N-Photo: the Nikon magazine

Tony North PAGE 6 Macro maestro Tony teaches our apprentice how to capture creative close-ups of dragonflies and damselflies in the wild. Leon Neal PAGE 26 Getty Images’ editorial photographer Leon shares how you can capture the types of images that make the headlines. Agorastos Papatsanis PAGE 58 N-Photo interviewee Agorastos proves to be a fun guy, as he tells how he cooked up a career shooting mushrooms and fungi. Tracey Welch PAGE 66 Barge-dweller Tracey tells of her photo assignment to document the characters who live out their lives on Britain’s waterways. Soumyadeep Mukherjee PAGE 84 Astrophotographer and N-Photo reader Soumyadeep heads to the ultimate dark-sky area to capture the heavens above. Matthew Richards PAGE 94 Chief tester Matthew evaluates every Z-series camera, to help you decide which is the best fit for you and the stuff you shoot.…

This is the part of the magazine where I get to say hello, but this issue it’s sadly also a goodbye. After 13 years of publication, you are holding in your hands the very last issue of N-Photo. I’ve been at the helm for seven of those years, having taken over the editorship from issue 77 – a total of 92 issues, making me the longest-standing head honcho of the magazine. But hopefully we’re going out with a bit of a bang. Back in my October 2017 debut issue, we unveiled the brand-new Nikon D850, still regarded as the finest DSLR ever made. But times have changed; the D850 is still on sale, but Nikon has since fully embraced mirrorless with its groundbreaking Z-series range and, to that end, in this…

THE APPRENTICE NAME: Sonia Dutton CAMERA: Nikon Z 6II Retired teacher Sonia always enjoyed taking family snaps, but when her daughter encouraged her to buy a ‘proper’ camera and join a camera club, her love for photography blossomed into a full-blown passion. She recently made the jump to mirrorless by picking up a Nikon Z 6II, but still keeps her trusty D850 in reserve. Flower photography is her main area of expertise, so she’s looking forward to seeing how those skills transfer over to insect photography. THE PRO NAME: Tony North CAMERA: Nikon D500 Manchester-based Tony is a multi-award-winning photographer, including N-Photo’s Photographer of the Year 2023. While his creativity knows no bounds, he has a penchant for macro and landscapes. His background in teaching has made him a successful photography workshop leader and speaker, and he’s…

1 CAMERA SETTINGS Tony says… Faster shutter speeds mitigate exaggerated movements at high magnifications. Narrow apertures increase inherently shallow depths of field. And modern Nikons are great in low light. Pair this with AI noise-reduction software and previously unusable ISOs are now standard fare. 2 ZOOM, ZOOM, ZOOM! Tony says… Super-shallow depths of field and the prevalence of camera shake when working at high magnifications makes it very easy to capture soft images. I always zoom into Live View when focusing, as well as the Playback screen following image capture to check critical sharpness. 3 MANUAL VS AUTO Tony says… A decade or so ago you’d avoid using autofocus at all costs. But advancements in AF technology in both cameras and lenses has made close-up AF much more reliable. I still use manual focus, but…

1 LOOKIN’ TONED Tony says… I’ll identify an image or stacking sequence, perform any lens corrections and make some basic tonal adjustments in Adobe Lightroom. I avoid too much contrast when editing delicate subjects. Greens can dominate the frame, so I might also selectively reduce saturation in the Color Mixer. 2 COME ON FEEL DENOISE Tony says… I use Topaz DeNoise AI to reduce noise, which I think works better than Adobe’s Denoise feature. I tend to use the Clear setting and will set the Remove Noise option to the lowest suitable setting. At high settings more noise is removed, but you will start to lose detail as well. 3 HOUSE BLEND Tony says… I switch between Helicon Focus and Adobe Photoshop when blending focus-stacked sequences. I find the latter’s ability to align images superior,…

BLUE BUTTERFLIES This was taken in a field near Gotse Delchev, Bulgaria. The flower is called perennial knawel; it seemed ideal for the two butterflies. The blue blobs in the background are viper’s-bugloss flowers, which echo the blue of the insects. BLACK DARTER This is a female black darter, shot at Red Moss, near Bolton. I positioned the insect in front of some heather, backlit by the sun, to get the colourful bokeh. I took a variety of shots, but this is my favourite. To me, dragonflies look best with their wonderful wings spread out. GROOVED BONNETS When shooting misty woodland in Macclesfield Forest, I spotted some fungi growing on a stump. I set my tripod low, focus-bracketed the subject, and took a shot of the background. The combination of misty landscape and close-up fungi…