Amateur Photographer

Jim Turner’s photo of a Little Robber Fly was shortlisted in this year’s Close-Up Photographer of the Year contest ■

Macro photography shines a spotlight on those small details that we barely notice as we go about our daily lives, and reminds us of what a beautiful, amazing world we live in – whether it’s some bizarre creature that’s too small to appreciate with th

Each week we choose our favourite picture on Facebook, Instagram, Flickr or Twitter using #appicoftheweek. PermaJet proudly supports the online picture of the week winner, who will receive a top-quality print of their image on the finest PermaJet pap

Paul describes himself as an artistic man who loves making photographs, and this image was definitely ‘made’ and not ‘taken’. ‘During lockdown I was looking for new challenges,’ recalls Paul, who lives in Cornwall. ‘I love still life and during this

Ever wanted to check out the look of a particular lens before buying it? Samyang has launched an online Lens Simulator which gives a real-time indication of how a lens would work on your camera body. You can adjust the lens model for different focal

Adobe has released a preview of a Sky Replacement Tool powered by its ‘Sensei’ artificial intelligence, ahead of its virtual MAX2020 expo in October. Full details have yet to be confirmed but it looks like it will go some way to simplifying sky repla

NIKON has announced a 50mm f/1.2 prime and a 14-24mm f/2.8 zoom for its series of full-frame mirrorless cameras – the Z 7, Z 6 and Z 5. The Z Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 S is the first f/1.2 prime lens in the Z range, while the company claims the Z Nikkor 14-2

THE NATIONAL Portrait Gallery (NPG) has put together 100 of the best portraits from Hold Still, an ambitious community project to gather a ‘collective portrait’ of the UK during lockdown. The project, which was launched back in May and spearheaded by

FUJIFILM has added the Instax Square SQ1 to its Instax line-up of instant cameras. The new camera uses the Instax Square instant film format to deliver a larger, 62x62mm image, but is aimed at the fun/ selfie crowd – so it is more point-and-click tha

Lovers of black & white photography, nostalgia, and of course the city of Paris, will surely love this latest collection of the work of Paul Almasy. The Hungarian photojournalist was born in 1906, becoming a French citizen in 1956. His travels as a p

CORNEL Lucas was a leading pioneer of film portraiture in the 1940s and 1950s. As head of the photo studio at the Rank Organisation many of the biggest stars of the day sat for him and he was the first photographer ever to win a BAFTA. Here he is sha

Curator and historian Beaumont Newhall once said, ‘We are not interested in the unusual, but in the usual seen unusually.’ It’s a quote that seems particularly relevant at the moment with so many of us staying close to home and turning to familiar sc

I’m now 86 but still remember my first sighting and handling of the Leica M3 in the 1960s, at my local camera shop. The price, with the 50mm f/2 Summicron, was £158.18. At that time it might have been justifiably described as ‘the world’s most desira

A Samsung 64GB EVO Plus microSDXC with SD adapter Class 10 UHS-1 Grade U3 memory card supports 4K UHD. Offering R/W speeds of up to 100MB/s /60MB/s and a 10-year limited warranty. www.samsung.com/uk/memory-cards. LETTER OF THE WEEK WINS A SAMSUNG EVO

Group Editor Nigel Atherton Deputy Editor Geoff Harris Technical Editor Andy Westlake Features Editor Amy Davies Technique Editor Hollie Latham Hucker Production Editor Jacqueline Porter Art Editor Sarah Foster Photo-Science Consultant Profess

I wholeheartedly agree with Colin Avery’s Letter of the Week ‘Print it’. There is nothing more satisfying than to see enlargements of your artistic efforts, the larger the better. Yet there is the longevity issue with modern colour prints. My fibre-b

Andy Westlake tests the full-frame mirrorless R6: does it get top marks? How photographers have used their passion to cope with difficult times Is the G100 ideal for photo and video creators? Richard Sibley finds out CONTENT FOR NEXT WEEK’S ISSUE MAY

Musicians: Bruce Springsteen, Roy Bittan, Clarence Clemons, Danny Federici, Garry Tallent, Max Weinberg, Steven Van Zandt, Ernest Carter, David Sancious, Suki Lahav, Wayne Andre, Mike Appel, Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, Richard Davis, David Sanbor

The genius of this gatefold sleeve starts with the power of the guitar, moves through Bruce’s wardrobe and lands to rest on the broad shoulders of Clarence Clemons. It’s an homage to friendship, trust and the pleasure of finding out what’s on the oth

This technique works best with an image produced using manually adjusted white balance in a converted camera. Do not change the image to grayscale. Retain it as RGB even though it is largely monochromatic. Open the channel mixer and, with the output

The internet is full of information on how to fake an infrared image. Many of the workings are long, complicated and confusing. Here’s a way to make it work in three simple steps. Start with an image that contains plenty of green foliage and an inter

1 The best results come from shooting around midday when the sun is at its harshest, ideally in bright, sunny conditions. 2 When using an infrared filter on a DSLR, you won’t be able to see an image in the viewfinder, so compose and focus the shot b

MATT Williams is the CEO of UAVHUB (www.uavhub.com), the world’s largest commercial drone training school and the first to be granted Recognised Assessment Entity status by the CAA. He recommends the A2 CofC course (£199) for recreational pilots as i

Calvin has been a wedding photographer for just over a decade, but uses his spare time to work on his macro and close-up portfolio. He says that close-up work is his favourite kind of photography. ‘The details you can see once you manage to get close

WHILE the newly designed grip of the A7R IV makes using telephoto lenses such as a 70-200mm even more comfortable than the A7R III, you still may find that longer lenses such as the FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G, FE 400mm F2.8 OSS GM and FE 600mm F4 GM don

The professional alternative is the Fastpack Pro BP 250AW III (£134), which accepts a pro-spec camera with a battery grip attached. If you prefer to carry your bag across your body, the Slingshot SL 250AW III (£89, right) offers quick side entry and

Q I’m looking to create a bit of a home studio in my garage and would like to have a selection of backgrounds to use for portrait shoots. The trouble is, I don’t have much room to set up a backdrop stand as it’s quite a narrow space, or to store one

Just 41cm collapsed and weighing in at 1.5kg, the carbon fibre Bucky may be as compact as many travel tripods but extends to a huge working height of 179cm and takes loads of up to 30kg – specifications that will rival the best professional models. T

Cameras come in three types: DSLRs with optical viewfinders, mirrorless models with electronic viewing, and compact cameras with non-interchangeable lenses DSLRs traditionally have relatively large handgrips, while many mirrorless models have much sm

I remember reading somewhere when I was young and impressionable that if a picture needs a caption it isn’t doing its job properly. I’m not entirely keen on those sort of hard-nosed and uncompromising absolutes that come from the narrow-minded 20-pre