LensCulture street photography awards

I wrote about the awards season and missed this one. Thanks to The Guardian I was alerted to these rather excellent images. I don’t know anything about the organisers LensCulture except this street photography award. I think you only have to look at these images to wonder why you don’t pick up your camera and head to the streets.

From intimate personal narratives to teeming markets and the world from a dog’s perspective, the LensCulture street photography awards celebrate the explosion in popularity of the form over the past decade

Grace and elegance emerge from chaos in this shot of an old man feeding pigeons Photograph: Alexandre Grand

Taken on the afternoon of 23 July 2016 at the Tongi railway station in Gazipur, Bangladesh. ‘I arrived to shoot in the early morning and waited. It was raining heavily. As a train from Dhaka reached the platform, I suddenly noticed a pair of curious eyes looking at me through the window, while on the left, someone had opened a black umbrella. The mist on the glass and that piercing gaze created a dreamy environment filled with questions’ Photograph: moin/Moin Ahmed

 

Diamond Days is an exploration of the commonplace with a playful touch, a sense of joy and slight unease Photograph: Manuel Armenis

An exploration of the world of pet parents, from a dog’s-eye view Photograph: Dougie Wallace

‘One morning in 2016, on a tube journey into central London, I looked up to see a lady dressed in a velvet hood, seated in a classical, timeless pose. Immediately, a 16th-century Flemish painting came to mind. I looked around and suddenly found I couldn’t see anything else but people held in their own Renaissance-like, personal moments’ Photograph: Matt Crabtree

For Hakan Simsek street photography is in an instinctive practice. ‘My chosen photographs are flashes about myself and my death’ Photograph: Hakan Simsek

there are more to see in The Guardian here

and for more information and further images go to the LensCulture site here

 

 

The 10 best mirrorless cameras in 2017

For people who want the control of a DSLR but not the size or the weight there are mirrorless or compact system cameras CSC. These have interchangeable lenses and the same sorts of control that a DSLR will have but not the optical viewing system. If there is a viewfinder it will be a EVF type (electronic viewfinder) so this is like a small monitor that you look at through the viewfinder. Some don’t have this at all and you are required to use the monitor on that back to compose your images as you might on a compact camera. I would generally avoid these. This type of camera tends to be more expensive than traditional DSLR and the lenses are expensive too.

I see many of these cameras in class and find I am constantly irritated by the necessity to hide all the controls you want at your fingertips in menus that you have to access on screen. The tradeoff of in size and weight for a decent photographic experience is not one I would choose but I understand why people do

Tech Radar has a very useful review of the CSC cameras available and has ranked these as the best of 2017

Best CSC Cameras 2017

Once upon a time, keen photographers bought a DSLR – it was the established order of things. But the mirror mechanism of a DSLR is complex and noisy and adds to the weight of the camera, and that’s where the mirrorless camera, or compact system camera comes in. They keep the big sensors and interchangeable lenses of DSLR cameras but ditch the mirror to produce a smaller, lighter and simpler camera.

In fact, there are still pros and cons to both designs. If you want to find out more, read this: Mirrorless vs DSLR cameras: 10 key differences.  Some mirrorless cameras have a compact, rectangular body, some are styled like DSLRs with a ‘pentaprism’ on the top – though this houses an electronic viewfinder rather than the optical viewfinder you get with a DSLR.

Be aware, too, that cheaper mirrorless cameras don’t come with viewfinders at all – instead, you compose the photo on the rear screen, just as you do with a compact camera or a smartphone. (If you’re still not sure what kind of camera you need, read our easy to follow guide: What camera should I buy?)

No two photographers are exactly the same – we’re all looking for slightly different things, so we’ve ranked the 10 best compact system cameras you can buy right now based not just on specs, handling and performance, but size, simplicity and value for money too.