Innehållsförteckning för June 2024 från Digital Camera Magazine

Coming to photography as a second career is no bar to succeeding in it – some might argue that having had a life outside the medium actually makes you a better photographer. Siobhán Doran became an architecture and interior photographer after an established career as an architectural designer, starting her photography practice after having enjoyed studying for a part-time photography degree. Since then, Doran has built up a varied portfolio, publishing photo books of iconic London hotels The Lanesborough and The Savoy, alongside commissioned and personal work. She came to wider prominence last month by winning the Professional Architecture & Design category at the Sony World Photography Awards 2024, for a series of images of ancestral homes in the Philippines. Photographed for a book project, Houses that Sugar Built, Doran…

1 | LANDSCAPES Breaking the rules More tips for top scenics by Mark Bauer and Ross Hoddinott If you slavishly follow the rules of composition, you will create work that is competent but unimaginative and predictable. However, it is not simply the case that ‘rules are made to be broken’. The rules have their uses. They can be used as a starting point – a way of looking at a subject that will enable you to get the best out of it. If you understand the rules and explore them while constructing an image, your composition is likely to improve – even if you end up with a picture that breaks every rule in the book. Placing the horizon According to the rules, the horizon line should be placed in…

When travelling abroad there’s one location that’s almost guaranteed to offer a wealth of photographic opportunities, and that’s the local market. From the Souk Semmarine in Morocco to the Dong Xuan market in Vietnam, the world of bazaars, souks and street markets are bustling with colour, texture and character. There are several approaches you can take, including finding interesting vendors for portrait studies, wide-angle shots to show the scale, and tight telephoto crops to focus on the hustle and bustle. The other option is to focus on what is being sold, to illustrate the patterns, textures and vibrant colours of foodstuffs, jewellery and fabrics. For this, you’ll need to either crop tightly to exclude the surrounding stall and just showcase the items, as in the main image here or look…

Having retired from the UK’s nuclear industry after 42 years, I decided to trade up from a Nikon D850 to a Nikon Z 9. With the fantastic capabilities of this camera in hand, I headed on holiday to Scotland’s Isle of Mull. Initially, I cut my teeth shooting oystercatchers and herons, whose hunting grounds were in the small bay behind our cottage. However, the highlight was always going to be a trip to photograph white-tailed sea eagles in the wild. I had booked a photographer’s trip on the Lady Jayne out of Ulva Ferry – the boat is quite small and this trip limited the numbers to around six people, allowing everyone plenty of space to work in. For the trip, I paired my Z 9 with a Nikkor Z…

A long with light, viewpoint is one of the most important aspects of all types of photography. Even a small change in the height or angle of the camera or a slight adjustment of position in relation to the subject can completely change the composition and, ultimately, the mood of a photo. Working a location is a term that refers to exploring as many compositional opportunities as possible when visiting a location by adjusting the three factors mentioned above. The images below were all taken within a few metres of one another, but the format, camera angle and composition have made each unique. 1 Viewpoint 1: Classic This simple composition, with the cascade in the centre of the frame and the flow of water leading the eye along the shot,…

A four-minute exposure captured while camping out for 10 days saw Chilean photographer Francisco Negroni take top spot in the prestigious Standard Chartered Weather Photographer of the Year competition. The Villarrica volcano is one of Chile’s most active and Negroni rates this as one of his “most beautiful images”. And he’s right about that. A huge lenticular cloud surrounds the crater of the Villarrica volcano, with the lava illuminating the cloud from within. Lenticular clouds are formed when air flowing over the ground encounters an obstacle, such as a volcano. The air rises and cools, which can allow moisture to condense and form clouds. For a lenticular cloud to be formed, the atmosphere needs to be stable; this means that the air forced up over the high ground readily sinks…

DxO releases Nik Collection 7 Tools for making selections get upgraded and performance boosted, in an update to the plug-in suite One of the most highly regarded plug-in suites on the market, Nik Collection gets new selection tools and speed bumps in version 7. Comprising seven separate plug-ins – Color Efex, Silver Efex, Analog Efex, Viveza, Dfine, Sharpener and HDR Efex, each with a different purpose – the Nik Collection plugins can be used standalone or integrated with editing software such as Photoshop, Lightroom, Affinity Photo, and DxO’s own PhotoLab (see p94). Leading the changes for version 7 are changes to Color Efex, which now incorporates three Nik Viveza filters that previously formed the heart of the separate Viveza plug-in, while the HSL, ClearView and Grain tools now become dynamic…

explore.omsystem.com The OM System OM-1 Mark II has a lot to live up to. The original OM-1 was universally considered a home run – a rare example of the industry giving love not only to a Micro Four Thirds camera but also to OM Digital Solutions as a company in its first true post-Olympus product. While the OM System OM-1 Mark II is similar to its predecessor in many ways, it also has some significant improvements – and there is no other camera that can do what it does. For instance, its signature feature, the Live GND filter, a brilliant software-powered graduated ND filter, is single-handedly enough to transform the way you shoot landscapes. Added to that are the improvements to the autofocus, over double the buffer depth (top speed…

www.sigmauk.com Sigma lenses have long impressed me, ever since the 35mm film days of my youth. However, everything shifted up a gear in 2012 with the advent of the company’s ‘Global Vision’ line-up of Art, Contemporary and Sports lenses. The new 50mm F1.2 prime is definitely of the Art variety, designed to maximise creative expression. It takes on all comers in a bid to be one of the best lenses for Sony cameras and L-mount cameras on the market. There’s actually no shortage of Sigma 50mm lenses available in E-mount and L-mount. I’ve already been won over by the slightly slower Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG DN Art and the relatively small, fun-sized Sigma 50mm F2 DG DN Contemporary primes. In the E-mount camp, the fully fast f/1.2 lens goes head-to-head…

Siobhán Doran Photographer & visual artist A Professional category winner in the Sony World Photography Awards tells us more about her award-winning project, Houses that Sugar Built, from page 8 Will Cheung Photographer and writer A fellow of the Royal Photographic Society and the former editor of many photography titles, Cheung is the man behind Camera Clinic, which continues on page 62 Fergus Kennedy Photographer Last issue’s One to One pro photographer returns to Digital Camera, helming a new series of tutorials about getting started in drone photography, on page 34 Jon Devo Photographer & writer Our resident tech columnist considers the latest developments in photography and digital imaging. Read his latest dispatch, about AI text-to-video, on page 98 Huw Lewis-Jones Photography historian The man behind the new book Why…

This photo is of a Phaonia Rufiventris, also known as the orange-shouldered bristleshin, which I was hoping to find in my local woods. By the time I found this one sitting on a wild garlic leaf, the sun had disappeared and there wasn’t a lot of light but the good news was that it wasn’t moving much. To get a reasonable depth of field, I set an aperture of f/16 and for a usable shutter speed, I had to increase the ISO to 6400. This gave me a shutter speed of 1/50 sec. As I was lying on the ground when I took the shot, I didn’t have any trouble with camera shake. ISO 6400 does introduce a little noise but that was easily removed with noise reduction software in…

Our monthly reader photo competition continues, with a fresh batch of themed challenges that encompass some of the favourite photographic genres of Digital Camera readers, starting with historic buildings. Enter via email or Facebook Email your entry to digitalcamera@futurenet.com with ‘Historic buildings’ as the subject, including a brief description of the image. Or look for the ‘Historic buildings’ post at www.facebook.com/digitalcameraworld and upload your entry into the feed. Enter by 20 June 2024 (only one image per reader, please). The winner will be announced in issue 284 (August), on sale 19 July (Note that this competition is only open to UK-based readers). Email your entry to: digitalcamera@futurenet.com or enter at: www.facebook.com/digitalcameraworld WIN A £50 CEWE WALL ART VOUCHER! Submit your best historic buildings image, by midnight on 20 June 2024.…

Despite not working in Shutter Priority when capturing waterfalls and streams, because aperture control is essential, shutter speed remains an important creative control that can dramatically change the mood of your water-based landscape shots. Personal taste plays a deciding factor in how fast or slow the shutter speed is, by using ND filters or raising the ISO level for control, but too slow and all detail and texture in the water is lost, while too fast and it looks like nothing more than a snapshot. Below are four examples of different shutter speeds to help you work out which setting you prefer. 1 1/50 sec A shutter speed of 1/50 sec replicates how the naked eye perceives moving water. Some photographers prefer this because they consider it to be the…

There are few shortcuts when it comes to landscape photography; experience, knowledge and a sprinkling of good luck are the biggest drivers of great images. But although these tips won’t make you a professional-level landscape photographer overnight, they will provide an insight into what to look for and what to avoid when shooting waterfalls and streams. With these six simple tips, your path to success will be quicker because they come from experience. Making mistakes is a great way to learn valuable lessons, but few people are averse to having some pointers to set them in the right direction. THINGS TO LOOK FOR Depth in the scene Capturing a sense of depth in some scenes is often easy to achieve because of the natural structure of waterfalls and streams. Shooting…

Last year, we saw new generative AI features appear in Photoshop for the first time. These were simultaneously awe-inspiring and oddly underwhelming, with results that could range from the sublime to the ridiculous. Now, inevitably, we’re being treated to new generative AI tools. Powered by Adobe Firefly 3, the big new feature is the Generate Image tool, which like the AI tools we’ve seen from the likes of MidJourney and Dall-E, lets us generate a new image from scratch based on a text prompt. The challenge for Adobe is how to build generative AI into Photoshop tools without the AI just taking over. As photographers, we don’t necessarily want a button that lets us make a generically good image. But we might want to augment and build upon an image…

We’re beginning to see some real-world examples of AI-generated content’s utility go mainstream, thanks in part to the weight of companies like Adobe and OpenAI going all out to bring generative AI technology to the masses. A year after its release, the latest iteration of Adobe Firefly is starting to look like a real contender as a tool for AI content. Not least because it sits as part of a rapidly evolving ecosystem in Adobe Creative Cloud, which has recently begun to introduce some paradigm-shifting generative AI features. Some of the most impressive things that are now available include AI object removal and editing for video in Adobe Premiere Pro, video clip extension and smarter selection tools within Photoshop and Lightroom. Now that Adobe is all in on generative AI,…

www.canon.co.uk Since it first came onto the scene, the RF-S mount has struggled to find its place. With Canon’s need to fill out its lens lineup for its professional RF mount cameras, lenses specifically made for the RF-S mount have been few and far between. The Canon RF-S 10-18mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM, however, has come along to fill a hole in the existing lineup for a compact, wide-angle lens for photography and vlogging to give RF-S cameras a boost. Out of the three Canon RF-S lenses launched before this one, the Canon RF-S 18-45mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM has been the widest lens available for the RF-S mount used by cameras including the Canon EOS R50 or Canon EOS R7 – although the 18-45mm lens isn’t a true wide-angle, with…

DSLR & MIRRORLESS CAMERAS PLUS: Our best-buy accessories Sensor sizes at a glance Three formats dominate DSLR and mirrorless cameras… Full-frame (36 x 24mm) These imaging sensors have similar proportions to a frame of 35mm film. APS-C (≈ 25.1 x 16.7mm) Based on the Advanced Photo System film format from the 1990s. Micro Four Thirds (17.3 x 13mm) The 4:3 aspect ratio allows smaller and lighter lenses to be used. DSLRs Seen something that doesn’t look right? Email us at digitalcamera@futurenet.com with ‘Camera Guide’ in the subject line What to look for in a… DSLR Lens release To remove the lens, press the button and twist the lens anti-clockwise. Use the protective body cap, so you don’t leave the sensor exposed to dust. Shutter release To shoot, press the shutter release button. To…

The digital advantage Digital magazines can travel with you – even if you delete them, they are free to download again later. Subscribers can now access issues of Digital Camera going back to 2009 (iOS) or 2012 (Pocketmags). To subscribe today go to: www.magazinesdirect.com/categories/photography-and-design Available on the following: Apple iOS devices Get the free Digital Camera app for your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch at: www.bit.ly/app_DCM (UK) or www.bit.ly/app_DCW (outside UK) Then browse through our back issues or buy a subscription (see page 40 for offers) using the app. Android, PC or Mac Zinio www.bit.ly/DCW_Zinio Pocket Mags www.pocketmags.com Other options Digital Camera is available for Kobo, Kindle, Nook and more (see above). It can also be found on the all-you-can-read Readly magazine app: https://gb.readly.com/ Printed back issues Prefer print? We…

BONUS SOFTWARE EXTRAS! Turn to page 86 ENTER THIS URL www.digitalcameraworld.com/dc282 Enter the URL www.digitalcameraworld.com/dc282 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 files for Digital Camera 282’ 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, double-click the dcm282-files.zip file icon. Then when it expands, double-click Digital…

“I grew up in a house that sugar built. Not in any of the aforementioned places [the Philippines’ main sugar-producing provinces of Iloilo, Negros Occidental and Pampanga] but in urban Manila, where my grandfather – a doctor, politician and sugar planter from Molo in Iloilo City (the capital of Iloilo Province on the island of Panay) – put up a house for his family. My father and his brothers were studying then at the Ateneo de Manila, the Jesuit-run institution meant to turn callow boys into thinking men; their only sister had graduated from the Assumption Iloilo, an all-girls convent school. “My grandmother had been part of its first intake when it started as a boarding school in 1910. Our Manila house was built much later than the family home…

The Grand National may be one of the most famous horse races in the world, but it was far from the first, even in the UK. The Greeks and Romans had races with mounted riders while the Persians, Chinese and Middle Eastern countries excelled at breeding and racing horses. In the UK, knights returning from the crusades were reputed to have raced the Arabian stallions they had ‘liberated’ to showcase their speed to potential buyers. Richard the Lionheart offered the first racing purse of £40 for a race run over three miles – a lot of money In the 12th century. However, it wasn’t until the 18th century that the modern era of racing began with the inauguration of the three classics: the St Leger at Doncaster in 1776 and…

The dream of soaring above the landscape and seeing the world from a birds-eye perspective is now more attainable than ever. Today’s mini camera drones are smaller, quieter and easier to use than before – they also have fantastic image quality and fewer legal restrictions placed on their use. So there’s never been a better time to get involved in drone photography. Photography enthusiasts will have an immediate advantage when it comes to the image creation aspects of drone operation. But there are many unique aspects to drone photography and some planning and preparation will go a long way. It should go without saying that you should become familiar with your drone and how it works before you focus too much on your photography, so find a wide open space…

These images above were made with my iPhone. I have recently started using it as a more serious photographic tool – partly because I’ve just upgraded to a swanky iPhone 15 Pro Max and partly because I’m pitching a book about iPhone photography to a publisher, but mainly because it’s a damn good photographic tool. I used to use my phone to ‘sketch’ ideas, make record shots or candid family images. But recently, I’ve started reaching for my iPhone as a first-choice creative option. These images focus on small segments of some advertising hoarding promoting a local beer somewhere in the South Pacific. I was initially seduced by the way time, light and weather had deteriorated, faded and eroded the advertisement. The tears and scars in relative close-up took on…

Landscape photography has seen something of a renaissance in recent years, where it become one of the most popular subjects among photographers of all ages. Of course, it’s always been a popular subject, but social media has helped to make it more celebrated than ever. One aspect of landscape photography that has remained the same is the desire for photographers to capture a sense of visual excitement and interest in their photos. Sure, landscape photography allows us to slow down, take in the scene and respond to it in the changing light, but the landscape can be so much more than what appears to be a static vista. The most obvious and, indeed, effective way to inject a sense of dynamism into landscapes is to capture movement. And the simplest…

There’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes’, is an often-used phrase within the outdoor activities community. And the same applies to landscape photography. Landscape photographers should not only heed this simple yet pertinent advice, but we sometimes need to go one step further in being prepared when we go shooting. Wellington boots are a landscape photographer’s best friend in a wide range of situations. Think of them as amphibious tanks for your feet. For waterfalls and streams, wellies allow you to enter the water for the best compositions, rather than simply wearing walking boots where you can be confined to the waterside. Getting in the water allows you to get close and shoot ultra-wide-angle for more dramatic compositions. 1 Distant and wide Standing at the edge…

Waterfalls and streams are commonly found in gorges where the light levels are naturally lower than out in the open. This means that you can often achieve a desirable slow shutter speed of one to two seconds with just a polarising filter to remove glare from the surface of the water. But if the light is brighter or you’d like an even slower shutter speed, then either a one, two, three or four-stop ND filter or a variable ND filter will be necessary to extend the exposure time. 1 Attach the ND filter Compose your shot and focus using either manual or autofocus. Attach a polarising filter to remove glare from the water and an ND filter to extend exposure time. 2 Set exposure Set the camera to Aperture Priority…

1‘Frozen Flatirons’ by Melissa Richards This landscape was shot in Boulder, Colorado, USA, with an Apple iPhone XS. This area is known as The Flatirons, a popular destination for rock climbers, hikers – and photographers, of course. “I love getting out to take photos when the storms roll in from the mountains,” says Melissa. “I could see the snow starting to move in across the top of the Flatirons and loved the way it was shrouding the top of the rocks. It was very cold and windy, and I had to run up the hill and shoot quickly to get the framing the way I wanted because the snow was moving in fast. “Almost immediately after I got this shot, the Flatirons disappeared into the snow and clouds. I was just…

What’s the most important thing to look out for when shooting a portrait? Let’s say you have chosen an 85mm f/1.2 lens and selected f/1.2 to get some creamy bokeh. With that f/1.2 lens, your depth of field is in millimetres, so where do you aim? You probably answered ‘the eyes’ and you’re right. OK, this wasn’t a hard test – our eyes reveal so much. When we meet a stranger or look at a portrait, we tend to look at the eyes first. In a portrait image, the ears and nose can be slightly out of focus but it’s important to nail the eyes. It’s all about the connection, something all the best portraits have – that’s from the eyes and when you get it, it’s a wonderful thing.…

https://7artisans.store 7Artisans is a company that was formed by a group of Chinese camera enthusiasts back in 2015. By the time its first lens went into production, only seven people remained from the original group, hence the company name. 7Artisans makes a number of lenses in a variety of mount options and I’ve been impressed in the past with its full-frame compatible 7Artisans 50mm f/1.05 and 7Artisans 10mm f/2.8 Fisheye, both of which I’ve tested in Nikon Z-mount editions. Indeed, I liked the fisheye lens so much that I bought one for myself. I also reviewed the recently released ultra-wide-angle but rectilinear 7Artisans 9mm F5.6, which is a good option among Sony E-mount lenses. Most 7Artisans lenses, including the 7Artisans 50mm f/1.05, 7Artisans 10mm f/2.8 Fisheye and 7Artisans 9mm F5.6,…