Preview: Photo Review Jun-Aug 2010 Issue 44

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WIN A HIGH-PERFORMANCE CANON EOS 50D WITH 17-85MM LENS RRP $2299 99

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ISSUE 44

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contents We encourage submissions to: The Editor edmail@photoreview.com.au T: (02) 9948 8600 Office 4 Clontarf Marina, Sandy Bay Road Clontarf NSW 2093

INSIDE

Cover image by Montalbetti and Campbell. See page 14.

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04

Editorial A cautionary tale

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Products & Trends Our recent Readers’ Survey revealed that the online sales channel is attracting increasing numbers of informed (ie, Photo Review-reading!) photo enthusiasts.

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Photo Challenge Our readers show us their Pollocks, and we ask them to be a bit more opaque next time ‘round.

INSPIRATION 14

COSMIC FEDEX: MONTALBETTI AND CAMPBELL A unique photography duo create images of extraordinary richness and detail.

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THERE AND THEN Whether she’s at home with friends or meeting strangers while travelling the world, Flavia Schuster’s photography is about her personal interaction with her subjects.

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ALFRED STIEGLITZ: THE LAKE GEORGE YEARS Sydney plays host to the first ever Australian exhibition from one of the giants of American photography.

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contents

BUYERS GUIDE DIGITAL SLRs 52

NIKON D3S The latest iteration of Nikon’s professional DSLR camera.

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CANON EOS 550D Canon’s latest DSLR for photo enthusiasts.

PhotoæReview

A U S T R A L I A

Editor Don Norris dnorris@photoreview.com.au Technical Editor Margaret Brown mbrown@photoreview.com.au Trade News Editor Keith Shipton

SUBSCRIPTIONS TIONS 34

Contributor Steve Packer

SUBSCRIBE TO PHOTO REVIEW AND WIN

Creative Director Darren Waldren

Have Photo Review Australia delivered to your door at a reduced price - or extend your current subscription - and you could win a high-performance Canon EOS 50D with EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens, RRP $2299.

Publisher David O’Sullivan dosullivan@photoreview.com.au Publication Manager Pauline Shuttleworth pshuttleworth@photoreview.com.au

TECHNIQUE 37

TEN TIPS FOR LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY

INTERCHANGEABLE LENS 54

SAMSUNG NX10 Samsung’s versatile entry into the mirrorless, interchangeable-lens camera category.

Ideas to help you create better pictures of scenery.

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PHOTOSHOP’S SELECTIVE COLOUR TOOL Using the Selective Colour tool in Photoshop to make subtle improvements to digital photos.

BUYERS GUIDE 47

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OLYMPUS E-P2 AND E-PL1 We compare Olympus’ latest ‘Pen’ series cameras.

ADVANCED 57

PANASONIC TZ10 AND SONY HX5V We look at the competing merits of these two GPSenabled long-zoom digicams.

INTERCHANGEABLE-LENS CAMERAS Factors to consider when shopping for an interchangeable-lens camera system.

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PANASONIC FT2 RICOH CX3

LENS 59 59 60 60 60

CANON EF 100MM F/2.8L MACRO CANON EF 50MM F/1.2L USM SIGMA AF 17-70MM F/2.8-4 DC MACRO NIKKOR AF-S 16-35MM F/4 G ED VR NIKKOR AF-S 24MM F/1.4G ED

PERIPHERALS 62

EIZO FLEXSCAN SX2262W

Accounts Manager Heather Hampson mpaccounts@photoreview.com.au Media Releases edmail@photoreview.com.au Advertising Phone (02) 9948 8600 pshuttleworth@photoreview.com.au Subscriptions One year (4 issues) $29.00 including GST and delivery in Australia. See page 35 this issue or phone: (02) 9948 8600 or online: www.photoreview.com.au Photo Review Australia is printed on Monza Satin Recycled Paper with ISO 14001 Environmental Accreditation Printed by Pegasus Print Group Design by itechne [www.itechne.com] phone (03) 9421 8833 Distributed by NDD Photo Review website by itechne All content in Photo Review Australia is protected under copyright and cannot be reproduced in any form without written consent from the publisher. Photo Review Australia is published by

An elegant, high-resolution, widescreen LCD monitor for photographers.

NET EFFECT 64

A HEALTHY HAUL Hours of fun for all the photographically-focused family among these online discoveries by our intrepid editor.

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Media Publishing Pty Limited ABN 86 099 172 577 Office 4 Clontarf Marina Sandy Bay Road, Clontarf NSW 2093 Australia Ph: (02) 9948 8600 Fx: (02) 9948 0144 Em: edmail@mediapublishing.com.au Photo Review website: www.photoreview.com.au

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Inspiration

CWTaT P]S cWT] Whether she’s at home with friends or meeting strangers while travelling the world, Flavia Schuster’s photography is about her personal interaction with her subjects. By Steve Packer

Bule Babah, Calcutta, 2006

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Inspiration

Brice and Sowane, Ko Phagnan, 2005.

IMPULSIVE. EMOTIONAL. FRANK. GRITTY. These are words Flavia Schuster uses to describe her genre-defying photography. ‘My work is largely autobiographical. There are elements of straight documentary photography, but it’s always about me,’ she says. ‘It’s quite emotional work as well, because it’s about my relationship with other people. Even if I’m in the street photographing complete strangers, it’s always about their reaction to me, my reaction to them, and the connection and synergy between us. It’s documentary, but where I am or when I was there are mostly irrelevant.’

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When Schuster exhibited at the Perth Centre for Photography earlier this year, she wrote that she never hides her face behind her camera when she photographs people. ‘I hide it while composing the shot, then raise my face and look at them for a few seconds before I click. Those seconds create an awkward tension, giving the person time to rethink his or her persona, to re-pose the pose. It is their choice to interact with me or with my camera. What interests me is the level of intimacy that can be created in any context, public or private, be it a silent flirt that mostly lasts seconds, or on occasion is built to friendships that last a lifetime.’

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THE PREVAILING WEATHER CONDITIONS WHEN A SHOT WAS TAKEN WILL HAVE AN IMPACT ON THE IMPRESSION THAT SHOT CREATES IN VIEWERS. A SUNNY SCENE CREATES A WARM AND RELAXED FEELING – BUT IT CAN BE DIFFICULT TO PRODUCE SHOTS WITH ANY DRAMA OR EXCITEMENT.

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(Pictured, clockwise from above) Natural patterns in the landscape can lend themselves to abstract compositions in which colours and shapes play a dominant role. (Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II; lens EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM at 47mm, ISO 100, 1/125 second at f/11.) A low camera position focuses attention to the foreground and compositional lines lead the viewer’s eyes into the scene. A small lens aperture ensured adequate depth-of-ďŹ eld to make all elements in the shot appear sharp. The inherent distortion of the wide-angle lens was used to advantage in the shot composition. (Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II; lens EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM at 24mm, ISO 200, 1/125 second at f/13.) A tripod was required for this one-second exposure, taken about ten minutes after sunset. (Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II; lens EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM at 67mm, ISO 200, f/8.)

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Serious landscape photographers shoot with either aperture-priority AE or full manual exposure mode because both modes give them control over depth-of-ďŹ eld in shots. For most landscape photographs, the objective is to have as much of the scene as possible looking sharp. That means shooting with a relatively small lens aperture setting. Take account of the fact that sharpness in most DSLR lenses starts to decrease somewhere around f/11 (f/16 with higher-quality lenses) so the optimal aperture setting will be between f/8 and f/11. For a small-sensor digicam, an aperture of about f/5.6 should deliver good results, since the smallest aperture for these cameras is only f/8. Be aware that the smaller the lens aperture, the less light gets into the camera. You can compensate by selecting a slower shutter speed or increasing the sensitivity (ISO) setting. Most DSLRs can be used at ISO settings of around 800 without risk of image noise; small-sensor digicam users should avoid ISO settings above 200. If your camera supports raw ďŹ le capture, learn to use it. Raw images will give you greater latitude for post-capture editing – and all respected landscape photographers work on their images after they have been taken. You will be able to extract details from shadow and highlight areas that would be lost in JPEG shots, and correct colour casts and tweak the shot with tools like sharpening and noise-reduction adjustments.

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If you have a choice, avoid shooting landscapes in the middle of the day, particularly when the sun is directly overhead. The ‘golden hours’ for landscape photography occur between pre-dawn brightening in the sky and about an hour-and-a-half after sunrise in the morning and between about an hour-and-a-half before sunset in the evening and about an hour after sunset. At these times, the low angle of the sun produces long shadows that create interesting patterns and textures in the scene. The quality of the light is also more ‘golden’ at these times due to dust and other particles in the atmosphere that absorb some of the blue from the spectrum.

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The prevailing weather conditions when a shot was taken will have an impact on the impression that shot creates in viewers. A sunny scene creates a warm and relaxed feeling – but it can be difďŹ cult to produce shots with any drama or excitement. Shot composition can be difďŹ cult when you’re faced with blue skies with no clouds to add interest. In contrast, bad weather can be a creative photographer’s best friend. Storms are often associated with dramatic clouds and wind can twist trees and other structural elements into interesting shapes. Sunlight struggling through sombre skies can produce irresistibly engaging images. And, although clichĂŠd, rainbows, sunsets and sunrises can also be worth looking out for.

(Left) Light levels are usually adequate for hand-held exposures immediately after the sun has set. The low horizon focuses attention on the sky but the reections in the bright patches of water create interesting patterns in the foreground. (Camera: Canon EOS 40D; lens EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM at 17mm, ISO 200, 1/50 second at f/11.) (Below) Looking down from a high vantage point (in this case a helicopter) gives you a more graphical perspective on the landscape. Structural lines and shapes become more apparent, allowing you to produce abstract shots like this illustration. (Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II; lens EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM at 84mm, ISO 200, 1/500 second at f/9.)

LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY STYLES

Three styles of landscape photography are generally recognised – representational, impressionistic and abstract – of which the ďŹ rst is by far the most popular. Each type has speciďŹ c characteristics and requires different qualities from the photographer. Which style you choose will depend on your own creative instincts, the shooting environment and the effect you wish to create.

Contemplate the balance between sky and land in your shots – and decide which element you’ll favour. If the scene is dominated by a clear blue sky, don’t let it overwhelm the shot. Think carefully about foregrounds and use them to create a sense of depth in your picture. Look for elements in the foreground to interest the viewer and position the horizon high in the shot. Place the horizon low when the sky is ďŹ lled with dramatic clouds and the lighting creates interesting patterns and textures. Straight horizons are a must in landscape shots – unless you wish to create particular impressions. A straight horizon adds tranquility and regularity to the picture, whereas a tilted horizon puts viewers off-balance. A dramatically canted horizon can be very unsettling and this strategy can be used for deliberately creating this effect. Although it’s possible to straighten horizons in editing software, this always involves cropping the image (which may not be desirable). Try to get it right in camera, using built-in framing guides – if the camera provides one – and most do.

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! Use structural elements in the landscape to lead viewers’ eyes into and around the scene. Converging lines can give an image depth, scale and perspective. The lines needn’t be actual lines; they can form from a line of trees, the edges of a road, path or track, fences or streams, or other similar elements. Positioning compositional elements on a geometric shape can help you to create balanced compositions. Triangles are particularly effective in this respect, with isosceles and equilateral triangles producing a feeling of symmetry and right-angled and obtuse-angled triangles giving a more informal composition. Look for elements that create a focal point in the scene, such as a striking tree or rock formation – or a built structure like a bridge, archway, building or road. Some of these structures can be used to ‘frame’ the main subject and lead viewers’ eyes to the focal point. Consider the ‘Rule of Thirds’ composition strategy, which divides the frame into a three-by-three grid onto which key compositional elements are positioned. The easiest way to use this strategy is to position key points of interest in the places where the lines intersect, keeping everything of interest in the shot outside the central rectangle.

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REPRESENTATIONAL LANDSCAPES The representational style aims to show the scene as it is, with no visual manipulation or artiďŹ ce. However, effective representational landscapes are rarely mere snapshots because they require the photographer to devote considerable attention to composition and detail. Lighting, time of day and weather are also critical elements. IMPRESSIONISTIC LANDSCAPES Like the style of painting that came to be known as ‘Impressionism’, impressionistic landscapes use photographic techniques to produce pictures that recreate an impression of a scene that is not necessarily realistic. A familiar example is the use of slow shutter speeds to capture blurred impressions of moving water. ABSTRACT LANDSCAPES This style of photography treats the compositional elements in a scene as graphic elements that are arranged for their compositional values. Shape and form take priority over any desire for realistic representation and natural elements in a landscape may be rendered as unrecognisable – or almost so. Compositional elements may be reduced to silhouettes by under-exposure, isolated by extremely close viewpoints, or juxtaposed for contrast or repetition. The arrangement of elements to create a pleasing design is the photographer’s main objective.

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*Normal ISO range 100-6400. Expandable via custom functions to range of 100-12800. CIP4172/LL/PR

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