Tamron Blog: Angle of View

What A Difference A Little Snow Makes

 By Ken Hubbard

According to the calendar on my phone, laptop, iPad and even the one hanging on the door that leads to my cellar, it's spring. I think mother nature is on vacation somewhere and forgot to turn on the warm weather, and put the snowy cold conditions in the attic till next winter. With that said, this past weekend Tamron hosted a workshop at Lakota Wolf Preserve and once again we had our eye on the weather channel watching an impending snow storm. Lucky for us it dumped about 10 inches of snow on the Columbia, NJ area early enough in the week so we were able to hold our workshop with out any problems. I'll be honest, I wasn't as worried about the snowy conditions as much as being excited to photograph the wolves in a beautiful winter scene. I have been to Lakota many times and never experienced it in the snow. Snow can really play tricks on your exposure, especially if you have a very bright & sunny day. Because snow is so reflective it will sometimes fool the metering system of your camera and you end up with dark & muddy under exposed images. So to brighten up your images you will have to tell the camera to add more light, this is done by using the exposure compensation feature on your camera. Luckily for us there was a nice balance of shadow and sunlight and the matrix metering on my camera handled the conditions just fine. All three images were taken with Tamron's SP AF70-300mm VC USD lens, which is an ideal focal length for Lakota.

 
 
 

Springtime in Sonoma County, Rain or Shine it's Still Colorful

 By Ken Hubbard

It doesn't get much better than driving along the Sonoma highway on a beautiful sunny day, especially in the springtime. Even though the vines are still bare of leaves & grapes, beautiful landscapes are still all around you. The springtime rains bring a burst of great color, from the green rolling hills to the never ending fields of yellow mustard flowers. The first image was taken while driving north on the Sonoma highway in the Glen Ellen area of Sonoma county. Even though it was not the "good light" of early morning I still had to stop when I came across this amazing field of mustard flowers. Luckily I had some nice soft clouds to help soften & diffuse the light as well as give some depth to the blue sky. I used a circular polarizer to add contrast between clouds and sky, deepening the blue and making the clouds whiter. I used the Tamron SP AF17-50mm F/2.8 VC lens at its widest angle of 17mm to create a more dramatic feel and an aperture of F/22 to maximize depth of field.

  
The second image was taken from the parking lot of Woodenhead Vintners in the Russian River Valley, using the NEW Tamron AF18-270mm VC PZD. Yes, it's a nice view looking down into the valley, but what actually caught my eye was the really nice lighting caused by the clouds. In the first image, the clouds were softer and acted like a giant soft box casting diffused light across the yellow field and green hills. In this image the clouds were a little more dense (but spotty) creating shadows and highlights across the field from foreground to background, which adds nice depth to the image. This image was taken in the middle of the day, proving no matter what time of day it is as long as you have the right conditions you can create a dramatic image.

 

Eventually my string of beautiful weather had to run out, rain moved in on my final day in Sonoma. Bad weather is no reason to leave your camera back at the hotel. For me, low clouds and fog are always a good time to go out shooting and get some amazing images. I used the NEW SP AF70-300mm VC USD for this final image. It was taken while driving on highway 12 back to Sonoma. My goal for this image was to capture the contrast between the saturated yellow color of the flowers against the softness of the fog rolling across the hillside.

  

Moonset over White Sands

 By André Costantini

Every now and then you get an image which does exactly what you want it to. The elements come together. The focus is right. The depth of field is what you want. The image is sharp. The clouds are behaving. The composition is unique. The light is great. The mood is what you want to convey.

One such image came together at the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. I had the idea that I wanted to get there at night (early in the morning) and shoot through the morning. But after checking the parks hours (which open at 7am), I figured I could settle with sunrise. Sunrise occurred at 7:28am that morning which gave us time to drive in, find a spot and start shooting. The surreal nature of the images mimicked the surreal nature of the place. For one, if you are there in winter with a down coat and wool hat you are still chilly as it is almost freezing and you are surrounded by masses of white sand in all directions, which you could swear is snow. Even the road into the park at some point seizes to be paved and is simply plowed.

Anyhow, the drive over was a spectacular display of light and color upon the clouds in a pre-dawn show. We were the first car in at 6:57am. I guess the Ranger got in a few minutes early. So we sped in, found a spot and started shooting and didn't leave until over three hours later. It was one of those cases where it wasn't until later I realized the exact shot that I had created. I mean, I was aware that during the course of the morning, I had gotten some nice images, but it was not until that evening when I looked though them that one in particular seemed to be the apparent winner. The soft curve of the sand against the stark plant, the distant mountains and the moon with enough sunlight to have detail in it as well as the rest of the scene and finally the clouds to balance the composition. Like I said, every now and then you get an image which does exactly what you want it to and this was one of those mornings.

 
The image was taken with the Tamron 70-300mm lens 110mm at f11, 1/320th of a second ISO 200.

Bart Mud Sale - 2011

 By Ed Heaton

Every spring we have our local "Mud Sales" here in Lancaster County, PA. These sales entail a public auction of farm equipment, Amish Buggies / Carriages, Livestock and many other items you would expect to find at a sale of this nature. I've been attending them almost 10 years now and I always try to capture the essence of this "Slower Pace of Life".

I just got the new Tamron AF18-270MM F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD and couldn’t think of a better place to put it to the test! The "Mud Sales" have a wide variety of subjects and I have to say, the lens performed flawlessly. It focused fast and my images were sharp, honestly what more can you ask for! Plus it's not a huge lens so I didn’t stand out in the crowd, making it easier to go unnoticed as I captured a few non-suspecting subjects.

CLICK HERE for a small gallery from the sale!

Best of Light,

Ed