PHOTOGRAPHY
The BenQ ScreenBar e-Reading Lamp is an innovative desk light that’s designed to free up space on your desk by clipping to the top of monitors while providing the right amount of light to avoid eye strain when working at your computer. It’s designed not to produce glare on the monitor screen, but the question is how effective is it? Read on to learn more and watch the video unboxing and review below.
Capturing pin-sharpness throughout a scene – from the foreground to the distant background – is often the photographer’s aim when shooting landscapes. For wider scenes where the foreground interested is a few metres away from the camera you can usually get away with shooting a single image at f/11 – f/16 on a full-frame camera, or f/8 – f/11 on APS-C. With these settings and correct focusing front to back sharpness is possible in a single shot, but what about when the foreground interest is closer to the camera and you need both this and the background in sharp focus? The simple answer is to use focus stacking to achieve sharper landscape images.
You’ve probably heard this before and chances are, you’ll hear it many times in the future; one of the best time to shoot landscapes is most often the period of time just after sunrise and just before sunset. These times are known as ‘golden hour’ and despite the name, this period of time isn’t actually an hour in duration. At this time of the day the sun is close to the horizon, which means the area of sky close to the horizon is brighter than the sky at the top of the frame.
Timing is everything when it comes to landscape photography, so to capture landscapes in the best light possible you ideally need to be on location and ready to shoot before, during and after golden hour. Bur while sunrise and sunset are considered the best times to shoot landscapes, they’re far from the only options. Throw the weather into the mix and you may even find that conditions are actually better well after sunrise has taken place. And on a moody and cloudy day, you may even be able to get great results throughout the day.
Autumn is a great time for landscape photographers; not least for the explosion of colour that takes place up and down the country, but also because sunrise and sunset times become much more ‘civilised’ now the long days of summer are behind us. But it’s not just landscape photographers who are out in force, autumn is also a popular season for macro and nature photographers, and this autumn I’ve been out as much as possible shooting both landscapes and macro photography.
The Apeman TRAWO is a new action camera that’s one of many alternatives to the market leader GoPro. At just £119/$119 for the camera, two batteries and a number of accessories, can the amazing price point and and the package as a whole provide a realistic alternative to the many action cameras that are now available?
There’s always more than one way to achieve an effect in Photoshop, but why use anything but the best? And for portrait and fashion retouching, that’s frequency separation retouching to maintain skin texture. Check out the video and written tutorials below…
Shooting time-lapse photography is something I often use my second camera for while shooting landscape photography at sunrise and sunset. This time-lapse shows cloud coming over Kinder Scout in the Peak District before dispersing with the Edale Valley in the foreground. To watch the time-lapse take a look at the video below.
One of my landscape photography images of Tŵr Mawr lighthouse on Ynys Llanddwyn on Angelsey in North Wales was used on the cover of the 14 July 2018 issue of Amateur Photographer magazine. The cover image was used to accompany a technique feature I produced for the magazine covering how to shoot and edit tasteful HDR images. See a larger version of the front cover, the original image and the HDR article below.
For any photographer, getting your images on the front cover of a magazine is something that never loses its charm. I was delighted to have one of my landscape images taken at Winskill Stones in the Yorkshire Dales, features on the cover of the 26 may 2018 issue of Amateur Photographer magazine. The cover image was used to accompany a technique feature covering focus stacking in landscape photography. See a larger version of the front cover and the focus stacking article below.