Innehållsförteckning för No. 251 från Digital Photographer

Now in its 15th year, the Sony World Photography Awards (SWPA) rewards photographers based on creativity, technical ability and their approach to contemporary subjects. This year’s competition was divided into categories including Architecture & Design, Creative, Environment and Portraiture. Unlike most photography competitions, the SWPA announces its winners gradually, starting with the student and youth category, then the regional category, followed by the professional and, finally, individual winner. Over 340,000 images from 211 territories were submitted to the 2022 Awards and over 156,000 were entered into the Professional competition – the highest number of entries in the history of the Awards. The Finalists and shortlisted photographers for the professional competition have been revealed, while the overall winners in each competition will be announced on 12 April and will then go…

I’ve never described myself as a ‘people watcher’. While others have professed an appreciation for observing the behaviour of people on the street, I’ve never been naturally drawn to this as a source of photographic inspiration. That said, I have always understood and admired the divide between amateur and professional street photography. Not everyone can do it well! Some people might not see the financial value in street shooting – how do you make a living by capturing spontaneous and amusing moments outside a Starbucks coffee shop or by focusing on people eating at a street food market, for example? Armed with these questions, I arrive outside Covent Garden underground station to meet Joas Souza, the founder of London Stock Photos (londonstockphotos.co.uk). Over the course of 16 years, Joas has…

Subscribe today at: WWW.MAGAZINESDIRECT.COM/DPH/A26C or call 0330 333 1113 and quote ‘A26C’ Make sure you use this URL or quote the code on the phone: other offers are available that do not include the free bag gift “Subscribe for a year and get this versatile bag to carry all your essential kit in Lauren Scott Editor, Digital Photographer What fits inside the NX camera sling bag I Grey for DSLR/CSC? Designed for a mid-level DSLR or mirrorless with multiple lenses Internal insert transforms this into an everyday bag Adjustable padded shoulder strap for maximum comfort Side tripod connection Also holds a 13-inch MacBook Air or 12.9-inch iPad Pro Top reasons to subscribe today Get an NX camera sling bag I Grey Your convenient camera storage option, available with annual print…

Capturing water in motion across or through a landscape scene is not a new technique. Smoothing out flowing rivers into a milky blur with a long exposure has always been a popular way to make a shot more dynamic, and it’s easier to achieve than you might think – even without a neutral density (ND) filter to reduce the amount of light reaching the sensor. General advice suggests that to capture the water in flow, you need a shutter speed of half a second, which is usually achieved by blocking sunlight with a solid ND or ND grad filter. On a recent shoot in Scotland, we had left our filters in a bag at the hotel but still wanted to capture this flowing river. Fortunately, by setting a high aperture…

Whether you’re an enthusiast or a professional, there’s no denying that photographic kit is expensive. There are certainly ‘budget’ options for lenses and accessories, but it can often take many paid shoots to reap back the initial outlay on gear, so any purchase you make should be carefully considered against your business budget in the first place. While it is sometimes possible to save money by using creative solutions on a shoot – for example, choosing to use a kit zoom lens over a premium prime – when you’re producing high-end content for clients, you simply need the best tools for the job at hand. Of course, buying new gear isn’t always necessary, especially if you’re only planning to use an item for one or two jobs (we’re looking at…

For our latest competition in association with Photocrowd, we challenged you to submit your best wildlife and nature shots. After working through all the entries, the winners have been selected. Both crowd-voted and expert winners will win a licence to Affinity Photo professional editing software. Congratulations to all of the winners – as usual, the standard of submitted images was extremely high and it was a difficult task to pick out the best ones. 1ST PLACE WINNER Golden Hour Stag Photographer: PeopleofthePeak Our comment: What a regal shot this is! We love the alignment of the sun and the stag’s impressive set of antlers. It’s a simple frame but one that is full of drama and colour. The choice of focal length adds a subtle compression. Well-timed and put together.…

From its ‘Art’ line of lenses, the Sigma 14-24mm f/2.8 DG HSM | A is an absolutely superb trinity zoom for Canon and Nikon DSLRs, beating the directly competing Nikon F-mount lens for image quality while also significantly undercutting it for price. It also works well on both manufacturers’ mirrorless full-frame cameras, via EF-EOS R or FTZ/FTZ II mount adapters, respectively. The newer ‘DN’ edition is redesigned from the ground up for Sony E-mount bodies and L-mount cameras from the likes of Leica, Panasonic and Sigma. Despite having an extra optical element, the DN lens is smaller and 355g lighter, at 795g. It also has a more well-rounded diaphragm based on 11 blades, rather than nine. The new lens also adds a customisable function button, nominally for AF-Lock by default.…

PETER FENECH This issue, our Technique Editor Peter is bringing you a feature on creating artistic seascapes. Turn to p20 and discover his tips for using texture, light and colour to capture better images at the coast. From p50, he’s also put together a tutorial for replicating studio lighting – perfect for small budgets and spaces! Website: www.digitalcameraworld.com CLAIRE GILLO Journalist and photographer Claire is here to answer more of your career-related questions. This month, her advice for advancing your photography business includes brushing up on your people skills, using textured backdrops and investing in LED lighting. You’ll find the career advice section on p74. Website: www.clairegillo.com TYRONE SINGLETON As a principal at Birmingham Royal Ballet, Tyrone is well-placed to capture stunning images of his fellow dancers. In our interview…

We’re giving away a premium subscription to Digital Photographer as a prize in this year’s Cobalt Capture a Moment photography competition. Cobalt is a UK-based medical charity leading the way in diagnostic imaging. Its photography contest costs just £2 to enter and the winning images will be printed in Cobalt’s 2023 calendar, with all proceeds going towards Cobalt’s work with young cancer patients. As well as an annual subscription to Digital Photographer, there are also prizes from the London Camera Exchange and The Royal Photographic Society. An exhibition of winning images is scheduled to be held at Chapel Arts, Cheltenham in September 2022. The contest opens on 1 April and closes on 31 July 2022. For more info, visit https://www.cobalthealth.co.uk/capture-a-moment-for-cobalt-3/…

IRIX CREATES CINE LENS SETS High-class lens producer Irix has released three new sets of Irix Cine lenses, allowing pro filmmakers to easily adapt their gear for commercial work. The Cine Entry Set includes three lenses, while the Cine Extreme Set and Irix Cine Production Set both have five lenses. All sets come with Irix Edge UV, CPL and ND8 MMS Filters, filter Case and a Nanuk carry case for protection. www.irixlens.com PHOTO FAIR PARTNERS WORLD PHOTOGRAPHY ORGANISATION Two leading global photo organisations, The World Photography Organisation (WPO) and Photo London have announced a new partnership. Both are dedicated to the cultural enrichment of photography, and the move follows the World Photography Organisation’s acquisition of 25% of Photo London. The annual Photo London Fair returns to Somerset House from 12-15…

Difficulty level: Advanced Time taken: 2 hours All images © Peter Fenech While having a photo studio can be a great benefit to a business, not every photographer chooses to invest in one. Many prefer to work remotely when they do not require studio lights often enough to justify the cost of renting a space. Even professionals who do have a fixed-base studio will occasionally have to work without the freedom that such a space can offer. For both commercial and individual clients, you may find yourself shooting in their office or even their own home, environments that are far from ideal with regards to ambient lighting and the available space to work. Low ceilings, cramped conditions and no large expanses of seamless wall make capturing a portrait that looks…

Super Resolution is a feature within Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop, and also in Lightroom, that allows you to double the resolution of RAW files. Using artificial intelligence, the results are sharper and more detail-packed than other interpolation methods, and the resulting larger image can extend the print sizes possible using older RAW files and those from lower resolution cameras. What you’ll be using Adobe Camera Raw Basic adjustments Super Resolution Sharpening & noise reduction Photoshop adjustments 1 Open and process Open the RAW file you’d like to enlarge in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and apply all the adjustments that are required. These adjustments will be carried over to the Digital Negative Image (DNG), so doing it this way means both versions will be processed identically and to your liking.…

Portrait ponder I’m a photography graduate who wants to become a portrait photographer. What top tips can you give me for starting out and what kit should I invest in? Gina Remborn To be a successful portrait photographer, ultimately, you have to be a people person. If your clients are comfortable in your presence they will look more relaxed and happy in their portraits. It can be tricky to think about all the technical aspects of the shoot whilst also directing your sitter, so you need to have good multitasking skills whilst remaining calm when things might not go according to plan. When it comes to kit, the investment you need to make depends on the type of portraits you want to shoot. If you plan to shoot studio portraits,…

Digital Photographer Next issue The latest kit reviews, tutorials and projects to hone your photo skills Issue 252 is on sale 19 April 2022 Read these essential features: Pro guide to modern wildlife photography Expert techniques for infrared landscapes How to get more from your sensor Available at www.magazinesdirect.com…

While losing a millimetre in minimum focal length, compared with the Nikon and Sigma lenses on test, the Canon gains considerable reach at the long end, stretching to 35mm instead of 24mm. It might seem superfluous in one way, as it overlaps the zoom range of a 24-70mm zoom, it can reduce the need to swap lenses so often, or even to carry two lenses when you’re trekking into the countryside. The Canon is also the only lens in the group to feature optical image stabilisation, worth up to five stops, which can avoid the need to carry a tripod. That said, it’s only a major advantage if you’re an early adopter shooting with one of Canon’s original EOS R or RP cameras that lack in-body stabilisation. The optical layout…

The wide-angle sibling to Tamron’s 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III VXD G2 standard zoom, the 17-28mm has a more modest maximum viewing angle than other lenses on test. Even so, it stretches to a useful 103 degrees on Sony full-frame mirrorless cameras, while giving an ‘effective’ zoom range of 25.5-42mm on APS-C format bodies, complete with the fast and constant f/2.8 aperture of the other contenders. An upside of the longer minimum focal length is a compact and lightweight construction, measuring 73x99mm and tipping the scales at just 420g, half the weight of the Canon lens in the group. The smaller build features a 67mm filter thread so, while filters won’t be plentiful, they will be relatively affordable. Though lightweight, the construction is of good quality with a sturdy build, multiple…

Some new photography products seem so obvious upon launch that you wonder why they haven’t been invented before. Kase’s Wolverine Double Grad filters fit that bill. The 150x100mm rectangular filters, which have been designed for use in standard 100mm holders, feature two gradations on either end of the glass. There are currently two variations available: a 3-stop soft with 3-stop hard grad and a 3-stop reverse with a 3-stop medium. We had an early demo version of the former, but Kase says that more variations will be forthcoming. So what’s the deal, and why is this filter such a breakthrough? A traditional graduated filter is, of course, clear at one end and a neutral grey at the other, offering landscape photographers the ability to balance bright skies against dark foregrounds…

Free Franzis software worth £150/$150 Create images with added wow-effects! B&W Projects Transform your images with this creative monochrome tool Make awe-inspiring masterpieces from your photographs. Achieve the high-end professional results you’ve been striving for by using 139 presets and 105 expert filters, pro film emulation effects and the tonal value transformation function. Cutout Separate any subject from its background with precision Cut out difficult parts of images perfectly and use them with clean transitions against new backgrounds. Cutout will precisely cut out portraits, animals and products, and it also has the power to help create slick product listing pictures for eBay, Amazon and other platforms. Color Projects Give your colour images the vibrant look they deserve Transform colour photos into work fit to display in a gallery, while using…

Instagram: @amirhosseinnaghian Image location: Tehran, Iran Type of commission: Personal Shot details: Fujifilm XT-20, Fujion 11-16mm, 1/30thsec, f/12, ISO200 About the shot: Often in photography, the best images happen unexpectedly. You can plan extensively and find the image you envisage never materialises – but then, when you least expect it, all the elements come together. For this reason, it is always a good idea to carry a camera with you wherever you go. This is demonstrated by the story behind Amirhossein Naghian’s fantastically atmospheric black and white image. “This shot was taken in a place called Ahmadabad Mostofi, near Tehran. One foggy day, I was on my way to university and my attention was caught by these trees,” he recalls. “I always saw them along the way but it was…

One of the reasons seascape photography can be a technical challenge has less to do with the nature of the ocean itself and more about the shape of the topography of coastal locations. Beach scenes are often flat, when looking out to sea, and strongly arranged along the vertical axis when cliffs or tall sand dunes are included in the frame. These juxtaposing shapes can provide visual interest, but make it difficult to correctly shoot all of the required elements in a single composition. If we attempt to capture all areas of the scene within one frame, we can often be left with a large expanse of empty sky in the shot. When this makes the use of an ultra-wide-angle lens necessary, the perspective can cause smaller details in the…

Extended ISO ranges are a source of confusion amongst professional and enthusiast photographers alike. While extended high settings are well covered, low sensitivities can be perplexing. How can the camera have a lower ISO than the base sensitivity and why is it not active by default? Just as values in the ultra-high range are achieved through in-camera processing, so too are settings such as ISO 80 or 50. When these are selected, the camera will expose the frame at the lowest native ISO and then pull back the brightness via onboard computing. The effect is similar to opening a RAW file in software and reducing the exposure. This is useful in enabling a longer exposure while using auto exposure systems but has its drawbacks. The actual sensitivity has not been…

Keeping up with a social media schedule is never easy. We lead busy lives and, as working photographers, must dedicate a lot of our time to capturing and carefully sorting and editing images. The apparent absolute requirement to be present on the likes of Instagram and Facebook can prove highly stressful – it’s an additional task that can feel like a step too far, especially when there can be so little immediate return. Scheduling tools are therefore a huge benefit. They allow us to pre-plan, create and distribute content at will, without having to individually upload media, write some copy and post on each platform, all at the correct times of day for maximal reach. Not all of the social platforms have built-in features that allow this, so third-party options…

How important is it to have good people skills as a portrait photographer? Getting along with people is critical. To be a successful portrait photographer, clients have to be happy with the final images they receive and that means that they need to be relaxed, comfortable and happy for the duration of the photoshoot. If they aren’t completely at ease, it will show in your images. To get the best out of their subjects, a good portrait photographer needs to be calm, patient, friendly and relaxed. I find that just chatting with people before and during the shoot really puts them at ease. Take your time too, I never rush my clients. When your clients come to you for a photoshoot, how do you ensure they feel comfortable in front…

96 Landscape zooms Step into spring and capture landscapes in all their glory, with one of these epic zoom lenses for mirrorless full-frame cameras. We review four optics from Canon, Nikon, Sigma and Tamron. 104 Leica Q2 Based on our brief hands-on, we already feel a lot of love for the Q2. With a 47-megapixel sensor, this compact delivers the goods – but at the premium Leica-like price you’d expect 108 Kase Double Grad filters We review the Kase Wolverine 100x150mm Double Grad 0.9 GND Soft & Hard filter. Are two filters better than one? 110 Lenses We take two professional optics out into the field and test their performance. This month, it’s the Nikon Z 40mm f/2 and the Panasonic Lumix S 70-300mm F/4.5-5.6 Macro O.I.S. 112 Accessories It’s…

The joint winner for maximum viewing angle, along with the Sigma lens on test, the Nikon also features the same overall 14-24mm zoom range. Handling characteristics are equally refined as with Nikon’s other Z-mount trinity zooms, which gives all three lenses a consistent look and feel. As such, there is an L.Fn (Lens function) button, the action of which can be customised via in-camera menus, plus a customisable control ring that, as with the Canon counterpart, can be assigned to various functions, such as control over aperture and ISO setting. The Nikon also adds an OLED display panel with a switch for scrolling through information on focal length, focus distance, depth of field and aperture setting. Optical finery includes three aspherical elements and four ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements. Ghosting and…

PEAK DESIGN EVERYDAY CASE Website:www.peakdesign.com Price: £28/$40 Peak Design makes the Everyday Case in a range of sizes to fit a selection of iPhones from the iPhone 11 up to and including the iPhone 13, 13 Pro and 13 Max. The case snaps onto your phone easily and looks smart, while the rubberised bumper and nylon canvas shell protect the phone. However, the clever bit is the magnetic/mechanical mount that enables the case to connect to Peak Design’s range of Mobile mounts, chargers and accessories. It’s also compatible with Apple MagSafe chargers and accessories. 3 LEGGED THING GRACY Website:www.3leggedthing.com Price: £100/$120 Available in Metallic Slate Grey or Copper, the 3 Legged Thing Gracy is a magnesium alloy L-bracket for the Fujifilm GFX100S and GFX50S Mark II cameras. It hugs the profile of…