Digital Photographer

Autumn (or fall, if you’re one of our US readers) is a dream season for outdoor photography, and a part of the year I always look forward to. As the golden hours arrive at a more sensible time of day, and landscapes ripen with rich, golden colours, w

Peter is Digital Photographer’s expert techniques guy. This issue he’s been quizzing pro shooters on their best techniques for using flash on location. To gain lighting confidence and know-how, turn to p46. Peter also shares tips for using wide-angle

Image title: Morning in Guilin, Guangxi province, China www.williamyuphotoworkshops.com What camera, lens and settings did you use for this shot? I used a Sony A7R Mark IV, Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM lens, at 40mm, ISO 640, f/16, 1/200s. Where

Enter our Incredible Abstracts contest in association with Photocrowd Our next competition, Incredible Abstracts, is open from 19 October until 6 November. Take a closer look at the world around you to find exciting details. These can be captured wi

For our latest competition in association with Photocrowd, we challenged you to submit your best environmental portraits. After working through all the brilliant entries, the winners have been selected. Both crowd-voted and expert winners will win a

Panasonic already makes three full-frame Lumix S cameras, and the newest Lumix S5 makes it four. Where the others are pretty weighty models aimed at professionals, the Lumix S5 is smaller, lighter, cheaper and nimbler, aimed at the surging market for

Love Heart of Nature by Australian photographer Jim Picôt is the overall winner of the 2020 Drone Photo Awards, a major international competition for aerial photography. Jim’s image shows a salmon school in Australia, forming the shape of a heart wit

Sony has launched a new full-frame mirrorless camera that follows on from its successful A7-series models, but with a radical design rethink. The Sony A7C fuses the full-frame sensor and much of the technology of Sony’s A7 cameras with the more compa

Nikon has officially unveiled two lenses from its Nikon Z lens roadmap, with full specifications, pictures and pricing. The NIKKOR Z 50mm f/1.2 S is an ultra-fast prime lens designed for low light and bokeh, while the NIKKOR Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S complet

Rachael grew up on the south coast of England and spent much of her childhood at sea, which left her with a life-long fascination for the ocean and stormy weather. After a career as a solicitor in London, Rachael followed her passion for photograph

1. Fujifilm X-T2 2. FUJINON XF55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 R LM OIS lens 3. Canon lens hood 4. LEE filters 5. FUJINON XF18-55mm f/2.8-4 R LM OIS lens 6. Remote shutter release 7. Canon EF 2x II Extender 8. Rosco lens tissue and LEE filter wash 9. Canon

Atmospheric mist, warm colours in the landscape, golden hours that aren’t too early or too late, and one of the most exciting events in the wildlife photography calendar – the deer rut. These make autumn one of, if not the most, interesting seasons f

Autumn is a season of many facets, and two features that always capture the imagination are misty mornings and temperature inversions. These incredibly atmospheric conditions can, of course, occur throughout the year, but are particularly prevalent i

1 Choose settings Shoot in Aperture Priority at around f/11 to get a large depth of field and maximum image sharpness. ISO 100 will help to achieve slow shutter speeds that capture the subtle movement of the mist. 2 Use filters When shooting at sun

Light is the most important ingredient in photography; without it, photos couldn’t exist. But far from performing a purely functional role, light can introduce powerful moods to shots, as well as make different subjects look visually interesting. For

Filters can help to control light and to capture reflections in water 1 Choose settings Reflections can be magical at any time of year, but in autumn light and colourful landscapes make them pop. Shoot on near-windless mornings for smooth water, wit

All wildlife is exciting to photograph at this time of year, but it’s deer that provide the most interesting images and exhibit the most dramatic behaviour during the rutting season. When shooting deer, the males will be the most animated of all, so

Wildlife is a challenging yet rewarding subject, and in autumn you can take amazing wildlife shots in your back garden, the local park or one of the many deer parks up and down the country. Deer are an incredible subject at this time of year, but sma

1 The elusive fox Foxes are one of the more difficult animals to photograph, but far from impossible. If you know that foxes visit your garden, observe when they’re most active – usually at dusk and dawn – and set up a camera by an open window or out

There’s a misconception that wildlife photographers need to wear camouflage clothes, but this can be much more problematic than wearing mid-tone or dark clothing of any colour. With camouflage clothes, animals may not be able to see you, but they wil

Static shots in woods look great, and there’s certainly a sense of calm imbued in this type of photography, but it doesn’t take much to inject creative motion blur into scenes using vertical panning. With a longer telephoto lens, it’s easy to capture

The woods in autumn, and indeed any season, provide a wealth of photographic opportunities. But it’s autumn where the brightly coloured foliage, high chance of mist, and the abundance of macro subjects make it arguably the best season of the year to

With any genre of photography, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut of producing a certain type of image, but there’s always a plethora of different ways that you can approach familiar subjects to create images that have an additional level of visual or c

Like HDR, the Orton effect has a bit of a mixed reputation, but applied in the right way and used sparingly, the effect is the ideal accompaniment to autumnal photography. Thanks to the characteristics of this technique, where sharpness and blur are

Studio-based photographers are experienced with the use of flash, including both speedlights – known to some of us as flashguns – and strobes. The studio can be seen as the home of flash, as the indoor setting usually makes artificial lighting the ma

While blending flash with ambient illumination can produce beautifully balanced images, there are times when making the light from your speedlights or strobes dominant in a scene can have huge creative benefits. The use of flash is about far more tha

One of the greatest advantages of using a studio is that, with full control over the lighting, we can shape the light in any way we need and produce bespoke effects with ease. We can change the look of the lighting by simply swapping the modifier – t

1 Set up your shot Put up a seamless backdrop, lighting equipment, etc. and place the strobes where you have envisioned your shot. This can change, but always do a few test shots until you are completely satisfied with the overall feel. 2 Work with

By its very nature, location-based photography is going to impose time, space and weight restrictions on your shoot. Lugging many kilograms of equipment to remote outdoor spots, or taking up 30 square metres of floor space with a mobile studio in an

While Infrared (IR) triggers are usually effective in controlled lighting environments such as a studio, line-of-sight flash-triggering methods are less reliable in outdoor locations, where ambient light and physical barriers such as trees, walls and

Flash expert Robert Hall (robhallvisuals.com) explains his process for subtle lighting 1 Assess the ambient light Here we have a pretty background with light trickling through the trees. Because all the ambient light is coming from behind the subjec

In many circumstances we want the light from our flash to interact with ambient conditions in a way that doesn’t reveal our lighting setup. More often than not, we will only use flash to take control of the lighting structure in a scene, enabling us

Robert Hall explains how to produce a faux sunlight effect using off-camera flash and light modifiers 1 Assess the location Before adding flash, assess the location. In this situation, we have a low-contrast sky that leaves the subject flat and dark

While flash has the ability to improve images shot under mostly natural light in a subtle way, it can also have a far more profound impact on the success or failure of a shoot. In some cases it is not unreasonable to suggest that the use of flash can

1 Check shooting conditions If you are planning to spend a long time in a squirrel hide, check the weather and location before your session. Knowing the conditions and the possible lighting scenarios will help you to plan your images before you have

1 Crop and straighten Once you have made a final selection of images to edit, crop and straighten them. Crop with the rule of thirds grid to help re-adjust the composition if needed later. 2 Apply basic adjustments I edit my images in Lightroom. Tw

Difficulty level: Intermediate Time taken: Several hours (depending on wildlife activity) I have been fortunate to capture red squirrels in all seasons, but autumn is one of the best times of year for doing so. Not only are the squirrels developing

On every project I shoot, my autofocus setup and shooting style usually stays the same. On a Canon telephoto lens, IS mode 2 allows the lens drive to continually focus on moving subjects. My camera is set to AI Servo, which means the AF system will c

We often encourage readers to print more of their images, advocating the benefits (and enjoyment) of seeing our photographs in physical form. However, in the modern world we must also be conscious of the impacts of our behaviour on the environment, a

Why is customer service so important for professional photographers? We usually only have a small window of time available for each photoshoot, so it’s very important that we build trust with the client so that they feel comfortable in front of the

I’ve just graduated from university and I’m keen to begin my career as a photographer, but with little experience I’m unsure about where to begin. I’m thinking of assisting as it seems like a good option, but any help or ideas would be appreciated.

GuruShots is billed as the world’s leading photo game. It’s an online platform conceived to give global exposure to people who love taking photographs. GuruShots members start out as Newbies and compete with other photographers to win challenges, inc

The EOS R6 is designed to be Canon’s versatile all-rounder. Unlike in its Nikon rival, the Z 6, Canon’s taken the decision to go for a pretty modest pixel count at just 20.1MP, compared to the Z 6’s 24.5MP sensor. Closely related to the sensor in the

Wide-angle lenses can open up many opportunities for incredible perspectives of landscape scenes, interiors and even portraits. This type of optic provides a wide angle of view (AOV), often measured across the diagonal, so a large proportion of a sce

Customer service might not be the first thing that springs to mind when you picture working as a professional photographer, but like any career where you’re providing a service, the way you treat your clients can be key to your success. If you provid

I’m based in the UK, and until recently I’ve always been in employment. My dream is to be a portrait photographer, and I’m thinking of investing my redundancy money into this and going self-employed. I’m unsure about where to start with the basic run

Where do you hire models to work with? Not all models look like Kate Moss, and anyone can model, regardless of size or shape. The two main routes of working with someone would be either through a company or directly via the model. Most professionals

Look at the specs of the EOS R5 and you soon realise that Canon hasn’t held back here. Let’s start with the sensor. At 45MP, it’s a match for the Nikon Z 7 and a welcome jump in resolution from the 30MP EOS R. Those extra pixels mean that the sensiti

Phil Hall puts them to the test It’s perhaps the most hotly contested battle in photography. Canon vs Nikon has been an ongoing heavyweight fight that started in the days of film photography and has continued all the way through the digital era, and

By far the most affordable of the four cameras, the Z 6 can still hold its own against its newer rivals. You’re certainly not going to be disappointed with the results from the 24.5MP back-illuminated sensor, with the higher pixel count over the R6 p

With the latest mirrorless cameras aimed specifically at filmmakers boasting incredible video resolution up to 8K, Sony’s 4K A7S III might seem a little lacklustre in comparison. And with just 12.1MP resolution compared to up to 45MP from its rivals,

TRACKING LCD TOUCHSCREEN The A7S III analyses subject colour, pattern, depth, and face information to track the subject. It’s been designed for intuitive use, and will automatically track a subject you touch on the LCD screen. 5-AXIS IMAGE STABILISAT

For the Sony A7S III, it’s really all about the 4K video from the 12.1MP sensor. The A7S III is instantly putting it behind much of the competition in terms of outright resolution, but specifying a sensor with such a low resolution – by modern standa

For what’s supposed to be an ‘entry level’ full-frame mirrorless, the Nikon Z 5 is surprisingly well-specced. It’s fully weather-sealed, featuring five-stop in-body image stabilisation, a 24.3MP sensor that goes up to ISO 51,200 in native settings, a

The magnesium alloy body is weather-sealed to protect the camera from dust and moisture, yet it still feels very lightweight and portable to carry. It’s possible to charge or power the Nikon Z 5 via USB, which is useful on long shoots indoors or whil

There is no doubt that we collectively are living through an extraordinary time. When humanity desperately needs coherent, compassionate and science-led leadership, we are instead subjected to bewildering incompetence, deceit and the continuing syste