This month’s contributors

Helen Bartlett Photographer Working exclusively in

How to get your 28 digital gifts

BONUS SOFTWARE EXTRAS! Turn to page 90 ENTER

Three about-town camera outfit essentials

You’ll want your urban experience to be comfortable, creative and rewarding

Essential investments for life on the street

It pays to think about your kit needs for urban shooting

Perfect examples of urban photography

Three images to get you thinking about how to shoot the streets

Shoot photos like a pro

Embrace urban shooting and you’ll never run out of ideas

Welcome

As seen on our front cover, his pictures

Circuit breakers

We take a reader trackside at the Historic Masters Festival, under the creative eye of Michal Pospisil

Double trouble

Learn how to create double exposure images in-camera, with Wendy Evans

Surf’s up!

Head for the beach to capture high-speed surfing action shots

Coining it in

Wendy Evans spends some time capturing the currency of yesteryear

Smoke and mirrors

Discover how to create interesting abstract images, with Wendy Evans

Summer festival fun

Wendy Evans heads to an outdoor event armed with a camera and just one lens

Sealing the deal

If you head down to the coast today, you’re sure to find something big and blubbery, as Wendy Evans discovers

How to photograph a purple patch

Make the most of lavender season with these top tips from Wendy Evans

Mastering Composition: principles and rules

Richard Garvey-Williams reveals the secrets of composition in this series of extracts from his new book

A fairy in the garden

Sharron Hill explains how she used her drone to take a fantasy portrait shot

Portraits challenge

Send us your best shot of people and groups in any setting (except sports)

MASTER THE ART OF MACRO

Learn how to shoot incredible close-up photographs of insects in the field with your expert guide, macro maestro Tony North

PART 1 FIELDCRAFT

Understanding your subject is the key to capturing great images

PART 2 FOCUSING AND SHARPNESS

Master the challenges of macro’s reduced depth of field

PART 3 FOCUS STACKING

If a narrow aperture doesn’t achieve the required sharpness, try focus bracketing

PART 4 EXPOSURE

When fast shutter speeds are required, choice of ISO and aperture are important

PART 5 COMPOSITION

Once you’ve mastered the technical aspects, it’s time to concentrate on the art of macro

CAMERA CLINIC

Master the art of modern photography

Get the knowledge

No need to take the kitchen sink on your urban shoots

What to shoot and why

Nine ideas and techniques to inspire your urban journey

Pros and cons Location, location…

Some dos and don’ts when pounding the streets

Camera skills High-resolution shot mode

Some cameras offer the ability to super-size image files – here’s how it works

Camera tech Converging verticals

Buildings toppling over backwards looks dramatic but it might not be the effect you want

Software skills Remove distractions painlessly

Improve your shots with a mouse click or

Pro tip Settings for success

Make sure you’re correctly set up for shooting

MEET YOUR TRAINERS

Edit like a pro with their expert insights

Automatic people removal is here

Fix unwanted photobombers and remove background clutter, with James Paterson

Enhance the Northern Lights

Give your aurora shots a boost in Lightroom, with Sean McCormack

Hue, saturation and colour effects

Let’s play with Photoshop’s hue, saturation and colour tools, says James Abbott, for four effects that work with most images

Add summer vibes

Let the sun shine on your summer portraits, with Wendy Evans and Affinity Photo 2

Add some colour in DxO PhotoLab 8

In this fourth part of our guide to PhotoLab, Wendy Evans looks at the colour options

23 Actions, presets, profiles and gradients

THIS MONTH’S BONUS SOFTWARE EXTRAS

Guru Shorts

TOP PHOTOGRAPHER Bruno Ribeiro, Portugal

Ask Matthew...

Trepidation about buying a tripod? Losing sleep over Lightroom substitutes? Send your technique and camera questions to digitalcamera@futurenet.com

Second-hand superstar

This optically stabilised Tamron lens was discontinued in May 2020 but still makes a great secondhand buy for DLSRs

The art of seeing

Benedict Brain captures a chance encounter with a flying hat in the Namibian desert

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Hotshots

Our selection of images from the category winners of The Event Photography Awards 2025

OM System OM-5 Mark II

Outdoor photography-optimised body gets a range of upgrades, including a dedicated computational photography button for accessing its cutting-edge tech

Focal point

Rounding up what’s new and exciting

Fujifilm X-E5

Dubbed ‘an interchangeable-lens X100VI’, the brand’s latest release revives a product line discontinued in 2023

Sigma 17-40mm F1.8 DC Art

With its fast constant aperture, this new APS-C zoom could be a game-changer

Fujinon XF23mm F2.8 R WR

Ultra-compact prime is just 23mm long and suits a wide range of genres

NBBH tripod heads launched by Benro

First previewed at The Photography & Video Show in March, three sizes are available

Behind the lens

CHANTAL PINZI Documentary photographer www.chantalpinzi.com

Scanning ahead…

With no new hardware updates, has Sony’s hunger for challenge waned, asks Jon Devo

Kit Zone

New gear, buying tips and the world’s toughest tests

Helen Bartlett

The leading family photographer discusses her long-term love of black and white photography with Niall Hampton

Readers’ letters

Burning question about the future of photography? Want to discuss a feature or a tutorial in the magazine? Then send us your letters and photos

What the f-stop?

How much do you really know about photography? Test yourself to the max every issue with our tricky trivia quiz!

OM System OM-3

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Canon PowerShot V1

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Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 LAB

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DxO PureRAW 5

£110/$120 (new); £70/$80 (upgrade)