9
First impressions
Budget Huawei phone
with13MP camera
LOOKINGto
upgradeyour
smartphonesoyou
cantakebetter
photos,butdon’twantto
spenda bomb?Huawei
hasannounceda budget
smartphone,theY6s,
whichcosts£129forthe
handset(monthlycontract
priceswilldiffer).It comes
witha single,butstillvery
functional,13-million-pixel
rearcamerawithanf/1.
lensandLEDflash,andan
8MPf/2cameraat the
front,whichis morethan
enoughforselfies.TheY6s
incorporatesHuawei’sAI
cameratechnology,Photocontest focuses
on mental health
TALK,a newmentalhealthcharitystartedby
photographer Luke Woodford and his model wife
Mandy, has announced its fi rst competition, the 2020
TALK Photography Awards. The theme is mental health,
and the overall winner will receive £4,500 worth of
prizes from Sony, Rotolight and Zeiss, including a Sony
Alpha 7R III; the top 15 entries will also feature in a
month-long exhibition at Wex Photo Video’s store in
Manchester. All entry fees go directly to the charity.
‘There are no rules, just create something that depicts
what mental health means to you,’ the organisers
explain. The deadline for entries is 22 March and you can
fi nd full details at http://www.talkcharity.org.exposure modes, and focusing is manual
only, using a coincident-image
rangefi nder. A second ghost image is
overlaid in a spot in the centre of the
viewfi nder, and rotating the focus ring
moves it relative to the main view. When
the two are aligned, the lens should be
correctly focused.
The direct-vision optical viewfi nder
provides 0.73x magnifi cation, and
indicates the lens’s fi eld of view using
paired framelines: 50mm and 75mm,
35 and 135mm, and 28 and 90mm.
For wider lenses, you’ll need to use a
supplementary viewfi nder, or the
optional Visofl ex EVF. Basic exposure
information is projected into the
viewfi nder using red LEDs.
Leica’s design philosophy is to strip the
camera right back to the essentials, and
notably this is one of the few current
models that doesn’t record video.
However the fi rm isn’t really stuck in the
past, and there are plenty of up-to-date
features too. Pressing the LV button on
the back enters live view, which enables
more accurate focusing and composition
than the optical viewfi nder. The LCD is
touch-sensitive, and can be used for
browsing through your images and
checking focus, and to quickly access
secondary settings such as metering and
drive modes from an onscreen status
display. Wi-Fi is built-in for transferring
images to your phone using the Leica
Fotos app, although Bluetooth is absent.I’VE BEEN lucky enough to try out the Leica M10 Monochrom before its offi cial
launch, and my immediate reaction is that it’s an absolutely beautiful camera. Even
the cosmetic design is monochrome, with a purposeful matte-black fi nish and the A
positions on the top dials marked in a muted grey. Its build quality is stunning, and
the pared-back, minimalist design allows you to immerse yourself completely in the
process of taking pictures. Even my fi rst few test shots reveal that the new sensor is
very special indeed. It’s just a shame that the sky-high price means relatively few
photographers will ever get to shoot with one.
Technical editor
Andy Westlake gets
hands-on with the
M10 Monochromincluding
scene recognition,
which is able to
recognise over 20
different categories of
objects and 150 scenes.
It also has 3GB of RAM,
32GB of internal storage
and a 6.09in display. The
new phone is available
either in Starry Black or
Orchid Blue.Huawei’s Y6s is available in
Orchid Blue or Starry BlackThis new competition seeks mental health-related images
© FRANCESCO CARTA /GETT Y IMAGES