Photography News

 

Here are 7 things you can still photograph when you're stuck at home sheltering from the bad weather.
 

1. Photograph Cutlery

The kitchen holds a world of photo opportunities and all you need is some imagination to exploit it. Forks, colanders, wooden spoons etc. can make interesting photographs when shot right. For more tips, have a look at these articles:

• Tips On Shooting Cutlery
• How To Photograph Kitchen Utensils And Cutlery

 

2. Explore The House With A Macro Lens

Take a different look at your home through a macro lens. You'll find patterns, textures and shapes you didn't know existed until you looked down a macro lens. Cushions, glasses and salt & pepper pots can all make interesting subjects. 

If you do not own a macro lens, just try using the lens's minimum focusing distance. Or consider investing in a close-up lens.

It's important when shooting close-up and macro photographs to use a tripod and a remote release - so as to maximise depth-of-field, avoid camera-shake, and ensure accurate focusing. Anchor your camera firmly, though, and your shutter speeds can be as long as you like.

Maximising depth-of-field, by setting an aperture of f/16 or smaller, is important because the closer you get to your subject the more limited depth-of-field becomes. At a larger aperture, such as f/5.6, parts of the subject will almost certainly be out-of-focus.

Using a tripod also makes it easier to ensure accurate focusing. Even at a small aperture you may only have a few millimetres of depth-of-field in front of and behind the point on which you focus - and the natural sway of the body when hand-holding can easily take you outside that, and leave you with an unsharp image. You'll also find it easier, if you have an autofocus camera, to switch to manual focusing.

 

 

3. Coloured Liquid In Glasses

Get a selection of glasses, add water and your choice of food colouring to them. Place them on a clear, reflective surface (glass on white paper works well) and place a large piece of white card behind them. If you want to light the background use your flash off-camera to do this. You want an even light that will bounce off the background back onto the scene you're photographing without causing flare. 

 

4. Water Droplets On A Window

There are plenty of opportunities to get great pictures of rain on patio doors or windows and you don't even have to get wet! When rain hits the pane it leaves tiny water droplets and when these droplets are combined they create fascinating patterns. With a close-up lens you can fill the frame with interesting shapes or use a macro lens to give your piece even more impact. 

If a white sky is behind the droplets they will all appear white with just a thin black outline. If you move around so a wall or greenery is in the background instead, the droplets will take on those colours and patterns making more interesting shapes.

 

5. Frozen Items

This technique is brilliant with a macro lens but will work with the lens at minimum focus. 

Freeze water in a suitable clear container. Once frozen place the container or either a white or even coloured surface so it shows through the container. If you have a lightbox, place the container onto it so light shines through from the bottom. If you don't have a lightbox, just be creative your whatever furniture you have. Ideally, being able to get a lamp or flash under the ice container is what you want.

A 50mm macro lens with the camera on the tripod will let you get closer to capture the patterns that form in the water and cracking ice as it melts. Use a kettle of hot water and gently pour it onto the ice to cause cracks and to start the melting process. Look through the viewfinder for interesting patterns and snap away. 

A twist on this is freezing objects - leaves, flowerheads, shells, pebbles - in the container and then shooting them.

Obviously, this idea needs a little bit of planning, so get the container in the freezer early on and try shooting some of our other ideas while you wait for the thing to freeze. 

 

 

6. Cross Polarisation

Cross polarising effect is where you use a pair of polarising filters - one on the camera and one on the light source (behind the subject) to show stress in plastic which appears as wonderful multicoloured pattern. 

You can use an LCD computer monitor as a light source, plus they have a polariser built-in. You'll need to use a camera with a polarising filter either attached or positioned in front of the lens. Of course, you'll need a monitor and a steady support will also be useful.

Some clear hard plastic items will also be needed as well as something to hold the plastic item steady in front of the computer monitor.

For step-by-step tips on how this technique works, have a read of this: Easy Cross Polarisation

 

7. Capturing Oil On Water

With a few items you'll find around your house you can create interesting abstract shots of oil on water. You'll need a camera with a close focus facility, tripod, a light source, a clear dish, water, oil and something to add colour to your shot (card, paper, t-shirt....etc.). You'll find a guide on what to do next in our article full of tips on how to photograph oil on water with just a basic set up.

Some of the most important photographic archives ever assembled are gone, and a small number of historians have spent their careers trying to get them back. One of those hunts had a storybook ending. In December 2007, three weathered cardboard boxes reached New York's International Center of Photography, carrying roughly 4,500 Spanish Civil War negatives that had been missing since 1939.

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Today, let’s have a look at the pint-sized Sirui VP-1 Vision Prime 15mm T1.6. 

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The usual advice for dreamy photos is to use shallow depth of field and a pricey diffusion filter, and both tend to leave you with images that look soft without feeling like anything. The look that reads as a memory comes from light, motion, framing, and focus working together, and most of it costs nothing.

 

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Following on from the recently reviewed Panasonic Lumix S 20mm f/2.5 lens, which gained the accolade of Highly Recommended, we have a virtually identical looking 18-40mm f/4.5-6.3 zoom. These virtually identical siblings, both intended for full frame L mount cameras, offer a choice between prime and zoom: fast aperture with fixed focal length or restricted apertures with the added versatility of the zoom. Size, weight and cost are all very similar, so the choice is without penalty in that respect. This leaves us with choices that depend very much on the sort of photography/videography to be undertaken, the photographer's style of shooting and how the quality of results does or does not become an issue. Let's take up the 24MP Panasonic Lumix S9 once more and see how it all works out, both in the field and in the studio for the technical tests.

 

Panasonic Lumix S 18-40mm f/4.5-6.3 Handling and Features

A quick glance at the previous review will show that the 18-40mm measures up almost exactly the same as the 20mm f/2.5 did. The zoom lens weighs in at just 154g (measured) and 67.9mm x 40.9mm with lens retracted. However, once rotated past the click stop that marks the point the lens retracts, it is extended for use. There is virtually no change in the balance of the lens when extended. There is no lens hood provided, but to be fair, the lens is very resistant to flare anyway.

 

 

There is no lens hood provided, a shame especially with a wide angle lens. One can be purchased and will need to use the 62mm standard filter thread. The front element is quite small, but not particularly vulnerable. It has a Fluorine coating to repel dust, moisture and grease and this makes it easier to keep clean. The lens is also dust, splash and freeze resistant. The operational range is from -10C to +40C. 

Moving backwards along the lens barrel, our tour of the lens arrives first at the slim but well knurled focusing/control ring. The feel of this is quite firm, but not excessively so. Behind this is the zoom ring. This does extend the lens barrel, the most compact position being marked by a white dot and representing the retracted position. If we switch the camera on whilst set to the dot, we are reminded to extend the lens for use. The zoom ring physically extends the lens and has clear and accurate settings marked at 18mm, 20mm, 24mm, 28mm, 35mm and 40mm. This focal lens range is considered to be from ultra-wide to wide standard, offering a very versatile span of focal lengths. This is ideal for travel.

 

 

Closest focus is 0.15m (0.49') and enables some powerful close range image making. The aperture range alters with focal length in the usual way, from f/4.5 at 18mm to f/6.3 at 40mm. This is perfectly usable in a world where high ISO values can yield consistently excellent results, plus of course the huge benefit of image stabilisation. There is no stabilisation in the lens itself, so we rely upon the camera IBIS where available. 

Optical construction is 8 elements in 7 groups, including 3 aspheric, 2 ED (Extra Low Dispersion) and 1 UHR (Ultra High Refractive Index). The lens is also designed to reduce focus breathing, a feature that will be appreciated by videographers. A fairly modest number of elements does help to ensure reduced flare and increased contrast, so this bodes well for performance. The diaphragm comprises 7 rounded blades, helping to ensure smooth bokeh, although with limited maximum apertures there may well be limits on what we can expect.

The well finished L mount is firm but does enable the lens to be locked positively into place. Handling is fine, perhaps a tad less smooth than the 20mm lens, but certainly still a great optic to use. Much of the joy in use comes with viewing the results on a computer monitor, so let's get straight down to seeing exactly how that performance works out.

 

 

Panasonic Lumix S 18-40mm f/4.5-6.3 Performance

At 18mm, central sharpness is excellent from f/4.5 to f/16 and very good at f/22. The edges are very good from f/4.5 to f/11, good at f/16 and fair at f/22.

At 24mm, central sharpness is excellent from f/5 to f/16 and very good at f/22 and f/25. The edges are very good from f/5 to f/11, good at f/16 and fair at f/22 and f/25.

At 40mm, central sharpness is excellent from f/6.3 to f/16, very good at f/22 and good at f/32. The edges are excellent from f/6.3 to f/11, very good at f/16, good at f/22 and fair at f/32.

 

Panasonic Lumix S 18-40mm f/4.5-6.3 MTF Charts Previous Next

How to read our MTF charts

The blue column represents readings from the centre of the picture frame at the various apertures and the green is from the edges.

For this review, the lens was tested on a Panasonic Lumix S9 camera body using Imatest software (www.imatest.com). Want to know more about how we review lenses?

 

CA (Chromatic Aberration) is highly unlikely to be a problem. There is virtually no sign of colour fringing in most image making, even in the most challenging circumstances.

 

Panasonic Lumix S 18-40mm f/4.5-6.3 Chromatic Aberration Charts Previous Next

How to read our CA charts

Chromatic aberration (CA) is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software.

Apochromatic lenses have special lens elements (aspheric, extra-low dispersion etc) to minimize the problem, hence, they usually cost more.

For this review, the lens was tested on a Panasonic Lumix S9 camera body using Imatest software (www.imatest.com).

 

Some barrel distortion can be measured, giving values of -1.0% at 18mm, -0.20% at 24mm and -0.47% at 40mm. 

With the maximum apertures available being quite restricted, the potential for super-smooth bokeh is reduced. Even so, results are very respectable and do not descend into becoming ragged.

Flare is not a problem in normal use. Artefacts can be generated under extreme lighting conditions, but the intrusion into the image is minimal.

Vignetting is extremely low and is very impressive for any zoom lens, especially one that extends into ultra-wide territory.

 

Aperture 18mm 24mm 40mm f/4.5 -1     f/5   -0.4   f/5.6 -1 -0.4   f/6.3     -0.6 f/8 -0.6 -0.3 -0.6 f/11 -0.5 -0.3 -0.7 f/16 -0.5 -0.3 -0.7 f/22   -0.3 -0.7 f/25   -0.3   f/32     -0.7

 

Panasonic Lumix S 18-40mm f/4.5-6.3 Sample Photos Previous Next

 

Panasonic Lumix S 18-40mm f/4.5-6.3 Aperture range Previous Next

You can view additional images in the Equipment Database, where you can add your own reviews, photos and product ratings.

 

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Value For Money

The [AMUK]Panasonic Lumix S 18-40mm f/4.5-6.3|Panasonic+Lumix+S+18-40mm+f/4.5-6.3[/AMUK] is priced at £499.00

Perhaps the following could be considered alternatives:

• [AMUK]Lumix S 20-60mm f/3.5-5.6|Lumix+S+20-60mm+f/3.5-5.6[/AMUK], £469
• [AMUK]Lumix S 14-28mm f/4-5.6|Lumix+S+14-28mm+f/4-5.6[/AMUK], £668
• [AMUK]Sigma 20-60mm f/2.8-4|Sigma+20-60mm+f/2.8-4[/AMUK], £749
• [AMUK]Sigma 24-60mm f/2.8|Sigma+24-60mm+f/2.8[/AMUK], £869

The review lens looks perfectly good value and certainly is punching above its weight regarding quality of results.

 

 

Panasonic Lumix S 18-40mm f/4.5-6.3 Verdict

The Lumix S 18-40mm f/4.5-6.3 lens offers the usual zoom advantages, but without some of the usual disadvantages that go with that. The zoom is, of course, always ready for a number of shooting scenarios. A prime lens can be equally useful up to a point, but has the main advantages of speed and size. With ultra high ISO values being available, do we need that fast maximum aperture? Maybe, but perhaps for reasons of bokeh for portraiture as much as anything else. It's a matter of the individual's requirements and their shooting style.

In any event, what is absolutely clear is that to call this lens a kit lens would be to do it a great disservice, as it is punching far above that level. A satisfactory price level, superior image quality and great handling all combine to delivery a Highly Recommended lens.

 

Panasonic Lumix S 18-40mm f/4.5-6.3 Pros

• Excellent sharpness, especially centrally
• Very low distortion
• Smooth bokeh
• Low CA
• Low flare
• Fast, accurate and virtually silent AF
• Dust, splash and freeze resistant
• Quality maintained throughout zoom range
• Fair price

 

Panasonic Lumix S 18-40mm f/4.5-6.3 Cons

• No built-in IS
• No hood provided
• Modest maximum aperture

 

 

[REVIEW_FOOTER]R_features=4|R_handling=4.5|R_performance=5|R_value=4.5|R_overall=4.5|A_level=4.5|A_text=Highly Recommended – A lovely high-quality ultra-wide to wide-standard zoom lens.|E_id=8027[/REVIEW_FOOTER]

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Sigma now makes 10 lenses for APS-C mirrorless cameras, priced from $344 to $919, and the primes and zooms overlap more than the spec sheets suggest. If you shoot on a crop sensor, this lineup is one of the few places you can build a complete kit of small, sharp glass without paying full frame prices.

 

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The Canon EOS R8 Mark II, Sony a7C II, Nikon Z5IIC, and Panasonic Lumix S9 are each the smallest and cheapest full frame body their maker sells right now, and they don't all solve the same problem. If you want a full frame sensor in something you'll carry every day, the differences between them show up in places a spec sheet won't make obvious, like the grip, the shutter design, and which lenses are small enough to match.

 

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The Leica Q3 43 puts a 60-megapixel sensor behind a single fixed 43mm lens, so you commit to one focal length and lean on the sensor to cover everything else. If you shoot paid work, the harder question is whether a camera like that can serve as a backup or second body next to an interchangeable-lens system you already trust.

 

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Reflections are something you can shoot all year round but as bright colours and bold shapes make the most interesting reflections, autumn's the perfect season to try this technique.

 

1. Where should I go?

You can head to a picturesque area of landscape where you have reservoirs and lakes by the dozen to pick from. You can also stay a little closer to home and take a walk through your local park after it's rained and use the puddles that have formed as your reflective surface. If you have a pond in your garden and a tree or two that's decorated with autumn colours, you don't even have to walk to the park as you can set your gear up in your own back garden to shoot these abstract style shots.

 

2. Photograph The Wide Landscape

If you head to a national park area you can capture a few wide shots where you include the body of water in the photo with the tree line and rolling hills sitting alongside it. For this, you want an almost mirror-like reflection and this means shooting on a very still day. Better still, do your research and find a lake or reservoir that's sheltered by hills or find one where at least part of it's out of the way of the wind. It helps if you're an early riser too as the air tends to be stiller first thing in the morning than later on in the day. Ripples still a problem? Try using a slightly slower shutter speed to blur them.

You'll need a tripod to stop shake creeping in and a remote / cable release can be handy but it's not essential. You could even start your exposures via a Smart Phone if the camera you're using has wireless capabilities. 

When working with slower shutter speeds by lakes, have a look at the distant trees and other objects that can move in the breeze to see if they've blurred slightly. If you do have a problem with blurry trees, try taking two exposures then combined them when you're back in front of your computer. The first exposure needs to be shot with a slower shutter speed and the second with a quicker shutter speed that won't allow movement to be introduced into your background. 

It's also a good idea to pack an ND Grad Filter as you'll find that the reflection will look darker than the 'real' scene that's creating it. If you line up the darker part of the filter so it sits over the sky and finishes at the shoreline, you'll produce a shot that balances the exposure of the bright sky/surroundings with the reflection.

  3. More Abstract?

Shooting reflections on their own, particularly if the water's slightly choppy, will result in interesting abstract images. You just need strong colours and / or shapes to create shots with real impact and Autumn's oranges and reds are just the shades you need to produce abstract shots that really pack some punch. You can shoot a wider shot of the landscape, as above, then crop in when you're back in front of your computer but it's much easier to just frame up so the water's surface is your main point of focus. Some lenses struggle to focus on moving water so you may need to switch to manual focus so you get a sharp shot.

Just remember to shoot plenty of photos at quite quick intervals as the patterns created by the moving ripples will change quickly.

If you prefer to shoot water flowing and falling over rocks, use a slower shutter speed to blur its motion. As a result, you'll have smooth waves of water that have the autumn shades/colours of the trees dotted along the banking flowing through it.

In a darkened room at Imperial College in London in the late 1920s, ten people looked at a small split circle of light, about the width of a thumbnail held at arm's length. Half the circle carried a single wavelength; the other half carried a mixture of red, green, and blue lamps the subject could turn up and down until the two halves fused into one uniform patch. Seven more people did the same job at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, and the numbers those 17 people generated are still sitting inside every ICC profile on your computer.

 

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Peak Design built the Everyday Backpack around fast access, real organization, and protection for whatever you're carrying. The Everyday Backpack line is already award-winning, and the newly revamped V3 improves on that solid foundation. Style, security, and day-to-day usability all show up here alongside gear protection and room to expand. 

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Every edit you make in Photoshop lives on a layer, and the way you stack, mask, and merge those layers decides whether you can change your mind an hour later. If you've ever flattened a file to run a filter and then wished you could go back and fix the retouching underneath, you already know what a shaky grasp of the Layers panel costs.

 

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Cutting your rate to win a listing feels like a smart move when your calendar is empty, and it's also one of the fastest ways to get stuck in real estate photography. The choices you make in your first year about pricing, gear, and which clients you chase tend to set the ceiling on what your business can earn five years later.

 

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The Fujifilm XF 18mm f/2 R came out in 2012, which makes it one of the oldest lenses still in Fujifilm's lineup and an easy one to dismiss next to newer glass. If you shoot street or family life on an X-series body, knowing whether a 14-year-old design can keep up with a 40-megapixel sensor decides whether you save money or spend a lot more on a newer wide prime.

 

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Most cameras sold a decade ago still take perfectly good pictures, yet it's easy to assume the gear you own now is the main reason your recent photos look the way they do. A budget Micro Four Thirds setup is one of the cheapest ways to test that assumption, since older bodies and kit zooms sell used for a fraction of what current pro gear costs.

 

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Thanks to its warm, golden colours and varying weather, Autumn is a very photogenic season. However, the different locations you can shoot in coupled with weather and light changes can occasionally make setting the correct exposure tricky. With this in mind, here's a quick check list of ways you can ensure your exposure's correct every time. 

Photo by David Clapp

 

1. Use An ND Filter

Placing an ND Filter over your lens will balance the brightness levels of the ground and sky so that sky detail can still be seen without the ground appearing underexposed.

 

2. Check Your Histogram

Even though digital cameras do have good built-in meters you still need to keep an eye out for burnt-out highlights as you'll lose detail in these areas. A good way to check if your image is correctly exposed is with the histogram.

A 'good' histogram that shows an even exposure will peak more towards the middle and get lower to either end. If the graph is occupying mostly the left-hand side it means your image has more dark tones than light (underexposed) and if it’s shifted to the right, there are more lighter tones (overexposed) which means you could have really bright areas that look blown out.

Also, as a side note, when you playback your images there’s an option you can set that makes the highlighted areas 'blink' so you can pinpoint their exact location. Check your camera's manual for the instructions on how to do this. 

 

Photo by David Pritchard. 

 

3. Work On Overcast Days

Overcast days give you the perfect conditions for capturing autumn shots in woods and forests. Why? Well, on sunny days it can be hard to keep contrast to a minimum and you can end up with large areas of dark shadow and patches of bright, dappled sunlight that's broken through the forest's canopy.

 

4. Meter From The Right Spot

Positioning yourself so the yellow and orange coloured leaves can be backlit will add extra punch to your shots, but again, your camera can get confused by the variety of light sources around. As a starting point, you can meter for the mid-tones but it's best to take a meter reading from the leaves to ensure they are correctly exposed. Also, by doing so the background, which you'll want to be thrown nicely out of focus, should appear darker, allowing your subject to 'pop' from the frame.

 

5. Use Exposure Compensation

Mist and fog are common conditions to be shooting in at this time of year but you may find you have exposure problems once out in the field. This is because camera meters are often fooled into underexposing misty scenes so they come out looking very grey, rather than light and airy. You can fix this by using the + compensation option. How many stops you need to move up by will depend on the scene and how many EV steps you can go up by will depend on the camera you are using. 
 

   

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Aperty, the portrait editor from Skylum, will be discontinued November 4th. We reviewed Aperty in 2024 and found it a capable editor for portrait photographers. Using a mix of the usual develop sliders and some AI, I had heard positive reviews from people who purchased it.

 

In a note to users, a Skylum spokesman said:

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Hand a phone to a group of teenagers in Osaka and start counting. You will rarely reach three before the first two fingers go up beside a chin, while the same camera pointed at strangers in Moscow gets a level, unsmiling gaze that an American would read as hostility and a Russian would read as basic composure. The way a body arranges itself in front of a lens is not instinct but a dialect, learned young and specific to place, and this is a tour of how it changes as you cross borders.

 

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SmallRig is well known for its video-related accessories. Everyone knows about cages and all that comes with them. Perhaps also about the tripods and video lights. Now SmallRig has added a backpack to its ever-increasing product line. I’ve been using it for some time now. These are my findings.

 I’ve been reviewing SmallRig products for some time now, ranging from the Tribex hydraulic tripods to the video and macro lights. Although a lot of the products are aimed at video work, these can also be of benefit to photographers, especially the batteries and lights.

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Sony now has four lenses that can get you to 600mm or beyond for birds, and two of them weigh around 1 kg while costing less than many full frame bodies. Once teleconverters come into play, those lenses overlap in focal length, so the choice comes down to how much weight, money, and light each route to the same reach will cost you.

 

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