t h e w o r l d ’ s b e s t-s e l l i n g d i g i t a l p h o t o m a g a z i n e 5 - 11 M ay
i s s ue 18 9
inspir at ion ide a s in-dep th re v iews
M a s t e r
y o u r
Nikon in a day! Simple tricks to unlock your camera’s full potential
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t h e w o r l d ’ s b e s t-s e l l i n g d i g i t a l p h o t o m a g a z i n e 5 - 11 M ay
best image-editing apps top picks for every skill level and budget
t h e w o r l d ’ s b e s t-s e l l i n g d i g i t a l p h o t o m a g a z i n e
sony alpha 7s ii review
21-27 a pr il
i s s ue 18 9
nikon’s tele tubbies our verdict on new 24-70mm & 200-500mm t H e w o r l d ’ s b e s t-s e l l i n g d i g i t a l p H o t o m a g a z i n e
inspir at ion ide a s in-dep th re v iews
28 A pr il-4 M Ay
i s s ue 18 8
we test the best monitors for photo editing on sale today
i s s ue 187
make sparks fly with our fantastic fire-spinning tips 7-13 A pR il
i s s ue 185
Get our verdict on sony’s new alpha male 14-20 A pr il
i s s ue 18 6
inspir at ion ide a s in-dep t h re v iews
inspir at ion ide a s in-dep t h re v iews
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inspir at ion ide a s in-dep t h re v iews
Takin’ iT To seAscApes The sTreeTs mAster fine Art
ReAsons youR
shots ARe soft
and how to sharpen up!
tame the waves for a moody masterpiece
master the art of candid portraiture
sunny
m a s t e r
y o u r
disposition
NikoN iN a day!
How to sHoot stunning outdoor portraits
simple tricks to unlock your camera’s full potential
JOIN THE CLUB... 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 the best new photos, how-to videos on
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CONTENTS Find out what’s inside this issue News
F e a tu r e
Get pro B&W effects
Macphun updates Tonality with presets created by the masters F E AT U R E
Master your nikon
Get to grips with your DSLR in a weekend with our exercises PHOTOS
Gallery
The very best reader images from around the world I N S P I RA T I O N Gallery
I ns p i r a tion
It’s cool, that…
Stunning macro bug shots like you’ve never seen before C RA S H C O U R S E
Warm up your flash
Use gels for balanced colours in your outdoor night shots PHOTOSHOP
zap those spots
Remove sensor marks and skin blemishes in Camera Raw
S K I LL S
r aw
G E AR
retro CSC throwdown
What’s the top compact? We pit the Fujifilm X-T1 against the Olympus E-M5 II
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w h at ’ s h o t The week’s top headlines in photography
MacPhun Tonal i t y update br ings free professional prese t s Photo-editing is part science and part inspiration, and Tonality now aims to tick both boxes
T
onality is an award-winning
way to give your creativity a kick-start,
to follow. At the time of launch there are
black and white photo editor
and other photographers will often have
four preset collections, each containing
for the Mac, and it’s just been
ideas for image effects you might not
6-10 presets. Each uses a particular
have thought of yourself.
combination of settings from the
updated with a new, free preset library that’s being developed with professional photographers around the world. You can apply the new presets
The software now has an option for
software’s manual controls, so you can
loading the sets of free presets from
‘reverse engineer’ the effects to see how
the Macphun website, which have been
they were done and how the tools work.
to your photos with a single click, or
created by photographers including
make manual adjustments using the
Serge Ramelli, John Batdorff, Dan
Macphun Creative Kit 2016, available
software’s built-in tools. They’re a great
Hughes and Andy Kruczek, with more
from www.macphun.com.
Tonality comes as part of the
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Master your Nikon in a weekend Want to get more from your Nikon, but need a little help? In just two days you can learn to take complete control. Chris Rutter is your guide rom exposure and focusing to focal lengths and lighting, getting to grips with all the settings and features available on your Nikon can be a daunting prospect. Because of that, we’ve come up with a set of 11 simple exercises that you can do over a weekend, and which will give you a thorough understanding of your Nikon. If you’re new to your Nikon, doing the exercises is a great way to wean yourself off the fully automatic settings, and get grips with how you can
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adjust settings yourself for better results. But even if you’re an experienced photographer they’ll help you achieve a more thorough understanding of the settings and the results you can achieve – you’ll even learn how you can improve your images by changing your point of view or lighting. So, what are you waiting for? Completing all 11 exercises will help you get better results the next time you’re faced with a challenging subject or tricky lighting, and improve your all-round hit rate.
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Exposure & metering Spend the first morning at home getting to grips with your Nikon’s exposure and metering systems
1 basic exposure and metering Select aperture priority mode and matrix metering, and an aperture of f/5.6. Fill Mins the frame with a grey card, switch to manual focus and take a shot. Repeat with white and black cards. You’ll see that all three images are grey, rather than grey, white and black. This is because the metering system is calibrated to expect most scenes to contain a range of tones, which will average out to grey. Next, place a small subject in front of the grey card, so it only takes up a small area of the card. Position your Nikon in front of your subject; using a tripod will ensure that the framing doesn’t change. Adjust the zoom so the card fills the frame and focus on the subject. Take a shot of this setup: you’ll find that the subject and card are perfectly exposed. Swap the white card for the grey one and take another shot. You’ll see the white card is recorded as a grey tone, and the subject is underexposed. To fix this you need to increase the exposure by using exposure compensation: set this to +1 and take a shot, then set it to +2 and take another. Finally, take the black card, reset the exposure compensation to zero and take another shot. This time the black card will cause the camera to overexpose the subject as it tries to record the card as grey. To correct this you need to reduce the exposure by setting exposure compensation to a negative value.
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White CARD, +1EV
White CARD, No Comp
Black Card, No COMP
Grey CARD, NO COMP
Black CARd, -2EV
Take i t fur ther – Try spot me ter ing Because matrix metering measures light from all across the scene it can be fooled by bright (or dark) backgrounds, as above. Another metering mode, spot metering, measures the light from just a tiny area of the image. That area is linked to the focus point on most Nikons, so to use this mode you need to position the focus point over an area you want to record as a midtone. Because it’s not always possible to keep the focus point positioned over this area it’s best to use manual exposure mode when using spot metering. Set the exposure with the focus point positioned over a suitable area of the subject and you’ll get correctly exposed results.
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2 Shoot a backlit portrait Make sure that the exposure compensation on your Nikon is set to zero, and position Mins your model so they’re against a bright background such as a window or the sky. Then, with your Nikon set to aperture priority mode and the widest aperture available on your lens (such as f/4), frame your shot so that the subject covers approximately half the frame, with the rest of the (much brighter) background clearly visible. Now focus on the subject and take a picture. Reviewing this image you’ll find that the subject is much too dark, as your Nikon is trying to expose the bright background as a midtone. Next, take some more shots with exposure compensation set to +1: you’ll see that the subject appears much lighter, closer to how you see them. Note that if the background is very bright you may need to increase the exposure compensation to +2 to expose the subject correctly.
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White card, No COMP
White card, +1EV
+2EV Compensation
No Compensation
Di s cover the hi s t ogr am Press the playback button to review the first image you shot for the first exercise. You can change the display mode by pressing the top or bottom of the rear control pad. The most useful option for assessing the exposure is the histogram display, which shows a graph of all of the tones in the image, from pure black at the left to bright white at the right. Ideally you want the body of the graph to fall between these extremes. If the graph is over at the left-hand end, with a gap to the right, the image is underexposed. If it’s at the right, with a gap to the left, it’s overexposed; the exact shape of the graph will differ for different subjects. Go through all the images you shot and you’ll find that the histogram for the image
of the subject against the grey background is bunched in the middle, with a peak in the centre. This is ideal, as it shows the grey backdrop has been recorded as a midtone. Move on to the first image shot against the white background and the histogram will appear similar to the first one, but as the background should be white this indicates that the shot is underexposed. In the next couple of shots the peak moves to the right; this shows that the large area of white is more accurately recorded in the image shot with exposure compensation at +1, while for the image shot at +2 there’s a gap on the left of the histogram, indicating that the image is overexposed. The opposite is true of the images with a black background.
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Camera settings Head outside to learn more about using shutter speed, aperture and ISO to improve your shots
3 Explore basic metering & exposure For this exercise you need flowing water – a stream or fountain is fine. Fix your Nikon Mins to a tripod and select shutter priority exposure mode. Because the range of shutter speeds available is greater than the range of apertures, you should also select Auto ISO, as this will enable your Nikon to adjust the ISO if there isn’t enough light when selecting fast shutter speeds. Reduce the shutter speed to the slowest setting suitable for the lighting conditions. As you increase the exposure time you will see the aperture setting change, until it reaches the smallest aperture available on your lens. If you select a slower shutter speed the display will flash, indicating that the shot will be overexposed. In bright conditions this will be around 1/15 sec, but in darker conditions you’ll be able to use a much slower shutter speed. Shoot a sequence of images, doubling the shutter speed each time, until you get to 1/1000 sec. This will give you a series of photos showing you how the movement in the scene is recorded.
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1/60 sec
1 sec
1/15 sec
1/500 sec
In our example, at one second both the waterfall and the water flowing in front are blurred, but by 1/15 sec the ripples in the water are much more visible.
The fast-moving waterfall isn’t clearly defined until you shoot at 1/500 sec, where you can see the detail in the streams, splashes and ripples.
Panning for mov ing subjec t s Once you’ve mastered using shutter speed to record subjects such as water and clouds, which move while the camera stays static, you can move onto other techniques, such as panning, where you move the camera to follow moving subjects. In this case you won’t need to use the extreme fast or slow shutter speeds that you used in the exercise above. When shooting a slightly slower-moving subject like a cyclist try using shutter speeds from 1/8 sec to 1/60 sec, while for faster subjects, such as cars and motorbikes, use a shutter speed between 1/30 and 1/250 sec to find out which gives the best balance of blurred background and sharp subject.
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4 Depth of field 20
Position your Nikon and focus on a subject in the middle distance. Set aperture priority Mins exposure mode. Now take a series of images going from the widest available aperture on your lens to the smallest, in whole stops, ensuring that the focus doesn’t alter between each shot. A typical sequence for this will be f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16 and f/22. Enlarge the images on your camera’s LCD or on your computer. Check that the subject that you focused on is sharp, and then look at objects behind and in front of it. The results you get will depend on the focal length of your lens and the distance between the subject and the camera, but in our shots both the background and foreground subjects are blurred at f/4 and f/5.8. At f/8 the ruined church is almost sharp, but the foreground subjects are very soft, while at f/11 the church is sharp. The foreground doesn’t become fully sharp until f/22.
ISO100
ISO1600
ISO6400
f/4
f/11
f/22
ISO25600
5 Learn about ISO With your Nikon fixed in position on a tripod, select aperture priority exposure mode, and select an aperture that’s narrow enough to keep the whole Mins scene in focus (around f/8 or f/11 if you’re using the wide setting on your standard zoom lens). Take a test exposure at the lowest ISO. Now take a series of images moving from the lowest ISO to the highest, doubling the value for each step. So if your Nikon has a lowest ISO of 100 you’ll have a sequence of images at 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 and so on. Remember that changing the ISO will affect the shutter speed if you use aperturepriority exposure mode, so any moving subjects may be recorded differently during the sequence. You can assess the noise introduced by different ISOs by zooming in on the same area of each image to check how much noise is visible.
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Clo se-up s and dep th of f ield The aperture isn’t the only setting on your Nikon that will affect the depth of field in your images. The distance from your camera to the subject will also have a bearing on which areas of the scene are sharp and which are blurred. With closeups you’ll find that the depth of field is much smaller than when you’re shooting at longer distances, so you can also try repeating the depth of field exercise, but with a smaller subject, and focusing as close as possible with your standard zoom.
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Master focusing It’s time to get to grips with your Nikon’s focusing modes and features, to ensure pin-sharp results every time
6 Focus on a fast-moving subject To enable your Nikon to capture a series of images you’ll need to select the Mins fastest continuous shooting drive mode available on your camera.
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You may also need to use a high ISO, such as 1600, to enable you to use a fast shutter speed to freeze any movement, particularly if you’re shooting in dull lighting conditions. Select shutter priority exposure mode and a shutter speed of 1/1000 sec. Finally, choose continuous autofocus mode (AF-C) and set the centre focus point. Now get your subject to move towards you. Frame your shot so that the focus point is positioned on them, and
take a shot. Then, making sure that you keep the shutter release half-pressed and the focus point positioned over the subject, continue taking a series of images as they approach you. Once you’ve got the hang of this technique you can get your subject to move more quickly towards you to fine-tune your focus-tracking technique. Eventually you could even try shooting much faster-moving subjects, such as cars or motorbikes.
Back-bu t ton focus ing Rather than relying on the shutter release to activate the focusing when using continuous autofocus, you can change the settings on your Nikon so that the AE-L/AF-L button on the back of the camera is used for focusing instead. Many professional bodies, such as the D810 and D4s, have a dedicated AF-on button, but on models without one of those, enter the Controls Custom Settings Menu, go to Assign AE-L/AF-L button, and choose AF-on. This means that you press the AE-L/AF-L button with your thumb to activate the focusing, which frees up your finger to press the shutter release only when you want to take a shot.
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7 Shoot an off-centre subject Select single shot autofocus on your Nikon, then select the automatic focus point Mins selection option. This enables you to frame your shot so the subject is to the left or the right of the frame, and then half-press the shutter release to activate the autofocus. In many cases your Nikon will recognise the subject as the area you want to focus on and will correctly focus on it. But this isn’t always the most reliable, or consistent, option for focusing on off-centre subjects, as the camera could choose a different area or object to focus on, resulting in that classic problem of an image with a sharp background but a blurred subject. Switch focus point selection to single point or single area, and frame your shot so the subject is off to one side of the frame. Move the focus point using the rear control pad so the highlighted area in the viewfinder is positioned over your subject, then again half-press the shutter release and, once your Nikon has focused on the subject, take a shot. Another option is to keep the centre focusing point selected, and point your camera straight at your subject to focus on them. Once they’re in focus, you keep the shutter release half-pressed and re-frame the shot as needed, before taking a shot. Which option you go for will depend on the subject. If you’re only taking one or two shots, half-pressing and re-framing can be quicker, but if you’re take lots of images of a subject in the same place, manually selecting the AF point is probably quicker.
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Manual focus Using off-centre focus points is perfect in many situations, but there are times when it can’t be used successfully. The outer focus points aren’t as sensitive as the central ones, so you may find that your Nikon struggles to focus using them in low light. They also only cover a limited area of the frame, so if you want to place the subject at the outer edges you’ll find that there isn’t a focus point available to position over the subject. In these situations you can switch to manual focus, and focus on the subject to get sharp results. But remember that if you (or the subject) moves, then you’ll need to re-focus.