Tamron Blog: Angle of View

Adventure with Tamron: Abstracts on a Gloomy Night

By Jillian Bell

On one of my latest adventures with Tamron, I find myself with an upcoming trip to the sunny state of Florida. Being from Minnesota, any opportunity I have to bask amongst palm trees and poolsides is welcomed. This was not going to be one of those trips. With thunderstorms in the forecast, and wind gusts up to 40mph, it was beginning to feel like home. Don't get me wrong I love thunderstorms, but my boredom in yet another hotel room was getting the better of me. There is one good thing about most hotel rooms, they are filled with a menagerie of colorful patterns and texture. It instantly caught my eye as I walked down the hallway, checking into my room. I'll get to the hallway carpet in a bit, first let's focus on the room itself. The first photo shows the room in its entirety. Bright bold green curtains flank each side of the only window. There was no view..and the rain was steadily pouring down outside, so I got this shot instead. My next point of interest was the interesting frame around the desk mirror. In the next photograph, I was inspired by the reflection of the window, and how the light lit up the stucco walls. Hmmm, I thought, what else lights up? Then I started to experiment with the hanging lamp to my left and got an amazing abstract. Feeling rather cooped up in the room, I will venture back into the hallway. With the next two photographs, I am able to keep stability within an abstract by having a dominant line parallel to the frame. I also enjoyed the detailed swirls within a two color concept. There was SO much going on, but it was not overwhelming, simple in it's complexity. Another neat tip about abstracts, as you can see, orientation is left up to you. Flip it around if you want to, whatever makes the photograph visually stronger. Overall, I did not let a gloomy day ruin my fun. Keep those eyes open and find inspiration wherever you can.

The Pacific Northwest for a day...at the end of Lewis & Clark's great adventure

By John VanSteenberg

Recently, Tamron sent a team of us to the Northwest to work with the Columbia Camera Club Council. I got a chance to spend one day on the coast of the Pacific northwest (where I had not been), around Cape Disappointment, the end of the trail of Lewis and Clarks’ great expedition to the Pacific at the dawn of the westward movement of settlers.

The coast is sparsely populated. The drive along state highway 4 and US 101 west from Longview, beside the Columbia river, is a tale of twists and turns through tiny villages and great scenery. There are thousands of acres of rainforest and rugged mountains. There are tugboats pushing great barges along the river, funky country stores and diners to explore. Eventually, it ends at Cape Disappointment and the Long Beach peninsula, where the Columbia empties into the Pacific. The peninsula runs straight north and south facing the Pacific Ocean. It is bounded by Leadbetter Point State Park covering its north tip, the Willapa Bay on the west and Baker Bay on the southwest. The Columbia River is on the south and is connected to the mainland by a land bridge.

I had never seen the confluence of the Columbia and the Pacific. I have to say, it is amazing. I got to spend an evening and part of a day around Long Beach, Washington. It’s a wonderful village smack in the middle of the longest beach in the world, fronting on the Pacific Ocean. At about 50 miles long, the beach is over twice Daytona’s famed length. And like Daytona, the public is permitted to drive on it. In addition to being long, it is wide, really wide. The surf is often really rough. (Consider that the Columbia forces massive amounts of outflow into the ocean, conflicting with the southbound flow of the ocean’s coastal stream.)

Long Beach Peninsula is a really interesting town to visit. From the funky and fun tee shirt emporiums (like Stormin’ Norman’s) to the ice cream shop, with the HUGE servings (Scoopers) to the fudge shops, to the more upscale eateries, it takes one back in time. Cape Disappointment is home to two lighthouses, though I had to miss them this trip. A side trip to Oystertown produced a great dinner of clams and a few cool photos.

When I left Long Beach for the three-hour drive to the Portland airport, I had the chance to stop in Ilwaco and see the Pacific from just about where Lewis and Clark viewed it hundreds of feet above the shore, after their amazing adventure. I also visited the Ilwaco fishing fleet port, crossed the mighty Columbia to Astoria Oregon and then to Portland.

Then, it was off to Portland and the overnight flight back to Ohio.

Grand Teton Panoramas

By Ed Heaton

Greetings,

It’s been quite some time since I posted a blog and I wanted to try and catch up just a bit.  For this post I’m sharing a few panoramic images that I made during my Grand Tetons Photo Tour. The images here were shot with two different lenses, the Tamron SP 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di and the Tamron SP 70-200mm f/2.8 Di.  These are two outstanding lenses with amazing speed and sharpness and for me a must have in my bag!

Best of Light,

Ed

50 people, a 150 year old mill and a weekend of learning and photo fun…

By John VanSteenberg

YM Weekend class blog

50 people, a 150 year old mill and a weekend of learning and photo fun…

Recently, we conducted a teaching event in conjunction with YM Camera, in Youngstown, Ohio. Fifty people attended the two hour class and Q&A session on Saturday and about 38 braved the chilly and wet weather on Sunday morning to test out what they learned, experiment and just play around; to see how the class helped them control their images and ‘see’ more photographs.

The accompanying images are from a few of the attendees.

We studied how to control motion (for dramatic effect), depth of field (for emphasis and de-emphasis), the interaction of aperture, ISO and shutter speeds (for total control), composition, light modifiers in nature, unifying backgrounds and foregrounds; and everybody seems to have gotten something good from their work there.

The mill is an exceptional opportunity for many great images, as the results attest. There are multiple good views of the mill, a modern and an old covered bridge, a waterfall or two, ravines, rocks, fall flowers and trails galore.

Remember, 35-40 photographers were at the same place at the same time. Even when they saw the same subject, they each found their own way to communicate it to the viewer. Each, uniquely their own. A few were willing to send some to me to be shared with you.

Mike Briggs usually shoots bike racing and other sports. He loved the 10-24 so much, he spent most of the morning exploring with it. (I’d love to think that I taught him something in the sessions. But, I know that he had to go out there with all of this talent, seeking his own unique way of ‘seeing’ of what was in the scene there). Here are a few of his images:
 

 

Tracy B had just bought her camera 2 weeks before the event. Here are a few of her images:

 

Sam Racketa is a life long sports shooter. "If there isn't a ball in the shot, I don't know what to do with it!" He wanted to explore his pictorial touch. I think he has a very nice one too:

 


Marilyn Wenger sent in a few too. All very different and unique. Great job!

 

We also did a little portrait session and we spent a fair amount of time looking for the light (direction, volume, texture). And the light was fantastic: dark, diffused by overcast and rain and the rain produced great color saturations. Our mandate was to explore and have fun: to let the creative juices flow. And boy did they….

In addition to the images here, you can see a larger collection at: http://tamron.myphotoexhibits.com/exhibits/4206-ym-camera-trip-gallery

We want to thank Jim Yankush and the staff of YM Camera for doing such a great job hosting the event. And we want to thank the fabulous staff at the Lanterman Mill in Mill Creek Park for their great tolerance, advice and guidance.

I need my sunglasses - Using a polarizer

By Rob Moody

As my passion for nature photography drove me to learn more, I discovered tools that I now consider indispensable in the pursuit of quality landscape images. I had all the primary tools in place. I was finally standing behind an expensive setup on an expensive tripod. I had purchased the right equipment and eaten noodles and frozen vegetables for months to own quality lenses. The majestic sunset was painting the most perfect dramatic landscape before my very eyes. I had worked so hard to put all the elements together, just to have the images of the glorious moment be less than I had hoped for.

This was the way my education about fine photographic filters started. I’ve noticed during my travels that many new photographers have purchased filters, but don’t know how to use them. Worse, they leave them at home when out shooting. Having the right filters and knowing how to get the most out of them can really make the difference between getting a good image and a great one!

One of the reasons you love your sunglasses is because they are most likely polarized. They reduce glare making everything you look at rich and colorful. You may also have noticed, when you rotate your head from side to side, it changes the reflective qualities of the things you look at. If you have noticed these things, you now know how a polarizer filter can be used to do this same thing in nature photography. Even if you haven’t noticed this about your sunglasses, keep reading. A polarizer is why the best nature images you see in post cards, calendars and fine art are so rich and colorful.

A circular polarizer either reduces or maximizes the reflections in your scene. As you look through a circular polarizer and adjust it, you will notice reflections getting stronger or weaker as you turn or adjust the filter. It can best be noticed in scenes with lakes, streams and white clouds against a blue sky. It is important to understand that a circular polarizer works best 90 degrees from the sun’s path in the sky. This means polarization will be really evident when composing images facing north or south.

In this example, I’m using a circular polarizer to force the reflection on the water. My lens choice is a Tamron SP 17-50 f/2.8 VC for this image on Independence Pass in Colorado. High quality lenses like these have special coatings on the optics that enhance lens performance. When purchasing filters, it’s important to get multi-coated or MC filters instead of the cheapest priced filter. This will insure that the coatings on the filters are the same as or similar to your lens coatings. While the differences between filters can seem minimal to some, I believe that having quality filters is essential to getting the best results. So, I invest in the best quality that at the very least matches the quality of my lens.

 

These images were taken using the Tamron 18-270 VC PZD lens. In the example, the first image was taken without a filter and the second image was taken using a circular polarizer. Note that the polarized image is not more saturated, it just has reduced reflection. Notice how you can see through the water to the bottom when the reflection is reduced. Also, while subtle and hard to notice, the foliage can also reflect the sky. This too can be reduced using a polarizer. There is a whole other world out there photographically speaking when you have the power to dial the reflection on, or dial it off.

 

These images were taken using the Tamron 28-300 VC lens. In the example, the first image was taken without a filter and the second image was taken using a circular polarizer. Even though you can’t see it outright, there is a lot of dust and particulate pollution that can reflect light back into your camera. The circular polarizer can reduce the reflected light from these particles allowing you to see through to the blue sky. Again, the polarized image is not more saturated, it just has reduced reflection.

In the example here, I purposely created an image to show you two undesirable issues you will encounter using a polarizer. If using screw-mount filters, just use the polarizer and resist the urge to stack filters. In the example, you can see blacked out corners, called a vignette. Complicating this, some cameras have less than 100% viewfinder meaning you might get blacked out corners even if you can’t see them through the viewfinder. If possible, you want to avoid rather than crop this problem. For these reasons, test your equipment at home in the back yard before going somewhere to seriously shoot. Put your intended filter on and make images of the sky and review them. For wider angle lenses, you may have to buy a thin filter to avoid this.

With extreme wide angle lenses and a polarizer, a second problem will present itself. Remember that a polarizer works best at right angles to the sun. With an extreme wide-angle lens, your view is so wide that it includes this angle and much more. This means that the part of your image 90 degrees to the sun’s path will have the maximum effect of the polarizer, while the part of your image that is not 90 degrees to the sun’s path will have a less polarized effect. This results in a very dark banding near the center of the image as you can see in the example image. It looks like a very dark or black cloud. For me this is undesirable and unnatural. This doesn’t mean you can’t use a polarizer on a wide-angle lens, it just means you have to be careful to dial the effect just a little instead of a lot.

This image was created with the Tamron 18-270 VC PZD lens and a circular polarizer. In my opinion, circular polarizer filters are a must have for general landscape shooting. Also they work great for creating images of rainbows because you can reduce reflected light from the raindrops. When you have the power to remove the reflected light from the scene, you can create some spectacular images. One final tip to getting great images is using your over/under or +/- exposure compensation to fine-tune the exposure. I’ve noticed that my cameras expose reliably using my in-camera metering for most shooting situations. This being said however, I have found that these same cameras, in my opinion, tend to over-expose landscapes. I have found that under-exposing my images 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop tend to render the overall look I’m after. You will have to play with this to get it right on your camera and practice before it counts! Don’t forget to set the +/- exposure compensation back to 0.0 after each shoot.

These days, I wouldn’t leave the house without my sunglasses or my polarizer. Enjoy!

Adventures with Tamron : Lanterman's Mill

By Jillian Bell

With the coming of fall, I have been inspiring to go on a "fall colors" trip. As life normally goes, work, family and other scheduled events pushes this trip back another year. Last weekend, I was able to cross this trip off my list. Traveling to Youngstown, OH, I worked with YM Camera and fellow blogger John VanSteenberg for a two part adventure.

Friday was an in-house session. John taught a total of 50 participants photography techniques and how to actualize the images you see in your mind. Saturday, we all headed to Lanterman's Mill for a hands on photography day having Tamron lenses available.

My goal was to answer questions, and to show what I think about when setting up an image. Specifically, I was able to show how shutter speed can drastically effect the emotion of a photograph involving moving water. There are two photos below taken with Tamron's SP 17-50mm F2.8 VC lens. The first at F4 1/60 sec 320 ISO, a standard exposure in Program Mode. You can see at a 60th of a second, the water is almost completely stopped giving an aggressive, static feeling. The second was shot in Shutter Speed Priority at F18 1 sec 100 ISO. A longer shutter speed shows a misty softer feel. The longer the time, the softer it seems. Experiment with 5 seconds or even 10 seconds! With a longer time, too much available light can be problematic. For the best results, visit your scene at a time of day with less sunlight.

The other two images were taken while walking around the park with other participants. We had a great time talking composition, shooting situations, and seeing how people can be inspired in the same scene differently. The next photograph below, is an example of my inspirations. I often can struggle with landscape photography because I focus on those smaller unique sections of the whole. True to form, I have a "portrait" found in a rock face along the trail. It was raining that day, and I was inspired by how it looked like this face seemed to be crying. (F5.6 1/100 sec 800 ISO - SP 70-300mm VC)

The last is a successful "fall colors" photograph. The woods were quite thick, and peering through a small opening is this lonely bench. Inviting yet mysteriously hidden within the foliage. I like how the greens pop with the red spattering of leaves. (F10 1/10 sec 200 ISO - SP 17-50mm VC).

Check back in a week to the Tamron Blog to see images from the participants that day. John is compiling a gallery into "my photo exhibits" and will post the link. "My Photo Exhibits" is another great tool from Tamron that allows you to make a virtual gallery of your images to share. It is customizable and a great way to showcase your best work to others.

Thank you for reading - Until my next adventure - Jillian Bell