Welcome to issue 158

The best Nikon images from the Landscape Photographer

This issue’s special contributors…

Iain Afshar PAGE 6 Iain shows our apprentice

Splish splash

Photo tutor Iain Afshar introduces our apprentice to the world of high-speed splash

LIGHTBOX

Our favourite Nikon images from the Landscape Photographer of the Year 2023 competition

Winter wildlife

You won’t catch Andrew Mason hibernating. Inclement weather and freezing temperatures bring additional challenges but dustings of frost and snow, seasonal visitors and gorgeous light can transform your portfolio into a wildlife winter wonderland

GuruShots

We joined up with online photo game GuruShots to print the winning images from the ‘Still Life’ challenge, and here are the winners!

On thin ice

My cheeks are tingling, my feet are on fire and my hands are like ice… so I’m loving my parka

Ingenious recipes for stunning shots

44 Reach for the stars Follow our tried-and-tested

Reach for the stars

Astro aficionado Nigel A Ball shares a triedand-tested technique for shooting star trails

Deck the table

P rojec t two: Fest ive food

Let it snow!

P rojec t three: Win ter landscape s

Whisker wonderland

James Paterson shows you how to transform your photos into stunning Christmas cards with Affinity Photo layers

Auto portrait masking

Discover the face-masking tools in Camera Raw and Lightroom with James Paterson

Ridiculous resolutions

The Swiss village of Spiez on the banks of Lake Thun – with the added detail of a stitched panorama.

Shoot a multi-row panorama

CAPTURE A LANDSCAPE IN A SERIES OF OVERLAPPING SEGMENTS FOR MIND-BLOWING RESOLUTION

Shoot and stitch

1 Shoot extra around edges MULTI-ROW PANORAMAS It

Fix parallax error

MAKE THE PERFECT PANORAMA STITCH BY ROTATING YOUR CAMERA AROUND THE CORRECT AXIS

Find the optical centre

SET UP A SIMPLE EXPERIMENT AT HOME TO FIND THE OPTICAL CENTRE OF EACH OF YOUR LENSES

THE N-PHOTO INTERVIEW

While diving has been part of his life since childhood, Henley Spiers came late to photography. Now he is one of the world’s celebrated underwater photographers.

Meeting the legend

Michel Haddi reminisces on photographing legendary rapper Tupac at the height of his fame, just three years before his untimely death

The only camera manual you’ll ever need...

72 Nikon Know-How Learn to squeeze more light into

See dynamic range in action

The dynamic range of the scene and of your camera are two different things

How to use Active D-Lighting

Balance high-contrast scenes in-camera using exposure and processing together

NIKON KNOW-HOW

Dynamic range problems

Dynamic range vs exposure latitude

Exposure latitude isn’t a feature of the camera or sensor – it depends on the scene’s dynamic range

Dynamic range and ISO

Higher ISOs reduce the degree of dynamic range

JPEG vs Raw

PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE

Ask Matthew...

Our resident Nikon expert Matthew Richards answers your questions and solves your problems. If you have a Nikon-related question, email it to mail@nphotomag.com

Secondhand superstar

Q a big range for my D7100. What would you recommend as a secondhand buy?

PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR 2023

The search for the world’s best Nikon photographer of 2023 is almost at an end! Each issue the monthly N-Photo POTY 2023 photo contest’s top 10 images are selected by the N-Photo team. The final round has the theme of Winter photography...

Readers’ letters

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the mag and all things photographic! You can write to us, message us or share your images in the following ways: mail@nphotomag.com twitter.com/nphotomag facebook.com/nphotomag instagram.com/nphotomag

I’ll be your guide

Andrew Corless went on his first tour group holiday and, despite a few photo-thwarting misgivings, found ways to make it work

GearZone

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

New gear

Here’s what caught our eye this month

Really Right Stuff MC-LS Universal L-Set

£TBA/$140 https://reallyrightstuff.com

Meyer Optik Görlitz Biotar 75mm f/1.5 II

€1399 (approx £1230)/$1399 www.meyer-optik-goerlitz.com

Elinchrom THREE

£979/$999 www.elinchrom.com

Peak Design Camera Cubes V2

From £41/$50 www.peakdesign.com

Nikon Z 135mm f/1.8 S Plena

£2699/$2499 www.nikon.co.uk

Voigtländer D23mm f/1.2 Nokton Z Aspherical

£649/$699 www.voigtlaender.de

GEAR OF THE YEAR 2023

Join us as we roll out the red

BEGINNER / BUDGET

AWARDS 2023 WINNER: PANCAKE PRIME LENS Nikon Z

MID-R ANGE

WINNER: ENTHUSIAST CAMERA Nikon Z f £2299/$1997 (body

PRO/ TOP-SPEC

WINNER: BOKEH LENS Nikon Z 135mm f/1.8 S

Nikon cameras

The current range of Nikon DSLR, Coolpix & Z-series mirrorless cameras

Nikon-fit lenses

Your at-a-glance guide to the current crop of Nikon-fit lenses

Awards season

As NPOTY 2023 draws to an end, Mike Harris provides a few reasons why you might like to enter next year’s comp