Advanced Photographer 33 by Bright Publishing

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canon eos M

real-life test

Is this EOS a DSLR killer?

Bug life macro technique

Shoot your best-ever insect pictures

CITY clickers 23 magnificent locations to enjoy with your camera

Full review

Canon EOS 700D Our verdict on Canon’s latest entry-level DSLR offering

comparison test

FUJIFILM X100S V NIKON A Two classy £1000 compacts scrap it out. Which one emerges victorious?

a broncolor studio fashion SHOOT | A PARIS TRIP WITH Samsung

AP.indd 1

20/6/13 16:34:08

Welcome Welcome to a summer of great photography. Not everyone likes insects, but there are so many types to choose from that you can just shoot those species that don’t freak you out or those that you find interesting. For me that means bees, dragonflies, butterflies, ladybirds and little else. Whatever insect you choose to photograph you are in for a challenge, but Nic Davies shows how it can be done really well Click to play* and also creatively in his portfolio so follow his advice. Our second portfolio features Jerry Webb and his will cheung FRPS, pictorial silhouettes. I liked them the instant I opened up Jerry’s email so editor I hope you like them too. They have bags of impact and despite their lack Will has worked in photo mags for over 25 years and been taking of shadow detail, I feel they are full of interest and mood. pictures for even longer. His Last month, we featured 23 landscape locations for you to investigate. photographic interests are very This month, it’s the turn of our towns and cities. The UK is blessed with broad, from nature to portraits. great buildings and structures – old and new – and we have picked just 23 for your delectation so I hope you enjoy the challenge of shooting them. Finally, we have plenty of exciting kit for you to read about. Compacts, CSCs and the latest Canon DSLR are among those featured. Speaking of Canon, one camera that has captured the imagination of many photographers is the EOS M. This CSC is being bought by many enthusiasts as a lightweight, compact backup to their DSLRs, a key reason for this being the ability to use their existing lenses on it. We explore its potential in this role and ask whether it’s a DSLR killer. See you next month.

Will Cheung FRPS, Editor

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ISSUE 33 advanced photographer 3

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Contents

TOP SPOT: Chester Zoo

The cover story... Our stunning cover image is from Jerry Webb’s graphic black & white portfolio in this issue. “The sun was directly behind the wheel. I experimented with exposure so I got the sky detail and, more importantly, the distorted long shadows. Then all I had to do was wait for a cyclist.”

GO SHOOT: Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Nikon D80, Sigma 10-20mm at 10mm, 1/640sec at f/4, ISO 125

www.flickr.com/photos/21703230@N08

See PAGE 50 For details

Inspiration, technique, opinion 6 UPFRONT Want to know all about the latest launches and happenings in the photo world? Then read this.

10 the eyes have it: INSPIRE By getting down to a bug’s eye level, Nic Davies captures some spectacular images of insects going about their daily business.

18 a macro world: CAPTURE With mini

beasts and creepy-crawlies flourishing in the summer weather (finally!), it’s time to polish your camera technique and perfect your fieldcraft.

inspire: SEE PAGE 62 Striking FOR DETAILS silhouettes

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26 TOP SPOT: chester zoo Bugs and bees too

small? Want to tackle something on a grander scale? Well, we happen to have exactly what you need – a large dose of advice from a regular zoo visitor.

31 EXPOSED In need of

some serious trigger-finger exercise, editor Cheung gets in on the action at a recent air show.

32 GO SHOOT: festival folk The

Edinburgh Festival might not immediately strike you as a great photo opportunity but the word on the street is this is the place to be in August.

36 shoot our front cover Don’t miss out on

your chance to win this prize: an exclusive photoshoot in a professional studio, with top models and the AP team.

38 Silhouettes: INSPIRE Don’t be fooled

by this collection of images, Jerry Webb isn’t a street photographer, nor is he a black & white worker. In fact, he refuses to be pigeonholed.

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Contents

LOCATIONS: Bag the best building shots

CANON EOS 700D: Fit for your kitbag?

102 LIGHTROOM 5: Feature-packed & fast

Photo Kit: the latest gear tested 46 in the shadows: CAPTURE Forget capturing detail in shadows. It’s the last thing you want for a striking silhouette image.

50 SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS AP delivered to

your door and for less than the cover price. Bargain!

52 LIGHTING masterclass In the

second instalment of his series of masterclasses, pro John Denton sculpts light with one head and a softbox.

57 WIN a trip to paris Send in your top

travel shots for a chance to say bonjour to the city of love.

76 RAW MASTERCLASS

Pursuing perfection on the street isn’t always possible, so get ready for some polishing in software.

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130 NEXT MONTH

Learning technique is half the battle, so with our advice you’ll be ready to get set, go shoot sport, and historical reenactments. Plus, of course, the story behind Photo 24.

59 free 16PAGE LOCATION SPECIAL pull-out section Build up your location portfolio into a tower of strength with the ultimate 23 urban locations, as recommended by your favourite photo mag.

82 canon eos 700d

It’s one of the first consumer models from Canon in a while, and borrows a lot from the enthusiast-level EOS 60D, but will the 700D be finding its way into your kitbag?

89 Fujifilm x100s vs nikon coolpix a This

is the battle of the premiumgrade compacts. Read our blow-by-blow account as these two slug it out to be named the victor.

94 OLYMPUS PEN E-P5

Its looks are pure retro, but it’s no dinosaur. The E-P5 offers a lot for the modern shooter.

Want to read Advanced Photographer on your iPad? Save up to 35% by subscribing at the App Store today!

98 canon eos m

The eagle-eyed among you will know we’ve already tested this CSC, but a few months on and its price has dropped substantially, so we wondered if it’s a viable second camera…

102 lightroom 5

Following hot on the heels of the beta, Lightroom 5 is now on sale. But is it flying off the (virtual) shelves?

108 silverfast ai studio 8 If you’re still

using the software that came with your scanner, it could be time to invest in third-party software and this may well be what you’re looking for.

ISSUE 33 advanced photographer 5

inspiration

The world of insects

wings things

Macro photography allows Nic Davies to get close to a hidden world all around us WORDS LYNNE MAXWELL PICTURES NIC DAVIES

The seed of Nic Davies’ photography adventure began, of all places, at his mum’s funeral about two years ago. There he met up with an old school friend of 40 years, who was also a keen wildlife photographer, and the result was a trip to the Red Kite Feeding Centre in Llanddeusant in Wales, where Nic grew up. Until that point he’d been using a Canon G10 and the camera on his iPhone – “it’s better at taking pictures than making calls” – but then he realised that a DSLR was the only way forward. And he invested in a Canon EOS 5D Mark II. “The G10 was a lovely camera but I realised that, with five-megapixel resolution, my images could not be blown up large. I wanted to create images that I could blow up to poster size.”

Photography for Nic has always been a family affair: “My father was a keen amateur photographer. He had a Kodak camera in a leather case with chrome dials; it felt like a serious camera and looked great. I have many family albums of pictures, all square format with a slight blue cast and a white border, but they have a real period charm. The iPhone generation now apply this effect as a filter, probably not knowing where it originated.” He also has black & white photos taken by his father in the Far East when he was serving in the Royal Marines post-war, and a collection of family photographs of the Rhondda valley circa 1920-1940. He says, “A long-forgotten relative was obviously a keen amateur, and I am hoping to use these in one of my projects.”

main Honey bee – apis mellifera. “By studying the insect at their eye level, it is sometimes possible to capture behaviour that can really make a shot stand out. This bee finds collecting pollen a messy business, using his tongue and legs to clean up.” Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon 100mm f/2.8L USM macro lens, 1/500sec at f/2.8, ISO 100

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inspiration

The world of insects

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ISSUE 33 advanced photographer 11

inspiration

The world of insects 1

1 Speckled Bush-Cricket – Leptophyes Punctatissima “One of my favourite photographs, taken late evening, it was a real challenge to get the shot due to low-light levels. The positioning of the cricket in the frame and the empty space make this image. Cropping with the thirds grid adds to the drama and tension.” Canon EOS 5D Mark II,

100mm f/2.8L macro USM, 1/640sec at f/2.8, ISO 160 2 Honey Bee – Apis Mellifera “A different approach from the cricket, where the frame is filled with texture and colour. Bees and insects are keen to make up for lost time after sheltering during rain showers.” Canon EOS

5D Mark II, Canon 100mm f/2.8L macro USM lens, 1/500sec at f/2.8, ISO 100

He likes the idea of setting himself projects, which he uses as a theme for a collection of images. Last year’s garden insects he put together in a book called Wings & Stings and his current collection is Bugs & Beetles. “Working on a project with a particular theme helps in many ways, by avoiding the distraction of other ideas, enabling a consistent look or feel in

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a series of images, and it means that I go out on a shoot, macro for example, with the appropriate kit, not a bag full of lenses.” Nic has used the last two years as his apprenticeship in DSLR photography and has discovered that business and pleasure do mix. More than 20 years in the design industry has given him a head start visually and working from home for a demanding client on the other side of the world meant late nights and weekends in front of the computer. Constantly on his Apple iMac for work, it was easy to process the images in his downtime. “I started taking photographs of flowers in the garden. One day I noticed bees drinking water from the droplets collected on the leaves of the vegetable plants, and they stayed long enough to be photographed. My mini macro adventure had begun and it’s a glimpse into a fascinating world that is happening all around us, unknown and unseen.

“It is not until you view your images on screen that you see the incredible detail and complex structures of these insects; sharp hairs, long tongues, hairy bodies, multiple eyes, multiple legs – they can be both repulsive and fascinating. “The beauty of insects is that the location is all around you. Your garden, a field, a woodland or the local park – the secret is to look. Dramas are happening everywhere. Study plants; why are all the ladybirds gathered on a particular tree? Perhaps there is a sap on the leaves their prey likes, and the ladybirds have followed them there. Bees look for pollen, but which colour flower provides the best backdrop?” Nic’s wife is a keen gardener and an expert ‘bug spotter’. The colourful plants she likes provide a backdrop of changing colours through the year. Physocarpus ‘Summer Wine’ was the perfect setting for the lime green coloured speckled bushcricket above.

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inspiration

The world of insects

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ISSUE 33 advanced photographer 13

TOP SPOT

Chester Zoo

Chester Zoo Relatively few people will ever get the chance to see a lion, penguin or tiger in the wild, and that’s why safari parks, wildlife centres and zoos are so important. Here we explore the potential of one such venue, Chester Zoo Words & PICTURES JAMES FARLEY

26 advanced advancedphotographer photographer ISSUE ISSUE 33 33

Chester Zoo is the UK’s largest zoological gardens and in 2007 Forbes named it one of the best 15 zoos in the world. It should almost certainly be at the top of a ‘places to visit’ list for anyone with even the slightest interest in photographing a diverse range of animals, that short of visiting far off lands, would not normally be accessible. I’m lucky as I live locally so can visit a few times a week. If you’re making a one-off trip, I suggest planning on being there for the whole day, and visiting on a weekday – it can get extremely busy at

weekends and during school holidays. The zoo is vast so I’d also suggest comfortable footwear as you will be walking a long way. As for camera equipment, it is tempting to pack everything to cover all bases. Do that if you want because you can always leave most of your gear in your car and just take your longest and/or fastest lens; you can always return to the car should you need to. I now only ever take my Nikon D800 with a Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8. This is an ideal combination for its superb high ISO performance as many of the enclosures

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TOP SPOT

Chester Zoo

You see, flash can work. There are times when the existing light needs a helping hand and upping the ISO is not enough, like in this image of a dart frog. Nikon D7000, 90mm macro lens, 1/60sec at f/7.1, flash, ISO 100

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inspiration

Bold shapes

“Just get the picture. Life’s too short.” Seems to be working for Jerry Webb WORDS LYNNE MAXWELL PICTURES jerry webb

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inspiration

ortrait photographer? No. Street photographer? No. Mono? No. Aah, got it: candid photographer? NO! Jerry Webb defies definition. Although he understands other people’s need to pigeonhole him, he flatly refuses to go along with them. “I do understand the need for categories,” he says, “but once categorised you’re often judged on that basis. I love that you can photograph anything; everything has an interest, you just have to look for it. “Once, another photographer told me I should not be processing my pictures if I wanted to be a proper street photographer. If there is one thing worse than being told

Bold shapes

what type of photographer I am, it’s being told how I should be working. “My favourite part of photography is actually taking the picture, being somewhere when the unexpected happens, being quick enough to catch it, being intuitive enough to recognise the potential and really just being outside. I am happy to spend whatever time it takes processing a photograph correctly as it can pay big dividends, but it can become a boring, if necessary, part of the overall process.” Boring perhaps, but something that, as a one-time magazine designer, graphic designer, art editor and, since 1995, event

“This was hard work but the reflections on the decking looked great. It was difficult to keep the camera dry so I just took a seat in the rain waiting for the right person to come along. A lad in a hoody: perfect.” Nikon D80, Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 at 10mm, 1/640sec at f/4, ISO 160

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ISSUE 33 advanced photographer 39

inspiration

Bold shapes

designer, he’s fairly at home with. All his processing is done in Photoshop. “I try and slightly underexpose my images and try and preserve as much detail in the picture as possible, knowing that it is retrievable in Photoshop. I always shoot Raw which is great for a lot of things, not least for rescuing some basic errors in shooting. These days I keep it very simple. I use the lightening, brightening and contrast tools for virtually all of the work required and tend to break the image up into areas, usually three to five, and work on them separately in layers. “I favour lots of contrast, pushing the image as far as possible, lots of black and a grainy or rough-looking finish. I love the ’60s and ’70s rock ’n’ roll pictures and the tone and atmosphere they have. Smooth, perfectly finished images have never been my goal. I tend to add a mixture of red and yellow as I like warmth in my mono pictures and conversely dislike cold. I have

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always hated anything with a blue cast on it, deliberate or otherwise.” As a non-mono photographer what proportion of his work is black & white? “Roughly 99 per cent! I love black & white photography and the more images I take, the more I love it. I instinctively look for mono shots; even when images are screaming out for colour I still can’t help myself try to make it work in mono. I am trying to remember when I last produced a colour shot of my mine… a while ago. “Over the last couple of years I have been getting a large number of photographic commissions but it’s interesting that despite getting this work, I have never been asked for anything in mono, it’s all been exclusively colour.” Jerry recently spent three weeks working on a national advertising campaign on behalf of Kingsmill that took him all over the UK and Northern Ireland, which, with his other commissions, he grudgingly

1 “Taken during a half marathon. It was early evening at Brighton seafront, shot into very soft sun. I was lying on the footpath and wanted a runner to get right on top of the camera.” Nikon D80, Sigma 10-20mm at 12mm,

1/320sec at f/9, ISO 125

2 “These four girls on Brighton seafront were very happy to be photographed and directed. I was lying on the concrete right under their feet shooting into the sun and all I could see were these fantastic shapes.” Nikon D80, Sigma

10-20mm at 10mm, 1/200sec at f/10, ISO 100

3 “Early evening in Preston Park and the sun was irresistible. I wanted one cyclist so I had to wait and wait until I got the framing just right.”

Nikon D80, Sigma 10-20mm at 10mm, 1/1000sec at f/5, ISO 100

admits probably makes him a semi-pro photographer, “although I do hate labels.” While he took pictures on his foundation course and moonlighted as an editorial photographer when working as an art editor, he really only took up photography in earnest in 2007, when he bought a Nikon D80 for his job as an event designer. Shortly

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inspiration

Bold shapes 1

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ISSUE 33 advanced photographer 41

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23 Must-shoot locations

St Paul’s Cathedral, London

You may be wondering why we’ve included St Paul’s when photography inside is not permitted for the perfectly fair reason that it would detract from the spiritual life of the cathedral. The reason is simple enough: there’s plenty outside

to shoot. Also, if you pay the £16 entrance fee and climb up the Dome, you can shoot great views of London. Back on the ground the way to get some creative images of St Paul’s is to walk around the vicinity and use the imposing

building as a backdrop. The west entrance is lovely in late afternoon sun and the whole place is lit up in the evening too and looks great from the Millennium Bridge. See www.stpauls.co.uk for opening times and special events.

NIKON D300s | 11-18mm f/4.5-5.6 Lens at 11mm | 1/500sec at f/4.5 | ISO 200

6 advanced photographer LOCATION GUIDE

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York is a wonderful place to visit and there’s no doubt that the central attraction for photographers is the Minster. You can shoot inside for personal use, but there’s plenty to photograph outside too and it’s lit up at night which is a bonus. You also get great views from the surrounding Roman wall. There’s often renovation work taking place but still plenty to aim your camera at. It’s £15 per adult for the Minster and Tower combined ticket – see www. yorkminster.org for opening times.

NIKON D800 | 16-35mm f/4 lens at 16mm | 8secs at f/8 | ISO 100

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York Minster

New Dock, Leeds

Commercially, Leeds’ New Dock (formerly Clarence Dock) is not doing as well as expected, but its architecture has potential for pictures. It’s not too far from the city centre where you’ll also find the Corn Exchange, the Town Hall and the Civic Hall, among other points of interest. canon eos 5d mark 11 | ef 17-40mm f/4L USM lens at 17mm | 1024secs at f/22 | ISO 100

LOCATION GUIDE advanced photographer 7

23 Must-shoot locations

Bath Abbey

Bath is one big photo location in itself and its centre point is the Abbey and the immediate area surrounding it. The Roman Baths and Pump Room are next door and Pulteney Bridge a short walk away. The city is a very popular destination for tourists, mind, so it’s busy all year round.

Check the opening times on www.bathabbey. org if you want to go inside – it costs £2.50 – and perhaps time your trip to get there late afternoon, so you can enjoy the lovely interior and then spend some time afterwards shooting when the sun’s lower in the sky. It’s a good spot for twilight images too.

nikon d200 | 11-18mm f/4.5-5.6 Lens at 11mm | 1/8sec at f/4.5 | ISO 100

8 advanced photographer LOCATION GUIDE

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Durham Castle and Cathedral

Liverpool Waterfront

Durham is a World Heritage Site thanks to the importance, architecturally speaking, of the Castle and the Cathedral. The latter is one of the finest examples of Norman architecture in Europe. If you want to see the inside of the Castle, you have to book a guided tour. The Cathedral is free to visit but photography is not permitted; however, the Cathedral does organise photography evenings so visit the website for details. See www.durhamworldheritagesite. com, www.dur.ac.uk and www. durhamcathedral.co.uk.

This regenerated area of Liverpool which includes Pier Head and Albert, Princes and Kings Docks is a World Heritage Site and a great spot for picture-taking, whether you enjoy classic architecture or modern buildings. Among the classics, of course, are ‘The Three Graces’: the Royal Liver Building, the Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool Building. If modern is your taste, then there’s the Museum of Liverpool. There are plenty of events worth shooting too so visit www. liverpoolwaterfront.org.

canon eos 5d mark II | ef 24-105mm f/4L USM lens at 24mm | 30secs at f/13 | ISO 160

NIKON D800 | 70-300mm f/4-5.6 at 92mm | 8secs at f/9 | ISO 50

LOCATION GUIDE advanced photographer 9

Photo Kit

canon eos 700d

Canon EOS 700D

It’s easy to dismiss consumer level DSLRs without a second look, but as the EOS 700D shows, the latest have impressive specs. So is Canon’s newest APS-C camera worth investigating further?

WORDS Ian FyfE PICTURES Ian Fyfe & Will Cheung

KEY FEATURES Street price £549 body only 18-megapixel APS-C sensor Vari-angle touch screen 9 cross-type AF sensors ISO 100-25,600 www.canon.co.uk

LCD screen If you want a Canon with a vari-angle screen, then the EOS 700D is one of only two options along with the EOS 60D. This one is also a touch screen that provides you with almost complete control of the camera should you wish – it’s one of the best implementations of a touch screen I’ve come across. The quick focus option in Live View makes the camera useable in this mode.

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Mode Dial Until now, Canon’s cameras at this level have had a mode dial that can’t be rotated continually in the same direction – with the EOS 700D, that’s changed and you can select your chosen mode by the shortest rotational route. There’s no lock on the dial though, and I did find it susceptible to knocks so that it was in an unexpected mode on several occasions when I got it out of my bag.

STM Lens The EOS 700D is the first Canon DSLR available as a bundle with a stepping motor (STM) lens. It increased the speed of the AF considerably compared to a similar-quality non-STM lens, especially in Live View, and focusing was absolutely noiseless. Obviously this is great for video, but it’s also excellent for stills when you want to keep noise to a minimum.

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Photo Kit

canon eos 700d While the full-frame family at Canon has been completely renewed in the last year or so, the APS-C range has been relatively stagnant. The EOS 700D is the latest of the company’s cropped-sensor cameras, following on from a number of updates to the ‘consumer’ range. Although the EOS 700D is aimed at those looking to step up, cameras of this level are offering increasingly impressive specs, and it’s knocking at the door of the bottom-end enthusiast camera, the three-year-old EOS 60D. So is the EOS 700D worth considering if you’re looking for an APS-C upgrade? The level of sensor and processor technology now means that, when it comes to image quality, there are few bad DSLRs out there. You certainly won’t find one in Canon’s line-up, and the EOS 700D delivers what you’d expect. It’s another outing for Canon’s trusty 18-megapixel sensor, but in this instance, it is paired with a DIGIC 5 processor. This is sadly not the same processor that’s found in the full-frame cameras, which is the DIGIC 5+, but it’s worth pointing out that it’s still one generation on from the chip in the EOS 60D. The result is consistently highquality images with a lot of detail and rich colours; bold colours retain their punchiness in JPEGs straight out of the camera, and subtle tones and gradations are reproduced nicely. You get the best out of the sensor in terms of resolution if you shoot Raw, and while the image quality is surprisingly good with the 18-55mm kit lens, pairing it with a topquality L series lens convinced me that the camera’s capable of quality that’s up there with the best. The DIGIC 5 processor provides a continuous shooting rate for the EOS 700D of five frames-per-second, just shy of the 5.3 maximum of EOS 60D. In practice, this is only the case when shooting JPEGs though – when I added Raw into the equation, the initial rate only lasted for three shots before it slowed to more like two shots per second. Also down to the chip is an ISO sensitivity range of 100 to 25,600. The top native setting of 12,800 is one stop higher than the EOS 60D’s, although by this level the images are very noisy – it seems that Canon’s superb noise control in its advanced cameras has not yet made it to the lower levels. As with the 18-megapixel sensor, a nine-point AF system has been a longstanding feature of Canon’s APS-C cameras. In the EOS 700D, all nine points are cross-type sensors, bringing this in line with the capability of the EOS 60D. The benefit of this depends on how you work, but I like to move my focus point to suit the composition, so the all cross-type

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Anatomy of...

Canon EOS 700D FROM THE TOP As a consumer-level camera, there’s no LCD screen on the top, so all the controls sit on the right. As you’d expect from a Canon, the command dial 1 is behind the shutter button and the ISO button 2 sits close by so it’s easy to find. Unlike the EOS 650D, the mode dial 3 on the 700D rotates through 360° and the symbols are embossed rather than printed for a higher-quality feel. The on/off switch 4 is beside the mode dial, most easily operated with your thumb. This can be snapped into a third position for video capture – in this mode, the shutter button takes full-width photos in 16:9 widescreen format. In front of the hotshoe are stereo microphones 5 .

1 5

2 3

FROM THE FRONT To look at, the handgrip 1 on the EOS 700D is small and doesn’t seem to offer much to hold, but when it’s in your hand it gives a firm and comfortable grip – my little finger was just able to hang on at the bottom as well. This, as well as the lefthand side of the body, has a new textured finish for a higher-quality feel than previous cameras at this level in Canon’s line-up. On the other side of the lens mount is a depth-of-field preview button 2 that’s positioned nicely for your thumb in a shooting hold, and further up is the pop-up flash release button 3 . Tucked away to the right of the shutter button is a self-timer and red-eye reduction lamp 4 .

1 2

FROM THE BACK The three-inch vari-angle touch screen 1 can be used to control the camera, but there are still plenty of buttons. There’s no control wheel, unlike on higher-level Canons, but four directional buttons 2 and a central Set button. The Q button 3 activates the shooting information screen so that settings can be changed. To the right of the thumb grip are AF point selection 4 and AEL 5 buttons – the latter can be customised in combination with the shutter button to control which locks focus and exposure. On the other side of your thumb is the Live View button, 6 which doubles as the record button in Movie mode.

AT A GLANCE SPECS Street price £549 body only, £649 with 18-55mm STM kit lens Sensor 18-megapixel CMOS sensor with DIGIC 5 processor Image size 5184x3456 pixels Storage SD, SDHC, SDXC, UHS-I compatible ISO range 100-12,800 (100-25,600 expanded) Metering patterns Evaluative, partial, spot, centre-weighted

Exposure compensation +/-5EV in 1/3 or 1/2 EV steps, AEB 3 shots +/-2EV in 1/3 or 1/2 EV steps Autofocus 9 cross-type AF points Shutter 30secs-1/4000sec, flash sync 1/200sec Shooting speeds Single, continuous 5fps Video Full HD (30, 25, 24fps), 1280x720 (60, 50fps), 640x480 (30, 25fps) Size 133.1x99.8x78.8mm Weight 580g including battery and card

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Photo Kit

ADOBE lightroom 5

Adobe Lightroom 5 The beta version has only been available for a short time but the full retail version is now out. We check out its new features WORDs & PICTURES Andrew Williams

I’m sure I’m not alone in being a great fan of Lightroom and look forward to each new release. Unlike Photoshop, Lightroom is aimed squarely at us photographers and the additional features always seem to be genuinely useful. As with previous releases Adobe made a free beta version available for anyone to download. A beta version, while substantially complete, still contains bugs. A software developer uses them as a live test bench and any bugs are ironed out before the full retail version goes on sale. Obviously, the bugs have been minimal because the full version is now on sale, only a matter of weeks since the beta was made available. The full version costs £102.57 and the upgrade from earlier versions £57.64. As usual there is a raft of new things to look at, some large and many small but still useful. In this review I’ll mainly cover the highlights, plus some of my favourite smaller features.

I’ll begin with the one downside: Lightroom 5 will no longer run on Windows Vista and, for Mac users, Snow Leopard 10.6. It’s inevitable that software moves on and uses more features from the newer operating systems but this may force an upgrade for some of you. On the positive side, the performance has improved. In particular start-up and switching to the Develop mode seem much snappier than version 4. Of the new features the most significant for me is the ability to work on an image even when the Raw file is not available on your computer. You couldn’t do this with v4, but with Lightroom 5 you can using a feature called Smart Previews. The Develop module gets a Radial Filter tool, Advanced Healing Brush tool and an automatic Perspective Control, and there are many improvements to the other modules too. Let’s have a look at some of the new goodies in more detail.

Selected smaller BENEFITS Of the many other smaller changes, here are some which I really like. Top of my list is the F key which displays the selected image in ‘distraction free’, ie. full screen with everything else hidden. You can set a preference ‘Show the Current/Previous Import’ collection during Import. Untick this and Lightroom will import your

images in the background as in version 4 but will not switch to the last imported view when finished so your concentration is not broken. There’s a new overlay available in the Crop Tool. You can display selected cropping aspect ratios on your image which makes it really easy to judge which crops work most effectively. LEFT Hit the F key and you get a fullframe view free of any interface clutter. RIGHT If you’re not sure how to crop an image, the modified Crop Tool lets you explore the options very quickly.

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ADOBE lightroom 5

Smart Previews Many photographers use a laptop running Lightroom with external hard drives attached containing their image files. When working away from home, the hard drives are left behind and the laptop used to load new work into Lightroom. With Lightroom 4 you can still view the images left at home but you can’t edit them. A question mark appears on the image and you get a warning image if you click on the thumbnail. This is obviously a pain if you decide that you want to edit your images left back home on your hard drives. This has been resolved with version 5 which lets you create Smart Previews, either during import or later (Library>Previews> Build Smart Previews). These are very highquality previews but use a compressed DNG file format stored alongside your catalogue. They are much smaller than the Raw file, as little as ten per cent of the original size.

For images where you have created a Smart Preview, you can now edit your images even without access to the original file. When you return home and reconnect the external drive, Lightroom will automatically revert to using your original file but with all the adjustments you made in place. To show which images have a Smart Preview attached a small dark square appears at the top right of the preview in the Library module when you disconnect the drive containing your images. ‘Has Smart Image’ has been added to the Smart Collection and Filter criteria so you can easily search for the images concerned. A question mark means there is no smart preview. This is a great feature making the workflow simpler; you just have to remember to create Smart Previews of images you want to work on before you leave home.

ABOVE When you disconnect from the drive with your master images, Lightroom shows which have smart previews.

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