Welcome

Peter Travers Editor As we all deal with

HOME ALONE!

Discover how to take brilliant and varied creative close-up photos at home with our Apprentice and ace Canon pro Damian Waters

TECHNIQUE ASSESSMENT

Damian helped PhotoPlus Apprentice Helen get her camera set up for creative shots

THREE OF DAMIAN’S ARTISTIC INDOOR PHOTOS

Damian gets up close and personal with his incredible portfolio of tiny wonders

SHOT OF THE DAY!

Lens Canon 50mm EF f/1.4 USM Exposure 1/5

Waterfall of the gods

Goðafoss Waterfall, Iceland. 11:22am. 12 December 2012

NIGHT PHOTO TECHNIQUES

YOUR ULTIMATE GUIDE

ARCHITECTURE

Discover how to capture buildings and abstract architecture after dark

SHOOTING STARS

Clear winter nights are perfect for getting creative with the sky at night

CITIES AT NIGHT

How to bring the city to life with striking night photos

PAINTING WITH LIGHT

Learn to create fantastic scenes at night by painting with torches and Speedlites

Against all odds

Photo essays from PhotoPlus readers and professional photographers alike

Reflecting on self

Model and photographer, Tamara, pushed herself to keep being creative with her camera at home during lockdown last year

TIMO STAMMBERGER

For years, animal rights photography has received scant coverage by the mainstream media, but Timo Stammberger tells Keith Wilson why animal photojournalism is now starting to make an impression…

CELEBRITY BACKERS

STORY BEHIND THE SHOT

FOCUSPOINT

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the magazine and all things photographic! Email us at p photoplus@futurenet.com

Cast colour shadows

James Paterson splits shadows into bold colours with a lighting trick

THE SET-UP SHADOW PLAY

PROJECT 1

STEP BY STEP TINTED SHADOWS

PROJECT 1

STEP BY STEP ENHANCE YOUR COLOURS

Boost the shadows with these simple colour tricks in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop

TOP TIPS ADDITIVE & SUBTRACTIVE COLOUR MIXING

Two kinds of colour mixing combine to create our vibrant shadows, but how does this work?

Taking photos of paintings

PROJECT 2

STEP BY STEP PERFECT IMAGES OF PAINTINGS

Set up a home studio to capture accurate and colour-correct images of paintings

Perfect skin tones

Fashion photographer Amanda Thomas shows how to light dark skin like a pro

GET SET UP TO CAPTURE BETTER PORTRAITS

Discover subtle changes you can make to your lighting to get the best results from models with dark skin tones

Freeze your props for super cool shots

PROJECT 4

STEP BY STEP A WINTRY STILL LIFE AT HOME

Use some everyday household items to create some frosty still life scenes this winter

It’s all a bit of a blur

PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS

HOW TO BLUR BACKGROUNDS EASILY IN ELEMENTS

Use Photoshop Elements to create shallow depth of field effects in a few short clicks

Photoshop fantasy worlds

James Paterson crafts an epic cinematic fantasy composite image with a range of images using Photoshop’s clever montage tools

STEP BY STEP CREATE A FANTASY SNOWSCAPE

Combine four photos into one incredible scene using selections, masks and colour controls

Global edits

AFFINITY PHOTO

STEP BY STEP CREATE 3D ORBS IN AFFINITY

Use shape tools and gradients to make a surreal scene in Affinity Photo

Removing sensor dust spots

How to clean up your images with DPP and your camera’s dust removal and stamp tools

STEP BY STEP HOW TO CLEAN UP DUST SPOTS

Eliminate unsightly dust spots with Canon DPP’s handy Dust Delete Data feature

Going black & white

Tune your Canon camera for monochrome images

Mono image filter effects

FILTER FINESSE

Quick mono toning

Enhance the mood with a wash of colour

Get a softer or harder look

Give your JPEGs an edge by changing the level of contrast

The ins and outs of shooting Raw

Set the camera to Monochrome to get an accurate preview of what shots can look like

Converting Raw files to black and white

Use image-editing software tools to enhance your Raws (and even your JPEGs)

School tip Viewfinder warning

Make sure you never shoot mono by mistake

EOSS.O.S

Our technical guru is here to help. No Canon conundrum is too big or small. Get in touch today at EOSSOS@futurenet.com

Switching from Windows to Apple

What do you need to know when considering a switch of computer systems from PC to Mac

GEAR UPDATE

Our round-up of the latest digital photography must-haves

COMPARISON TABLE

MIRRORLESS CAMERAS

With prices ranging from a couple of hundred to a few thousand, Canon has an EOS camera to suit everyone, from the complete beginner to most demanding pro…

PhotoPlus BUYERS’ GUIDE

With more than 190 lenses for Canon EOS cameras, picking the best for the job can be a minefield. Here’s the lowdown!

CANON RF 85mm F2 Macro IS STM

Are you ready for your close-up? This lens takes the old concept of a ‘portrait macro’ and elevates it to a new level

FAST TELE ZOOMS

Take the standard zoom lens off your camera and the chances are you’ll be putting a telephoto zoom on. Here’s our pick of the very best fast tele zooms…

CANON EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III USM £2149/$2099

It’s hard to spot the difference in Canon’s latest flagship EF 70-200mm zoom lens

HOW WE TEST

We combine real-world shooting results with rigorous lab testing to arrive at our overall ratings

CANON EF 70-200mm f/4L IS II USM £1309/$1299

It drops an f-stop but gains a veritable barrage of updates compared with its bigger f/2.8 sibling

DISTORTION

Distortion is fairly minimal in all of the lenses on test

CANON RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM £2659/$2699

Many of Canon’s L-series RF lenses are quite big and heavy, but the RF 70-200mm bucks the trend

GOING THE DISTANCE

Don’t limit yourself to the classic 70-200mm range

SIGMA 50-100mm f/1.8 DC HSM | A £949/$1099

Sigma’s telephoto zoom for APS-C format cameras is super-speedy, at least in terms of aperture rating

SIGMA 70-200mm f/2.8 DG OS HSM | S £1179/$1379

Bigger and better but not much pricier, Sigma’s latest 70-200mm f/2.8 telephoto zoom is hard to resist

SHARPNESS AND BLUR

Quality of blur is also important in your shots

SIGMA 120-300mm f/2.8 DG OS HSM | S £2699/$3599

Upscaling the telephoto reach comes at a cost, but this Sigma is still a lot of lens for the money

COLOUR FRINGING

Minimize chromatic aberrations with these

TAMRON SP 70-200mm f/2.8 DI VC USD G2 £1249/ $1299

The second-generation Tamron is much improved with some significant updates

EXTEND YOUR REACH

All but one of the lenses here are compatible with extenders, for stretching your reach

TAMRON 70-210mm f/4 DI VC USD £549/$599

Tamron’s new f/4 lens keeps things simple and drives down the price down

SUPERSIZED TELEPHOTOS

For greater reach and optimum performance, it pays to buy the right tool for the job

THE WINNER IS... SIGMA 70-200mm f/2.8 DG OS HSM | S

Despite tough new Canon RF competition, Sigma’s fast tele zoom stays out in front

DSLR CAMERAS

With prices ranging from a couple of hundred to a few thousand, Canon has an EOS camera to suit everyone, from the complete beginner to most demanding pro…