Review Digital Camera World 02-11-2014

Digital Camera World

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Lightroom black and white tips: how to take more control over your conversions Feb 11th 2014, 00:01, by jmeyer Adobe Lightroom offers a powerful range of tools for converting your images to monochrome and fine-tuning the tones. In this tutorial we’ll share some of the top Lightroom black and white tips for taking more control over the conversion process. When it comes to converting images to monochrome, the best tools for the job all share something in common: they let you fine-tune the brightness of different colour ranges during the conversion. One such tool is Lightroom's HSL Panel. We'll use it here, but rather than simply converting to mono we'll use a method that allows us to fine-tune the mono effect with the Basic Panel's colour sliders. There are good reasons to use Lightroom rather than Photoshop for mono conversions. Any changes you make won't alter pixels until you Export, and because the settings are not accumulative, you can fine-tune the conversion with the Basic Panel's Temperature, Tint and Saturation controls (settings you'd normally associate with adjusting colours) even after you've converted the image to mono. So you have an excellent degree of control over the look of your images, and you can dodge and burn with the Adjustment Brush. Here's how it works… SEE MORE: How to use Lightroom to reclaim lost shadow and highlight detail How to convert to black and white in Lightroom 01 Strip out the colour Go to the Library Module in Lightroom, drag in the bw_before.dng file and click Import. Next, go to the Develop Module. Scroll down to the HSL Panel. Click HSL, then the Saturation tab. Drag all eight sliders back to -100 to strip the image of colour completely.   02 Adjust colour brightness Click the Luminance tab, then experiment with the sliders to alter the brightness of the colours. Set Red -76, Orange +29, Yellow -33, Green -26. The other four colour sliders have no effect because there's very little of those colours present, so leave them at 0. SEE MORE: Lightroom vs Photoshop – why Lightroom has all the tools you need 03 Fine-tune the mono look Scroll up to the Basic Panel on the right. Experiment with the Temp and Tint sliders and note how they have an effect on the look of the black-and-white treatment. The Saturation slider acts like a volume slider for all the other changes. Set Temp 9385, Tint -2, Saturation -31.   04 Boost the tones Use the Basic Panel sliders to add punch and control detail in parts of the tonal range. Set Contrast +26, Highlights -30, Shadows +23, Whites -28, Clarity +38. Scroll to the Detail Panel. Zoom in. Set Amount 51 and Radius 1.4 to sharpen, then Luminance 26 and Detail 63.  SEE MORE: Adobe Lightroom 5 Review – is this the game-changer you’ve been waiting for? 05 Dodge and burn Grab the Adjustment Brush from the Toolbar, zoom in close to the face and click on the eye to set a pin. Paint over the eye and set Exposure 0.65, Contrast 23, Highlights 32 to lift the eye. Next, click New, then paint over the bottom-right corner and set Exposure -1.0 to darken it.   06 Add a warm split tone Scroll to the Split Toning Panel. Hold Alt and drag the Highlights Hue slider to preview the colour change. Once you've chosen a colour, use the Saturation and Shadows sliders to control the intensity. We've set Highlights Hue 60, Saturation 18, Shadows Hue 18, Saturation 20. PAGE 1: How to convert to black and white in Lightroom PAGE 2: Lightroom black and white tips READ MORE Lightroom effects: use the Virtual Copies feature to test different looks 14 photo editing tricks and tips every landscape photographer must know How to replace a sky: Photoshop effects to make your landscapes more attractive Dodge and Burn: how to master one of the most vital photo editing skills Rim lighting: simple Photoshop effects to enhance your landscapes DX format vs FX format: what you need to know about Nikon's sensor sizes Feb 10th 2014, 12:47, by jmeyer Discover which Nikon lenses work with which sensor formats in our DX format vs FX format comparison. Nikon makes DSLRs with two different sensor sizes: FX and DX. FX sensors are the same size as 35mm film, but they are more expensive to make. This is why most enthusiasts use the smaller DX-format models. The DX format sensor is about the same size as the old APS-C film format – in fact, these sensors are sometimes referred to as 'APS-C' format. To go with these sensor sizes, Nikon makes both FX and DX lenses. FX lenses fit on both types of camera, but are often large, heavy and expensive. DX format lenses are solely for cameras with DX-format sensors. They project a smaller image circle to cover the smaller sensor, but they're lighter and cheaper. If you have a DX-format Nikon, DX lenses are the most cost-effective buy, but if you plan to move up to the FX format, you'll need to swap over to FX lenses. SEE MORE: 100 Nikon DSLR tips you need to know right now Nikon DX format vs FX format: learn your lenses DX format vs FX format: 01 Focal factors DX sensors capture a smaller field of view, so it makes it appear as if you're shooting with a longer focal length lens. This is called the 'crop factor', and you need to multiply a lens's actual focal length by 1.5 to get its effective focal length on a DX camera. DX format vs FX format: 02 DX lenses This DX-format D5200 comes with an 18-55mm kit lens, but the 1.5x crop factor means the lens is effectively a 27-82.5mm one, which is a typical 'standard' zoom range for a D-SLR. This is a DX lens which only covers the DX sensor area, so it's not suitable for an FX camera.   DX format vs FX format: 03 FX lenses This FX-format D610 comes with a 24-85mm kit lens. 24-85mm is the lens's effective focal length because it's on a full-frame camera (the crop factor is 1.0). You can use it on a DX Nikon, but it will be too 'long' to be a useful standard zoom, with an effective range of 36-127.5mm.   Using the DX format crop mode You can use DX lenses on FX bodies in DX 'crop' mode. This uses only the central part of the sensor and sacrifices much of the camera's resolution. Final Tip Consider buying FX lenses for a DX-format body, in case you swap formats in future. READ MORE Nikon lenses from A-Z: the ultimate photographer’s guide 11 common lens errors every photographer makes (and how to avoid them) Full frame sensor size explained: how to exploit its advantages and cool effects 10 camera techniques to master in 2014: ways to cope with high-contrast lighting Feb 10th 2014, 00:01, by jmeyer As our Shoot Like a Pro series on mastering some of the fundamental camera techniques continues we show you how to deal with high-contrast lighting and capture the maximum range of tones. Click to enlarge Using your DSLR's Exposure Compensation to adjust the overall exposure is fine for many subjects, but there are also times when the brightness range of the subject is too large for your camera to capture detail in both the shadows and highlights. This range is known as the camera's dynamic range, and while it does vary between different models, it's pretty common to find scenes where the contrast is greater than even the best cameras can cope with. SEE MORE: Dynamic range – what you need to know about capturing all the tones in a scene With practice, you'll often be able to recognise these conditions before you start shooting, but the easiest way to spot the situation is by reviewing your shot and checking the histogram and highlight warnings. Start by taking a shot and checking that the shadows reach the left of the graph. You can now activate the highlight warning display. If the display blinks to indicate that there are highlights without any detail, then your camera can't record the whole brightness range. When you are faced with this situation, there are a number of ways to deal with the problem. If you are shooting in JPEG mode, many cameras offer built-in systems to capture more highlight and/or shadow detail than normal images. The Nikon system is called Active D-lighting, while the Canon version is Auto Lighting Optimiser. Recovering Detail Shooting in raw format will allow you to capture more highlight and shadow detail than in JPEG mode. But even in raw it's easier to recover more detail from the shadows than the highlights. SEE MORE: Raw format vs JPEG – how much can you REALLY recover in raw? For this reason, when shooting high-contrast subjects set the exposure so that you capture as much highlight detail as possible. Filters The traditional solution for dealing with high-contrast lighting is to use an ND grad lens filter. These filters are half dark and half clear, so you position the dark area of the filter to reduce the brightness of the lightest area of the scene. SEE MORE: ND Grad Filters – what every photographer needs to know This is fine where a large area of the scene is brighter than the rest, such as the sky in an open landscape. However they are less useful for subjects containing smaller bright areas, such as windows or sunlight through trees, because the filter will darken the areas around these highlights too.  SEE MORE: Camera filters: the only cheat sheet you’ll ever need to get beautifully balanced exposures High Dynamic Range High Dynamic Range (HDR) has become a popular technique for capturing images that would otherwise have burnt-out highlights, no shadow detail, or both. SEE MORE: HDR Photography – set up, shoot and process your first high dynamic range image To achieve true HDR images you need to take at least three shots, one under-exposed, one correctly exposed and one over-exposed. These images are then combined using either the Merge to HDR tool in Photoshop or software such as HDR Efex Pro 2 or Photomatix. READ MORE 77 photography techniques, tips and tricks for taking pictures of anything Shoot Like a Pro: outdoor portrait photography made easy How to shoot a group portrait indoors Camera filters: which type is right for you? Luminosity masks: why raw HDR is the best HDR Best graduated neutral density filters: 6 models tested and rated Rogue Safari review: increase the power of your camera's pop-up flash Feb 9th 2014, 12:00, by jmeyer The Rogue Safari flash modifier is a dazzling boost for your camera’s pop-up flash, but does it live up to all its claims? Your camera’s poor little pop-up flash has always lived in the shadow of a proper flashgun. Thanks to the Rogue Safari it now has the chance to work with up to eight times more oomph. The theory is simple: mount a lens in front of the flash and you'll be able to focus its light into a tighter, brighter beam and increase long-range illumination. The downside is obvious flash fall off when shooting wider than 100mm. But keep things zoomed in and the effect is quite literally brilliant, with a four-stop light increase at 100mm over our camera’s bare flash. That's not quite up there with Rogue's claims, but it's still a hefty boost from such a simple gadget. This is a great accessory – just be sure to close your flash before wrestling the tight-fitting Safari out of its hotshoe mount, unless you fancy a pricy repair bill. Price: £25, $35 Score: 4/5 READ MORE 77 photography techniques, tips and tricks for taking pictures of anything 8 flash photography mistakes every photographer makes Off-camera flash: how to stop fearing your flashgun and take control of lighting What is flash sync: what your flash modes do and how to use them

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