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Issue 230 June 2020 • www.digitalcameraworld.com
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Master the lens that can do it all and kickstart your photography!
STAY H O ME SPECIAL
Fun photo projects to shoot indoors!
GRO U P TE ST
The best zooms for garden birds
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Contents
LOOK! 36 natural textures on your disc
ISSUE 230 JUNE 2020
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Master one focal length and kickstart your photography!
Photo skills 10 Photo Active
Inspiration galore, including eight projects you can shoot indoors
31 The Art of Seeing
Our columnist Ben Brain continues to make the most of self-isolation
35 S tay at Home
48 S kylum AirMagic
Transform your aerial shots in seconds with this issue’s software gift
50 P ractical Photoshop
Tutorials from the front line of image editing, now including Affinity Photo
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62 Life begins at 50mm How to get the most out of this versatile standard-view optic
Shot of the Month The winning shot from Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year 2020
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80 Hotshots
Highlights from the winning entries of ‘The Mind’s Eye’ Awards 2020
88 Perimeter 90 In Focus
Quintin Lake’s photo walk continues
From perfect printing to photo sharing sites, we’ve got lockdown covered
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New camera news, and much more
Remembering Wildlife Ten incredible images that will soon appear in the project’s fifth book
Behind the Lens Skylum CEO Alex Tsepko talks about future software development
arc Newton 118 M
A British docmentary photographer’s take on throwaway consumer culture
130 What the f-stop!
Pit your brains against our expert
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Birding lenses _ Top glass for capturing your best-ever shots of our feathered friends in your garden
Practical Photoshop _ Retouch portraits with simple Photoshop skills. Plus, more on Affinity Photo
Gear & tests 96 Canon EOS Ra
Introducing the astro version of the EOS R, with some vital tweaks for stargazers
100 Leica M10 Monochrom
An extraordinary camera at an extraordinary price, says our test team
103 DJI Mavic Air 2
With a great spec, this drone will fly
Lumix 106 PSanasonic Pro 70-200mm f/4 A well-balanced telephoto zoom
107 Irix 45mm f/1.4
An enticing new standard prime
roup Test: The best 108 Glenses for birding Our top picks for DSLR and mirrorless
116 Mini Test: Microphones Lavalier, shotgun and wireless options
129 All-new tips cards
Pocket-size photo technique smarts
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Contents
This month’s contributors Claire Gillo Creative photographer Photographer and writer Claire is constantly coming up with new ideas and approaches, and shares two of her latest projects in Photo Active.
Marc Newton Documentary photographer
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Discover how Marc conceives and develops his distinctive documentary projects – and then executes them – in Photo Active, on page 24.
Marc Newton interview _ The photographer and educator set out to document the car boot sale – a peculiarly British pastime that he felt was in danger of dying out – but got more than he bargained for.
NEW SECTION!
Simon Newman Astrophotographer Enforced confinement to his house and garden led Simon towards photography, and he’s never looked back – although for astro, he regularly looks up…
George Fairbairn Photographer and animator
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The US-born but UK-based photographer had a varied career before finding his vocation: stopmotion animation. He shares his secrets on page 20.
Stay at Home _ Finding more silver linings in quarantine… More time at home means you can crack on with some photographic housekeeping. This month: how to print perfect photos, and how to choose a photo sharing site
Alex Tsepko
Photo Active _ Ten new ways to develop your photographic creativity this month, including eight lockdown-busting projects to shoot at home. Plus, we set a new Facebook photo challenge, and reveal last month’s winner.
Software developer The CEO of Skylum shares some thoughts on artificial intelligence and future development of his products, which include Luminar and Aurora HDR. See page 94.
Quintin Lake Roving photographer Quintin is two thirds of the way through his journey around the UK coastline, yet there’s still plenty to inspire his imagery. The latest stretch is on page 88.
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10 things to shoot, edit or create this month, including stop-motion animation and food towers
1 | ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY
A night with the stars Simon Newman shows why planning, patience and careful technique is the backbone of brilliant astrophotography uring the summer of 2018, I got into photography ‘seriously’ when a broken hip left me confined to the house and garden for six weeks. I bought a macro lens, practised shooting bugs every day, and devoured all I could about photographic technique. Now my main photography passion is landscape astro. While I don’t get to do this as often as I like – I’m a father of two young ones – when I do it’s a true experience. I love every stage of the operation: the planning, waiting and hoping for the right conditions,
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the night itself alone under the stars, and even the post-processing – a key aspect of astro. All my favourite images have strong memories associated with them; clearly that’s a personal thing which can never be fully conveyed, but I can only hope my passion comes through in the final result. The image here was taken at Dunkery Beacon and was a tracked panorama, which is complex to execute. The shot at Pen Y Fan overleaf uses a different method – non‑tracked but with stacking. www.instagram.com/si_newman
The stone cairn
I’d recommend getting to your chosen site to set up before darkness. In the case of this image I’d envisioned the composition with the Milky Way arching over the cairn, but I didn’t realise a trig point over to the right would also be visible – if I’d arrived in the dark, I would have missed this.
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The Milky Way
A general rule is that if you can see the Milky Way with the naked eye, even faintly, then the camera will pick it up; then you can boost it enough in processing to show good detail. Here I chose to track the sky (and so enable long exposures) to maximise the detail, as explained overleaf. I also wanted to try to capture a full Milky Way arch, which meant a 180-degree panorama – 14 exposures were used to make this image!
Glow on the horizon
I knew this was going to be a reasonably dark site, but I was initially disappointed that it wasn’t quite so dark near the horizon. In the end, though, I like how it looks as it adds an extra dimension and depth to the sky, as well as providing contrast against the horizon. I’m delighted the Andromeda galaxy is visible despite the glow – see the smudge to the left of the cairn?
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STAY AT HOME PHOTOGRAPHY
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How to produce perfect photo prints at home!
Now’s the time to print out and display the shots you’re most proud of. Leading photographer and educator Glyn Dewis shares his top tips, hints and insights dread to think how much time and money I’ve wasted over the years trying to print a halfdecent picture – something that in some way resembles what I can see on my screen. But despite following every bit of advice I have been given, or read and watched, it just never worked out. “All you need to do is calibrate your display, then just download the profiles for the paper you’re using from the manufacturer’s website...” If only it was that simple. Eventually, after much frustration I gave in and started sending my files to a lab for them to print on my behalf,
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resigned to the fact that printing was clearly way beyond me. At the time of writing this guide, that was nine years ago. But since then things have changed – I now fully understand the process. Printing is no longer a dark art reserved for those who completely understand the science behind colour. If you want to become an expert in colour management and learn to understand the complex mathematical formulas and the science behind colour space, what appears over these three pages isn’t for you. If, however, you just want to stop wasting time and money, know and understand what settings you need to use and why, and then be able to click
‘Print’ and have the confidence to know that what will come out of your printer will be totally bang on what you wanted, then this article has totally and utterly been written for you. I’ll take you through the printing process using Lightroom, but for all the screen calibration and paper profiles, you can download my Perfect Prints Guide for free – see opposite. Here’s how it’s done…
WHAT YOU’LL NEED A set of images ready to print Printer with adequate ink supplies Up-to-date printer drivers Paper (see page 38) Time: 1-2 hours
STEP BY STEP HOW TO PRODUCE PERFECT PRINTS Follow Glyn’s expert masterclass in outputting lab-quality results in the comfort of your own home – while saving yourself time and money, too
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Open Lightroom’s Print Module
In Lightroom’s Print Module, which you’ll find on the right-hand side of the screen, scroll down to the Print Job section. The settings I choose here are: Print Resolution: Remains at 300ppi Print Sharpening: I leave this setting ‘as is’, so Standard and Media Type as Matt Paper. I have tried varying it and noticed little to no difference.
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Colour Profile
The Color Management section is where you choose the correct profile for the type of paper you are using. When you first create a profile you won’t see it as being available in the Profile drop-down menu but it’s very simple to add it in. Click to open the Profile menu and choose Other.
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TOP TIPS Review your copies on the screen of your camera to check exposure and sharpness. Don’t worry too much about cropping – it’s easier to do this at the editing stage once you have the digitised image to work with. You’ll probably want to edit your images anyway – adjusting colour balance, removing blemishes, and tweaking the contrast and saturation.
TOP KIT Canon Pixma Pro 10S
Glyn with a print of the WW2 Royal Navy veteran John King, part of Glyn’s 39-45 Portraits project.
“I bought this model because friends use the Canon brand and I trust their judgement. And I didn’t need A3+ size at the time.”
FINDING THIS USEFUL? READ THE FULL GUIDE Become a member of Glyn’s email community and get a free copy of his Perfect Prints PDF guide. Sign up on his website: glyndewis.com
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Select your profile
If you’ve created your own paper profiles, or have purchased a bespoke profile from a third party, then once installed on your system, this is where you’ll find them. Simply tick the checkbox next to the name of the paper profile you wish to use and click OK.
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Perceptual or Relative?
Pretty much all of the time I choose Relative, but here’s a little explanation as to why that is… Perceptual is what you would choose if you had an image with seriously strong, vibrant colours that are likely ‘out of gamut’ – or to put it another way, way beyond the realms of what is contained within the colour space that you are working and printing in, eg. Adobe RGB. If there are any colours out of gamut, then all of the colours in the image are shifted inwards until those outside of the colour space are squeezed in. Doing so will change the values of all the colours rather than just those that are out of gamut. I hope this explanation makes sense! Relative, on the other hand, would do things differently. If there were any colours out of gamut, then all that would happen is that they would be replaced with the nearest possible matching colour but the others would all be left well alone. Relative is especially good when printing images that contain skintones.
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MASTER THE 50MM FOCAL LENGTH
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SHOOTING REAL LIFE IN LOW-LIGHT SITUATIONS
Make the most of challenging conditions to shoot atmospheric documentary images
TIP Score with raw Artificial light can play havoc with White Balance. Make sure you shoot raw so you can fine-tune the colour temperature when you edit the image.
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ON THE STREET hen you are shooting on a street with the light fading fast, and yet there are still interesting scenes to be had, a 50mm lens can save the day. It will enable you to shoot wide-open at f/2 or even more and absorb all the available light, and to find a workable shutter speed to handhold your camera. Of course, you may also need to increase the ISO, but start at ISO 400 and see if you can achieve a shutter speed fast enough to avoid subject blur. The first thing to identify is where your light is, whether it’s the last few rays of sunshine or artificial street lighting. Once identified, study how its direction and intensity affects the scene. In this shot, bare bulbs are providing all the light needed, and the glance up from the main subject allowed the photographer to capture an off-guard portrait in tricky conditions.
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MASTER THE 50MM FOCAL LENGTH
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HOW TO SHOOT INDUSTRIAL SCENES o shoot this indoor environmental portrait of a metalworker, a 50mm lens was a great choice. You want to handhold the camera to be able to focus and fire at the perfect moment while maintaining a safe distance from the subject. With a shot like this, it’s important to consider your composition first, so a dry run without the intense light from the welding will
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Set up your camera
Choose an aperture of f/5.6 or f/8 to help control the intensity of light from the welding arc; to further avoid overexposing the highlights, set the exposure compensation to -2 stops. As we have mixed lighting in this scene, we can use Auto White Balance and adjust the raw file later. www.digitalcameraworld.com
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ensure you’ve managed to include enough of the surroundings for your composition to be successful. Taking the shot itself is tricky because you need to protect your eyes by shutting them when the welding starts. Use Live View if that’s practical, otherwise make sure you’re focused with a single or small group of AF points and ask your subject to start welding. Some negative exposure compensation will usually be necessary.
Frame up and start shooting
Keep a safe distance from the sparks and use AF to lock on to the chosen point of focus. Don’t look directly at the welding light. Instead, get set up and ready to shoot, then close your eyes and fire the shutter as the subject starts to weld. Live View is a good option to avoid damaging your eyes.
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Check and reshoot
There is an element of hit and miss with both the exposure and focusing for this tricky subject, so make sure you carefully check each frame between shots. Adjust your focusing and exposure compensation if needed, then reshoot after making any necessary adjustments. JUNE 2020
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KitZone
Mirrorless Canon EOS Ra
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This is an interesting feature shared with the regular EOS R – the sensor is covered when you remove lenses.
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The Ra badge is the only external difference between this model and the regular EOS R. The real differences are inside.
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Canon EOS Ra £2,599/$2,499 The astro version of the Canon EOS R offers a couple of vital tweaks for stargazers w w w.c anon .co.uk
Specifications Sensor: 30.3MP full-frame CMOS, 36 x 24mm Image processor: Digic 8 AF points: 5,655 Dual Pixel AF positions ISO range: 100 to 40,000 (exp 50 to 102,400) Max image size: 6,720 x 4,480 Metering modes: Evaluative, partial, spot, centre-weighted Video: 4K UHD at 29.97p, 25p, 24p, 23.98p Viewfinder: EVF, 3.69m dots, 100% coverage Memory card: SD / SDHC / SDXC LCD: 3.15-inch fully articulating touchscreen, 2.1m dots Max burst: 8fps Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC Size: 136 x 99 x 84mm (body only) Weight: 580g (body only; 660g with battery and card)
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he Canon EOS Ra is not the first camera modified specifically for astrophotography. Occasionally, camera makers do produce ‘astro’ versions of their leading cameras, and the EOS R is a good candidate for this treatment, thanks to its vari-angle screen, mirrorless operation and – for those that have the budget – some super-fast RF lenses. From the outside, the EOS Ra is indistinguishable from a regular Canon EOS R (apart from the badge): all the differences are on the inside. All camera sensors have infra-red filters to restrict the spectrum of light captured by the sensor to visible wavelengths, but the filter on the EOS Ra’s sensor has been specially modified to transmit four times as much HA (Hydrogen Alpha) light.
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This extended red sensitivity means that the EOS Ra can capture the characteristic reddish colour of nebulae, for example, and will reveal a larger number of celestial objects for much richer night skies. That’s pretty much all you need to do to a regular camera to adapt it for astrophotography – but Canon has added another tweak: the ability to zoom in to a full 30x magnification of captured images, to check for pinpoint focus accuracy. The EOS Ra’s AF system is sensitive down to -6EV, but that may not be enough with a very dark sky; if you’re going to commit to long exposures or exposure stacking techniques, you’ll want to be absolutely sure of the focus before you start. Interestingly, Canon says you can use the EOS Ra for regular photography too, but warns that www.digitalcameraworld.com
Canon EOS Ra Mirrorless
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It looks like a control dial from a distance, but this is the Canon’s On/Off power switch.
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The 3.69-million-dot EVF is very good, but astro shooters will tend to use the rear display more often.
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The menu system reveals a couple of differences compared with the regular EOS R, including a 30x zoom option.
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The vari-angle screen could prove very useful for astrophotography, where the camera is often angled upwards.
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It’s a pretty compact camera body, but Canon still found room for a highvisibility status display. 8
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The unique M-Fn Bar carries over from the regular EOS R. It’s controversial, but we like it now!
“ The filter on the EOS Ra’s sensor transmits four times as much HA (Hydrogen Alpha) light” optics with larger rear elements and better performance, such as the superb RF 50mm f/1.2L USM. Fast lenses like this and the amazing RF 28-70mm f/2 will be well-suited to astrophotography. The 30MP sensor in the EOS R has drawn some criticism for its lower resolution compared to rivals like the Sony A7R Mark IV, the Nikon Z 7 and the Panasonic Lumix S1R, but it offers a good compromise between resolution and low noise levels, with an ISO range of 100 to 40,000 (expandable to 50 to 102,400).
Build and handling its extended infrared sensitivity can lead to some colours looking strange compared to what we see with the naked eye.
Key features Apart from its astro adaptations, the EOS Ra is essentially the same as the EOS R. It has a full-frame 30.3MP CMOS sensor and a phasedetection AF system with 5,655 focus positions, covering 88% of the frame horizontally and 100% vertically. The EOS Ra does not have in-body image stabilisation, unlike rival www.digitalcameraworld.com
full-frame mirrorless cameras from Sony, Nikon and Panasonic. That’s an issue for the regular EOS R, but not for this variant, which is almost certainly going to be used on a tripod or an equatorial mount. We’ve complained about the heavy 4K video crop in the past, but this will only affect astrophotography if you need an ultra-wide view. The 1.7x crop means that your RF and EF lenses won’t be nearly as wide: a 24mm lens becomes 40.8mm equivalent. Canon’s new RF lens mount has allowed Canon’s engineers to produce
We do like the EOS Ra’s magnesium alloy body, which feels both wieldy and robust. This compact size does mean that larger lenses like the RF 50mm f/1.2L USM and particularly the RF 28-70mm f/2L USM start to feel unbalanced, but that doesn’t make any difference for tripod use. The control ring you get on RF lenses is especially useful with the Ra. It can be programmed to adjust aperture, shutter, white balance or ISO and can be found easily by touch in the dark. (Just don’t change the focus by accident.) JUNE 2020
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KitZone
With a little bit of patience, you’ll be amazed at what you can get with an affordable lens when shooting in your garden, such as this photo of the Eurasian wren.
Lenses for birdwatching Ideal for stay-at-home photography, these lenses are great for capturing garden birds
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hen you’re staying at home as much as possible, you can soon run out of things to shoot. After all, there’s a limit to the number of family portraits, bowls of fruit and vases of flowers you can photograph before your creative mojo starts to diminish. But step outside and, if you’re lucky enough to have a back yard or garden, you can join the growing number of domestic bird photographers.
Naturally, these creatures are small and you need to shoot them from quite a distance, otherwise you’ll scare them away before your finger has even made it as far as the shutter button. Powerful telephoto reach is the order of the day. However, extra-large lenses generally come with similarly outsized price tags. That’s no use when we’re needing to cut costs and keep the spending down, so here’s our pick of smart telephoto zooms at reasonable prices. Matthew Richards
The contenders 1 Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS II USM 2 Fujinon XC50-230mm f/4.5-6.7 OIS II 3 Nikkor AF-P 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E ED VR 4 Panasonic PZ 45-175mm f/4-5.6 Power OIS 5 Pentax 55-300mm f/4.5-6.3 DA PLM WR 6 Sigma 100-400mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM | C 7 Tamron SP 70-300mm f/4-5.6 Di VC USD 8 Tamron 100-400mm f/4.5-6.3 Di VC USD
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