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At the time of writing, with a third of the world in some sort of lockdown and the situation liable to change at any time, Photography News asked leading imaging brands about their activities, thinking, customer care strategies and future plans during this unprecedented period Industry lockdown initiatives
EDITOR’S LETTER WILL CHEUNG
The world is a very different place from when we last met. In my pre-lockdown editorial last month I said: ‘…and now the world is struggling to come to terms with coronavirus; who knows what the future holds for travel, trade and life itself ?’ My colleagues thought I was being doom-laden, but here we are in a situation no one could have predicted back in early March: where staying at home is the right thing to do and there’s no date when lockdown measures will be relaxed. And who knows what the world will look like when the crisis is over? It’s at this time of year that photo magazines are generally full of which landscape techniques to try, which great locations to visit and what events you can look forward to photographing. Well, all that is out of the question right now, but if you are short of inspiration, check out our Stay Home feature in this issue. In a bizarre way, it was rather fun putting it together. My favourite location is now the kitchen. It’s not an especially nice or well-appointed kitchen, nor is it warm and equipped with a TV, but it’s my studio. I’ve never been a good still-life or tabletop photographer and I used to be very envious of photographers who could conjure up great images out of nothing more than stale cheese, a few candles and an empty Mateus Rosé bottle. But in past few weeks, the evenings spent messing around in my studio have flown by. Creating patterns with food colouring is my current favourite technique, and trying to capture water droplets is fun, too. I had been messing around with water droplets for a few months pre-virus and have just bought some xanthan gum and guar gum – to thicken water – which was delivered the other day. In fact, the only face-to-face contact I have had in the past three weeks is with the courier when we indulge in a non-contact doorstep quickstep – followed by a thorough hand washing, of course. Shooting for this feature has also been keeping me up very late. We had three consecutive clear nights, so I balanced my Nikon on the window ledge of my back bedroom and shot the stars. I can’t recall the last time I used the camera’s intervalometer
and getting my head around it took a while. My plan was to create star trails by stacking lots of images shot with relatively short exposures, not take one very long exposure, thus avoiding digital noise and burnt-out bright lights. So with the camera’s interval timer, I set 250/300/450 shots with an exposure of 10secs at ISO 800. Next, I set an interval of 3seconds between each shot. I started the camera and went back to the TV for an hour or so. I later checked the camera and I found I had only a fraction of the shots I should have had. Hmm, user error I thought, so I changed things and tried several times with the same result. Anyway, by the time the third night arrived I’d remembered what I’d done in the past with interval timers, in-camera and on a remote release, for long exposures. To get what I wanted in my example above was not to set an interval of 3secs, which to my mind seemed logical (ie the interval between one shot ending and the next one starting), but you had to set 13secs so a shot was taken every 13 seconds – 10secs actual exposure and 3secs the gap in between shots. Obvious really, but watch for this if you give the technique a try. Check out this month’s Stay Home feature for the final result, and a bunch of other tips to keep you busy at this time. In other news, the first Photography News Podcast is available to enjoy – actually, depending on when you read this, episode two should be up, too. Episode one features me and my two long-time photography colleagues, Roger Payne and Kingsley Singleton, mulling over (among other things) our favourite cameras and explaining what photographic project we have got to keep us busy during lockdown. It’s a great listen, trust me, and to check it out, please go to photographynews.co.uk – and it’s free! Finally, this issue has fewer pages than normal. This, of course, is a result of the pandemic and normal service will be resumed as soon as the situation allows. Meanwhile, the next issue of Photography News will be available from 19 May. Until then, all the best and stay home – until the advice changes.
components. With safety and wellbeing pivotal, we have taken steps to limit the spread of the virus by reducing our service operations. Our service department, along with the rest of Nikon Northern Europe, will also be working away from the office during this time in order to limit the risk of infection. This will effectively halt the regular repair service we provide. With this in mind, we ask customers not to send equipment to us while we take these precautionary measures, as we cannot yet say when we will be able to resume ordinary
service levels. Calls and emails will be handled as usual and we will continue to update customers as the situation develops. It’s fair to say these are challenging times, but we want to ensure our customers, employees and the wider photographic community stay motivated and inspired. We have recently launched #CreateYourLight to encourage photographers and photography enthusiasts to pick up their cameras and share their own unique
NIKON UK In response to Covid-19, Nikon is putting the health and safety of customers and colleagues first and will continue to monitor the situation in line with government guidelines. UK operations have moved to remote working and this was tested as early as February to prepare for lockdown. We fully intend to operate business as usual. Naturally, there are some delays to the production and delivery of new product lines due to restricted air travel – this has limited the delivery of crucial
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Big test: Olympus OM-DE-M1 Mark III page 18 Olympus’ popular pro camera gets a makeover with an improved in-body image stabiliser, a new autofocus system and a modified control layout that includes the arrival of a focus joystick Indoor optics: buyers’ guide page 22 Essential kit for shooting the
News
page 4
What are the imaging industry’s leading players offering during the lockdown? Prize wordsearch page 5 Solve our puzzle and you could win a Samsung EVO Plus 256GB microSDXC card Club news How two camera clubs have successfully taken to virtual meetings to keep members active and engaged page 11
Stay home
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Inspiration to keep your photography moving forward in these challenging times Make the Switch page 15 PN reader Paul Burwood is the latest to take up our exclusive offer of a free-two week loan of a Fujifilmmirrorless system
great indoors First tests
Followus:
page 24 Join us for our latest foray into the world of imaging hardware
@photonewsPN @photonewsPN
@photonewsPN
Issue 76 | Photography News 3
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