N-Photo: the Nikon magazine

Johnny Fenn PAGE 6 Johnny takes our apprentice onto a Gurkha army base to shoot characterful environmental portraits of men in uniform. Dan Mold PAGE 26 Raw. What is it good for? Quite a lot, actually – and Dan’s mission is to make you a Raw-processing convert with his 10-step guide. Shirlaine Forrest PAGE 60 Rock, fashion and roller derby photographer Shirlaine tells why she never goes to a gig without sweets in the N-Photo interview. Andy Saunders PAGE 68 Space fan Andy tells how he painstakingly restored decades-old Apollo moon mission prints to bring them back to life. Melinda McIntyre PAGE 72 Super-creative N-Photo reader Melinda mixes her photographs with other media for images with real meaning behind them. Matthew Richards PAGE 100 Matthew puts eight top A4, A3, A3+ and A2 photo printers through their paces for creating wall-dominating masterpieces. SUBSCRIBE TO N-PHOTO & GET 3…

In these cold winter months, you could be forgiven for staying in the comfort of your home, postponing photography outings for more clement times. But it’s also the ideal time to brush up on your photo-editing skills, and to embrace the flexibility that Raw has to offer. It’s not as complex as you might think, and for our lead feature Dan Mold has penned a guide to the 10 essential edits for producing punch-packed pics. It’s also a great time of year to bring your photos off the hard drive and onto the wall. To that end, in this issue’s Big Test we put eight top photo printers through their paces, from A4 models, through A3 and A3+ printers, to one capable of massive A2 prints. We also check out Nikon’s…

THE PRO NAME: Johnny Fenn CAMERA: Nikon Z 7II Johnny started out as a local newspaper photographer before joining the British Army, where he spent much of his 25-year career with the Gurkhas. He continued with his passion as an aside, running camera clubs for fellow soldiers, and went pro on leaving the Army 11 years ago. These days he undertakes shoots for commercial clients and runs photo workshops to Nepal and other countries with his company PhotoJourney, see: https://photojourney.co.uk THE APPRENTICE NAME: Tonya Hawkins CAMERA: Nikon D810 Tonya is from Westbury, Wiltshire, and since picking up a camera for the first time less than a year ago, has been aspiring to become a portrait photographer, taking a place on a Government Kickstart Scheme to learn the ropes. She’s had plenty of practice in a studio setting…

UNDEREXPOSE Johnny says… I always shoot in Manual exposure mode, and was pleased to see that Tonya was too. I generally underexpose by a stop or two for the background, then use my strobes to light the subject. This helps provide separation and lift them from their surroundings. HIGH-SPEED SYNC Johnny says… Shooting outdoors means that the shutter speed will often be faster than the flash sync speed (1/250 sec on Tonya’s D810). Engaging Auto FP instructs the flash to fire a series of pulses for the duration of the shutter opening, rather than a single burst, for even illumination. FLASH POWER Johnny says… While the in-camera settings determine the exposure for the background, it’s the power of the strobes that light the subject. You can control the intensity of the light in two ways:…

ADD SOME GRIT Johnny says… The editing has to match the context of the image. The Clarity slider has been overused in recent years, but this image required the ‘grittiness’ that the Clarity slider adds. COLOUR BALANCE Johnny says… I often use Auto white balance, but when shooting indoors you need to watch colour balance carefully. There was a lot of ‘brown’ reflected by the table, so I changed the colour balance to a ‘cooler’ level. BRING BACK DETAIL Johnny says… The sky here was very grey and had little detail. But shooting the subject outside with flash allowed me to bring the highlights right down to reveal some sky detail without harming the subject lighting.…

SIKLES When I am travelling in remote locations, I don’t want my portraits to be limited by the ‘golden hour’, so throughout the day I keep a lookout for door frames or roofs that create shadow, while allowing the sunlight to bounce from the floor in front of the subject onto their face. BARPAK Travel portraits are often random and unexpected. Unless shooting something specific, I’ll always have my 70-200mm ready and set at f/2.8. Fast composing is essential. The wonderful bokeh created at f/2.8 and 200mm allows me to easily separate the subject and background. LIDL HQ In my commercial work, I’m always looking for good light. Here, at Lidl HQ, I found a light spot at the entrance and arranged a relaxed group portrait. This gives a lively, fun and energetic feel –…