Innehållsförteckning för No. 502 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 brilliant 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. JOIN THE PHOTOGRAPHY WEEK COMMUNITY AND START SHARING! FACEBOOK http://bit.ly/39py9lg TWITTER http://bit.ly/2vGadLP FLICKR http://bit.ly/2VIgsJO We’re more than just a magazine – read…

As accurate as autofocus is, over time there are shifts in the optimal focus position of a lens’s optics. This can mean that, when using AF, the focus position is not perfectly placed at the desired subject distance. If you have a DSLR, you can use in-camera lens micro adjustment (or AF fine-tune) to improve sharpness to get the most detailed resolution possible. This can be done in your camera’s custom function options. Use a drawn horizontal line as an AF target and two perpendicular rulers as a scale. Shoot an image, then select an adjustment amount in the menu, reshoot and assess. Note that this adjustment isn’t necessary for mirrorless cameras, as AF functions use the imaging sensor. PIXELS VS DETAIL Higher resolution usually means greater detail, but if…

Exposing ‘to the right’, or ETTR, is an established digital technique. It ensures that images contain the minimum of noise, and captures better colour information, due to the way sensors gather image data, making fuller use of the gamut. However, using the histogram to judge how to set the exposure can be misleading. Although the data may be touching the right wall of the graph, this may just be where light sources appear in the image. If you’re shooting a scene that contains street lights, bright window lights, or the sun in the frame, you might be able to take the exposure further right, as we rarely aim to hold detail in these areas. Try activating highlight alerts for a visual representation of where clipping is occurring. If landscape details…

Another common misconception is that the hyperfocal focusing method is the best procedure for front-to-back image sharpness. The mathematics used to obtain the hyperfocal values are rather outdated, and are based on the concept of ‘acceptable sharpness’. Clearly, what we accept as sharp differs greatly from the early 20th century, when the method first came into use. Today, double-distance focusing is more widely acknowledged to obtain equal sharpness at near and far distances. For this, find the distance of the nearest object to the camera and double it. For most landscapes, using a wide lens, f/11 will produce more sharpness throughout. However, it’s better to focus on critical areas of your image and use tech such as live view, AF and focus peaking. If the horizon is barely visible, prioritise…

We’re so used to the idea that increasing the ISO raises noise levels that we can become preoccupied with keeping the sensitivity close to the base setting at all costs. However, read noise is not something we can control, so it will exist regardless of sensitivity. In this case, increasing the ISO boosts the signal gain which, while eventually introducing other types of noise, will initially swing the visual signal-noise balance in our favour. The lesson here is that it’s better to increase the native ISO setting in order to achieve the correct exposure than to brighten the raw file in software. By this stage, the S-N balance is locked into the file and cannot be improved. Boosting the signal before recording to the memory card has taken place reduces…

Gradients are often thought of as primarily a tool for graphic designers. After all, why would photographers need a tool that creates a straightforward blend between one colour and another? When they’re utilised in the form of Gradient Maps, however, gradients can be a powerful tool for toning and tinting your photos. A gradient map works by mapping colours onto the tonal range of your image, from shadow tones on the left of the gradient to highlight tones on the right, so you can tint shadows with one colour and highlights with another. You can use gradient maps to create all kinds of tonal effects, from vintage washes to dramatic colour shifts. If you’ve used the Split Toning controls in Camera Raw or Lightroom, you’ll be familiar with the concept…

Sony has announced a new version of one of its key lenses for professional photographers, videographers and content creators. The FE 24-70mm f/2.8 G Master II standard zoom is smaller, lighter and faster than the original 24-70mm f/2.8 G Master. At 695g the new lens is 22% lighter than its 886g predecessor, and just 119.9mm long as opposed to the 136mm of the old lens. The new lens does have internal focusing, but it does not have internal zoom – we’re told the lens barrel does extend when zooming. The autofocus system now uses four XD Linear motors to offer fast, quiet AF, and strong tracking performance in particular, both when shooting stills in the Sony A1’s 30fps continuous shooting mode for example, or for fast and reliable AF tracking…

Electronic shutters are an exciting prospect. The the removal of a physical moving part allows much higher effective shutter speeds and silent shooting options. However, this technology is less suitable for shooting fast laterally-moving subjects, as the read-out process can introduce distortion, which mostly takes the form of a skewing of vertical lines. Check your camera manual to see at which shutter setting the electronic mode takes over, and beware of framing compositions that incorporate many vertical components above this speed. Overall, the benefits of electronic shutters outweigh the drawbacks, but it helps to know when your camera is switching from mechanical shutter, so you don’t get surprise distortions that are difficult to correct.…

Digital sensors are covered by an array of coloured filters (a Bayer filter) that allow your camera to ‘see’ in colour. To better represent human vision there are twice as many green filters as blue and red ones, and this can cause issues when you’re shooting under stage lighting or expansive blue skies. Under red or blue light, you’ll only be able to gather around 25% of the total signal available under mixed lighting. Factor in the natural insensitivity of many sensors to blue wavelengths and noise is more prominent in the blue channel. If possible, for event photography, favour shots with mixed coloured lighting, and avoid excessively brightening single coloured-light shots in software. The same goes for clear blue skies. This isn’t something we have a great deal of…

The Association of Photographers (AOP) has unveiled the Gold and Silver winners in its 37th Photography Awards. The awards showcase outstanding photography across a wide range of genres and styles, with prizes awarded in nine themed categries and an Open category. The AOP is the leading organisation for photographers and image-makers working in the creative industries. CEO Isabelle Doran said: “Our 37th Awards for the Association of Photographers has delivered in so many ways, not least with the wide range of professional photography submitted for this year’s entry but also the exceptional skill and flair on show.” Click the link to see more images from the contest, and from the AOP Student Awards 2021, at the AOP website, where you’ll also find details of how to join the Association and…

www.leica-camera.com £1,999/$2,198 The Leica Q2 has been in our list of the best compact cameras for some time, and for good reason: we love it, not least for its image quality. Now the limited edition Leica Q2 Reporter is here, but does it steal the original Q2’s thunder? Leica’s camera range can get confusing, so here’s a quick run-down. This German brand is probably best known for its Leica M rangefinders, which take interchangeable M-series lenses. The Q2 Reporter shares the same ‘look’ as the M-series, but it’s a different design – a compact camera with a fixed lens. Leica also makes SL-series L-mount mirrorless cameras, including the professional-level Leica SL2 (which has a lot in common with the Panasonic Lumix S1R). There’s also the rarely seen Leica S3 medium-format…

Modern digital cameras are marvels of imaging technology. Over the past 20 years, there has been a revolution in what sensors are capable of recording, both in terms of light-gathering capacity and detail capture. At one time, seemingly not too long ago, 6MP was considered high-resolution, whereas the latest crop of full-frame mirrorless cameras can pack in 60MP with ease. Just as happened with the introduction of high-definition video, however, there are some added difficulties when working with such potential for detail recording. When HD video became the standard, many television networks found the rendition of detail was so great that every flaw in the lenses used, and indeed in the human subjects, could be easily spotted by the untrained eye. The same is true when shooting with ultra-high pixel…

Lenses designed for APS-C or Micro 4/3 sensors have smaller image circles, allowing for a reduced size and weight. If these advantages are not important to you, pairing a full-frame lens with a smaller sensor improves the apparent corner and edge performance. Since the larger image circle of these optics is much larger than the sensor area, you effectively only see the centre of the total image frame – the edges are excluded. Since the peripheral areas are the weakest, even for professional glass, cutting these out will give you lower distortion, higher resolution and better colour performance out-of-camera. THE WIDER THAN YOU NEED RULE For maximum future-proofing of your gear, consider investing in kit that goes beyond commonly required characteristics. If you regularly shoot at f/4, buying an f/2.8…

While Lightroom profiles have become a giveaway option for influencers, camera profiles form a more integral part of colour and detail reproduction. A manufacturer’s colour science is not always built into the raw file, and some applications have the software brand’s default profile applied automatically. Explore the list of available treatments, and note the effect of applying ‘Camera Landscape’ or similar, depending on what your software calls a setting. Similarly, make sure you have the correct lens/camera profiles active to correct distortions specific to your body-lens combination, and play with the calibration process in Lightroom to customise the colour depth.…

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1 HOUR When you’re photographing landscapes, the sky will usually be much brighter than the landscape below. In this situation, it’s common practice to make use of a graduated ND filter: dark at the top and transitioning to clear at the bottom, these are used to balance the exposure levels in the scene so that both the land and sky are properly exposed. But when you’re shooting at sunrise or sunset with the sun appearing in the shot, the brightest part of the scene is actually the horizon, with the sky above it markedly darker, so when faced with this situation, a different type of ND grad is called for. For the above shot we used a NiSi Reverse GND8 (0.9) Filter. This specialist 3-stop reverse ND grad is clear…

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