, stormy skies the next, autumn’s appeal is undeniable. Of course, there are some downsides, though. Unpredictable and cooler weather can drive you indoors, but the bonus here is that you…

Photographers shooting on black and white film were able to attach colour filters to the front of the lens in order to improve contrast. Each filter would allow its colour to pass through and become lighter in the image, but block the complementary colour and make that darker. A red filter would make a red rose appear paler than it was in reality, for example, and make a blue sky appear much darker (helping white clouds to stand out against it). Digital cameras can achieve these effects without the need to put coloured filters in front of the lens. If you save your images as JPEGs or HEIFs in-camera, then the filter effect is baked into to the image. Shoot RAW, and you’ll be able to preview the effect, but…

Some black and white shots can be improved by applying selective tonal adjustments – using the classic dodging (to lighten an area) and burning (to darken an area) techniques that darkroom technicians used to carry out when developing black and white prints. These days, it’s all done with digital brushes and gradients. If you’re processing a raw file then you’ll be able to use selection brushes or gradients to paint an area and then apply adjustments, such as making the shadows darker or the highlights brighter – all within the RAW interface. You can also use the dedicated Dodge and Burn tools that are available in the main editor when you’re working on a JPEG. To keep things natural, start with subtle settings rather than turning everything up to 100%.…

Horst A Friedrichs Documentary and portrait photographer Title: ‘The Haunch of Venison, Salisbury’ Location: England Date: 2022 Instagram: @horstfriedrichs Admired all over the world – and seldom imitated with any degree of success – there’s something unique about the quintessential English pub. So what a great assignment it must have been for the documentary and portrait photographer Horst A Friedrichs, who photographed 33 of the country’s most notable pubs for a new hardback book, Great Pubs of England, a collaboration with travel journalist Stuart Husband. Covering 18 notable hostelries in London and south-east England, the book visits familiar names including The Boleyn Tavern, Princess Louise, The Dublin Castle and Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. Bristol’s Bag of Nails features among the six pubs in the south-west, and Liverpool’s Philharmonic Dining Rooms…

Sean McCormack is a photographer and writer, based in Galway. He’s the author of The Indispensable Guide to Lightroom CC. If you’ve learned how to water plants, you probably own some gorgeous flowers. For a long time I killed every plant I bought. When I finally remembered to water regularly, I was blessed with colour. I even rescued a dead-looking lemon verbena belonging to my late wife, and serves as a reminder each spring. Flowers don’t last all year, but you can do something that makes their memory last longer: photograph them and create prints. You’re not required to make colour copies; you could create fine-art versions, giving a unique twist on them, so hopefully you shot some flowers over the summer, or have some late bloomers. Shooting flowers is…

Instagram is dead, and from its ashes rises Vero? Vero is a I social media platform I started speaking about a few years ago and mentioned here in Digital Camera in 2020. Although it was created in 2015, Vero began gaining traction in 2018 as people grew frustrated with Instagram’s blind pursuit of trying to be all apps to all people, to the detriment of the creators who helped it become the fastest-growing platform on the planet in 2014-15. But in the past year, a number of high-profile Instagram users have begun speaking out against AI-enforced engagement throttling and a move away from photography “What we know from experience is that there will always be a new frontier for creative people to discover, explore and thrive within” in favour of…

www.sony.co.uk Building on the success of the original Sony FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM, the second edition aims to deliver improved image quality and all-round performance, enhanced handling and more robust build quality, in a package that’s 20 per cent lighter and 18 per cent smaller. Indeed, Sony points out that it’s the world’s smallest and lightest 24-70mm f/2.8 trinity zoom, making it a perfect match for compact Alpha mirrorless system bodies. Optical design is naturally a key feature of any pro-grade lens. In this case, the optical layout is completely redesigned from the original version of the lens. The GM II boasts five aspherical elements, including two XA (eXtreme Aspherical) high-precision elements, two ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements and a further two Super ED elements. Next-generation Nano AR Coating II is…