Drum roll

Welcome to issue 148

This issue’s Lightbox gallery is dedicated to the

Pot shots

Garden pro Jason Ingram prunes our apprentice’s camera skills and sows the seeds of improvement

LIGHTBOX

THE 13TH EPSON INTERNATIONAL PANO AWARDS

20 essential tips for... Spring landscapes

Mark Bauer gives some expert advice to help you make the most of the spring, with its changeable weather and the sensation of the landscape coming back to life

Learn to sway a little to change your viewpoint

Being a photographer is all about how you look at the world. Changing your stance can make all the difference… and not just to your images

Nikon Skills

Ingenious recipes for stunning shots

Star trekkin’

Projectone: The Milky Way

A bug’s-eye view

Project three: Macro insects

Clone to perfection

Project four: Affinity Photo

Back in time with style

Project five: Adobe CC

Painting with water colours

Project Six: The big project

HERMEILIO ‘KINO’ AQUINO

He is a fashion photographer, film director, cinematographer and actor. But far from being a jack of all these many trades, Hermeilio Aquino is a proven master of each. Better known as Kino, he reveals his latest ad campaigns to Keith Wilson and why he wants to do more social photography shoots…

Music to my eyes

Rubbing shoulders with rock ’n roll royalty, music photographer Alex Huggan has built a reputation for capturing iconic moments

NIKo PEDIA

The only camera manual you’ll ever need

Colour grade in seconds

Harness the power of the Color Grade tab and enhance images using 56 Looks, which can be refined to taste

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 I’ve bought a used Z 6 body.

PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR 2023

The search for the world’s best Nikon photographer of 2023 continues! Each issue, the monthly N-Photo POTY 2023 photo contest’s top 10 images are selected by the N-Photo team. This issue’s competition has the theme of portrait photography…

WIN! A Nikon Z9

The overall winner of N-Photo’s Photographer of the Year 2023 will receive the grand prize of a Nikon Z 9!

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

Light on the town

Josep Reverendo immortalizes fleeting moments that convey the hustle and bustle of Barcelona, armed with his trusty Nikon Z 5

GearZone

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

New gear

Here’s what caught our eye this month

Yongnuo YN85mm f/1.8 DF DSM £320/$379

This 85mm portrait prime is a lot smarter than the average independent lens

Budget telephoto lenses

When you want big telephoto reach for a small outlay, one of these lenses for Nikon DSLRs and mirrorless bodies should fit the bill

Tokina SZX Super Tele 400mm f/8 Reflex MF £209/$229

A rare mirror/reflex lens, the Tokina packs big telephoto reach into a very compact build

How we test

Combining real-world shooting results with technical lab tests

Nikon AF-P DX 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3G ED £296/$347

It’s fairly inexpensive to buy but the lack of VR can make it a false economy

Distortion levels

Some lenses are better than others

Nikon AF-P DX 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3G ED VR £379/$397

The stabilized version of the DX 70-300mm is a better bet for going steady

A long stretch

How the typical range of focal lengths works out in practice

Nikon Z DX 50-250mm f/4.5-6.3 VR £379/$377

A neat retractable design makes this a really compact and travel-friendly telephoto lens

Nikon AF-P 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E ED VR £629/$597

Nikon has a history of excellent 70-300mm lenses but this one is certainly the best

The X factor

DX format cameras can give you quite an effective boost

Sigma 100-400mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM | C £699/$699

This modern replacement for Sigma’s old 70-300mm zoom adds refinement and reach

Colour fringing

Most of the lenses on test control fringing well

Tamron 70-300mm f/4.5- 6.3 Di III RXD £699/$999

Tamron has reinvented the 70-300mm budget tele genre for full-frame mirrorless

Steady as you go

Optical stabilization can be a boon in telephoto shooting

Tamron 100-400mm f/4.5- 6.3 Di VC USD £799/$799

This F-mount lens for DSLRs gives greater telephoto reach than the Z-mount Tamron

What price a second-hand bargain?

With budgets under greater pressure than ever, here’s a lens from Nikon’s back-catalogue that’s worth seeking out…

The winner is… Nikon AF-P 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E ED VR

It’s a powerful, top-performance telephoto zoom that won’t weigh you down

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

Fix it in the edit

Is image editing ruining photography? Are we spending too much time sat at the computer? Here’s Mike Harris’s hot take...