Innehållsförteckning för No. 290 från Digital Photographer

“For 23 years, we’ve charted an exciting era of photography. But, as the saying goes, all good things come to an end” The life of a creative person can be tough. We’re never truly satisfied with our work – even when everyone else says that it’s fantastic, we’re always trying to find room for improvement. Then there is imposter syndrome to contend with – the feeling that other creatives are better than us and we don’t deserve our place on a pedestal beside them. Add to that the digital focus of the modern world and an uncertainty about how many people have actually stopped to admire our images on social media and it can be difficult to keep up the motivation. That’s the beauty of a printed magazine. For both…

Launched in late February, the OM System OM-3 is a creative powerhouse that combines the specs and computational muscle of the company’s flagship model, the creative toolset of the legendary Olympus PEN-F, and the looks of the classic Olympus OM-3. The OM-3 takes all the core technology of the celebrated OM System OM-1 Mark II, including the stacked, BSI 20.4MP image sensor with Quad Pixel autofocus, along with 14-bit 50MP and 80MP High Res Shot mode, 120fps burst shooting with pre-capture (50fps with continuous AF), 4K 60p/Full HD 120p/Slow & Quick 240fps video, and IP53 weather sealing. It also features the OM-1 Mark II’s market-leading computational photography features, including Live ND and Live GND filters, now accessible at the touch of a button. The OM-3 resurrects the PEN-F’s Creative Dial,…

Smartphone photography has surged in popularity, thanks to its simplicity and the lightweight nature of the devices themselves, which makes capturing precious moments on the go effortless. Advancements in smartphone camera technology have also reached impressive heights, with even mid-range devices now rivalling the capabilities of compact digital cameras from just a few years ago. Intense competition between manufacturers has fuelled an ongoing wave of innovation, with AI being leveraged to enhance processing abilities from sharpness to white balance. Although smartphones don’t offer the upgradeable lens options of DSLRs or mirrorless cameras, the main advantage is their versatility with multiple camera features, typically including wide-angle and telephoto lenses. Leading smartphone brands have partnered with prestigious lens manufacturers such as Hasselblad, Leica and Zeiss to further elevate image quality. To achieve…

Ross McLaren Location: Western Scotland Specialisms: Underwater, commercial To see more of Ross’s work visit: rsmclarenphotography.com “My passion for photography really only started as a way to show off the incredible underwater world we have here on our doorstep. But from there, it’s grown into a love for all forms of photography and a part-time career so to speak. Over the past few years, I’ve started to offer photoshoots across multiple genres of photography.” Career path When did you start out in your current photo genres? Photography came as a bit of an afterthought to scuba diving. When I started diving here at home in Scotland in 2016, I was blown away by the incredible marine life. I started taking photos with a GoPro so that I had something interesting to…

Name: A New, New York, Dawn Date: February 2024 Kit: • Leica Q2 • Leica Summilux 28 f/1.7 ASPH “Photography illuminates the truth of a moment, highlighting our reality in ways we might not otherwise notice.” Gerard Doolan Gerard Doolan is a black-and-white street photographer who documents the rapid changes in the city of New York. His work reimagines familiar icons and dissects the reality and complexities of the human condition in the modern world. His images represent an open letter to the city and the generations of people who have called it home. @gdoolanphoto…

Photographer: Swarup Roy Chowdhury Title: Faster Blaster Location: Saul Kere Lake, Bangalore, Karnataka, India @cswaruproy About the shot: “This scene reminded me of my school days when we used to run behind the friend who had the delicious lunchbox that day. The same thing happened here – the cormorant wasted no time in running away and gulping the fish down completely. The other one didn’t have a choice and had to return empty-handed.” WIN! SAMSUNG 1TB PRO PLUS MICRO SDXC MEMORY CARD WITH SD ADAPTER Every issue, one Digital Photographer reader wins a Samsung 1TB PRO Plus microSDXC Card with SD adapter. Boasting up to 180MB/s and 130MB/s read/write speeds, the card is perfect for high-res stills and Ultra HD video. It is the go-to card for the modern content…

PRICE: £1,249/$1,149 FOCUS DISTANCE: 0.20m WEIGHT: 445g Build and handling You certainly can’t accuse Canon of having a meagre line-up of wide-angle zoom lenses for its EOS R system mirrorless cameras. The first thing that grabs your attention about this lens is just how small and lightweight it is. At just 77x91mm and 445g, it’s only slightly bigger and heavier than the variable aperture Canon RF 15-30mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM. Both lenses have a retractable design, which tends to split opinions among photographers but I like the option of compressing the lens to save space. The build quality feels pretty good, despite the lightweight construction and it’s actually one of the first lenses outside of Canon’s upmarket L-series to feature weather-seals. Performance Autofocus is taken care of by a leadscrew stepping…

PRO BIO Daniel Fildes Fildes is a wildlife and landscape photographer, based in the Republic of Ireland. His work focuses on conservation, showcasing vivid colours, breathtaking lighting conditions and sharp detail with an appreciation of the natural world. Fildes’s ‘Seeking Shelter’ imagery highlights the importance of photography in documenting the symbiotic nature of wildlife interactions. @dfwild dfwild.com Underwater photography tends to grab the viewer’s attention as marine environments offer a range of unique lifeforms and powerful lighting that catches the eye. As an underwater photographer, showcasing a beautiful creature in complementary lighting is the aspiration, dispelling preconceptions that the ocean is a cold, dark and empty place. I was planning to photograph a compass jellyfish from below, illuminating the bell and compass like markings using natural rays of sunlight to…

2002-2005 Our journey begins From the moment Digital Photographer launched in 2002, we envisaged a magazine that would resonate with you, our readers. One that captured not just the technological advances but also the excitement and passion that came with embracing digital photography. We found ourselves at a thrilling frontier and thrived in an era of digital imaging, celebrating milestones that once seemed revolutionary – like those early cameras with humble pixel counts. At the time, many rival publications had hesitated to fully embrace the digital transition. “Looking at our competitor titles back then, many were stuck in the past,” says group editor Karl Foster. “We hit reset and treated consumer electronic companies, such as Sony, Panasonic and Epson, in the same way as the established photography brands.” Digital Photographer…

Generative AI in photography is a contentious subject for many reasons, but it’s here and is a tool that can be used to create new photos. This can be achieved using text prompts alone or these prompts can be combined with a reference image that captures the style you’re aiming to achieve. It’s quick and easy and the results are often extremely impressive. What you’ll be using • New Document• Text Prompts• Reference Image• Lasso Tool• Generative Fill 1 Create a canvas Hold down Ctrl/Cmd+N to open the New Document dialogue. Create a document that’s 4000x6000 pixels at 300ppi with a white background. This document size equates to a 24MP photo. I’ve opted for portrait format here, but you can switch the dimensions for landscape format. 2 Write the text…

The digital advantage Digital magazines can travel with you – even if you delete them, they are free to download again later. Subscribe today by visiting our official store, Magazines Direct: bit.ly/3NjZgnf Apple iOS devices Read us on your iPad, iPhone or Mac device from the Apple App Store: apps.apple.com or Apple News+ apple.com/apple-news. Simply search for Digital Photographer Android, PC or Mac Zinio: bit.ly/DPZinio Pocket Mags: pocketmags.com Other options Digital Photographer is available for Kindle, Nook and more (see right). It can also be found on the all-you-can-read Readly magazine app: gb.readly.com Printed back issues There’s nothing quite like a printed magazine. We also sell a limited selection of recent back copies – issues 284-289 are currently available. Each issue costs £6.99 for UK deliveries, plus postage. See the…

In the world of travel photography, the lens serves not merely as a tool but as a bridge connecting diverse cultures and landscapes to a broader audience. Here, travel photography is a medium for documentation that allows us to share and preserve stories. Thibault Gerbaldi’s artistic approach examines the themes of nature’s impermanence juxtaposed with the resilience of human culture, set against the challenging environments of Greenland, Iceland and Namibia. While illuminating the precariousness of landscapes, he sets the cultural focus on marginalised communities, including Andean alpaca farmers, Mongolian eagle hunters and the Himba people of Namibia – documenting their endurance in the face of external pressures. “Travel photography allows us to document and preserve stories – it’s a bridge to connect diverse cultures with a broader audience” A pivotal…

For our latest competition in association with Photocrowd, we challenged you to submit your best Nightscapes images. After working through all the entries, the winners have been selected. As a prize, the winners will receive a licence for 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 select the best ones. 1ST PLACE WINNER Stars over Snowdonia Photographer Tony North This is a wonderful image which clearly took a lot of patience to achieve. The composition and compositing work are excellent, making use of multiple tools. The panorama and exposure processing are superb and the angle has been well chosen to ensure interesting detail in all areas of the frame.…

Price: £6,900/$6,299 Website: canon.com The Canon EOS R1 is the camera we have all been waiting for since the entire R system was launched back in 2018. Indeed, what is a camera system without a flagship camera? A standard-bearer to showcase the whole system and provide all the trickle-down tech goodness we could possibly need for the next half-decade. The EOS R1 has a whole lot of tech in common with the new Canon EOS R5 Mark II – so much so, in fact, that the two cameras are essentially siblings – but the R1 has plenty of USPs that make it the obvious and indispensable choice for professional shooters. The Neural network Image Processing features in this camera are arguably even more important here than they are in the…

PRICE: £1,379/$1,249 FOCUS DISTANCE: 0.32m WEIGHT: 1,215g DOWNLOAD TEST DATA https://bit.ly/DPH290 Build and handling This lens aims for a spot in the best tilt-shift lenses hall of fame. The 100mm lens’s focal length and 1.0x maximum magnification make it ideal for macro photography, where the tilt function gives a boost to the typically tiny depth of field. A big and chunky lens, the Laowa measures 85x162mm and weighs in at 1,215g. As such, it’s supplied complete with a tripod mounting ring that has an Arca-Swiss compatible foot but that’s not all. Laowa actually calls the mounting ring a ‘Shift holder’, as it also keeps the lens fixed in place when using the Shift function, so only the camera body is moved. That’s ideal in ‘shift’ shooting. Performance The optical path is…

Photographer: Richard Barman @richardbarman linktr.ee/richardbarman Image location: Kamakhya Temple, Guwahati, Assam, India Type of commission: Personal Shot details: Canon 6D Mark II, EF 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM, 1/500 sec, f/4, ISO 800 “This image is part of my ongoing project focusing on the Deodhani Festival, an annual cultural and spiritual event held at the Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati, India. It celebrates the divine presence of Goddess Manasa, the goddess of snakes and fertility, and brings together a dynamic combination of sacred dances, intense spiritual practices and profound devotion. “At the heart of the festival is the Deodhani Nritya, a trance-like dance performed by some individuals who are believed to channel the divine powers of goddesses. These performers, known as Deodhas, enter a state of spiritual possession, captivating the audience…

Spring has finally sprung and that can only mean one thing – it’s time to get out with your camera to take some top landscape shots. During this brilliantly colourful and varied season, flowers start to re-emerge from their winter slumber. Snowdrops are always the first to appear in January, followed by daffodils in February and bluebells in March, while wild garlic and tulips can both be seen as we head into April. The British weather is changeable at the best of times and spring is no different – we have the notoriously wet month of April to contend with. But you can use this to your advantage as wet landscapes can give your scenes shimmering reflections and closeups of flowers will be coated in droplets of water that can…

Whether you’re capturing landscapes in the middle of the day or during golden hour, Masking is a fantastic tool in Lightroom for accentuating sky detail and adjusting the colour, if required. Even if you have used ND grads to maintain as much of the sky detail as possible in your landscapes, this simple technique can still be a huge benefit when it comes to making your landscapes look their very best. What you’ll be using • Basic adjustments• Tone Curve• Lens Corrections• Select Sky• Linear Gradient 1 Process the shot Process your image using Basic adjustments such as White Balance, Exposure, Shadows and Highlights. Use the Tone Curve to adjust the contrast and apply Lens Corrections if required. Don’t worry too much about highlight detail at this stage because this…

Being a wedding photographer is deeply rewarding – you have been trusted to preserve timeless memories and witness moments of pure joy. It allows for creative expression, from capturing candid emotions to crafting stunning compositions. Each wedding brings a unique opportunity to portray a genuine love story through your lens – and you are often invited to be part of a celebratory, uplifting atmosphere. However, the stakes are high, with no room for missed shots or technical issues. Time pressures, unpredictable weather and the emotional intensity of the day can also make it a challenging environment in which to work. Balancing creativity with logistical planning is key, as is remaining adaptable in the face of unexpected or unavoidable changes. Despite these challenges, the satisfaction of delivering cherished memories makes it…

How did you get started in photography, and what led you to teaching workshops? I’ve been taking photos since I was seven when my dad taught me the basics. It was always my hobby and gradually became my business in 2016. I started teaching one-to-one around the same time and added one-day workshops to my services in 2021. I realised that most UK workshops were in ‘honeypot’ locations, but thought that people could still benefit from attending a workshop in less apparently glamorous locations. In my case, that’s Milton Keynes, which is actually lovely, though much maligned! What is your most popular workshop? The more general ones are the most popular, where I plan a set itinerary that covers different locations and a mix of technical and compositional advice. This…

International Garden Photographer of the Year 18 Garden Photographers Association, the International Garden Photographer of The Year is now in its 18th year and has become a staple of the photography competition calendar. The competition attracts entries from all over the globe and culminates in an exhibition at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and a rolling programme of touring exhibitions across the UK. For more info on next year’s contest, visit igpoty.com…

104 Canon EOS R1 The flagship R series camera has arrived and James Artaius believes it could be the best sports camera on the market 106 OM System OM-3 The successor to the PEN-F will make you fall in love with photography again, says James Artaius Our ratings Our team of trusted and expert reviewers score gear thoroughly to help you make better buying choices. Product awards Digital Photographer’s awards are given out when a product really catches our attention. Here are our three most used accolades. Lab testing Some of our product reviews also have in-depth lab data, graphs and scores. This means that the kit has been subjected to more rigorous testing. Lens tests are carried out using Imatest, and cameras are tested in our laboratory using DxO…

Price: £1,699/$1,999 Website: explore.omsystem.com There are many things I want to say about the OM System OM-3, but the two most pertinent points are, first, that this is the PEN-F successor that Olympus fans have been waiting nearly a decade for and second, this is the camera that out-Fujifilms Fujifilm. It is truly a gestalt product, far more than simply the sum of its parts. The OM-3 has all the flagship firepower of the OM System OM-1 Mark II, with its cutting-edge computational photography. It has the handcrafted creativity of the Olympus PEN-F, with the ahead-of-its-time Creative Dial. And it also has the iconic shape and silhouette of its namesake, the Olympus OM-3, with its timeless design by Yoshihisa Maitani. It probably won’t have escaped your attention that the OM…