DSLR Plus 83

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TRAVEL DESTINATIONS

Welcome Welcome to the latest instalment of Digital SLR Plus – full of free, extra content designed to give you a real flavour of what our main magazine offers.

This month, we’re celebrating a rare sight in the UK – the sun, as summer is finally here. With the sun burning brightly, we’ve some scorching photo ideas for you to try out, including taking your camera to a special destination and snapping outdoor portraits of your furry family members – your pets.

With feedback on readers’ images and a top software technique to tidy up your holiday photos, this little slice of our main mag will inform and inspire.

If you’d like to join in with the photo fun over at our Facebook page, direct your mouse to www.facebook.com/DSLRMag and if you want even more tips, technique and tantalising photo inspiration, take advantage of our cracking subscription offer. Enjoy, and keep on shooting!

Matty Graham, Editor mattygraham@bright-publishing.com

Four Amazing places to take your camera Grab your passport and your camera kit, we’re all going on a photo holiday, to make our dreams come true

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orget the usual tourist haunts, crowded with holidaymakers, if you want to bag some special photos you need to do two things. The first is, pick up Digital SLR and read our big feature on the 11 secrets to bagging great holiday images. The second is, find SEE OUR TIPS FOR the right destination for you.

TOP HOLIDAY photoS The 11 secrets to fab holiday Now, it’s a big wide, world out there, images revealed in the latest so you’re obviously spoilt for choice, but issue of Digital SLR. Subscribe today by Direct Debit for £6.50 a to help you decide, the Digital SLR crew quarter and get this issue free! are sharing some of their bucket list destinations. Some are overseas, some CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP! are much closer to home, so pack your camera bag and let’s get to it.

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TRAVEL DESTINATIONS

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Northern France “If you want to get out of the UK, but are on a budget, northern France offers fantastic value for money, as well as some amazing locations to whet a landscape photographer’s appetite,” says editor, Matty Graham. “Photo hotspots include Mont St Michel, the cemeteries of Normandy, Falaise d’Etretat (Normandy’s Durdle Door) and many more.”

If you would like a little guidance and to spend time with like-minded snappers, look up French Photographic Holidays (www.frenchphotographicholidays.com). They offer courses in the wonderful Dordogne area of France and first-class accommodation.

TOP TIP

remember plug sockets will be different overseas so take an adaptor

“If you want to get out of the UK, but are on a budget, northern france offers value for money” 2

Africa Want to travel a little further? Then technical writer, Ian suggests a visit to the magical continent of Africa – it’s on his bucket list. “Pack a telezoom and head off on safari to capture some wildlife images that you just can’t get in a British wildlife centre. What’s more, most of Africa shares the same time zone as the UK, so you won’t even suffer with jet lag.”

Pure Safari (www. puresafari.co.uk) are the experts when it comes to African photo trips so check them out online.

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uk south coast “Travelling to a new photo location doesn’t mean you have to leave the country,” says Roger, Digital SLR’s editorial director. “Unless you live near the south coast, you may never have experienced the beauty that is Devon and Cornwall’s coastline. It’s packed with picture potential – Durdle Door, Corfe Castle and St Michael’s Mount to name but a few.”

If you’d like to combine your visit with some learning, then it’s worth checking out Dawn 2 Dusk Photography (www.dawn2duskphotography.co.uk). The experienced tutors offer one-, two- and three-day workshops, as well as one-to-one training.

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Iceland For an autumn or winter photo trip, try the magical spectacle of the Northern Lights. “Typically they illuminate the sky between September and March, and although you can see the lights in northern Scotland, you have a much better chance of a viewing in Iceland, which is where I want to go,” says sub editor, Lisa.

For a trip to the land of fire and ice with an expert, visit Silverscene Photography (www.silverscenephoto.co.uk).

“for an autumn or winter photo trip, try the magical spectacle of iceland’s northern lights” DIGITAL SLR Plus 3

project

Clean up your scene

Want to shoot a landmark but can’t get a clean image?

Use layers to remove the pesky tourists from your frame software used Photoshop elements

10 MINUTES

TIME TAKEN

P

icture the scene: you’ve headed to a well-known landmark hoping to get a nice image. However, there’s a problem – far too many other people have had the same idea and the place is rammed. Wait just a minute though, all is not lost.

Instead of packing up and heading home, take your shots, because you can use the layers feature in your image-editing software to carefully

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Organise your images Store all your images in one folder.

This will make accessing them a lot simpler, otherwise it’s easy to get distracted and in a muddle with the different frames. Name the folder something like ‘layers’.

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Open another image Pick another image from your folder.

Click Edit>Select all and then Edit>Copy. This will copy the frame, ready for you to paste on to your background image. To keep things organised, you can now close this second image.

erase the people until you are left with a clear frame.

Start by setting up the camera on a tripod – it’s important that the camera doesn’t move in between frames. Snap away as much as you can; the more images you have, the better your chances of creating ‘clear space’. When you return home, download the images to your computer and we’re ready to start the magic…

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Choose a background image After looking through your files, pick the one with the most ‘clean space’ and use this file as your background image. Open it by clicking File>Open… and then selecting the file from the relevant folder.

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Paste and create a layer mask Click Edit>Paste and the new frame will appear on the background. Now let’s add a layer mask; this allows us to ‘brush out’ areas of the layers. In the layers palette, click the icon that looks like a circle within a square.

ESSENTIAL TIPS

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Brush out the tourists Select the brush tool and make sure it is set to black. Brush over the tourists in the frame and they will disappear to reveal some clean space. If you make a mistake, change the brush colour to white and brush them back in.

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Repeat the process Keep building your layers, adding new frames and then adding the layer mask before erasing the areas to reveal more clean space.

When you are happy, click Layer>Flatten image and then save the file.

Photographing well-known tourist spots can be tricky because of the crowds, but if you don’t want to use our layers technique, there are other ways of getting clean shots. For example, try turning up very early to your location, in the hope that everyone else is still in bed.

Some locations run special evenings purely for photographers so keep checking the relevant websites for forthcoming events.

The last way to capture a popular location is some good old-fashioned patience. Eventually the crowds will clear long enough for a shot.

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Photo ideas

FINAL IMAGE

From a crowded tourist spot, to just the odd pedestrian, our scene has been completely transformed

try more photo projects

this technique is also great for

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architecture

soften your brush When you select your brush, go for a soft, rather than hard, version. This means any blending will look more natural, without those nasty, telltale defined edges.

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DIGITAL SLR Plus 5

Feedback Expert advice and ideas to help you improve your pictures

CAMERA INFORMATION Nikon D90 Lens: 18-105mm Exposure: 1/1250sec at f/5.6 ISO 400

CAMERA INFORMATION Nikon D7000 Lens: 50mm f/1.8 Exposure: 1/1600sec at f/1.8 ISO 200

Richard Postill Normandy “I took this photo on the Normandy coast. I used the wide end of my lens (18mm) to capture as much of the scene as possible and I also added a grad filter to help balance the sky and the foreground. I cropped the image on the computer to get rid of the bright sun.”

Sue Harper Lighthouse “This is my image of Beachy Head in Kent. I wanted to capture a different view of the landmark, which is famous for its cliffs and lighthouse.”

Ian Fyfe Sue has managed to capture a fresh view of a wellphotographed hotspot. Rather than the normal postcard snapshot, Sue has dropped down to the ground and captured some interesting foreground, using the grass towards the bottom of the frame.

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Matty Graham

This is an interesting angle to shoot when the tide is in, but zoom in and you can see that (if there was access) Sue could have got on the sand and captured a close-up, wide-angle view of the lighthouse. Shooting up close and wide would stretch the lighthouse’s dimensions, forcing it to look even taller and more prominent in the frame. Sue’s high angle does make more of the blue tones in the sea, but the lighthouse seems to be competing for attention with the large cliff in the left of the frame. Keep at it Sue, you obviously have an eye for a good picture.

This is an interesting scene, Richard. The sea defence acts as a lead-in line, guiding the viewer’s eye through the frame. However, I think there may be some alternative composition to be experimented with. The shape of the sea defence lends itself to a symmetrical shot, lining up the camera to point directly down towards the sea

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READERS’ SHOTS

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Meet the experts Our Feedback panel have over 60 years of picture-taking experience between them, which guarantees you’re getting top quality, image improving advice

Matty Graham Editor

Ian Fyfe Technical writer

Damian Vickers Zach “This is a portrait of my son, Zach.

I converted the image to black & white using the computer.”

Roger Payne Editorial director

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

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roger payne What a lovely portrait, Damian. Capturing portraits of little ones isn’t easy as their attention spans aren’t the longest, but you’ve done well to capture a candid moment. There’s some good plus points in this image – the composition is spot on, with the subject placed on an intersecting third to balance the frame. Also, Damian has blurred the background by using a large aperture, which gives a very shallow depth-of-field.

Finally, the conversion to mono works really well and suits the subject’s rather serious mood.

All well and good, but there is still room for improvement.

Firstly and most importantly, Zach is not looking at the camera.

I think some eye contact would have really improved this image. If the kids aren’t playing ball and looking at the lens, try engaging them with a toy or a game, or pull a face.

All in all, this is a great portrait and I’m sure it will be printed out and sent to the grandparents in due course.

“Some eye contact would really improve this image” would have given a fresh angle on this scene.

While the exposure is good and Richard has captured a lovely sunset, his image is a great example of why you shouldn’t always go for the widest focal length your lens can offer. With wide-angle lenses, barrel distortion can be a problem. Look at the horizon, where the sea meets the sky – the stretched perspective has curved the horizon and the lack of focal points means this lens issue is quite pronounced. Of course, if you do want to go wide, you can always fix this issue later on the computer.

I should say, that Richard has done very well to balance the sunset with the use of a grad filter – without it this image would have suffered with exposure problems. A nice photo, shot at the right time of the day. Great effort!

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CAMERA INFORMATION Canon EOS 450D Lens: 18-270mm Exposure: 1/60sec at f/8, ISO 200

DIGITAL SLR Plus 7

PET PORTRAITS

Pet Portrait ideas Looking for inspiration to help you capture fresh images of your pet? Try some of these neat frames…

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f our feature on perfect pet photography in Issue 83 inspired you, then you’ve probably been busily snapping away with your furry friend. To keep your shutter finger busy and your images varied, here are five more techniques and ideas to try.

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Use some props For the ultimate in cute, get creative and include some props in your photos.

Grown-up and adolescent pets certainly won’t sit still for long, but if you have a sleepy puppy or a relaxed kitten, try resting them in a shoe or a basket.

MATTY SAYS

Bounce flash off walls or ceilings, not into your subject’s eyes

TAKE purr-fect pet photos … with our top technique tips in Issue 83 of Digital SLR. Subscribe today by Direct Debit for £6.50 a quarter and get this issue free!

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PET PORTRAITS

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Go wide If your dog or cat doesn’t mind you getting up close with the camera, try using a wide-angle lens.

This will distort the perspective, creating a quirky image.

Remember if you go in too close, the camera will cast a shadow over your subject so take some test shots and get closer with each frame until shadows appear.

“using A wide-angle lens will distort the perspective, creating quirky images” 5

Silhouette This approach focuses the viewer’s attention on your pet’s shape and outline, undistracted by colour or markings. To create a silhouette, you actually underexpose your subject and the easiest way to do this is to shoot into a bright sky. The camera’s meter will expose for the sky, turning your pet into a silhouette.

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Find some water Dogs love water and some will happily leap into any river or pool in a canine impression of an Olympic diver. Stand at a distance and use a telezoom to capture your dog leaping into the wet stuff. You’ll have to use a fast shutter speed to freeze the action, so switch to shutter-priority mode (S or Tv) and select 1/500sec or faster to avoid blur.

TOP TIP

Converting to sepia helps when your subject has contrasting black and white fur

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Include a friend Taking a picture of your pet on its own is great, but why not also capture them interacting with a friend? Pair a large dog with a small one to exaggerate their scale or go for a sweet image of two kittens cuddling up. Try and get the two kittens parallel so they are both in focus. Select aperture-priority (A or Av) and an aperture of about f/6.3 – your camera will set the shutter speed.

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