Practical Photography - October 2015 by www.photoanswers.co.uk

The story behind the world’s greatest shots

Sleeping Beauty by Marta Voodica Ciosek l “this photo was created during an autumn photography workshop that I was leading in Kraków. I asked my model, Sylwia, to lie down in the overgrown ivy and the thought of Sleeping Beauty came to mind. During post-processing I retouched her skin, and used colour correction and selective colour to alter the colours. I also used Alien Skin in Photoshop to add some extra blur.”

Nikon D800 | 50mm | 1/1000sec | f/2.5 | ISO 100

Marta Voodica Ciosek is a photographer from Poland. She specialises in fashion, fairy-tale and portrait images, and also teaches camera and post-production workshops. facebook.com/voodica

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COMPLETE GUIDE

GET ARTISTIC WITH

AUTUMN COLOUR Expand your creativity by shooting a wide range of subjects in the season that was made for photography!

Daniel Rericha

Learn great new photo skills...

Enjoy autumn light

Shoot for contrast

Reveal detail

Try fun ideas

Make the most of changeable weather and beautiful light p32

Focus on colour, contrast, shape and blur p34

Get close to the world in miniature with macro p40

Take a quirky approach with a range of subjects p42

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urban landscapes Shoot dramatic

Master the art of architectural photography and start shooting spectacular cityscapes. Tim Berry presents three creative camera projects to get you started.

Tim Berry PP’s gear editor has been a professional photographer for several years and has a master’s degree in freelance photography. He’s also lectured at undergraduate level.

hink landscape photography, and lakes, mountains and coastlines immediately spring to mind. But urban scenes, with their perfectly straight lines, acute angles, geometric shapes and reflective surfaces, can produce images that are equally as striking. Many areas, such as London’s banking district or New York’s Midtown Manhattan are art forms in their own right, displaying some of the most advanced architectural technology and building design ever created. So for landscape photographers, towns and cities provide a rich vein of potential for eye-catching shots, offering a real variation from the usual rural scenes.

Capture striking architectural images

Go minimal for a cleaner shot p56

Build a multiple exposure p58

Zoom in for stunning close-ups p60

Use ND filters to blur out people, cars and clouds.

Merge several shots into an engaging work of art.

Use long focal lengths for a tighter composition.

But whether you’re shooting a single building, a sweeping skyline, or a smaller area of detail, cityscapes bring with them a number of challenges. Not only are they busy and cluttered, they’re often very cramped spaces in which to work too. For this reason, we’re going to look at a few different ways you can get creative with focal length, composition and perspective, as well as some artistic techniques to bag the most attractive results. These three projects will give you a crash course in creative architectural approaches, and help you open your eyes to the beauty of the urban landscape.

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Joel Tjintjelaar

Above A very long exposure simplifies the scene, as traffic and people disappear and the sky and water are smoothed.

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Amazing

About your gifts “This bundle is worth a whopping £88 and includes a Manfrotto Gear Backpack M for storing all of your camera gear and a portable Pixi mini tripod to hold your CSC or DSLR. Don’t miss out! Tim Berry, Gear Editor

The Manfrotto Pixi is a lightweight mini tripod that’s ideal for holding a CSC or DSLR camera. Rubber feet ensure stability when shooting, while the stainless steel construction ensures a high quality and tactile finish. A push-button mechanism allows you to position the ball head exactly as you need it, making the Pixi a really versatile addition to your kit bag.

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TERMS & CONDITIONS: Subscriptions will start with the next available issue. Offer closes on 01/10/15. After your first Direct Debit payment your subscription will continue at the price you paid on this offer every 6/13 issues thereafter unless you are notified otherwise. You will not receive a renewal reminder and the Direct Debit payments will continue to be taken unless you tell us otherwise. Please allow up to 28 working days to receive your gift. No cash alternative available. If the offer is oversubscribed we may send you an alternative gift of equal or greater value. This offer cannot be used with any other. Cost from landlines for 01 numbers per minute are (approximately) 2p to 10p. Cost from mobiles per minute (approximately) 10p to 40p. Costs vary depending on the geographical location in the UK. You may get free calls to some numbers as part of your call package – please check with your network provider. Order lines open 8am9.30pm (Mon-Fri), 8am-4pm (Sat). Calls may be monitored for training purposes.

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Don’t miss out! Offer closes on 1 October 2015

Manfrotto Pixi mini tripod

You won’t want to miss out on this month’s superb deal. Subscribe to Practical Photography today and you’ll receive a Manfrotto backpack and a Pixi mini tripod!

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Manfrotto Gear Backpack M This compact backpack can accommodate a DSLR camera with attached 70-200mm lens, plus two other lenses. Dual zippers provide easy access to the bag and extra pockets offer ample space for storing extra accessories such as memory cards or personal items.

*Camera not included

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Basic Skills

Editing Suite

Create designer lighting with lens flare and haze Liven up flat photos and add a sense of drama in minutes. Matthew Higgs shares a simple and speedy technique for producing authentic-looking artefacts in backlit images. l shooting towards a bright light source can often

result in haze and lens flare, aka distinctive aperture-shaped artefacts. Caused by non image-forming light passing through the elements of a lens, haze and flare aren’t always welcome in our images, but when used creatively they can lend a very dramatic finish to your shots. In fact, because of the popularity of the look, haze and flare were actually among the first special effects to be computer-generated. Photoshop has a built-in option for artificially rendering several different kinds of flare to photos during postprocessing, but straight out of the can these can look synthetic and unnatural. In this Editing Suite tutorial, we’re going to show you a method for creating your own dramatic haze and flare that looks much more organic and allows you much more control over the finished article. For the best results, this technique requires a backlit image with the subject positioned away from the background. Follow these six easy steps and you’ll be adding haze to your images in no time.

What you’ll learn How to add haze How to mask a Layer How to create natural-looking flare with Curves and Radial Blur Software Photoshop Do it in 15 mins

Before

Create a warm haze

Click the Adjustment Layer icon (the half-black/half-white circle found beneath the Layers palette). From the drop-down menu select Curves. A dialogue window will open. Click the Channels menu and change it from RGB to Red. Drag the left anchor point upwards to increase the reds in the image’s shadows. Select the Green channel and drag its left anchor point up but slightly lower than set for Red.

Duplicate curve and mask image

Drag the first Curves Layer down to the Create a new layer icon, (the square with a turned-up corner) to duplicate it. Go to this Layer’s Red and Green channels and drag its two modified anchor points even higher to increase saturation. Then in the same dialogue window click the Mask tab (the rectangle with a circle inside) and select Invert. Your image will once more look as though it only has one Curves Layer.

Above Using this creative technique we have quickly added stylish flare to an image that looks much more natural than Photoshop’s built-in options.

After

Select the shape of your flare

Press B to select the brush. From the Tools menu at the top of the screen, click the brush preset picker (the shape with the number below it). Select the Hard Round Brush, which is the second option on the top row. Change its size by pressing [ to decrease it or ] to increase it. Set a size suitable for your largest flare – this should be big enough to cover a large portion of the image’s frame. Change Mode to Hard Light.

Apply blur for a natural look

At the moment the flares we have created look too defined to be natural, but we can rectify this using blur. From the top menu select Filter>Blur>Radial Blur. In the new window, tick the options for Zoom and Best. An amount of 10 will maintain the shape of your flares, but give them a much softer look. In the white box, move the Blur Center to the edge of the frame where your flare begins by dragging it. Click OK.

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Add lens flare to the shot

Set the brush’s colour to white by pressing D. Choose the start point of your flare – this should either be a light source or match the direction of light in the image – then click to paint your flare in. The circular shape created will have the saturation of your second curve. Create a straight line of overlapping flares from this point to the frame edge, and change your flare size each time. If you mis-click an area, press Z to undo.

Duplicate the Layer and increase contrast

Duplicate your second Curves Layer. This additional Layer will increase the intensity of the smooth-looking flare in your image. You can duplicate it again if you want the flares to look even stronger. Click the Adjustment Layer icon and select Brightness/Contrast. In the window that opens, increase Contrast to reduce the haze and add impact as desired. We selected a level of 30.

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Get Into Gear Olympus Stylus 1s £379

Leica Q Typ 116 £2900

Touch and tilt LCD display

Resolution 12MP LCD 3in 1040k Video Full HD

Ricoh GR II £599

The 1040K-dot rear screen of the Stylus 1s enables focus point selection and shutter release by touch.

Bright constant aperture Across its 10.7x zoom the camera’s lens has a bright f/2.8 constant aperture. This helps enable a shallow depth-of-field and maximum light capture at all focal lengths.

Ultra slim design The 1s measures 57mm deep with its lens retracted, so is surprisingly compact given its zoom range.

Olympus Stylus 1s £379 Affordably priced performance with OM-D styling

Sony RX100 IV £849

Canon G3 X £799

Buying guide

The latest & greatest

compacts Looking for a portable alternative to a CSC or DSLR? Matthew Higgs rounds up the very best compact releases of the last six months... 106 PRACTICAL PHOTOGRAPHY

he past few years have seen a revolution in the compact camera market. The increase in smartphone ownership has made budget compacts an endangered species, forcing manufacturers to focus on producing more expensive high-end models. These small but highly advanced

cameras with their large sensors and leading-edge optics have now become so sophisticated that in many cases they can compete with DSLRs and CSCs. So if you’re looking for a portable but sophisticated fixed lens model, either as your main or second camera, there has never been such a wide range of models on the market.

reviously only available for purchase in Japan, the Olympus Stylus 1s may look like part of the brand’s OM-D line of CSCs, but it’s a surprisingly slender compact with a retractable f/2.8 optical zoom. An update on 2013’s popular Stylus 1, the 1s gains an improved battery life, enhanced features and a re-textured grip. At 12MP the camera’s resolution may be the lowest in this roundup, but it does ensure that despite its smaller 1/1.7in size, its back-illuminated CMOS sensor maximises its light-gathering capabilities. It’s still more than able to provide quality prints at sizes easily large enough for the average user. With a focal length that ranges from 6-64.3mm (28-300mm full-frame equivalent), the camera’s retracting lens is well suited to most subjects, including landscapes and wildlife. While the image quality produced by the camera is substantially better than that of many cheaper compacts, the sharpness of the lens does lack the quality of some of the others in this group. It does, however, benefit from a lens-shift image stabilisation system, helping the camera produce shake-free shots at slower shutter speeds. This dramatically improves its suitability for use in low light. The camera offers an ISO range of 100-12,800, and with its True Pic VI processor it boasts a top burst speed of 7fps. The contrast detect autofocus of the camera is both super speedy and accurate. The 1s has focus tracking, face detection and a Super Macro Mode with which the camera will focus at an impressive 5cm. Added to the original Stylus 1 as part of a firmware update, the 1s also has a Small Target option for pinpoint AF, focus peaking, interval shooting and time-lapse video recording straight

out of the box. Standard video can be shot in Full HD (1080p) at a slightly disappointing 30fps, rather than 60fps. A 1440k-dot EVF provides bright 100% coverage of the frame, a diopter and eye-sensor. On the rear of the camera is a 3in 1040k-dot touchscreen with a tilt mechanism for shooting at more testing angles. This screen can be used for touch focus and touch shutter, but allows only limited fingertip menu navigation. A range of dedicated buttons and dials and a front control ring make operating the camera a breeze. The Stylus 1s has Wi-Fi for remote shooting and image transfer, and NFC for establishing a speedy connection. A hotshoe sits above the camera’s EVF, complementing the in-built flash. The battery life of the Stylus 1 has been boosted by roughly 10%, meaning the 1s provides 450 shots from one full charge.

Verdict

Despite a solid build that rivals many more expensive options, the Olympus Stylus 1s has the lowest price-tag in our roundup. While it fails to match the image quality provided by the others, it still delivers respectable results that will blow smaller-sensor compacts out of the water. At £379 it’s an affordable offering for those who want flexibility and decent performance on a budget.

Specs Camera: Olympus Stylus 1s Lens: 6-64.3mm f/2.8 Price: £379 Effective resolution: 12MP Sensor: 7.6x5.7mm BSI CMOS LCD: 3in 1040k-dot tiltable touchscreen EVF: 1440k-dot with eye sensor Autofocus: Contrast ISO: 100-12,800 Shooting speed: 7fps for 25 RAW files Video: Full HD (1080p) at 30fps Battery life: 450 shots Size (WxHxD): 116x87x57mm Weight: 402g Web: olympus.co.uk

Pros Affordable price | Fast 7fps burst shooting mode | Image stabilisation | Wi-Fi and NFC

BUILD QUALITY

Cons Smaller sensor and weaker lens performance than rivals | Lacks some video features

VALUE FOR MONEY

FEATURES IMAGE QUALITY OVERALL SCORE

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