Preview: Photo Review Mar-May 2010 Issue 43

WIN THE SUPERB NEW PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-GF1 WORTH $1649

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ISSUE 43

0RINTED ON RE R CYCLED PAPER

HOW A BROWN PAPER BOX INSPIRED A NATION OF AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHERS.

The idea was simple – fill a box with 5 basic items, and invite photographers to take creative photos of them. What began as the Canon ‘EOS Photo5’ box has since taken on a life of its own, growing into the most creative annual amateur photography competition in Australia and New Zealand.

Each

year,

thousands

of

amateur

photographers

receive their EOS Photo5 box filled with 5 items, which each represent a photographic brief.

This year the challenge was stepped up with 5 new briefs and creative techniques: Paint, hundreds & thousands, cardboard spectacles, bokeh hoods, and an open brief called ‘practically black’.

The response has been the biggest yet, with the 5 briefs inspiring close to 7000 images. What has amazed both organisers and the photographic community is the level of creativity, with amateur photographers reaching a standard of images that many pros would be proud of. The project began as a way for Canon EOS to inspire photographers to push their creativity, but has become something far bigger, and goes to show how much creative talent is out there. Even when inspired by a simple brown paper box.

Visit the ‘World of EOS’ online to check out all the winners and finalists.

EOS Photo5 BOX 2009

CIP4247/PR/R

Erin Johnson BRIEF #1 WINNER (Detail) SPLAT//CAPTURING ACTION

Ross Calia BRIEF #3 WINNER (Detail) BOKEH//EXPERIMENTAL

Shona Kebble BRIEF #5 WINNER (Detail) PRACTICALLY BLACK // LOW LIGHT

Samantha Hobson BRIEF #2 WINNER (Detail) HUNDREDS&THOUSANDS//CLOSE UP

Kylie Clark BRIEF #4 WINNER (Detail) SPECTACLES//PORTRAITURE

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 Glenn Campbell.

See page 12.

22

01

Editorial Our editor considers the ramifications of the Apple iPad (and its ilk) for photographers.

07

Products & Trends Camera manufacturers announced more than 50 new 2010 models before the year was two weeks old! What have they got in store for us this year?

10

Photo Challenge Capture something fast - but do it slowly!

INSPIRATION 12

NORTHERN HEART: GLENN CAMPBELL Photography, says Glenn Campbell, is a journey.

22

FLOW MOTION COLOURS: RAY GALEA Sydney photographer Ray Galea has found a treasure trove of evocative abstractions in the running waters of nearby national parks.

FOTOFREO PROFILES: 28 30 32

28

2

Photo Review AUSTRALIA ISSUE 43

www.photoreview.com.au

Amy Stein, New York City Sohrab Hura, New Delhi David Dare Parker, Perth

contents

BUYERS GUIDE B DIGITAL SLRs 50

CANON EOS 7D A DSLR for enthusiasts who require advanced creative controls.

51

PENTAX K-X An affordable, feature-rich DLSR camera for photo enthusiasts and DSLR novices.

52

SONY DSLR-A550 A capable DSLR camera for photo enthusiasts who don’t require support for video recording.

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

TECHNIQUE QUE 36

40

Contributors Keith Shipton, Steve Packer

SIMPLE COMPOSITION Some basic tips to help you create pleasing photographs.

Creative Director Darren Waldren

CUSTOM BORDERS

Publisher David O’Sullivan dosullivan@photoreview.com.au

Give your scrapbook prints a smarter look with custom-designed borders.

43

Publication Manager Pauline Shuttleworth pshuttleworth@photoreview.com.au

HOME GROWN PHOTO BOOKS How to prepare and print a photo book containing your own pictures and text.

INSIDER 48

54

SUBSCRIPTIONS SUBSCRIBE TO PHOTO REVIEW AND WIN Have Photo Review Australia delivered to your door at a reduced price - or extend your current subscription - and you could win the superb new Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 worth $1649.

Media Releases edmail@photoreview.com.au

NIKON D3000 An entry-level DSLR that provides hassle-free photography for novice users.

THE IDEAL PRINTER What serious photographers want in a photo printer.

34

Accounts Manager Heather Hampson mpaccounts@photoreview.com.au

55

OLYMPUS E-450 The new entry-level DSLR from Olympus.

INTERCHANGEABLE LENS 56

RICOH GXR SYSTEM A radical new camera system featuring interchangeable lens-plus-sensor modules.

FUJIFILM FINEPIX REAL 3D W1 SYSTEM Fujifilm’s first 3D digicam and viewer system.

60

EPSON STYLUS PRO 3880 PRINTER An A2 professional pigment-ink photo printer for professional photographers and photo enthusiasts.

All content in Photo Review Australia is protected under copyright and cannot be reproduced in any form without written consent from the publisher.

CANON PIXMA PRO9000 MARK II

Photo Review Australia is published by

An update to Canon’s popular PIXMA Pro9000 dye ink desktop A3+ printer.

NET EFFECT 64

Design by itechne [www.itechne.com] phone (03) 9421 8833 Distributed by NDD Photo Review website by itechne

PRINTERS 59

Subscriptions One year (4 issues) $35.00 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 ISO 14001 Environmental Accreditation Printed by Beaver Press

COMPACT 58

Advertising Phone (02) 9948 8600 pshuttleworth@photoreview.com.au

COOL FOR CATS Some sites discovered by our editor are useful, some beautiful and some educational. But they are all about photography.

Photo Review AUSTRALIA ISSUE 43

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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

3

editorial

Your pad or mine?

OUR EDITOR SPECULATES AND OPINES ABOUT TABLET COMPUTERS AND IN PARTICULAR APPLE’S MUCH BALLYHOOED IPAD.

Photo Review editor Don Norris is reasonably certain that he took his first photograph with a well worn Leica IIIc at age 14. Every picture from that camera had a sort of soft, hazy look because the original screwmount lens was heavily scratched from years in the field with Don’s geologist father Robert M. Norris. But using the little camera ignited a passion for picture taking that is now into its fourth decade. Convert those 40 years into the cameras he’s used most intensively and the sequence reads: Leica IIIc, Miranda SLR, Nikkormat SLR, Nikon FM, Nikonos III, Bolex H16, Mamiya C-33, Wista 4x5, Olympus E10 and Nikon D70s. A few years after taking up photography, Don discovered the second great passion in his life (after his family of course!) when a summer job in Hawaii coincided with buying his first surfboard. In 1984 he migrated from his native California to Australia and these days he lives on Sydney’s northern beaches from which he not only edits this magazine but also runs Australia’s most popular surfing community website, www.realsurf.com.

Since last issue...

Your editor’s most recent technology hands-on has been with a brace of fresh offerings from Panasonic.

Along with a large contingent of photo press folk from around Australia and the wider region, he enjoyed a couple days in lovely Melbourne where there were numerous opportunities to put the latest Lumix models through their paces. Standouts were the GPSequipped DMC-TZ10 and the rugged new update to the waterproof FT1, the Lumix FT2. In the lead up to this issue, he also had an extended handson with Canon’s impressive 7D (see Margaret Brown’s review on page 50). A solidly built unit, the 7D’s very quick autofocus was particularly impressive.

FOR THE VERY LATEST PHOTO NEWS AND REVIEWS

Our Newsletter: http://bit.ly/prnewsletter

On Twitter: http://twitter.com/photoreview http://twitter.com/mr_realsurf

Our RSS feed: http://bit.ly/pr_rss

4

ON THE DAY APPLE’S IPAD MADE ITS DEBUT, YOUR EDITOR happened to be lunching with some of Australia’s top photography journalists. Unsurprisingly the newly unveiled tablet featured prominently in discussions. But not perhaps for the reasons you might think.

Initially, like all the rest of the world’s tech journos, we wanted to know what the specifications were. As the iPod, iPhone and iTunes amply demonstrate, the most famous company in Cupertino California has an impressive track record when it comes to redefining consumer electronics paradigms.

By the time we were hoeing into lunch, enough details had been gleaned and sifted for those around the table to be feeling a bit ‘so what’ about the new product’s relevance to photographers. We’d learned that it uses the same operating system as the iPhone, so there’d be no way to load it up with a copy of Photoshop or similar.

And, even if you could install such software, the specifications say that the iPad can’t run applications simultaneously (eg, having your web browser and calendar open at the same time).

While there is a docking connector for linking the iPad to other devices via a cable, there’s no built-in USB connector, no SD card slot — and no camera. It is Bluetooth and wi-fi enabled of course, but we wonder how many photographers will be set up to transfer images wirelessly when they’re in the field. What’s more, the internal flash drives range in capacity from a seriously modest 16GB to a merely modest 64GB. Rounding out the ‘what-were-they-thinking’ list is the fact that it won’t play Flash. That means no YouTube — or any of the other myriad sites using the Web’s most popular video file format. It will also mean some pretty ugly holes in websites that use Flash for slideshows, animations and adverts. And while we’re on the topic of video deficiencies, it looks from the specs as though you won’t be able to watch movies in 16:9 widescreen mode. Hooray for 4:3.

On the plus side, the 9.7-inch, 1024 x 768, 132 ppi touchsensitive display is widely reported to be very impressive. (There was no news at press time of pricing or shipping details for the Australian market.) If the interface is as slick as they say, we can imagine the iPad finding a niche among pro photographers as a cool and cutting edge way to show off a portfolio.

All this new technology isn’t pushing into a content vacuum either.

In announcing Amazon’s fourth quarter results, CEO Jeff Bezo said ‘When we have both [electronic and paper] editions [of a title], we sell six Kindle books for every 10 physical books.’

The Kindle is a tablet device with a greyscale display that has already sold millions. And Amazon has more than 400,000 titles for those buyers to download. It’s hard to believe that the Kindle won’t one day be a colour device too. As for the concept of electronic publications, I think it’s reasonable to expect that we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Those of us in the business of writing about photographic technology generally tend to be keenly focused on the specifications and the test bench performance of the cameras and associated gear we’re looking at every day. But we also know an important trend when we see one.

Photo Review AUSTRALIA ISSUE 43

Tablets aren’t going to replace paper. Books and magazines will continue to be published for many years to come. However, entire categories look set to fade away. Assuming tablet technology improves and eventually becomes commonplace, you’d have to think that it will drive significant changes through the print media sphere. Right now the issue is less about the state of the technology and more about the state of the commercial models.

The likes of Rupert Murdoch and The New York Times are saying that they’re going to charge for online content within the next couple years. How exactly this will happen is far from clear, but you’d have to think it will probably be something along the lines of what Amazon’s already doing with books, and Apple with music and software via iTunes and the iPhone App store.

And the implications for photography itself? Well, I think we can look forward to fewer images finding their way onto paper as magazines and news organisations increasingly present their content in electronic form. With the cost of printing out of the equation, I wonder if perhaps we might not see something of a renaissance of the extended photo essay...

Tablets not withstanding, Photo Review Australia has long been positioning itself for whatever changes may come along. As an increasing number of you already know, our magazine has been available in electronic form since the Autumn 2008 issue — and it looks terrific on screen! You can view a free sample electronic issue of Photo Review Australia by pointing your browser to http://bit.ly/phr-free-issue.

We’ve put in an enormous amount of research into electronic publishing over the last few years and along the way have trialled a number of different technologies. That effort continues of course, and by next issue we expect to be able to offer electronic versions not only suitable for viewing on computers, notebooks and laptops, but on the iPhone, Android, and yes, the iPad. Whether you’re reading us on your netbook or holding our beautiful paper edition, we think you’re going to find much to enjoy.

Technical editor Margaret Brown has, as ever, been remarkably productive. She’s unboxed a smorgasbord of tasty new models from Canon, Pentax, Sony, Nikon, Olympus, Ricoh and Fuji, while her test prints have dropped into the output trays of both Epson and Canon printers. Speaking of printers and printing, she’s also pulled together no-nonsense features on buying printers, creating photo books, editing print borders and she’s prepared a guide to basic photo composition.

Our inspirations section features the superb documentary photography of Northern Territory-based Glenn Campbell and Sydney photo impressionist, Ray Galea. As many readers will already know, FotoFreo 2010 will take place from 20 March to 18 April 2010 in lovely Fremantle, WA. Since we like to do our bit for such terrific local photographic initiatives, we’re profiling three of the photographers whose work appears during the festival (Amy Stein, Sohrab Hura and David Dare Parker).

Thanks for choosing Photo Review Australia and may it inspire you to get up, out and picture taking at once!

Don Norris

www.photoreview.com.au

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news

57 varieties show little variation

By Keith Shipton Visitors searching for innovation at CES.

might turn heads through the year. The screen on the new NV10 is seriously superior — and more photo-like — than any LCD screen we have seen before, both in colour accuracy and brightness, and it should make images on digital photo frames and larger display panels look terrific.

We won’t list every new release at CES but pick out a few which are more noteworthy: CANON

The huge techno-fest which is the annual Consumer Electronics Exhibition (CES 2010) in Las Vegas has come and gone, and with it over 50 new cameras announced before the new year was two weeks old!

For readers of Photo Review, the show was reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen’s lament about cable television: ‘There was 57 channels and nothin’ on.’

Nonetheless, the sheer number of new releases gives us an indication of what trends we are likely to see in digital cameras for the year so we thought a closer look was warranted.

Identifiable trends included increased adoption of touch-screen technology in a range of product categories.

Snowy vision: Liquid Image showed a hybrid snow goggles/camera combo to add to its scuba goggle range.

The Fujifilm 3D system (see review page 58) was modestly featured, and would have been right at home at a show which saw Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, LG and Toshiba all announce 3D TVs, to go on sale (in some parts of the world) in 2010. 3D capable Blu-ray players are also on their way. Panasonic announced a 3D camcorder.

Of the 50-odd cameras announced, all barring two were compacts: one DSLR from Sony, the middleweight A500 (which we understand may not make it to Australia), and the interchangeable lens, APS-C format Samsung NX10.

So even the two-thirds of the photo industry which did participate held back on their first quarter upperend new releases, presumably for announcement at or before PMA, indicating that a CES-style show does not cater for the entirety of the photo industry.

CAMERA TRENDS After a short outbreak of sanity, the mad megapixel wars seem to have flared up again, with a bunch of manufacturers releasing models with 14 million pixels (‘micropixels?’) crammed onto a surface area of just 4.62 x 6.16mm — which is what the secret code ‘1/2.3-inch’ is in real life.

It’s commonly accepted — and attested to by Margaret Brown’s camera reviews in Photo Review — that 10 million tiny pixels produce images marred by noise in low light levels, indifferent dynamic range and no depth of field control. Whacking another two million pixels into the same area and making them all a little bit smaller doesn’t seem to be technologically intelligent.

Many pundits have deplored this trend, but in response there’s been a deafening silence from the manufacturers, so we can only assume they have no good technological reason for constantly upping the megapixel ante.

The small physical size of the sensors does allow the manufacturers to make their cameras wonderfully slim, but this is surely a case of function being sacrificed for form — unless the main function of the camera is as a fashion accessory.

Viewfinders continue on their sad road to extinction, hastened by the apparent necessity for ever more massive LCD screens on the back of cameras. We now need these huge screens to help us compose our shots... because we haven’t got viewfinders anymore.

Not only that, image stabilisation is now necessary even on 3x models because composing away from the body is far less stable than with the camera up to the eye - ‘Go figure’, as our American cousins might say.

On a more positive note, proprietary memory formats also seem to be heading towards extinction, with Sony offering SD card slots in addition to Memory Stick and Olympus losing xD on most new models altogether. Makes sense.

Samsung’s proprietary AMOLED screen technology Photo Review AUSTRALIA ISSUE 43

www.photoreview.com.au

Canon released some upgrade Powershot models with 3.3x-4x zoom and 10-12 megapixel sensors. Enough said.

Canon also announced an upgrade to its popular professional grade EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS II USM lens and about 522 new camcorders.

A little out of context at a consumer electronics show, Canon also announced three new wireless photo transfer accessories for its higher-end digital SLR models, adding the ability to simultaneously shoot with 10 linked cameras.

The wireless file transmitter devices are the WFT-E2 II A for the EOS-1D Mark IV; the WFT-E4 II A for the EOS 5D Mark II; and the WFT-E5A for the EOS 7D. A Camera Linking feature lets up to 10 cameras take the same shot at the same time from different perspectives.

They can be used with Canon’s BU-30 Bluetooth unit, a small USB device, which lets Bluetoothenabled GPS devices connect. In addition they can connect to 802.11a networks.

GE GE released four new cameras and in terms of big specs for a small dollar outlay, the GE E1480TW features one of those 14.1 megapixel sensors, a wide angle 8x lens (28-224mm), a 3-inch touch screen, ISO to 3200, HDTV out, panoramic capture, face detection, and takes lithium-ion batteries. It was shown in black, red, and silver. Should retail in Australia for under $300 if it’s released here.

OLYMPUS Olympus announced a bunch of new compacts — four of which offer either 1 or 2GB on-board memory.

The Olympus Mju Tough 3000, Mju 9010 and Mju 5010 cameras have already been announced in Australia.

Olympus also announced three new Stylus models, the Stylus 7040 , 7030 and 5010. All three models are 14-megapixel and offer Olympus’ Art Filters, 720p HD video recording, and AF tracking. The 7040 and 7030 offer a 7x optical zoom lens, while the 5010 sports a 5x zoom in a slimmed down frame.

All the Olympus new releases have ditched the xD format for SDHC cards. Viva non-proprietary formats!

KODAK Kodak has done us the favour of giving many of its new releases real names rather than a string of letters and numbers. The Playsport is a waterproof, pocket-sized

7

news

HD camera; the Pulse is a touch-sensitive digital frame with Wi-Fi connectivity and 4000 image capacity; and The Slice is a slick-looking, 14 megapixel camera with 2GB built-in memory, that can capture 720p HD videos and is, once again, touch-screen operated.

With a large LCD screen and lots of memory, it’s heading towards being a hybrid digital frame/camera.

Then there’s the chunky Z981 superzoom, replacing the Z980, with a 14-megapixel sensor and a whopping 26x zoom from its Schneider f2.6-f5, 26676mm equivalent focal range lens.

It offers Raw format capture and the full ‘PASM’ range of user controls.

PANASONIC Panasonic launched a raft of new cameras — so many they had to create two new ‘ranges’ — the FH and FP series.

Top of the line among the new releases is the FH22.

It’s got the tiny 14-megapixel sensor, a 3-inch touch screen and an 8x zoom lens.

Touch screen operation is described as ‘hybrid’, in that four main control buttons are also used. After the first flush of enthusiasm for touch screens abates, it might be that this proves a more practical approach.

Totally touch screen models can be a little too touchy and consequently frustrating to operate.

If you don’t want touch screen, the same model designated the FH20 is available with a plain vanilla LCD screen.

Panasonic also announced the company’s first 64GB and 48GB SDXC Memory Cards. The new cards are Panasonic’s largest-sized Gold cards with Class 10 speed specification.

SDXC is the next generation SD Memory Card, a new standard for storing data more than 32GB and up to 2 terabytes. The 48GB SDXC Memory Card will have nearly the same capacity as a dual-layer Blu-ray Disc, and can hold 6 hours and 20 minutes of HD video content.

Maximum data transfer speed is up to 22MB/s.

Panasonic also had a range of prototype Lumix lenses ‘under the counter’. These additions to the Micro Four Thirds range are rumoured to be released mid-April (with a showing at PMA in March?). Among the prototypes was a Panasonic Lumix G Vario f4.05.6 100-300mm, a fast 14mm pancake lens and an 8mm f3.5 fisheye lens.

SAMSUNG Samsung gave the interchangeable lens NX10 its first public showing at Las Vegas. The very desirable NX10 incorporates fast autofocus, a 14.6 MP APS-C size CMOS sensor and 3-inch AMOLED screen, which comes with the promise of finally enabling viewing in bright sunlight.

Samsung also announced two other compacts, the CL80 and TL240. Both these cameras have a clever design innovation — a 7-degree tilt at the base of the camera so it angles up when placed on a flat surface to make it easier to get good self- and group portraits.

Why hasn’t someone thought of that before?

Both models also have shutter buttons that

8

The Kodak Playsport - goes anywhere.

are angled forward making it more comfortable and natural to hold and shoot. They have small area 14 megapixels sensors, 7x optical zoom, optical image stabilization, and 720p 30 fps video capture, and built-in HDMI connectivity.

The TL240 has a 3.5-inch touch-panel display while the CL80 has a 3.7-inch AMOLED. The CL80 also has built-in Wi-Fi for direct uploads to sharing sites or sending to e-mail addresses. DLNA is supported and Bluetooth 2.0 for wireless photo transfers to mobile phones or other Bluetooth devices.

No release details were supplied, but the TL240 is expected to be available first.

Samsung also showed a 7-inch 700Z Digital Photo Frame which it says is ‘its slimmest frame yet

(High Dynamic Range) Backlight Correction produces natural, balanced results with high contrast and strongly backlit scenes by combining two shots taken in quick succession.

Sony’s popular Cyber-shot W Series expands (bloats?) with eight slim, colourful cameras. Top of the range is the Cyber-shot W380, which has a 14 megapixel sensor and 5x, f2.4 24mm Sony G lens.

The new Cyber-shot TX7 brings AVCHD 1080i Full HD movie recording to the ultra-slim T-series line-up.

The slender body conceals a Carl Zeiss 4x optical zoom lens and 10.2-megapixel Exmor R CMOS sensor.

The 3.5-inch touchscreen LCD features TruBlack screen technology to minimise reflections and boost contrast for easier viewing outdoors. The Cyber-shot TX7 also features Intelligent Sweep Panorama and has an easy-to-operate user interface.

Rounding off the new releases are two S-series models, which are powered by AA batteries. Offering 12-megapixel resolution and 10x optical zoom lenses, the Cyber-shot S2100 and S2000 come with 3-inch, 230,400-dot LCD monitors.

All new Cyber-shot models feature in-built Picture Motion Browser (PMB) Portable software. Just connect the camera via USB to any Internet-ready PC and upload pictures and video clips directly from Cybershot to your favourite image and video sharing sites on the web. They also have dual slots for Memory Stick PRO Duo and SD/SDHC cards.

Last year Sony announced the predecessor of the Bloggie — which they dubbed the ‘Webbie’ — but it was not made available in Australia (and no, we are not making these names up!).

It features a rotating (270-degrees) lens, capturing footage from every angle and making ‘self-filming’ easier than ever. With a built-in USB arm, the Bloggie offers on-the-go USB charging and allows users to upload MP4 videos and photos for sharing on the web.

Samsung’s entry to the new interhcangeable lens category - the NX10.

for displaying high quality images’. This also features Samsung’s AMOLED screen, delivering bright, high contrast images at a 1024x600 resolution, as well as Bluetooth connectivity to allow users to share multimedia content across devices wirelessly.

SONY Leading the Sony line-up was the Cyber-shot HX5, a 10-megapixel slimline model with a wide angle 10x Sony G lens (25-250mm in 35mm format).

It sports a 3-inch Clear Photo LCD monitor and can record fair dinkum HD (1920 x 1080i) video clips in the AVCHD format. The HX5 comes with an improved Intelligent Sweep Panorama — the camera detects objects moving in the field of view as you sweep the camera and compensates for any mis-matching as images are automatically stitched together.

Sony says the HX5 is the world’s first camera that integrates GPS and Compass functions. Locations are displayed in real time on the monitor and geotagged images and video clips can be viewed in on-line maps with supplied Picture Motion Browser PC software.

The new Compass function shows which direction you were pointing when the picture was taken. HDR Photo Review AUSTRALIA ISSUE 43

www.photoreview.com.au

Sony has misrepresented the size of the sensor in this graphic of the new HX5!

It has a 5-megapixel CMOS sensor, allowing users to record high definition videos of up to 1920 x 1080 resolution and capture 5-megapixel still images.

The on-board Picture Motion Browser (PMB) Portable software enables the camera to upload videos and photos to popular sites such as YouTube via an internet-enabled PC. It features full auto shooting, including face detection, ‘with no need to adjust controls’.

It will be available in Australia from February — supplied with a 4GB Memory Stick — with an RRP of $299.

challenge

Photo Challenge #39 Night Lights The inspiration for the Night Lights challenge came about after we decided to publish the lovely night studies of Sydney photographer Peter Solness (Issue 41). We hoped that our Photo Challengers would be similarly inspired when asked for their take on lights in the night. Happily, as the pictures shown here demonstrate, we were once again rewarded with a variety of creative responses to what is a somewhat technically demanding theme.

We decided to award the winner’s ribbon to Lee Waters for a slightly eerie study entitled simply ‘Desert Sky’. If this had been taken in daytime it would likely have been a fairly unprepossessing picture. But the blurred clouds and the pinpoint stars give it a kind of movement and mystery that we quite liked.

TAKE THE PHOTO REVIEW CHALLENGE 41:

As a token of our appreciation, we’ll be sending Lee a 15-inch AVLabs digital photo frame (valued at $429.95).

Caro Telfer’s untitled picture of people playing with lights against a spooky bush backdrop ran a close second in our minds to ‘Desert Sky’. Our honourable mentions include a number of loyal Challengers such as Zorica Purlija whose ‘And the kangaroo jumped over the moon’ is a particular standout. Frank Cassez’s image of the moon over the shoulder of a Japanese statue of the Buddha caught our eye, as did Tom Napier’s picture of a bridge in a dust storm.

To see these and more images from the Night Lights challenge, please point your browser to: www.photoreview.com.au/competitions

Panning for success It’s a fair generalisation to say that most of the time, most photographers aim for pictures that are both perfectly exposed and pin-sharp. But that’s not what we want to see from our Photo Challengers this time around. We’re looking for the artful use of blur. More particularly, we’re keen to find out how creative you can be when you are required to shoot with a slow shutter speed - while also panning. So, dial that shutter speed down below 1/30 of a second and then find something fast to photograph. As always, judges will be most impressed by those entries that combine high quality technical execution with a thinking-outside-the-box choice of subject matter.

Panning technique takes awhile to develop, so don’t expect to come up with a result on your first try. Our advice is not only to try your hand with a variety of subject types, but to also do so under a range of lighting conditions. Pull it altogether and you could be our winner for Challenge 41.

The prize for this challenge is a Kingston DataTraveler Vault Privacy Edition 16GB USB Flash drive (RRP $420) that offers a secure way to store and transfer your photos.

Please review the rules below and submit your images via the Photo Review Gallery (see details in the rules). Deadline for entries is May 25, 2010 and the winning pictures will be published in our SepNov 2010 edition (Issue 45).

HERE ARE THE RULES: To enter the challenge all you have to do is send us your best image (we’ll consider up to three images per photographer).

Desert Sky by Lee Waters

1) Entries should only be new images that have been taken in response to the set challenge.

2) This isn’t a photo manipulation contest, so minimal post-capture processing is a given.

Sharpening, colour correction and so forth are fine, but adding extra layers isn’t.

3) Please submit all images via the Photo Review Gallery (http://bit.ly/create-account) and be sure to enter “Challenge41” in the tags field.

Questions? Just email us at edmail@photoreview. com.au (Photographers whose work we publish in the magazine will be contacted for the necessary high resolution file.)

4) Please put your caption(s) in the File Info (metadata area) of your image(s), or with the accompanying message. When saving your images, please change the file name so that it incorporates your first initial and last name and the challenge you’re entering (eg, jsmith_ chall28.jpg).

5) All photographers maintain copyright to their submitted image(s). Photo Review retains the right to publish submitted image(s) in the magazine and on www.photoreview.com.au.

6) The Judges’ decision is final.

Untitled by Caro Telfer

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And the kangaroo jumped over the moon

by Zorica Purlija

Boudha, Tokyo, Japan by Franck Cassez

Untitled by Tom Napier

Untitled by Mardi Harrison

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Inspiration

=^acWTa] 7TPac PHOTOGRAPHY, SAYS GLENN CAMPBELL, IS A JOURNEY.

By Don Norris

WHEN GLENN CAMPBELL WAS GROWING UP IN MOUNT ISA, ANGLING A holiday job at the lead smelter was something of a tradition for the kids in town.

Fortunately Campbellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s father, who was in the transport business, happened to have a contact pretty high up at the smelter. So, in due course, when young Glenn came to be looking for a summer position, he soon found himself working in the plantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s photo lab.

Over successive summers he was mentored by then Mount Isa Mines chief photographer Esko Klemola. It was the ideal position for a keen young photographer.

Klemola gave his assistant a thorough grounding in everything from setting up lighting to souping ďŹ lm and making prints.

Thrown in at the deep end, one of Campbellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ďŹ rst tasks was to print up a group of negatives marked with a red dot. It turned out that the dotted pictures were all of fatal accidents. Campbell soon learnt that the photographer was on the scene of such accidents immediately after the medics had ďŹ nished doing what they could. It was a sobering introduction to the dangerous reality of the mining business. But having to develop ďŹ lm and print photographs every day also gave Campbell a solid grounding in photography.

Although he tried his hand at it, the academic life didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t appeal to a young guy whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d already learnt far more about photography in a couple summers working for the mines than he ever had at art school. So for a time he went bush, working on prawn trawlers, in mines and even, at one point, in a roadhouse on the Gulf of Carpenteria â&#x20AC;&#x201D; anywhere basically that â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;a bloke with a strong back and a clear head could get a job.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d pick up work for long enough to raise some more money for fuel, food and ďŹ lm, and then heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d move on.

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Inspiration

Louie, Mutitjulu, 2009

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Inspiration

Boy with a bullwhip, Brunette Downs Races 2007.

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In 1995, at the age of 26, he moved out to the coast to work for the Townsville Bulletin. It was a time of great change in the newspaper business as new production processes replaced the old. The paper went from black and white to colour and, at the same time, the first generation of professional DSLRs were turning up in newsroom camera pools all over the world. Within a few years, Campbell had outgrown the Bulletin and moved south to the Big Smoke to engage in what would turn out to be a half-decade stint with The Australian newspaper.

The years at The Australian gave him invaluable national experience. He travelled all over the country, from Tasmania to WA, as he honed his craft. In retrospect, he says that he spent about four years longer than he really should have in the job. His heart was in the landscapes and the people of the far north, not a big city newsroom. In 2004 he upped stakes and relocated to Darwin.

These days Campbell looks out on the Arafura Sea both literally and figuratively.

He’s established himself as a successful freelancer working for the likes of the Australian War Memorial, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. In addition to travelling on assignments to various spots around the Pacific rim on behalf of his editorial clients, he also continues a lifelong mission to document life across the Top End — and in particular the lives of indigenous Australians.

As a boy Campbell grew up in a world where a kind of casual racism toward Aboriginal people was commonplace. It was an attitude he grew to loathe — and one that he now eloquently repudiates through his photography. In the short essay that accompanies his Homelands photographs in the online magazine, Burn (www.burnmagazine.com), he explains how on assignment among the refugee camps along the Afgnanistan-Pakistan border he came to an important realisation.

‘Somehow none of this was new to me’, he says. ‘The smells, the children so excited, desperate for the diversion that the tall white fella provided from the

William Creek 2007.

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Inspiration

Best Dressed Female, Adelaide River Races, 2008.

crushing boredom of a life without hope. The adults, shamed into lethargy by their inability to pull themselves out of a mire not of their own making... I’d seen it before in the camps and outstations where the Aborigines had gathered on the edges of town, in the remote deserts and coastlines... refugees in their own country.’

On his return Campbell set about making a difference by using his skills behind the lens to tell the story of the indigenous people in a powerful and positive way. ‘It can’t be ignored’, he says, ‘the status quo in Aboriginal Australia has been allowed to continue; this abominable state of affairs exists in part because people are shut away from the world.’

‘Aboriginal people are part of my upbringing, part of my life’, says Campbell. ‘I’m trying to show a bit of hope out there. I want the people in these photographs to see the pictures (they get copies of them and they get copies of the newspapers). Positivity and hope starts with people seeing positive and hopeful representations of themselves in the media.’

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Campbell has the clear-eyed view of a seasoned documentary photographer; ‘I think everyone knows that a lot of aboriginal communities are in a horrible state.’ But, unlike so many who’ve turned cynical in the face of the misery, he has a vision of where the future can go. ‘I think it’s got to be taken out of the hands of the people who have a vested interest in keeping these places segregated away from scrutiny’, he says, ‘and put into the hands of positive, educated local people.’

As his images reveal, Campbell is not given to cliches and didacticism. ‘Preachy is something I try really hard to avoid — it’s no use to anyone’, he says. But not being preachy doesn’t mean being detached. Far from it. Great pictures are more likely to come about when you’re truly engaged with the subject. In documentary photography it’s generally a good thing if you can avoid the clouded perspective of your own preoccupations and see the situation more clearly for what it really is. Campbell had one such moment of insight some years ago while covering an outbreak of unrest in Pakistan.

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Inspiration

Tennant Creek, 2007.

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