Innehållsförteckning för No. 532 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…

You can capture detail in the Milky Way with any camera, but if you’re serious about pursuing this field, investing in a full-frame model will be worthwhile in the long term. Full-frame cameras bring a significant improvement in low-light performance, as the larger sensor size means a larger surface area for capturing light. Similarly, a basic camera and tripod setup will yield good results for up to 30-second exposures, but a motorised camera mount will allow for longer exposures and stationary stars in your shots. And while a standard kit lens will do the job at its widest angle, you’ll capture more of the sky, and more light will be able to enter the camera, if you invest in a wide-angle, wide-aperture lens. In fact, your lens is perhaps the…

When you’re at the location where you want to photograph the night sky, chances are it will be very dark and difficult to see, particularly if you’re shooting under very dark skies. Consider using longer exposures and torches in order to ‘paint’ light onto foreground elements. There are powerful portable torches on the market which will do the job of lighting up your shot quite well, or you could even use a battery-powered lighting rig. But it’s important to consider other photographers who may also be photographing the Milky Way; don’t shine a light at them during their exposures, because you’ll ruin their shots. Torches with a setting to only shine red light are particularly useful for astrophotographers because this wavelength has less of an effect on our ability to…

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2 HOURS Babies grow and change incredibly fast, and before you know it, a newborn is a rampaging toddler. So if you’re planning on arranging a baby photo shoot for friends or family, or for your own little bundle, you won’t want to leave if for too long. But how to approach a shoot like this? A popular technique is the baby composite. For this, we take a photo of the baby, then combine it with an eye-catching backdrop. You can find lots of stunning backdrops online, like the autumnal setup we downloaded from Adobe Stock (free with an Adobe CC subscription). If you prefer you could take the Anne Geddes approach, and create your own intricate baby backdrops and costumes, although, depending on the props needed, this could prove…

With a generous viewing angle and superb image quality at its widest aperture setting, the Samyang XP 14mm f/2.4 manual-focus lens ticks all the right boxes for astrophotography. The Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art is a whole f-stop faster, but coma and astigmatism are clearly noticeable towards the corners of the image frame; that said, the Sigma gives similarly negligible aberrations when its aperture is narrowed to f/2.5. The Irix 15mm f/2.4 fares less well, giving similar ‘wide-open’ coma and astigmatism to the Sigma, despite its narrower maximum aperture. In other respects, it’s an excellent lens, and great value at the price. For F-mount zoom lenses designed for full-frame DSLRs, the Sigma 14-24mm f/2.8 DG HSM Art leads the field, with best-in-class image quality and overall performance, along with…

Pergear has announced the launch of its 35mm f/1.4 lens for full-frame Sony E, Canon RF, Nikon Z and Leica L-mount cameras. This fast manual-focus prime lens joins a lineup of Pergear optics that offer affordable alternatives to lenses from the major camera brands. With its 35mm focal length, the new lens is perfect for anyone who’s looking to get into street photography, or who wants to shoot wide-open to capture a beautifully blurred background with rounded bokeh. It’s best suited to those used to shooting manual, or those who shoot video, as autofocus isn’t available. The advantage of this is that it keeps the cost down, but of course the downside is that you’ll have to use camera settings such as focus peaking to ensure that your subjects are…

1 USE A BRIGHT SPOT Point your camera towards a visible point of light or bright star. If you can see street or building lights in your scene, point the camera towards these. 2 TURN ON LIVE VIEW Zoom in to the area containing a bright point of light, and manually focus your lens to get the dot as sharp as possible. 3 TAKE YOUR EXPOSURE Once your exposure is finished, zoom right in to the final image to make sure you’re happy with the resulting focus. CONTRAST DETECTION This system is employed by your camera’s Live View mode to achieve focus. You can assist this by placing the focus point over an area of high contrast in the scene, such as the edge of a bright light, rather than…

1 TAKE CONTROL Ensure your camera is set to manual; this will allow you to change the shutter speed, aperture and ISO. Automatic settings are of no use when shooting the Milky Way. 2 IGNORE THE CAMERA You have to override some of the normal rules when shooting the night sky. Ignore the light meter in your camera telling you that your shot is going to be overexposed. 3 MASTER THE SETTINGS Work with 15 to 30-second exposures, with the lens open as wide as it will go. Focus to infinity. Keep the aperture large, and bump up the ISO to 3200 or even higher. 4 CHECK YOUR IMAGE In the image review mode, zoom in to check that you’ve got the focus as sharp as possible. If you’re not…

1 START WITH BASIC SETTINGS Work with basic settings such as 15 sec exposure, ISO1600 and f/2.8. If not enough detail is captured in the sky, increase exposure times and sensitivities. 2 CHECK YOUR SURROUNDINGS Often you won’t need to light the foreground. In this shot, ambient lighting has cast enough light to highlight the foreground 3 GAUGE THE LIGHT Use the image preview, and zoom into the image to see if you’re capturing enough detail in the foreground. If not, consider using extra lighting. 4 LONGER EXPOSURES This shot was taken with no light pollution – a 10-minute foreground exposure was enough to allow the Milky Way to light up the landscape below. 5 BREAK OUT THE TORCH A torch isn’t just useful for seeing in the dark. Some advanced…

1 ADJUST COLOUR TEMPERATURE Set the colour temperature to something that looks close to the scene you saw. Consider altering the overall exposure adjustment at this stage, too. 2 ADD INITIAL DRAMA Increase Clarity and Contrast across the image to give everything a bit more pop. Before working on the sky, ensure that the foreground looks effective. 3 SPOT ADJUSTMENTS Select the Spot Adjustment tool. Increase the Contrast and Clarity, decrease the Shadows, and increase the Whites to make the Milky Way stand out more. 4 PAINT YOUR ADJUSTMENTS With the tool selected, start painting over the sky part of your image. Here, half the sky has been edited so you can see the difference between it and the unedited area. 5 MORE ADJUSTMENTS Go into finer detail. Consider increasing…

SUNDAY SERMON ANDREA STAGI “I took this photo at a concert by the rock band Sunday Sermon in Italy – it really captures the powerful punk energy of the band.” http://bit.ly/3GghFiC SCOTTISH HIGHLANDER LEO KRAMP “I shot this image in the De Biesbosch National Park in the Netherlands, a vast area of wetlands that’s best explored by boat. I used a inflatable dingy with an electric motor, which gave me the opportunity to shoot pictures from almost the surface of the water.” https://bit.ly/3zBtQlk OUTBACK GHOST TOWNS BUDDY PATRICK “I took this photo of a pile of old bottles and cans in Koolamara, a small town in the Australian Outback in western Queensland.” http://bit.ly/3GmUvHH EVENING LIGHT AT SHUTLINGSLOW PETER JUERGES “A low autumn evening sun catches hilltops in Cheshire, UK that…

1 WINDOW LIGHT Whether you’re shooting for a composite or more traditional portrait, window light is ideal for baby photography. The window acts like a giant softbox for flattering, even light. A skylight is great when the baby is lying down, as it lights them from the top. If the baby is sitting up, use a large window or bay door to illuminate them. 2 CAMERA SETTINGS When photographing babies – or any kind of portrait – it’s usually best to have a set-and-forget exposure, so that you can concentrate on the subject without fiddling with the camera. A good place to start with window-lit portraits is Manual mode, a wide f/2.8 aperture (or similar) 1/200 sec shutter speed, and Auto ISO. 3 BABY SPOTTER At six months old, our tiny subject here…

One of the great things about Photoshop is that it gives you O the opportunity to transport people or objects from one place to another. You can replace a background, or add different elements to an image, to create new scenes that could never exist in the real world, and in this video tutorial we’ll show you a simple but very effective example. The first key feature for this technique is layers. Layers enable us to combine elements from different images, and here we’ll simply paste a New York city scene into our original portrait, and then blend the images so this new vista fills the window. To combine our two photos we’ll make use of a clever Photoshop command called Blend If, which allows you to blend layers based…

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Capturing landscapes at night, especially when you’re trying to include the Milky Way, requires patience, technical skill and local knowledge, as well as a number of different environmental conditions coming together, usually at the last moment. You’re working at the extreme limits of your camera: wide-open apertures, long exposures and very high sensitivities (ISO3200 and upwards) are the norm. You can also be working at the edge of your own abilities, staying up late or going out very early in the morning. However, partly because of the challenges involved, photographing night-time landscapes and the Milky Way is fun and addictive. You’ll quickly find yourself getting into the habit of checking the Moon phases and the weather forecast, and scoping out locations in the daytime to find out when and where…

The Milky Way can be difficult to capture effectively. The best shots of it require the combination of a number of factors. You need to observe it at the right time of the year, on as clear a night as possible, and with no Moon present; even the thinnest of crescent Moons will cast too much light into the sky, and wash out any detail in the Milky Way. Websites such as www.timeanddate.com will tell you when the Moon will be rising and setting in the town nearest to you. The best time of year to photograph the Milky Way is the early hours of summer mornings, but it can be observed from late winter to late autumn. The core of the Milky Way rises in the east during spring,…

Because the Earth is constantly rotating around its north/south axis, the stars in your photographs will appear to move. Applying the 500 rule can all but eliminate the effects of the Earth’s rotation. All you have to do is divide the number 500 by the full-frame equivalent focal length of your lens, then you get your maximum exposure time: For a 24mm lens on a full-frame camera: 500 / 24 = 21s For a 11mm lens on a crop-frame camera: 500 / (11x1.6) = 28s Using a motorised equatorial mount, or star tracker, once properly aligned, will always keep the stars still in your photographs.…

1 EXTRA-LONG EXPOSURE One option for capturing star trails is to leave the shutter open for a very long time. Over the course of one hour, your stars will appear to rotate 15 degrees. 2 LIGHT POLLUTION When using very long exposures you have little control over how your pictures will come out. This technique is only advisable in the darkest places. 3 FIND THE POLE STAR Use a smartphone app such as Star Walk to map out the stars above you. Find the pole star, and line it up to prominent foreground objects if possible. 4 USE AN INTERVAL TIMER Your camera might have an in-built interval timer. Use this to shoot a series of frames with enough time in between to allow the shutter to close and reset.…

1 LONG EXPOSURE NOISE REDUCTION If your camera has this feature, turn it on for longer exposures. When it’s finished recording, the camera will take a separate exposure with the shutter closed to create a dark frame. 2 HOT PIXEL PROBLEM This is a close-up of a 10-minute exposure, shot with Long Exposure Noise Reduction turned off on the camera. To correct this issue, you need to record a dark frame. 3 DARK FRAME This 10-minute exposure was recorded immediately after a similar photo in order to gauge where the hot pixels were. The lens cap was placed on the lens and the camera was put in a camera bag. 4 DIFFERENCE LAYER Load both images into Photoshop as layers, with the dark frame as the top layer. Set the…

The German Society for Nature Photography (GDT) has announced the winning and commended images in this year’s European Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Russian photographer Mike Korostelev was crowned Overall Winner for his captivating underwater image of a family of hippos in a lake in South Africa, which he took using a submersible drone. Korostelev spend several days studying the animals on a remote screen and allowing them to become accustomed to the drone’s presence before capturing his winning shot. European Wildlife Photographer of the Year showcases the work of some of Europe’s best wildlife photographers, with prizes awarded in categories including Birds, Mammals, and Landscapes. While the contest is a celebration of wildlife photography, it also seeks to promote awareness of conservation issues. Click the link to see…

1 ANGLE FROM ABOVE Window light works best over faces when it’s coming from slightly above the subject, which is why a high window or skylight works so well. With babies, keep in mind that if they’re on their back, ‘above’ to them might be different to the camera position, so angle them so that the window is above the face. 2 TRY BACKLIGHTING As well as shooting straight-on or side-on, you can get great light over a face by positioning the subject so that the window is behind and to one side of them, so that the window will backlight the subject. It’s usually best to have the subject’s face side-on in profile for this kind of shot. 3 CHECK CATCHLIGHTS One of the great things about shooting with window…

For those of us in the northern hemisphere, the evenings are drawing in, and we no longer need to wait until the middle of a very short night to shoot a starry sky. Even so, light is arguably the most important raw material for photography, so things get a bit tricky when there’s very little of it to play with. Shooting outdoors at night is particularly challenging, even when the subject in question is the Milky Way on a clear evening. The night sky is not only dim, it’s also vast and constantly moving, so for the best results you need to choose your lens carefully. For this group test we’ve picked out the best wide-angle prime and zoom options with fast aperture ratings to make the most of the…