Practical Photography - August 2015

PRACTICAL PHOTOGRAPHY AUGUST 2015

Canon 5DS

Full review of 50.6MP DSLR that promises ultimate in clarity

USE HDR FOR EXTRA

DRAMA &DETAIL

Affordable pro prime Nikon 300mm f/4 breaks the mould Plus Panasonic G7 adds 4K stills mode

August 2015 ÂŁ4.99

FREE COURSE

COMPLETE GUIDE TO STUNNING PORTRAITS

n Learn to create natural results every time n Control high contrast scenes like a pro n Seamlessly blend multiple exposures

Five dynamic ways to freeze fast action

USE HDR FOR EXTRA DETAIL AND DRAMA

Discover the bizarre world of photo glitching Plus Find the best storage solution for your image files

21

new camera and editing projects to inspire your summer

Cover image by Evgeny Ivanov

The story behind the world’s greatest shots Colour explosion

by David Parra Ortiz l “holi festival of colours is one of the

biggest celebrations in the Hindu calendar.

This shot was taken at a Holi event in Barcelona earlier this year. I took two cameras to avoid changing lenses, and used plastic camera protectors to avoid any powder damage. When the moment arrived, I had a very clear picture in my mind of what I wanted to achieve. I took several consecutive shots, which ended up largely exceeding my expectations and resulted in a picture full of colour, party, rhythm, life and infinite details.”

Canon 5D MkIII | 28mm | 1/100sec | f/6.3 | ISO 100

David Parra Ortiz is an IT manager from Barcelona. He likes to try different types of photography and especially loves painting with light, using long exposures and shooting landscapes and sport.

500px.com/fotobcnlive

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USE HDR FOR EXTRA

DRAMA & DETAIL Reveal everything a scene has to offer with a fun technique that every photographer must try.

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Learn great new photo skills...

Shoot for HDR

Capture detail

Work with light

Merge your images

Get to grips with the basic camera techniques p34

Take control of indoor exposures with ISO p36

Shoot long-exposure HDR and use ND grads p40

Use your free Photomatix Essentials 4 software p44

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Five exciting

high-speed action projects Kick-start your photography with some amazing fast-action shooting. Tim Berry presents five dynamic projects to bring you up to speed with all the essential skills and techniques needed to shoot faster.

Tim Berry PP’s gear editor has worked as a pro and has a master’s degree in freelance photography. He has also lectured in photography at undergraduate level.

Shoot with minimal kit

For the first two projects, the only kit you’ll need is a CSC or DSLR with a kit lens. For project three, you’ll also need a tripod, and for projects four and five, a basic flashgun. I’d also recommend spending a few pounds on a fast memory card to allow long bursts of shots at your camera’s maximum shooting speed.

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Shannon Stent

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apturing a fast-moving object or fleeting event right at the perfect moment can result in incredibly eye-catching images that feel very professional. After all, not just anyone can pick up a camera and pull off this kind of shot – right?

Well, you might be surprised (and relieved) to find out that you don’t actually need years of experience or the reactions of a cat to get stunning high-speed images. In fact, with the correct settings, the right technique and a creative eye, fast-action photography is considerably easier than you might imagine. Over the next few pages I’m going to share five different projects, each of which will help you capture a very fleeting moment in time.

I’ll show you the right approach and best settings for each, so once you’ve worked through them you should feel confident tackling any fast-moving subject.

Master the art of capturing the action!

Put your photography skills to the test by attempting to freeze brief moments in time. These five projects will show you the very best approach to capture any high-speed subject.

Shoot the beauty of the waves p56

Add a sense of speed and energy p57

Photograph an electrical storm p58

Create colourful sound shapes p59

Capture the moment a bubble bursts p60

Freeze movement with a fast shutter speed.

Introduce motion blur with a panning technique.

Use a long exposure to capture a bolt of lightning.

Capture moving paint with a short burst of flash light.

Build your own highspeed flash studio.

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Basic Skills

Editing Suite

Give your portraits a stylish tilt & shift effect The focusing effect created by tilt & shift lenses isn’t only for creating fake miniature scenes. James Abbott shows you how it adds an artistic sense of depth to portraits. inject new life into your shots using techniques people more commonly associate with another type of photography. Not only will you be breaking convention, but you’ll also be giving your shots a distinctive look.

Portraits most often draw attention to the model’s face, so any technique that accentuates this is worth trying. Some types of blur, such as bokeh or background blur, have to be applied in-camera with specific lenses. But this one can be recreated effectively during post-processing.

In this technique we’re going to show you how to create a realistic tilt & shift blur effect, but rather than applying it to a scenic image we’re going to use it with a portrait. And to make the effect even more dramatic, we’re going to show you how to apply a high contrast diffuse glow. This makes highlights lighter and adds a soft glow, while midtones and shadows darken. So don’t get tired of using the same old techniques for the same types of images – let us show you how going against the grain can be a winning strategy!

l

What you’ll learn How to duplicate Layers How to apply Filters How to apply a series of effects to a single Layer Software Photoshop Do it in 5 mins

Before

1

Create an elliptical selection

Click on the Background Layer and hold down Ctrl+J to copy it to a New Layer. Now press M on the keyboard to activate the Elliptical Marquee Tool. If the wrong Marquee Tool is selected, click on the icon on the Toolbar and select the correct one. Now left-click your mouse over the left edge of the image and drag an oval selection over the area that will remain sharp. Hold down Ctrl+Shift+I to invert the selection.

2

Refine the selection edge

Now we’ve made a selection we need to make it blend correctly, so go to Select>Refine Edge. When the dialogue window opens make sure View Mode is set to On White. This makes it easy to see exactly how the feathering will affect the image. Now set Feather to between 150px and 250px. The exact amount depends on how gradually the Lens Blur we’ll apply blends into the sharp area of the image.

Above The original image is great, but it lacks a sense of depth. Contrast isn’t quite as strong as it could be, so we’ll add more to inject some drama.

After

3

4 Increase or decrease selection size

Once we’d applied the feathering to our image we saw the model’s chin was visible through the graduated view, which means it would be blurred. To exclude this area from the blur we set Shift Edge to -35.

Since we inverted the selection in Step 1, we need to shrink it to make the sharp area larger. Shift Edge is a great way to change the size of simple selections. Hit OK when you’re finished.

Add Lens Blur to Layer

We’re now ready to apply the blur effect, so go to Filter>Blur>Lens Blur.

When the dialogue window opens, simply set Radius to 60 and Distribution to Gaussian.

With Radius at this level you’ll apply a realistic amount of blur. And Gaussian distribution is more random and therefore realistic than Uniform. All the other settings can be left to their defaults. When you’ve applied the settings, click on OK.

Improve every shot you take with Digital Photo

5

Create a refined diffuse glow

Press Ctrl+J to copy the Layer you were just working on to a New Layer. Now hold down Ctrl+Shift+U to desaturate the image. Go to the blending mode drop-down menu at the top of the Layers palette and change it from Normal to Overlay. Next go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and set the Radius to 50 Pixels. Finally, set the Opacity of this Layer to 30% using the slider at the top of the Layers palette.

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Use the power of Layers to create stunning special effects in Photoshop with the expert tips and techniques in the July issue of Digital Photo. From delicate, bokeh-rich nature scenes to full-pelt Hollywood visuals, this issue serves up a huge array of brilliant ideas for your most creative shots ever!

Watch as the team takes you step-by-step through the techniques on the free PhotoSkills CD. Plus, how to get your best travel shots, our guide to cleaning your camera kit, the latest photography gear reviewed, and more! n The July issue is on sale now at only £4.99.

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Canon 5DS

Get Into Gear

Familiar weathersealed body

Crop mode

Increase your reach

The 5DS’s magnesium alloy body is almost identical to that of the 5D MkIII. A slightly raised grip that fractionally improves ergonomics, found where its sibling’s model number used to be, is the only change of note.

The 5DS and 5DS R offer two JPEG crop modes. The first has a 1.3x crop that captures a 30.5MP image, and the second captures a 19.6MP file with a 1.6x crop, the same angle-of-view as an APS-C size sensor. Of course, when capturing the entire frame, the 50.6MP resolution allows impressive crops to be made during post-processing that can then be printed comfortably at large sizes.

Body price £2999 Image resolution 50.6MP Video Full HD

Intelligent tracking

Megapixel

The 5DS is equipped with the iTR (Intelligent Tracking Recognition) AF function found on the 1D X. It uses Face Detection and colour information to track a recognised subject.

monsters

Canon has created the two highest resolution DSLRs ever. Matthew Higgs tests the 50.6MP 5DS to find out if it’s a world beater or a memory eater.

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anon is celebrating its 12th consecutive year as the world’s leading interchangeable lens camera manufacturer. But for some time it has been trailing behind the rest of the pack for image resolution with its highest megapixel camera, the 24.2MP 760D, way behind Nikon’s 36.3MP D810 and Sony’s 36.4MP α7R CSC. But the new 5DS and 5DS R, which boast the highest ever resolution full-frame sensor, have not only addressed that imbalance, they’ve completely blown the competition out of the water. The cameras can now even compete with the resolution of digital medium-format models such as the Pentax 645Z – that’s a first for a DSLR. These new cameras sit alongside the everpopular 5D MkIII, adopting its body design and the bulk of its feature-set. They’re aimed at photographers who need that exceptional

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level of detail for heavy cropping or large-scale printing. The question is, can a DSLR with such a high pixel count really perform, or will its huge resolution make it a victim of its own unique selling point?

Main features

The headline stealer in the 5DS is the new 50.6MP full-frame sensor. With a resolution more than double that of the 5D MkIII, it’s able to make excellent quality prints up to A1 at 250dpi. This goes far beyond the needs of the average user, and way further than that currently favoured by many pros.

Unfortunately, with great power comes great file sizes. The camera’s RAWs are around 65MB each, meaning that roughly only 123 shots can be saved to an 8GB card. That said, smaller RAW files of 28MP and 12MP can be selected. At full resolution, images from this camera are 300MB in size in Photoshop’s

Unchanged control layout Unsurprisingly given the similar design, the 5DS adopts the same control layout as the 5D MkIII, though it now has 16 functions that can be customised by the user.

16-bit mode, so having a high-spec computer is a must. An optical low-pass filter is present on the sensor, reducing the risk of moiré and false colours.

The camera is fitted with dual DIGIC 6 processors, the same arrangement found in the 7D MkII. This allows for a relatively respectable burst of 5fps for 14 RAW files or 510 JPEGs. The native ISO range for both cameras is 100-6400, which is 2 stops less than the 5D MkIII and 1 stop less than Nikon’s D810. While we would have liked a wider ISO range, it won’t be an issue for the studio and landscape photographers at whom this camera is aimed.

With such a high resolution, small camera movements are more visible in the images. To combat this Canon has introduced a Mirror Vibration Control System that uses motors to drive the mirror up and down in a more controlled fashion. This mechanism also slightly softens the shutter’s sound.

With 65 autofocus points, 45 of which are cross-type including five of the most sensitive dual cross-type, the phase-detect AF system on the 5DS is similar to that found on the 5D MkIII. Rated to -2EV it’s quick and responsive in most shooting conditions, with an AF-assist beam aiding focus acquisition in low light.

The camera also has Intelligent Tracking and Recognition (iTR) AF technology as found on the 7D MkII and 1D X. This uses colour and face information to recognise subjects as they move around the frame, helping to improve the performance of its tracking modes.

For accurate metering, the 5DS uses a

top Total detail capture tech with the 5DS R Built around the same sensor and body as the 5DS, the 5DS R has one main difference – its dual low-pass filter. While the single filter found on the 5DS removes the risk of moiré when shooting some man-made patterns, it comes at the cost of a slight loss to sharpness. The 5DS R’s second filter counteracts this, preserving more detail, but reintroduces the risk of moiré. With its £300 premium this camera will predominantly appeal to landscapers.

150,000-pixel RGB + IR sensor, also taken from the 7D MkII. It recognises an excellent 252-zones, working virtually without fault in our tests. The camera also features an antiflicker system that can detect and compensate for flickering light sources, automatically adjusting shutter timings to reduce unpredictable exposure and colour changes.

Other features and video

The 3.2in 1040k-dot Clear View II TFT monitor, the same as the one on the 5D MkIII, offers bright menu operation and clear Live View playback. Unsurprisingly it’s fixed and not touch-sensitive. The camera’s viewfinder boasts 100% coverage and an adjustable dioptre. With one of the camera’s

various crop and ratio modes selected, this viewfinder helpfully greys out the areas of the frame that won’t appear in the final image. Unlike Canon’s last full-frame release, the 6D, the 5DS doesn’t feature Wi-Fi or GPS functionality.

When it comes to video, Canon is quick to point out that the 5DS is ‘more prone to moiré and skewing, making it less suitable for high- end video production’, before continuing to recommend the 5D MkIII as a better alternative. It does maintain the ability to record Full HD footage at 30fps, though not uncompressed footage via its HDMI port.

There’s still an input for an external microphone, along with its in-built stereo mics, but a headphone socket for audio

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