Tamron Blog: Angle of View

Diptych: Nature vs. Industry

by Jillian Bell

I took a photograph this summer of a plant eaten away by an insect of some sort. I was drawn to the repetition of shape, and how precise the wear marks were. I was curious what made the marks, and why there were spaces, creating the letter "i". Recently, while at a sale day at Dodd Camera in Ohio, I looked up and saw a similar pattern. If you can believe it, the second photo is taken of a fluorescent light fixture hanging above the counter. I cannot say if I was entirely successful, but I tried taking the second photo to mimic the first one. I did not have the first photograph in front of me, but my first thought was how similar these two objects are even though their makeup and purposes are completely different. The photograph of the plant leaf was taken with the Tamron SP 180mm F3.5 Macro at F/4 and 1/30^th of a second. I like it better in color but decided to show in B&W to relate both images better. The fluorescent light photograph was taken with the Tamron 18-270mm VC PZD at F/6.3 and 1/2500^th of a second. Exposure was set +0.05 to allow the whites to really pop. This is a true testament in keeping your eyes open. I have learned to always keep my camera on me. I never know when I will find something interesting to photograph. Thank you for reading.

The Unexpected Guest

by André Costantini

This year the Christmas tree came from the backyard and on the evening that we put it up I noticed a gigantic spider or rather a gigantic shadow from a tiny spider as it walked over the tree lights. But with so many lights trying to find the actual spider became an exercise in futility. And I went to bed knowing that at least the spider was tiny. The next morning I heard some rustling towards the top of the tree and my mind immediately drifted to those urban myths of cactuses exploding with thousands of spiders. So I was somewhat surprised to see a butterfly, who apparently found it warm enough to emerge and thus our Christmas butterfly was born or maybe more accurately had arisen.

My internet detective work led me to believe that the butterfly is an Eastern Comma, on account of the comma like slit in the wings and the coloration. He or she, as I am not in the business of distinguishing the gender of butterflies, was quite cooperative as a subject landing on the finger of my fiance and exposing the innards of it's wings. The butterfly has taken a liking to the bedroom window in the afternoons and the outside of the window curtain in the evenings. She has been with us for four weeks now and seems quite content, especially when some birds unsuccessfully attempted to eat her through the window. But I digress, on the first day of our acquaintance, I was compelled to photograph my new friend. And of the 120 or so images I shot, came a collage, a portrait and an abstract of the butterfly in the tree.

All images were taken with the Tamron SP 60mm F/2.0 macro lens. The collage images were taken at 1/100-125th of a second at 1600 ISO f3.3. The images themselves are not manipulated other then erasing the edges to soften them and laying them out together. Because of the depth of field and the movement of the butterfly with respect to the shutter speed, some blur occurred, resulting in an image that resembles painting. The portrait was 1/125 ISO 800 f3.3 and is two images combined together to increase the depth of field and create more planes of sharpness. Butters in the tree was 1/80th ISO 8000 f4.0. I focused the lens to its closest focus point to get the tree lights to blur into nice round circles and then moved around to get the butterfly silhouette in the foreground.

Sometimes the unexpected guest can become the center of attention, especially when it is a butterfly in your living room in mid December in the northeast of America.

What’s in your own backyard?

by Rob Moody

We’ve been getting a bit of snow in Colorado lately. One morning as I was drinking my coffee, I noticed that the snowfall from the night before looked very interesting on the trees against the blue sky. Doing presentations to the public, I often get statements like, “You live in Colorado and it’s hard to take a bad picture there.”

While I admit I’m closer to the action when it comes to nature photography, you would be surprised what’s in your own backyard. Often times we think we need to travel to a far off land to take great pictures. You are used to your surroundings and don’t find them as photographically interesting as that distant far off land. However, I might however come to your neighborhood and find it incredibly interesting to photograph.

Shooting in familiar surroundings causes you to actively seek out interesting photographs. This is a great exercise. Take a fresh look in your backyard… you might be surprised what you find. All images were taken with a Tamron 18-270 VC PZD Lens.

Adventures with Tamron : Holidazzle

by Jillian Bell

This post is a little late for the holidays, but still worth sharing.

Celebrating it's 20th season this winter, the Holidazzle Parade brings a festive reason to venture out into the cold. It is sponsored by local businesses and is made up of about 15 floats, choirs singing, marching bands, and of course an appearance by Santa Clause to finish off the night. It runs Thursday - Sunday the weekend after Thanksgiving until the weekend before Christmas. Holidazzle is rather unique in the fact that each float, and those walking in the parade are completely covered by lights, glitter, and costumes. The excessive light displays are essential because here in MN the sun is setting by 5:00pm. It has a family friendly atmosphere, all of the floats have storybook themes and if it's too cold, there is plenty of hot cocoa, or a sky way system to watch from above. Personally, I am a fan of holiday light displays. There is a challenge to get good exposure having high contrast, and moving subjects, but I think these turned out well. The exposure for these images floated right around F6.3 @ 1/60th of a second, with my ISO ranging from 1000-3000. For best results, keep your camera on manual mode and under expose by a full stop. Once you figure out what exposure the scene is, setting the camera in Manual over Aperture, Shutter priority, or another mode will keep your exposure consistent. Keep the same rule of thumb for photographing holiday lights on your home. Underexpose slightly, but in this case, you can use a very low ISO to reduce noise, and achieve better detail. Tripods are a must for this application. My favorite part of all these photos, is how vivid the colors are. I don't decorate much at my house, so being able to celebrate the season by other means is appreciated. Wishing you well, whichever season you are celebrating. Thank you for reading.

Indoor Flower Photography

by Mike Moats

Yesterday I headed to a local florist and picked up a couple pots of Cyclamen flowers. Very nice designed flower but can be difficult to find a nice comp sometimes.

Here is the pot of white Cyclamens I was working with.

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Here is my setup to shoot. LOL, nothing fancy, it's just the stairway in the foyer. The large window on top floods the area with really nice even light.

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I used the natural light and no LED lighting on these images. I have my plamp used for holding the flower. Shooting with my Tamron SP 60mm Macro. I like using the short focal length in the house as I need to work close on the stairway. I varied the f/stops shooting wide open at f/2.0 for a soft look and then at f/22 for more depth of field. I ended up liking the full depth of field images best.

Here is the first image with no processing.

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This is an image I posted on Facebook and many commented thinking it was done with lighting. This look is from the "Solarization" filter in Nik Software Color Efex Pro 4. I added a little of "Vignette Blur" filter around the edges. That's it, no special lighting.

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Here is another version of the same subject shot wide open at 2.5. Also with "Solarization" with different adjustments.

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I shot quite a few different angles and compositions, but these two I liked the best. Here is the original with no processing.

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I wanted to have one image with a nice bright white on white, so used the "High Key" filter in Nik Color Efex 4.

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With the second version I went back to the "Solarization" filter again and got a nice defined look.

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Adventures in Tamron: My Old House

By Jillian Bell

A common thread in my photography is simply searching for inspiration in everyday life. In this blog we are attempting to find inspiration within a stressful situation. I have the pleasure to live in a historic Victorian home, built in 1905. It has always been my intention to fix it up and hopefully sell it in a few years. As all "home improvement" projects go, I am six years into it, and nowhere near the end. Honestly, I was used to the look of half finished projects and desperately needed some energy to finish. To my surprise I was about to get that added energy. May 22, 2011 a tornado flew over my house and cosmetically damaged most of the interior and exterior walls. Six months later, it is December. The siding and roofing has been taken care of. Moving to the interior walls, construction teams have completely gutted the walls revealing only studs. I am thankful being a Technical Representative for Tamron. This opportunity allowed a 2 month hotel stay to happen seamlessly. I go back to the home from time to time, taking photographs of the progress for my scrapbook. There was one day, I was wandering around, cannot say if it was the lighting, or just stepping into the same scene with a new perspective, but I found my inspiration. It started with the first shot, a lonely lamp in the middle of an open floor plan. Maybe this symbolizes hope? (or) coming from a theater background, it's a ghost lamp, always on, giving light into an empty house. The next two are of the old radiators covered in layer after layer of paint. The light coming through the window caught my eye, and the pipe sticking straight out of the floor created a great vertical line. In all the photos below, I looked at the lines, and shapes created through the destruction. I contemplated turning them all B&W, thinking it would better reflect the 106 year old house. Overall, I converted only a few, to better show the lines and texture inside the frame. The next photo is of the floorboards from the room above. This is a forgotten storage space covered in layers of magazines for insulation. They were all from the 1920s, and randomly placed was a perfect portrait framed by a knot in the wood. The last photo is a view of the old chimney. I had never seen it not covered in sheet rock, and I was automatically drawn to the different layers of brick, cement, and wall paper. One of my biggest annoyances of the house when I was fixing it up was how many layers were on everything. Six or seven was common of paint and wallpaper. It was nice to see the walls stripped down. Overall, I have a rare look at the interior, unseen by anyone in decades. These photographs not only show progress, but show a glimpse of what the house used to look like. I went back today and new sheet rock was up, and I'll be picking out paint colors next week. It's amazing how drastically the same space can change in a few days.

As always, keep your eyes open for inspiration. Thank you for reading.

Beautiful old south setting, big, exciting, wild animals, and great weather...

By John VanSteenberg

It's no secret that the first hint of winter has been signaling its onset. So, last week, we did what most cold sensitive folks do; we headed south, to work in warm weather one last time.

We had three major objectives: 1) Do a presentation for the Greater New Orleans Camera Club. 2) Spend a day shooting images and loaning out lenses to practice what we discussed at GNOCC and just to have fun. 3) To visit dealers around town who were starting the holiday sales season.

Thursday night, Jeff Allen and I presented a two hour seminar about making the final image you capture match the image in your head when you are in the excitement of the moment at the scene. (Sort of a 'Beyond the 11 Simple Secrets'.) Friday we visited stores and scouted the fabulous location where we would meet Saturday (The New Orleans Audubon Nature Institute).

Here is a shot of us just before we opened up Saturday morning. We had planned a group photo, but right from the start, we were so busy and the participants so anxious to get started, we couldn't get it done.

Saturday, we had about 70 photographers show up and they borrowed over 200 individual lenses to try (an average of 3 each). The situation was ideal. The Audubon is visually spectacular and the weather was perfect.

The old live oaks, dripping with moss, created a beautiful 'deep south' backdrop to the event. The animals were active and entertaining. The photographers probably entertained them, too. The exhibits were easily accessible ad permitted great access to good vantage points.

by Jean Francis

by Linda Vinsanau

by Tom Longmire

by Tom Oelsner

by William Pino

We are presenting just a few of their images here. They have an entire gallery going up on "www.myphotoexhibits.com" too.

Right after the holidays, we are going to start a series of about 30 free in store classes to help people get the most out of their 2012 picture taking opportunities. Look for one of us at a store near you. We will also be at WPPI, Imaging USA several PSA camera club councils and PSA's National Convention and many other events around the country. Stop by and visit us, if you can. A complete and evolving list of our attendance is located at:"www.tamron-usa.com/events"

Looking forward to seeing you all in 2012.

John

Adventures with Tamron : Pebble Beach

By Jillian Bell

With all of my postings, a common thread involves searching for inspiration. Another personal goal I find is to photograph ordinary objects in a new and creative way. The examples in this blog are great examples of these two concepts. In honor of our first real snowfall in Minnesota, I found inspiration in the color white. Often if I'm stuck, or feeling uninspired, I'll simplify an idea into a word, or concept (i.e. white, or lines, or macro, or night photography). Then I can focus on how to get the best photographs that portray that idea. I also chose to focus on macro photography because I haven't played with my Tamron SP 90mm F2.8 Macro in some time. If you can't tell by now, these photographs are not photos of Pebble Beach, CA. Although I have a trip in January to California that I'm looking forward to. To start, I looked around for things that are white and found some coconut M&Ms at the grocery store. Flipping them all over gave me a repetitive shape to fill the frame. The candies also had these delightful palm trees and umbrellas that I did not expect. This is where the name "Pebble Beach" came from. The palm trees and round repetitive shapes reminded me of a rocky beach. Each of these three photographs take the same scene, working with composition to achieve three different photographs. When photographing white objects, all cameras will meter to a neutral grey. It is important to over expose slightly, giving the white values their full brightness. The exposure for these three shots are ISO 800, F11 @ 1/40th of a second. With an exposure compensation of +0.07. Using a higher ISO allowed me to handhold these images, if I were to try it again, I would prefer to shoot at ISO 100 for better detail, while using a tripod. In the last photograph, I drew in my beach bum for an added bit of whimsey. A sunny scene while I'm inside drinking my hot cocoa. Thank you for reading, and as always, keep your eyes open for inspiration.

Ladybug: Larger than Life

By André Costantini

Its been a pretty warm month. And warmth is great for a lot of things like not wearing winter jackets and... insects! The other day I noticed a ladybug on the glass of my back door. It is a little late in the year to see them around (at least outside) in the Northeast, but alas, the weather apparently was about right for this ladybug. Seeing it, I quickly snapped on my Tamron SP 60mm 1:1 macro lens and had a go of trying to get a nice image of this colorful insect. The great thing about using true macro lenses, like the Tamron 60mm is that you can magnify your subject at 1:1 or true life size. This maximum magnification is always found at the minimum focus distance of the lens.

The closest you can focus the lens is just over 9 inches, which, by the way is always measured from the focal plane (where the actual chip is) of your camera. For those who are really interested, it is inscribed into your actual camera body. You will see a circle with a line through it on the top of your camera towards the back of your body.

The best way to get the most macro your lens has is to manually focus it to the closest focus point, sometimes referred to as the MOD (minimum object distance) and physically move back and forth until the object is in focus. You can of course use the auto focus, but then you risk not getting the most macro that your lens has!

There are a few things you may want to know about macro. True macro lenses, give you actual life size, 1:1 magnification. This means the size of the image you see in the viewfinder is the actual size the object is. One of the results of this feature is that you "lose" about 2 stops of light, so the F2.0 in the Tamron 60mm shoots at F4.0. This is normal for all true macro lenses. Though many zoom lenses have a macro feature, they are not in fact true macro. True macro lenses are fixed focal length lenses, this means that they do not zoom.

Anyhow, enough about the backstory and let's talk about the images. The first image has a blue background because the window was reflecting the blue sky and so the background is blue. It was taken at 1:1, the minimum focus distance of the Tamron 60mm macro. For the second image, I put on a Tamron 2X teleconverter. A 2X teleconverter increases the focal length of the lens by 2, so the 60mm effectively becomes a 120mm. But the effect of using it on a true macro lens increases the macro power by 2 making it a 2:1 macro. That is twice the size of reality!

All 2X teleconverters also take away 2 more stops of light (so this image was taken at effectively F8. But they increase the focal length and don't change the minimum focusing distance. What this all really means is that the subject appears bigger in your frame, making it larger than life.

Timing is Everything, but Luck is Good too!

By Ken Hubbard

So there you are in Kelso, Washington and you don't have to be at the airport until 1:00pm the next day, what do you do? Oh yeah, it's also been raining pretty much for the past 4 days straight, I ask again what do you do? Well, if you happen to be with another professional landscape photographer, in this case Ed Heaton from PA, you will convince yourselves it's a great idea to wake up before sunrise and head out to Mount Saint Helen's. Since I've always wanted to see the blast zone area of this amazing place, it didn't take much to talk myself into getting up to see it. Even though the clouds where low and it was raining (of course it was) we still made our way up highway 504 which headed towards the Johnston Ridge Observatory. To tell the truth, for me there is a nervous excitement that surrounds places like Mount Saint Helens, the sheer magnitude of destruction that took place within a few minutes, is amazing to me.

On May 18th 1980, Mount Saint Helens erupted, creating a 5.1 mag. earthquake, collapsing the entire north face of the volcano, then a slab of rock and ice slammed into Spirit Lake, crossed a ridge 1,300 feet high, and roared 14 miles down the Toutle River, and finally a lateral explosion occurred and nearly 150 square miles of forest was blown over or left dead and standing.

Knowing these facts and getting our first few signs of destruction, we continued to march on, hoping the clouds would break. As the altitude started to rise, every now and then we would get a good glimpse of the valley and our hopes would rise and fall with every bit of bright light but then the skies would darken and clouds would impede our view. I was starting to convince myself that this trip was going to end up being a scouting trip, and there would be little to no chance of capturing anything worthwhile. Boy, was I wrong.

As Ed and I pulled into a vantage point just before the Observatory, we planned on stepping out for just a second then continuing on. I stopped my car and we looked out into the valley that led to the volcano, I got a familiar feeling, it was that feeling of being very small compared to mother nature. The clouds were moving extremely quick and in many different directions from the strong winds, slowly a small bit of the volcano started to show itself. Then, all of a sudden a burst of light filled the valley, it took us both by surprise and Ed's exact quote was "I think we better move quickly". We did, grabbing our gear, setting up and trying to fire off as many images as we could before the light disappeared. We were lucky enough to get about 10 minutes of shooting before the clouds took over and covered up Mount Saint Helens once again. If we were there 5 minutes earlier or 5 minutes later, we would never have captured what we did. No matter how much you plan or try and figure out every equation, luck still comes into play every now and then!