Innehållsförteckning för No. 302 från Photography Week

Welcome to the world’s No.1 weekly digital photography magazine. If you’re already a reader, thanks for your continued support and involvement; if you’re new to Photography Week, you’ve come to the right place! In addition to expert advice, brilliant tips and step-by-step tutorials, every issue features interactive galleries of the best new photos, how-to videos on essential shooting and editing techniques, and in-depth reviews of the latest camera kit. But that’s not the whole story. Photography Week is more than a magazine – it’s a community of like-minded people who are passionate about photography. To get involved, just follow any of the links below and share your shots and comments – your photo might even appear on our cover! JOIN THE PHOTOGRAPHY WEEK COMMUNITY AND START SHARING! FACEBOOK http://tiny.cc/7s2zgy TWITTER…

A lot of landscape photography is about capturing sweeping views using wide-angle lenses. You can use the 18-55mm lens that’s usually supplied with a DSLR kit, but the best results are produced by fixed focal-length lenses, which are generally sharper across the frame. Chromatic aberration, which reveals itself as coloured haloes along high-contrast edges such as the horizon or along branches, is also usually better controlled by lenses with a fixed focal length. These mono-focal length lenses also tend to suffer less from distortion, although a little bowing isn’t usually noticeable in the average landscape. The native aspect ratio of a camera is dictated by the shape of its sensor, which means that with the exception of Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds cameras, most images tend to be captured…

I f you want sharp landscape images then a good, solid tripod is essential. But it won’t guarantee shake-free shots – there are a few techniques you need to employ as well. A remote release is a sensible investment, as this will enable you to trigger the shutter without touching the camera directly. If you forget your remote release, use your camera’s self-timer. With a DSLR, it also pays to use mirror lock-up. This flips the mirror up with one press of the shutter release, before triggering the shutter to fire on the second press, after a delay, to allow vibration from the mirror movement to stop. With some cameras the self-timer can be linked to the mirror lock-up feature, so the shooting process takes place with a single press…

T he majority of landscapes contain lots of green and blue, so it makes sense to give these colours a little extra zing. The landscape option in a camera’s scene modes usually cranks up the saturation of greens and blues; it also takes control of white balance and exposure, and it will attempt to set a low sensitivity setting and narrow aperture so that shots have lots of sharp detail. Experienced photographers who want to take control of the exposure themselves will find aperture priority mode a better choice, but they can still boost greens and blues by using the landscape option of their camera’s colour modes – these are called Picture Styles on Canon cameras, and Picture Control settings on Nikon DSLRs. Scene modes tailor aspects such as exposure,…

The rule of thirds was first employed in painting, and it’s also really useful for helping to compose photographs. It uses the fact that, generally speaking, we prefer to look at nonsymmetrical images, and it helps us to work out the perfect arrangements of elements within a shot. Using the rule of thirds is simple, but it can be very effective. When you’re composing an image, try to imagine that it’s divided up into three equal horizontal sections and three vertical sections. Many cameras have a grid view that will make this a lot easier to visualise, but you may need to shoot using Live View rather than the viewfinder to see it. As you frame the image in front of you, try to arrange key elements along one of…

Getting the foreground, middle distance and background of a landscape acceptably sharp means using a narrow aperture to get lots of depth of field. Aperture priority is a good choice of exposure mode for achieving this, as it enables you to set the aperture while the camera determines the shutter speed. Don’t assume that the camera will always know exactly what you want though – check the histogram and make sure the highlights are retained. Also, make sure you don’t fall into the tap of using the very narrowest aperture available on your lens, as this will often result in a soft image because of diffraction. Diffraction is the bending of light waves as they pass by the aperture blades – the narrower the aperture, the more significant it will…

THE BEST THING WE’VE SEEN THIS WEEK Sports photographer and Canon Ambassador Samo Vidic has photographed some of the world’s biggest sporting personalities for the likes of Getty Images, ESPN and French sports paper L’Equipe. But after photographing a friend who was an extreme sports athlete before he was paralysed in an accident, Vidic became interesting in working with other disabled athletes, and for his latest project he photographed a skateboarder, a swimmer, a sprinter and a climber, capturing portraits and also using a variety of effects and techniques to capture action shots that convey both his subjects’ sporting prowess and the obstacles they’ve overcome. The result is a series of stunning and inspiring images that celebrate the achievements of four remarkable people. Click the link to see all the…

LEARN ESSENTIAL EDITING SKILLS FAST! Here’s a fun effect you can try out on your portraits. By using our supplied Photoshop Action you can transform a portrait into a series of interlinking triangular shapes for a wonderful lo-fi treatment. We’ve supplied a starting portrait for this video tutorial, but any close-up portrait will work. Actions are one of the hidden jewels in Photoshop – you can use them to record and then play back any series of edits you like. Our action uses the Average filter to even out a part of the portrait by averaging all the tones within it. All you need to do is plot a triangle with the Polygonal Lasso tool – the action does the rest. Even with the help of actions this project will…

Great landscape photography is as much about planning, preparation and patience as it is about focal lengths, f-stops and filters. A few minutes spent checking the weather forecast, scouting the location and waiting for the right light can make an enormous difference to the final image. Of course, your wait for the ‘right’ light will be a lot shorter if you head out at the right time of day. Shoot too close to noon in the summer and you’re images will be characterised by short, dense, black shadows and harsh highlights from the overhead sun, so that even a hilly landscape will look flat and uninteresting. However, if you shoot in the hour after sunrise or before sunset the sun is much lower in the sky, and the longer, softer…

Our eyes have a much greater dynamic range than a digital camera. We can see marginal differences in the brightness of white fluffy clouds above a landscape as well as the detail of the grass in the deep shade beneath the trees, but cameras can’t – in an image the clouds may be a burned-out mass of white, or the shadows may be a featureless black. To produce images that appear the same as we see the landscape, you need to balance the exposure of the brightest and darkest parts of the scene, and with landscapes this usually means reducing the exposure of the sky so it matches the exposure required by the land. Traditionally, this is done with a graduated neutral density filter, with the grey section covering the…

ESSENTIAL PHOTO SKILLS MADE EASY 1 Hour When you’re capturing landscapes, still lifes and other images that contain distinct features, the usual approach is to fill the frame with the main subject, but it can often be more effective to leave certain areas empty. We call the empty parts of a frame ‘negative space’, and this is typically any areas that are either lacking in detail, blurred or otherwise plain and unformed. By contrast, the ‘positive space’ in an image will be areas of interest, such as your subject or other notable details in the frame. But, just because the rest is ‘negative’, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. If we manipulate the balance between positive and negative space we can produce strikingly bold compositions, especially if we overemphasize…

Five THINGS TO LOOK FOR… 1 Although still-life tables are usually foldable, a collapsible light tent tends to pack smaller. 2 Continuous lamps are ideal for lighting, but flash or even sunlight can be good substitutes. 3 White is often best for neutral shots, but a coloured sheet on a still-life table adds atmosphere. 4 Shooting from low angles can complement still-life subjects. Line up your camera with care. 4 Perfecting the right lighting requires trial and error. Avoid imperfection: don’t rush the job! Kaiser Easy-Fit Shooting Table £180/$250 www.fotospeed.com This still-life table provides a 59 x 37cm flat surface that transitions smoothly into a 35cm-high backdrop. The table design has several advantages over a tent. Its metal frame elevates your subject off the ground, allowing you to place a…