Innehållsförteckning för February 2023 från Digital Camera Magazine

ENTER THIS URL www.digitalcamera world.com/dc264 Enter the URL www.digitalcameraworld.com/dc264 into the destination bar of your internet browser – we’re using Google Chrome, but other browsers work in a similar way. Please do not enter it in any search field or search bar. This will take you to a page on our website. JUST CLICK THE HIGHLIGHTED LINK Click on the link labelled ‘Download the disc for Digital Camera 264’ and your download will start, delivered from our own server. Please override any browser warnings about downloading from a non-secure source – our server is safe! ACCESS YOUR FILES Open the. zip In your Downloads folder, or wherever you chose to download your files to, double-click the dc264-disc.zip file icon. Then when it expands, double-click Digital Camera 264 Files. The download…

1 Godox DP 600III “An advanced version of its predecessor, this 600W studio light has a colour temperature of 5600K and a fast one-second recycle time to full power.” 2 Godox X-Pro-S transmitter “This is a versatile trigger for controlling Godox portable flashes and studio flash heads with the built-in Wireless X system.” 3 Sony FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II “This award-winning standard zoom lens is designed specifically for Sony’s full-frame system cameras and comes with a constant and bright f/2.8 aperture.” 4 Sony A7R IV “The latest version of this full-frame hybrid camera packs cutting-edge technology in a new body design.” 5 Unbranded Coloured gels “You can pick up a wide variety of coloured gels easily online, with variations of density or colour shade. You can even double them…

Off-camera flash allows you to quickly and easily create professional-looking lighting – as opposed to on-camera flash, which can often create very bright and flat-looking images. With the Godox X-Pro transmitter, you can adjust the power of your lights from your shooting position. Shooting in a small studio space is not so much of an issue, because the lights are usually within touching distance. But when shooting in larger spaces, you will lose valuable shooting time by having to regularly walk over to your lights and then back to your main shooting position.…

This is personal preference (and not all cameras have the option), but you could try enabling the Long Exposure Noise Reduction feature. This is a camera setting that takes two photos, one after the other, and the second photo is known as a ‘dark frame’ because the camera’s shutter is closed during the exposure. Dark-frame exposures contain image noise and hot pixels; your camera then automatically subtracts the second image from the first, reducing noise and especially hot pixels in your primary shot.…

In winter, the sun is lower in the sky for much longer than in the summer months, so the sunsets and sunrise colours have much more time to build. Coupled with some decent cloud coverage (but not too much) and the right type of clouds (in this case, cirrus), you could be lighting up your social media platforms with eye-catching sunset images in no time at all. During this period of the year, the sun sets at a lower angle to the horizon, making the light pass through more of the atmosphere. You can really see the difference to summer sunsets if the clouds are in the right place, near the horizon with gaps for the striking colours to reflect off and fill your camera with images you can feel…

1 Find your scene Autumn in the long high Alpine valley region of Engadin, Switzerland, is a true paradise for landscape photographers. When the largest adjacent larch forests in the Alps turn golden, it is a firework of nature – a final explosion of colour before the winter takes over. The changes of the season are always a prime time to get your camera out. 2 Frame up your shot The focus here is clearly in the foreground with the beautiful house, which is framed by the wonderfully coloured larches. An imposing mountain can be seen in the background. The cold hue of the sugared mountain peaks contrast with the discoloured larches, bringing together warm and cold tones across the image. 3 Choose your lens The picture was shot with…

Translating from the Greek words ‘phos’ (light) and graphê (draw), the word ‘photography’ means to draw with light. Whatever you use, your modern digital camera or old film camera will have light-sensitive media such as a piece of film or a digital sensor that when exposed to light creates the contrast in your images. ‘Painting with light’ is a genre of photography where you shoot at night or in a dimly lit room and introduce your own light source. You can use anything from torches to flashguns, LED panels to fibre optics – and everything in between – to bring your light painting to life. Drag torches through the frame to create fine lines or text, wave light wands to create wonderful swooshes of colour or even fire a powerful…

L-WIRE FROM £5/$5 L-wire, also called EL-wire, is a thin, illuminated wire that can be handy for light painting. It comes in different colours, creating a fantastic mist effect. HEAD TORCH FROM £5/$4 A head torch is absolutely essential when taking photos at night, as it frees up your hands to use the camera and allows you to see where you’re walking in the dark. Make sure you get one with a red filter so that it doesn’t affect your night vision too much. SHUTTER RELEASE FROM £5/$5 A shutter release allows you to fire the camera remotely. You can even get wireless ones so you can fire the camera when you’re in position, rather than standing next to it. A shutter release allows you to use Bulb mode to…

Adding spooky mist to your shots is simple and cost-effective with L-wire (also called EL-wire). You can buy it online from retailers like Amazon and eBay, with prices starting at about £5/$5. They come in different colour variations, and as they’re very affordable it’s worth picking up a few different colours to experiment with. You get a long, thin strip of plastic that lights up and is powered by a battery pack (ours took two AA batteries). You can then spread out and throw the wire across the floor of your scene during a long exposure to build up the ghostly ‘mist’ effect. Here’s how we set up to build up the electric fog effect on the path leading to Normanton Church in Rutland Water after dark. It took many…

It’s worth shooting a ‘base’ exposure of your scene before you take any images with your light orbs in them. You can then stack the two layers together in Photoshop, select your orb with the Elliptical Marquee tool and get a precise selection of the orb with Select > Transform Selection and pull the bounding box of the selection to perfectly outline your orb. Click the Add Layer Mask icon to mask it off and stop any ‘scrappy’ parts of the orb from appearing.…

In fire spin photos you shower your scene with incredible sparks – all you need is a camera, a tripod, steel wool, a whisk and a creative spark! Before contemplating a fire spin, be sure to find a suitable flammable sources – we did ours on a wet, sandy beach to minimise any risk of fire. It’s also worth having a fire extinguisher to hand for worst-case scenarios. Ideally, you’ll have a friend to spin the steel wool while you take the photos. Make sure they’re wearing dark, long-sleeved clothing and trousers and a hat to protect them, too – although if done correctly the majority of the sparks will be flying away from them. When it comes to camera settings, we recommend going into Manual mode and setting the…

Is the meaning of bokeh a bit of a blur? Let’s remove some of the fuzziness… What is bokeh? It’s a Japanese word that has no direct translation, but very loosely means ‘fuzziness’. It’s used to describe the quality of the out-of-focus areas in a photograph, in particular the shape of the defocused highlights, which reveal the shape of the lens employed to take the picture. What is ‘good’ bokeh? Good bokeh has a circular shape, so any lens that is wide open at its maximum aperture will produce this, as the aperture blades that open and close to allow more or less light through to the sensor will be out of the light path when open. What is ‘bad’ bokeh? A partially closed aperture will show the shape of…

Leading filters maker Kase recently released a revised version of its Wolverine magnetic circular filters. The new Revolution range incorporates Kase’s well-regarded Wolverine glass, which the brand says is renowned for its clarity, toughness and excellent colour control, but takes ease of use to the next level. This is achieved by adopting coloured identifying rings for easier filter selection and new adapter rings to help reduce vignetting on awkward lenses. The colour coding system is easy to follow: white (polariser); blue (3-stop ND); yellow (6-stop ND); and red (10-stop ND). The new filters are available in 77mm and 82mm sizes, and are backwards compatible with existing Kase magnetic circular filters, magnetic circular adapters, step-up rings and magnetic lens hoods. www.kasefilters.com; from £230/$230 (77mm Entry kit). Go to www.digitalcameraworld.com for the…

www.sony.co.uk The Sony A7R V is Sony’s ‘resolution’ specialist, though its 8K video capability, improved burst capacity and new AI autofocus are bound to drive a big wedge into the sports/action – and perhaps video – markets, too. This won’t make the Sony range any less confusing. The Sony A1 remains the powerhouse of the Sony range, though the A7R V beats it for resolution, and the Sony A9 II remains the sports specialist, despite being overtaken for speed by the A1 and by the A7R V for autofocus technologies. The Sony A7S III is still the low-light video specialist, though its 12MP sensor effectively rules it out for stills photography, while the Sony A7 IV is cheaper than the A7R V and perhaps better for hybrid stills/video work. The…

www.nikon.co.uk The Nikon Z 17-28mm f/2.8 picks up the baton from its Z 28-75mm f/2.8 sibling, with a seamless handover in focal lengths. Like the preceding standard zoom, this wide-angle lens was originally developed by Tamron to suit Sony E-mount full-frame mirrorless cameras. Its standout feature is the fast and constant f/2.8 aperture. For shooting in low light, this can make a big difference to shutter speeds. Moreover, the 17-28mm has a shorter minimum focus distance than the other two Nikon Z-mount wide-angle zooms. It’s just 0.19m at the shortest focal length, stretching to 0.26m at the long end. What’s more, the f/2.8 aperture lets you throw the background out of focus with a tight depth of field in close-ups. The compact design will be a plus point for many,…

Before we begin, we install the latest versions of drivers for each printer and run nozzle check routines and, if required, cleaning cycles. We then carry out print head alignment procedures for optimum accuracy; manufacturer own-brand inks and papers are used through the testing process. We create test prints from a wide range of digital photos. Prints are made using standard colour modes, as well as optional enhancement features. We also use our own test chart to reveal each printer’s accuracy in terms of colour reproduction, tonal range and smooth graduations between subtle colour variations. For output speed, we measure the time taken to make borderless 6x4-inch, A4, A3 and A3+ prints at various quality settings. The results are shown in each review and the comparison table.…

Ink for Canon MegaTank and Epson EcoTank printers is much cheaper than for models which run on replaceable cartridges. The Canon PIXMA G650 on test is comparatively inexpensive to buy for a bottled ink printer – not so the Epson ET-8500 A4 sized counterpart. Moreover, while the Canon printer is replenished by 60ml bottles (compared with the Epson’s 70ml bottles), it uses all six inks for photo printing, rather than just five. The net result is that a full set of bottles is sufficient for 3,800 6x4-inch colour photo prints, compared with the Epson’s 2,300 prints. Ultimately, the Epson ET-8500 is very expensive to buy, compared with the likes of the Canon TS6350. You’d need to create a huge quantity of prints before you start to see any savings, as…

The molecules of dye that make up the colour in dye-based inks are incredibly small, fully dissolved in the ink fluid and sink beneath the outer, protective layer of glossy photo paper. This makes them unbeatable for giving a smooth, uniform finish on glossy photo paper. They’re also cheaper than pigment-based inks. Pigment-based inks have larger molecules, the pigment being carried by the fluid ink rather than dissolved into it. More durable and with better archival quality than dye-based ink, pigment is generally preferred for printing on matte and fine art media, especially when creating prints to go on display rather than being stored. However, pigment-based inks can be prone to ‘bronzing’ on glossy paper, where the pigment settles on top of the outer layer rather than sinking beneath it,…

For top-quality photo output, the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 wins. Its Chroma Optimizer enables smooth output on glossy paper, while the Canon PIXMA PRO-200 dye-based printer delivers on glossy paper. For A2/17-inch printers, the pigment-based Epson SureColor P900 is excellent for both colour and mono prints, but less convincing than the Canon PRO-300 on glossy. For high-volume, large-format printing, the Epson ET-8500 is more ideal. The smaller A3/11-inch Epson Expression Photo XP-970 is a versatile multi-function printer. For A4/8.5-inch, our bet is the Canon PIXMA TS8350/8320. The Canon PIXMA G650/G620 MegaTank printer is best for high-volume printing at the same range of sizes.…

Tristan Dicks Wildlife photographer Remembering Leopards contributor Tristan has devoted his life to the wildernesses and wildlife of Southern Africa. Find out more on page 120 Will Burrard-Lucas Wildlife photographer Will returns to Digital Camera to tell us why he has been so entranced by leopards, as we preview the eighth book from Remembering Wildlife. Page 120 Lucy Rose Tindall Product photographer Fresh from her most recent appearance in Photo Active, Lucy takes us behind the scenes of one of her home studio still-life shoots, in One to One. Page 8 Jon Devo Photographer & writer Our resident tech columnist enjoys considering the latest developments in digital imaging and photography. Read his latest musings on page 94 Bea Lubas Food photographer The author of How to Photograph Food is also…

Product photographer After graduating with a photography degree, Lucy is now a full-time photographer and retoucher. Her style is prominent, sometimes minimalist, but always experimental. www.lucyrosetindall.com Today we’re in Shirehampton, a small town on the outskirts of Bristol that lies beside the River Avon. More importantly, it’s home to Lucy Rose Tindall, the queen of colour. Lucy spends most of her time shooting product photography for vibrant clients who sell unique items, from bespoke jewellery and plant pots to tarot cards and phone cases. Lucy first discovered her passion for photography by shooting fashion on location, but more lately has found her groove while working from her dedicated home studio. As some coffee brews in the kitchen, we head through into the studio. “This was always meant to become my…

There are many creative ways to use light trails. Cityscapes, landscapes and even portraits can benefit from light trails, creating a sense of energy and motion and adding streaks of colour to an otherwise dreary scene. Light trails create a sense of speed and energy in an image. A viewer inherently knows that the light trail was created by a moving object, so they perceive it as motion across the frame. By shooting long exposures, you are able to slow down time and view the world in a whole new way: one that only cameras can see. It’s also a fantastic means of increasing your understanding of the exposure triangle: aperture, shutter speed and ISO. If you haven’t tried long exposures before, it can be an instantly rewarding technique and…

Beata Lupas, the author of How to Photograph Food, has been using the power of Adobe Lightroom for years to finesse her food photography to a professional standard. Here, she shares some top insights as she walks us through her standard post-processing workflow. “The well-known saying, ‘We eat with our eyes’, is especially important in food photography, where there is no smell or taste to help evoke the senses,” says Beata. “We can only capture our viewer’s attention through their eyes, and colour is a powerful visual detail that can help us show how delicious the recipe is. Over the years, colour has always been one of my favourite topics to explore. “I believe the secret to appetising food images lies in powerful colour editing, and I’m excited to share…

Iam a commercial landscape, travel and documentary photographer based in the UK. I’ve been fascinated with the Arctic for many years now. My bucket list locations are in the High Arctic, mainly an archipelago called Svalbard, which is situated 500 miles north of mainland Norway and 600 miles south of the North Pole. I travelled there on a work trip and fell in love with the place; it is just mesmerising and a location that you’ll never forget. The Arctic certainly throws up some amazing photographic opportunities and some rather unique challenges. Two of the three main seasons are Polar Summer (from May to October with the midnight sun – this is where Svalbard comes alive with wildlife such as walruses, whales and the king of the Arctic, the polar…

Iam lucky enough to have lived near the River Thames, and near the countryside, for different landscapes and opportunities to develop different camera skills. I find autumn and winter such a beautiful time to get out and photograph, because there are constant changes in colour – from the colour of the leaves and varying weathers to the sunshine from later sunrises and early sunsets. It means that you can go to one location several different times and seemingly find a million options to photograph! I recently switched from a Nikon D5600 DSLR to a Z 50 mirrorless, which has been incredibly helpful in developing my skills. For these woodland photos in the New Forest, I opted for a 18-300mm lens, as I am always hoping to see a deer passing…

WRITE SOME WORDS DRAW VIBRANT WORDS WITH A TORCH OR USE SPARKLERS FOR A FIERY FLOURISH This is a fantastic technique to try when starting out, as it’s quick and easy to pull off eye-catching images. 1 Shoot from a tripod Set up your tripod and attach your camera. Go into Manual mode and set the aperture to f/8, shutter speed to 10 secs and ISO to 100. This should be long enough to write your text. 2 Focus on a friend Have your friend stand in the scene ready to start writing with their torch or sparkler. For pin-sharp shots, ask them to shine a torch on themselves so that you can achieve autofocus, then lock it off in manual focus. 3 Start the exposure Begin the exposure and…

Here’s a brilliant low-light technique you can try from the comfort of your own home – just wait for it to get dark and turn off the lights. 1 Tether your torch to a light Tie string to a torch with a keyring attachment and tether the other end to a sturdy ceiling light or beam. A torch with a candle mode is ideal for creating super-crisp geometric shapes. 2 Set up your camera underneath Place your camera on a tripod looking directly up at the light, adjust the leg angles so you can get low to the ground and use a wide-angle lens so you can capture the whole shape without any areas being clipped off. Focus on the light and go into manual focus to lock the focus.…

The beauty of painting with light is that you don’t have to photograph reality; you can use the light from a torch to specifically paint in strokes of light to illuminate parts of your scene. Light orbs are a fantastically abstract form of light painting, where you strap a long piece of string to a torch and swing it around to craft a sphere of light in your scene, then carefully turn while you swing the torch to create the head-turning sphere of light. It can take some time to finesse the art of swinging your torch the correct way to create a perfect orb, and it certainly helps to have a friend to help do the light painting as you operate the camera. This makes shooting in the dark…

This project is all about having a creative spark – literally! Sparklers look fantastic in low light and dramatically illuminate your subject as you trace around the outline of your subject. We’ve chosen a bike, as its kickstand allows it to conveniently stay upright, and you can also see through the spokes. Having a friend to help you do the light-painting while you operate the camera is ideal, though not essential. If you’re flying solo, be sure to set a long self-timer to give yourself enough time to get into position and light the sparkler once you’ve set up the shot and pressed the shutter button. Safety is paramount, of course, so wear protective clothing and gloves, carry a bucket of water, sand or a fire extinguisher if you have…

To set up, you’ll need to get some #0000 or #00 steel wool, or experiment with a mixture of the two. Fold your steel wool into a rectangular shape that you can squeeze snugly into a metal balloon whisk. You’ll need to make sure your whisk has a loop on the end of the handle, as you’re going to attach a dog lead onto this. A black or darkly coloured dog lead is preferred to stop it showing up in your final fire spin shot. Have a friend stand in frame where you want them – it will need to be blue hour or night-time for this to work, so have them shine a torch on themselves so your camera can autofocus on them, then go into Manual Focus mode…

40 MINUTES OF VIDEO LIGHTROOM & CAMERA RAW Remove objects and tidy messy areas Download 40 minutes of video training for Lightroom and Photoshop. FILE & VIDEO www.digitalcameraworld.com/dc264 LIGHTROOM Enhance your drone captures PHOTOSHOP Colour grade your images PHOTOSHOP Experiment with mono & colour effects PHOTOSHOP Create super sunny portraits RADIANT PHOTO – NEW TUTORIAL SERIES Get your copy of this new image editing software Page 80 CAMERA RAW Build up local adjustments…

James is a professional photographer who specialises in landscape and portraits. He’s an advanced Photoshop user and has created hundreds of tutorials. FILE & VIDEO www.digitalcameraworld.com/dc264 WATCH THE VIDEO! GET YOUR BLACK & WHITE ADJUSTMENT ACTIONS PACK Turn to page 84 to find out more! Adjustment Layers are one of the most useful aspects of Photoshop for photographers. Each has its own set of controls and effects, but when combined with other controls, such as Blending modes, Layer Opacity, other layers and even the Presets within the Adjustment Layer dialogue, you can expand the creative possibilities. The Black & White Adjustment Layer, on the surface, appears to do one thing: convert images to mono with control over how different colour channels convert to greyscale. This in itself offers almost endless…

WIN AND GET PUBLISHED! See your photo printed alongside some of the world’s finest wildlife photographers Remembering Leopards will be the eighth title in the charity book series started by wildlife photographer Margot Raggett in 2016. She was prompted to take action after seeing a poached elephant in Kenya, and started asking fellow wildlife photographers if they would contribute to a fundraising book. Remembering Elephants and its successors – Remembering Rhinos, Remembering Great Apes, Remembering Lions, Remembering Cheetahs, Remembering African Wild Dogs and Remembering Bears – have between them raised more than £1 million/US$1.2 million for 60 conservation projects across 25 countries. For 2023, Margot has announced that the next book in the series will be Remembering Leopards. The book will be published on Monday 9 October 2023, and will…

Enabling not only table-top and still shooting, but also making it much easier to capture group selfies as well as tricky lower-angle shots, the TG-BT1 pairs via Bluetooth to a compatible camera. It allows users to adjust and tilt the camera angle to 180º vertically and 360º horizontally, making it ideal as a perfect selfie grip when rotated and used horizontally at 180º. Also, by expanding its tripod legs, the TG-BT1 can be transformed into a sturdy mini tripod. www.fujifilm.com; £169/$199…

Is it already a couple of years since Canon released the EOS R6? Not resting on its laurels, the market leader has pushed out a new iteration of this enthusiast camera. The R6 Mark II gets a bump in resolution to 24.4MP, improvements to autofocus tracking, and a boost to its maximum burst rate. This will certainly endear the model to users who want to bag the maximum number of keepers from their action, sports and wildlife shooting, and the R6 Mark II may well tempt anyone looking to retire their EOS 6D DSLR. Also this month, we preview the Sony A7R V, the latest version of the brand’s resolution king. While the sensor stays at 61MP, there are major updates to the autofocus system, which draws on artificial intelligence…

https://affinity.serif.com/photo Who would have thought that photo editing software released as a Mac-only version in 2015 could take on the software behemoth Adobe? Well, that’s exactly what Serif has achieved with its Affinity products, where Affinity Photo has undoubtedly become Adobe Photoshop’s main rival. With some revolutionary new features alongside an inexpensive perpetual license, the latest Affinity Photo 2 provides an even more compelling alternative to the market leader’s subscription-based photo editing software. Affinity Photo 2 is pixel-based photo editing software available for Mac, Windows and iPad, and it offers most of the functionality of Photoshop CC alongside its own unique features. The software uses a single interface split into ‘Personas’ that are used for performing specific editing tasks, such as Raw processing or image adjustments/manipulation, etc. It’s highly capable,…

It’s that time of year when the further north you are, the colder, longer and darker the nights are. Hardy souls might make their way outdoors for some frigid winter night shots. Those of us who like our creature comforts might prefer to stay indoors and create prints of the shots we took during more clement seasons. Erring on the side of comfort, we’re focusing on some pretty epic photo printers. We’ll kick off with the more modest options and work our way through to large-format models that can output prints of a suitable size for hanging on your wall, or submitting to galleries and exhibitions. colour documents, while also working well as photo printers for outputting bordered or borderless glossy prints in popular sizes, including 4x6-inch, 5x7-inch, A4 and…

For creating prints anywhere, there’s a range of pocket-sized and slightly larger mobile printers. The battery-powered Canon SELPHY Square QX10 is a good example, outputting 2.7x2.7-inch square prints with a peelable, self-adhesive backing. Unlike inkjet printers, it uses dye-sublimation technology, so there’s no liquid. For prints with a more regular aspect ratio, there’s also the Polaroid Hi·Print 2x3 Pocket Photo Printer, which again is dye-sub based and outputs 2x3-inch prints. Both have companion apps, making it easy to create prints from smart devices. For up to 6x4-inch postcard size, there’s the larger Canon SELPHY CP1500 dye-sub printer, which supports Wi-Fi printing direct from smart devices, as well as having a USB-C port for attaching a camera and an SD memory card slot.…

Many of us will be content with an A4/8.5-inch printer that can create 6x4-inch, 7x5-inch, 10-8-inch and full A4/8.5x11-inch photo prints, complete with borderless options. For others, the bigger size of an A3 print is more appealing, and worth the extra cost and house room for a physically larger printer. A3 prints are the same size as two sheets of A4 paper laid next to each other, measuring 8.27×11.69 inches (210×297mm). It’s a more impressive size, especially if you want to hang photo prints on the wall, but the aspect ratio still isn’t ideal for the format of images from Canon’s interchangeable lens cameras. A3+ is both larger and a better fit, measuring 13x19 inches (329x483mm). A2 paper measures 16.5x23.4 inches (420x594mm), equivalent to two sheets of A3.…

9 PHOTO TIPS CARDS TO TAKE ON LOCATION! Our latest selection of tips cards offers wallet-sized advice on popular genres including landscapes, action, wildlife, macro and black and white. Transform your images instantly with our latest set of bonus actions, profiles and a preset 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 BONUS SOFTWARE EXTRAS! Turn to page 84 RADIANT PHOTO READER OFFER This issue, we’re launching a tutorial series for this new image editing program – turn to page 80 to find out how to get a copy of the software Buyer’s Guide ebook Over 280 pages of camera and…

“In a smaller space (often when shooting from home), lights can sometimes feel quite powerful, and it can also be difficult to move them physically further away from your subjects. To compensate for this, I usually set my ISO to L50, then typically shoot with a power output of 1/32 or 1/64. For the crystal setup, I set strobe A to 1/32, as it was a little further away, and strobe B to 1/64, which gave a pretty even and consistent light across the image. For me, colours are purely experimental – certain combinations will always work well, like red and green, or a cool and warm tone mixed together, such as blue and orange. Sometimes I’ll even layer a couple of gels together to see what happens; I try…

1 “Photograph any objects you can find and see if it works – you’d be surprised to see which objects contribute to a good still-life photograph.” 2 “Don’t be shy – move the lighting around until you feel like you’re getting the results in camera that you feel comfortable with.” 3 “Work with gels – adding a bit of colour can really alter the mood of the entire photograph. Try experimenting with them and layering them up for different results.” 4 “Move around, changing your height from a low perspective to a high perspective. This will provide a variety of results that you can play with when editing.” 5 “Crop in – smaller subjects can be brought more to life by doing this, bringing forward more of the detail that…

Here, I’m shooting with a Fujifilm X100V. With a built-in four-stop ND filter and a reasonably wide focal length (23mm), it is perfect for long exposures. Your shooting position is important – in the image on the previous page, a bus stop halfway up the street caused the traffic to halt, and a pelican crossing just out of shot to the right caused the light trails to stop. With my ND filter activated and my ISO set to a base level of 160, I set my shutter speed to 30 secs and finally found a mid-range aperture of f/8. Try not to only look in the direction the moving lights might come from, but also think about the street lights, as they can all add to the overall vibe. Although…

Let’s try to create a setup that will produce bright and colourful images, but without having to go to much expense. One established favourite is oil and water – whether you’re just looking to have some fun with the grandchildren or are a veteran of macro photography, this is a great project for anyone to try. In the cold winter months, it’s important to keep your creativity flowing, and having a project to shoot at home is ideal. Setting this project up is easy and will give you plenty of photographic opportunities with minimum fuss. To keep your project flowing, try finding other objects around your home to shoot, like feathers and leaves that are full of texture, before you need to start packing everything away. For more detail, close…

1 Recce your location I always use Google Maps to scout out various shooting locations before I even set foot at my destination. I generally look for somewhere interesting with something unique to shoot. This could be a fishing hut, a log cabin, a mountain and so on. I also drop pins onto the map and use the 360° viewer to pre-visualise what will be around me. 2 Stay versatile I like my equipment to have flexibility, so I shoot with zoom lenses. That way I don’t have to be thinking of changing between different prime lenses. Two camera bodies, one with a wide zoom lens and one with a telephoto zoom lens, is my preference. This way, I’m as flexible as I can be for anything the aurora throws…

1 Look for textures Our cameras are rammed with megapixels these days, so try to find highly detailed textures on your winter walks. Leaves, bark and pine cones all offer up plenty of photo opportunities to capture. 2 Search for strong lines Strong lines in photography can lead you through an image or hold your viewer’s attention at a specific focal point. Try to capture and compose an image featuring straight, strong shapes. 3 Shoot at a shallow aperture Open up your aperture as wide as your camera will allow. Many will let you shoot at f/1.8 to around f/4, which will give you a blurry background that is often associated with a more beautiful style of image. 4 Frame up your photo for the rule of thirds Rules are…

PUBLIC WINNER ‘Departing Storm Over Bembridge Lifeboat Station’ Jamie Russell After chasing storms and showers west to east across the Isle of Wight to capture some incredible rainbows, Jamie reached Bembridge as the final shower left. “In a panic, I waded into the waist-deep water, fully dressed, just to compose this scene.” Rainbows are optical phenomena that occur when sunlight shines through raindrops. The light is refracted as it enters the raindrop, then reflected off the back of the droplet and then refracted again as it exits and travels towards our eyes. This causes the sunlight to split into different colours. The sun needs to be behind the viewer and needs to be low in the sky. The lower the sun in the sky, the more of an arc of…

Painting-with-light photography is best undertaken when dressed in dark clothing like a ninja – you don’t want to appear in the final images. Any light you cast from torches or flashes will illuminate you if the light hits you, so make sure you’re wearing dark trousers, a jacket, shoes, gloves and even a black hat or balaclava. Avoid any clothing with high-visibility stripes on it, such as tracksuit bottoms or shoelaces. If shooting on cold winter nights, it’s also worth wearing thermals underneath your clothing to fend off the cold, so you can keep warm on frosty evenings and take photos for longer.…

Get creative with items around the house and transform them into incredible low-light photos. 1 Set the scene Place your shoes on the floor and set up your camera on a tripod. Compose to fill the frame then focus on the shoes. Use manual focus mode to lock the focus settings. 2 Dial in the settings Go into Manual mode and set the aperture to f/11, the shutter speed to 30 secs and the ISO to 100. Turn the lights off and take a test shot – this should come out totally black. 3 Start painting with light A torch with a candle mode, revealing the bare bulb, is ideal for ‘painting in’ the shoe laces. Position the bare torch bulb on the first shoe’s laces, then start the exposure…

TETHER YOUR TORCH 1 Torches with a keyring attachment at the base are ideal, as you need to secure a metre of string to it so you can swing it around. Taping or gluing a ping pong ball to the end of the torch will give it a larger area to be picked up by the camera. DIAL IN THE SETTINGS 2 Place your camera up on a tripod and set it to Manual mode with a shutter speed of 30 seconds and an ISO of 100. Set your aperture to a middle value like f/8 for decent sharpness. Focus on the area where you plan to spin your torch. SPIN TO CREATE YOUR ‘ORB’ 3 Ask a friend to start spinning or set a self-timer to give you time…

1 Set up the shot Prop up your bike on its kickstand and, from a tripod, frame your composition of the bike. Go into Manual mode and shine a light on the bike so that your camera can autofocus on it, then lock the focus setting in manual focus mode. Set the exposure to 30 secs at an aperture of f/8, and ISO 100. 2 Paint with your sparkler Enable the camera’s 10-second self-timer and move into position in front of the bike with your sparkler lit and ready to go. When you hear the exposure start, you can commence tracing around the bike and make sure that you’ve gone around all of it within a single exposure. 3 Finish off in Photoshop To get a clean, distraction-free background, you’ll…

1 ‘Mach Loop’ by Alex Roebuck “After an eight-hour wait perched on the hills of Bwlch within the Mach Loop low-fly area in Wales, this F15-E Strike Eagle from 492nd FS, based at RAF Lakenheath, roared into the valleys as part of a two-ship flight.” Digital Camera says: Well worth the wait, Alex. An image as sharp as the jet itself. Very well done. 2 ‘Duaflex’ by Kate Parmaku “A self-portrait of me holding a vintage Kodak Duaflex – I love the style of old cameras. I took this shot with a black and white conversion in mind, and softened the blacks a little in Lightroom for a more vintage feel.” Digital Camera says: We love the overall tones here. It’s well thought out, beautifully but subtly lit and has…

With over a decade as a writer and photographer behind him, James knows exactly which Photoshop and Lightroom tools and techniques matter most. BONUS WINTER PROFILES Turn to page 84 to find out more! FILE & VIDEO www.digitalcameraworld.com/dc264 WATCH THE VIDEO! Many of us who’ve been using Adobe editing tools for years find that there’s less and less reason to open our images in Photoshop. Instead, Camera Raw and Lightroom offer almost everything we need. But for precise retouching work, Photoshop has always been better – until now. The latest updates to Camera Raw and Lightroom include a healing feature that could be a gamechanger for your raw editing workflow, because now we can use Content-Aware Fill with our raw photos. Content-Aware Fill lets you target an object, then watch…

Market leader DJI has dispatched another product into the burgeoning sub-249g or ‘ultralight’ drone category. The Mini 3 shares a similar body design to the Mini 3 Pro, but unlike its more expensive forebear, which was launched back in May 2022, the new Mini 3 doesn’t feature collision sensors or DJI’s pilot assist. This new 4K drone still offers the ability to remotely rotate the camera between portrait and landscape modes for full-resolution social-friendly photography, making it potentially tempting for budget- or regulation-conscious creatives. The drone’s camera has a 1/1.3-inch CMOS sensor and f/1.7 aperture, just like the Mini 3 Pro, but will only be able to shoot at up to 4K 30fps (the Pro can do 4K 60fps) or 12MP stills. Like its sibling, the Mini 3 will be…

www.canon.co.uk If the Canon EOS R6 Mark II was an animal, it would pack teeth like switchblades, razorsharp talons, a venom sac and the footspeed to chase down anything foolish enough to draw its attention. Indeed, while the Canon EOS R6 Mark II is almost a top-to-bottom specs improvement over the original Canon EOS R6, in terms of that last point it manages to outpace even the mighty Canon EOS R3 – boasting an amazing 40fps continuous shooting speed. This actually outguns both the Sony A1 and Nikon Z 9, too, unless you count the Z 9 cheating by shooting 11MP images. Still, the Canon EOS R6 Mark II is about more than just sheer speed. From its full-width, 6K-oversampled video to the brand-new 24.2MP sensor to the ability to…

If you use design software alongside your photo editor, the full Affinity suite is a great-value option. Here, you can save £35/$45 with the Affinity V2 Universal Licence. This costs just £144.99/$169.99 for Affinity Photo 2, Affinity Designer 2 and Affinity Publisher 2, rather than £60/$70 for each standalone program. What’s more, this cost is for a perpetual licence, so there’s no need to pay for a monthly or yearly subscription. The Affinity V2 Universal Licence provides a cost-effective alternative to Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. Pricing If you only require Affinity Photo 2 for your photo editing, then the standalone version costs just £59.99/$69.99. This is powerful software that can be used by enthusiasts and professionals alike, so you can enjoy full editing control on a budget.…

Ink cartridges are the headline cost of any printer, but of course, you need to factor in the price of high-quality paper as well when creating photo prints. Some inkjet printers come with options for standard, XL and even XXL cartridges; opting for the higher-capacity option will generally reduce the cost, and you won’t have to replace cartridges so often, but they’re naturally more expensive. Canon MegaTank and Epson EcoTank printers have larger ink tanks, which are replenished from bottles. This can work out cheaper for ink, but there’s a bigger up-front cost, which we will come to.…

When you’re creating a prized photo print to last a lifetime, it might seem a bit inconsequential whether a printer takes a matter of seconds or a few minutes to complete the job. It’s even less of a concern when you consider that you’re creating the print right on your desktop, without the delay of uploading it to an online lab and then waiting days for it to arrive in the post. However, if you need to print several or even dozens of prints, the time soon adds up and, with slower print speeds, it can feel like you’re literally watching paint dry. As a rule, dye-based printers are a lot faster than pigment-based printers, with the added advantage that prints tend to be touch-dry as soon as they land…

A4-size photo printers tend to have six inks at most, while the A3+ and A2 printers on test have eight or more. For example, the Epson SureColor P900 runs on no less than 10 inks, including photo black, matte black, grey, light grey, cyan, light cyan, yellow, vivid magenta, vivid light magenta and violet. This enables a very wide ‘gamut’ or colour space for colour printing, as well as an excellent tonal range for black and white photo printing, with the promise of superb neutrality without any unwanted colour casts. Photo black and matte black are included for printing on glossy and matte media respectively. It’s only natural to think that a greater number of inks will result in higher running costs, but the flipside is that you’ll tend to…