Nikon Advanced NEW
● Get more from your
Nikon SLR camera
Handbook Expert guides to improve your photography
● Step-by-step tutorials ● Learn to master flash
and filters
● Creative projects to try
– indoors and out
● Pro masterclasses
228
second edition
Digital Edition
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pages of expert advice
Step-by-step workshops • Free video guides • Pro tips and tricks
Welcome to
Nikon
Advanced Handbook The Nikon Advanced Handbook is your 228-page guide to using your Nikon DSLR in more exciting ways. Now that you’ve mastered the basics of photography, it’s time to stretch yourself. Inside you’ll find all you need to know to really feel inspired and confident to take amazing photographs of a range of subjects. Over the following pages you’ll discover how to improve and expand your repertoire of camera techniques – from taking slow shutter photos with ND filters to mastering your camera’s histogram. See how to use a range of camera settings, tools and accessories, including a whole section dedicated to flash. Follow our experts’ tips for shooting smooth seascapes, vivid action, interesting macro images, making movies and more. We even guide you through setting up your own portrait studio and taking professional-quality wedding photographs. There are also free video guides, which you’ll find on FileSilo. We hope you enjoy reading this Nikon Advanced Handbook and it helps you to start improving your Nikon DSLR setup and techniques today!
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Editorial Editor Rebecca Greig Assistant Designer Madelene King Editor in Chief Jon White Senior Art Editor Andy Downes All copyrights and trademarks are recognised and respected Advertising Media packs are available on request Commercial Director Clare Dove clare.dove@futurenet.com International International Licensing Director Matt Ellis matt.ellis@futurenet.com Circulation Head of Newstrade Tim Mathers Production Head of Production Mark Constance Production Project Manager Clare Scott Advertising Production Manager Joanne Crosby Digital Editions Controller Jason Hudson Production Managers Keely Miller, Nola Cokely, Vivienne Calvert, Fran Twentyman Management Chief Operations Officer Aaron Asadi Commercial Finance Director Dan Jotcham Editorial Director Paul Newman Head of Art & Design Greg Whitaker Printed by William Gibbons, 26 Planetary Road, Willenhall, West Midlands, WV13 3XT Distributed by Marketforce, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5HU www.marketforce.co.uk Tel: 0203 787 9060 Nikon Advanced Handbook Second Edition Š 2018 Future Publishing Limited Nikon is a trademark of the Nikon Corporation. We are committed to only using magazine paper which is derived from responsibly managed, certified forestry and chlorine-free manufacture. The paper in this magazine was sourced and produced from sustainable managed forests, conforming to strict environmental and socioeconomic standards. The manufacturing paper mill holds full FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certification and accreditation All contents Š 2018 Future Publishing Limited or published under licence. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. You are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/services referred to in this publication. Apps and websites mentioned in this publication are not under our control. We are not responsible for their contents or any other changes or updates to them. This magazine is fully independent and not affiliated in any way with the companies mentioned herein.
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CONTENTS Outdoor Camera Skills Broaden your horizons
10
Say hi to a bluer sky!
14
Control bright skies
16
Shoot sunsets successfully
18
Take it slow with seascapes
22
How to get your landscapes sharp
26
Better bird shots
30
Get multiple exposures
33
Shoot wide open
34
Shoot the Northern lights
36
Shoot movies
40
Create a time-lapse
44
Discover the drama of black and white
46
Automate your ISO
49
Use histograms for perfect exposures
50
Play with fire!
54
Shoot the breeze
56
Take things steady
58
Indoor Photo Projects
6
Spin your own Spirograph effect
62
Backlight your macro
67
Shoot super-sharp close-ups
68
Make a splash with high-speed flash
70
Go crazy with colour
75
Get started with fine-art nudes
76
Magnify your subject
80
Set the mode for U!
82
Nikon Advanced Handbook
22 98
100
118
Master Flash
18
Fill faces with flash
86
What is Auto FP?
88
CTO is go!
89
Spotlight on snoots
90
Go slow with flash
92
Perfect the strobist look
94
Make bounce flash easy
96
Ring flowers with light
98
Shoot stunning studio portraits
100
Put speed into a shot
106
Freeze action with flash
108
The pop-up way to strobist drama
110
Arty lighting with gels
112
Shoot a shadow portrait
114
Photography Masterclasses
67
Close encounters of the natural kind
118
Whatever the weather
130
Take it real slow
142
Welcome to shooting stars
154
The actor’s portfolio
164
Food glorious food
174
Weddings
186
Creative Photography Degrees of separation
200
Create a look
206
Really change viewpoint
212
Become a colourist
218
Free on FileSilo 206
How to view your free assets
226
Nikon Advanced Handbook
7
Grab your Nikon gear, embrace the elements, and take your outdoor photography to the next level with our step-by-step tutorials. In this section we have included essential tips that will help improve your landscape shots. We’ll teach you how to master the art of stunning seacapes, capture a beautifully blue sky as well as tips on how to photograph sunsets sucessfully. Harness the power of your Nikon DSLR and discover how to use the histogram in order to take the perfect exposure and automate your ISO to save yourself time when out shooting. Learn what it takes to shoot movies, time-lapse sequences, multiple exposures and so much more!
8
Nikon Advanced Handbook
Broaden your horizons
10
Say hi to a bluer sky!
14
Control bright skies
16
Shoot sunsets successfully
18
Take it slow with seascapes
22
How to get your landscapes sharp
26
Better bird shots
30
Get multiple exposures
33
Shoot wide open
34
Shoot the Northern lights
36
Shoot movies
40
Create a time-lapse
44
Discover the drama of black and white
46
Automate your ISO
49
Use histograms for perfect exposure
50
Play with fire!
54
Shoot the breeze
56
Take things steady
58
Nikon Advanced Handbook
9
Outdoor camera skills
the mission ■ Shoot and stitch panoramic images
time needed ■ 2 hours
Kit needed ■ Nikon DSLR ■ Tripod with a three-way head ■ Photoshop Elements
10
Nikon Advanced Handbook
Broaden your horizons
free assets on filesilo See page 226 for more information
You don’t need much special kit to capture amazing panoramic images, as we reveal in this look at shooting and stitching a landscape shot Panoramic images are a great way to showcase spectacular, sweeping landscapes. By shooting a series of overlapping images and combining them on your computer, you can take in a much wider angle of view. This technique also means you don’t need an expensive wide-angle lens – the 18-55mm lens that comes with most Nikon DSLRs is fine. This ‘stitching’ technique is much better than taking a wide-angle shot and simply cropping it, because it
produces a picture with a much higher resolution. Stitching photos together in this way might sound complicated, but it’s not. All you need is a tripod (to keep the camera level as you take your sequence of shots) and the right software. We’ve used Photoshop Elements for this tutorial because it has a Photomerge Panorama tool that makes combining images really easy. If you’ve ever tried lining up images manually, you’ll know there are all sorts of issues with perspective and
distortion. Thankfully, Photomerge resolves these problems for you, producing seamless panoramas automatically. You may need to crop off a few untidy edges, but the process needn’t take more than a few minutes. Even though shooting panoramas is straightforward, there are still a few things you need to do to make sure that you get the best results. Read on to find out how to get your shots and combine them in Elements.
Outdoor camera skills
By shooting a series of overlapping images and combining them on your computer, you can take in a wider angle of view
Step by step Create a convincing panorama If you shoot your initial photographs in the right way, the rest is easy! There are two stages to creating panoramic images. The first stage is to take the series of overlapping shots that are going to be stitched together in Elements. This is the most important phase because Photoshop needs the right raw materials to work with. If your starting shots are misaligned or show colour or brightness shifts, the final panorama will look odd. The second stage is to stitch the images together in Elements. This is straightforward, though you’ll need to pay attention to the initial settings.
01 Get your tripod level
First, you need to get your tripod level. You can check this by loosening the horizontal pan axis and rotating the camera as you look through the viewfinder. You need to make sure the horizon stays level from one side of your planned panorama to the other. Alternatively, if your tripod has a spirit level built into the base, you can use that.
QUICK TIP! You can shoot handheld, but the risk of misalignment is higher, so you might have to crop later on
02 Switch to manual
Now switch everything to manual. In everyday photography, it doesn’t matter too much if the camera changes the colour balance or focus settings between shots. Here, it’s critical that the settings are identical for each frame. If they aren’t, you might get unwanted colour and brightness shifts across the panorama when it’s stitched together.
Nikon Advanced Handbook
11
Outdoor camera skills
You can still get a really ‘wide’ view with just two frames
ASPECT RATIOS ■ Don’t get greedy with panoramas! It’s true that the more shots you take, the wider your panorama will be, but that doesn’t always make the picture better. It’s all about aspect ratio, and super-wide panoramas have an extreme ‘letterbox’ format that’s impossible to print and makes details look small and insignificant. Two-frame panoramas are great for widescreen proportions that suit 16:9 TV screens or monitors – the image on the previous page has the perfect proportions for the subject and is built from just two frames. Threeor four-frame panoramas, meanwhile, are more than enough to simulate the aspect ratios of most panoramic cameras.
03 Play with settings
04 Focus manually
06 Launch Photomerge
07 Pick your panorama
Choose a small aperture, then pan the camera across the scene, adjusting the shutter speed while checking the exposure indicator to find a good overall exposure. Pay attention to the sky to avoid burned-out areas. Now pick a Manual White Balance preset, such as Direct Sunlight.
On your computer, launch Elements, open all the shots in your sequence and select File > New > Photomerge Panorama. In the full version of Photoshop, use File > Automate Photomerge. The process is the same from here on, as are the panorama options in the next step.
Use autofocus to focus on your subject, then slide the switch on the side of the lens to focus manually. Make sure you don’t just turn the focus ring as far as it will go and assume that’s infinity – some lenses, such as the Nikon 18-55mm, will actually focus past infinity.
Under Source Files, click Add Open Files. On the left, in the Layout area, select Cylindrical. This creates the panorama inside a virtual cylinder, which is best for landscapes. The Auto and Perspective options are more optically correct but create a ‘bow tie’ shape that requires a lot of cropping.
Key Skill Use a panoramic head If you want to take panoramas to the next level, you need one of these Our walkthrough works perfectly well with subjects that are some distance from the camera, such as landscapes, but if you’ve got objects up close in the foreground, you can run into problems with parallax. Every time you take a shot, the object is in a slightly different position relative to the background, and this can cause problems in the stitching phase. The solution is to make sure the camera rotates around the optical centre of the lens, and for this you need a panoramic head, such as this Manfrotto 303.
12
Nikon Advanced Handbook
Set your position
The panoramic head has two sliding plates, which are arranged at 90 degrees. These are used to adjust the camera position. First, the camera needs to be moved sideways so the lens lines up with the head’s centre of rotation. You can use the second sliding plate as your guide since this is centred on the tripod head anyway.
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