Tamron Blog: Angle of View

Under The Rainbow

By Jeff Allen

I recently attended a destination wedding. OK, it was for one of my daughters.

As a photographer I always observe rules for shooting weddings.

So first rule…Hire another professional to shoot a relative's event. Don't even think of doing it yourself.

Second rule…Resist the urge to offer said photographer advice and critiques as he or she works. Relax and enjoy the day.

Third rule… Do take a camera along and invite other guests to bring cameras for candid shots during the reception but again, let the pro do their work and invite the guests to stay out of the pro’s way as they work. That is what they are paid for, and interference from well meaning guests just slows them down.

The day of the event brought rain off and on all day. Fortunately since the ceremony was outdoors, Mother Nature gave in to my daughter’s wishes and the rain stopped long enough to have the outdoor ceremony. Our pro got the group portraits in after the ceremony, and before the next shower hit. It passed quickly and the sun came out before setting for the day. As the guests made our way to the reception, the pro was capturing additional portraits of the bride and groom. A rainbow appeared in the sky. It was brought to my attention, so my camera, equipped with my trusty go-to lens, the Tamron 18-270 VC PZD came out, and I grabbed a few shots. The rainbow wasn’t particularly intense, but I thought it would make some nice flavor for the back of the album.

As I walked further, one of my other daughters asked me if I had seen the rainbow. I said that I had, and showed her my shots. She was carrying her bouquet and mentioned that we should use that in a shot. Brilliant! Additionally, as we turned to look at the rainbow, the sun had changed angle slightly and the clouds behind the rainbow had taken on a golden hue. Since we were in the shade, I popped on the camera’s built-in flash to illuminate and add contrast to the bouquet.

After the fact, I noticed some hotel employees in the background, so for the final image, I cropped them out.

Tamron AF 18-270 VC PZD at 1/60, f5.6,

The camera’s built in flash was activated

(set at -1/3stop) for fill on bouquet.

So while we didn’t quite find the “pot ’o gold” at the end of the rainbow, we did find a way to turn a nice snapshot into a memorable photograph.

Be patient, keep shooting, always look for something unique, and you can make more memorable photographs too.

Good shooting!

Capturing Speed Racer, from Wide to Tele

By Ken Hubbard

It's amazing what happens when you put supposedly mature adults behind the wheel of a Go Cart. The youngster that is still in there somewhere comes out and all they want to do is go faster than the next guy!!! I had the pleasure of giving a technical field training for a local dealer sales staff in Northern California, and for the hands on workshop portion of it we spent time at the track. While one part of the staff put the petal to the metal racing the go carts around the course, the other half positioned themselves around the track, Tamron lenses in hand capturing images of their co-workers racing. It was fun to watch how the good friendships off the track soon turn to fierce racing competitors on the track back to laughing and joking about the fastest and slowest racers once they were done. I believe everyone had a great time and learned a ton about Tamron lenses and how well they perform. Below are two images I took that day.

The first image was taken with the Tamron SP AF10-24mm Di II lens, which is designed for the APS-C sized sensor cameras, I used it on a Nikon D7000. Since I was able to get very close to the racing barriers, which allowed the racers to get within 6 ft, I decided on this great wide angle lens. It allowed me to get some of the barrier in the foreground, the racers in the middle and the back wall with corporate logos on it all in the shot, I then decided to go with a very slow shutter speed of 1/25 second, I wanted it slow so when I panned the camera with the racer the background and foreground would have a motion blur to it, as well as blur in the wheels from their movement. If you use to fast of a shutter speed, everything will be too sharp and it will look like they are standing still on the race track. The motion blur background helps create the feeling of movement, just remember to pan along with the subject while firing the camera. As I said earlier I wanted the logos in the background, and that was to add contrast to the background creating a more effective blur. With multiple colors and both light and dark, you create a more noticeable blur than if it was a solid color background.

 
The second image was shot with Tamron’s new SP 70-300mm VC USD lens. The speed of this lenses new USD focusing motor really came in handy trying to keep up with the racers. Looking at the lines of the track and picking a spot where I may be able to get more than one racer in the image was important for the shot I was trying to create. I decided to zoom out to 270mm to get a bit of a tighter crop, but still trying to create a more dimensional image, I positioned myself to get a little of the barrier in the bottom of the frame, the nice S curve of the barrier in the top right hand corner, as well as a second racer in the background. The compression a telephoto lens creates make it look like the racer in the background is only feet away from the person in front, when in actuality she was about 30-40 feet away. Again going with a slower shutter speed of about 1/60 second to blur some of the movement.

 

State of Maine, Is a State of Mind Part 1, Always be Ready

By Ken Hubbard

For the past few years my family and I have been taking vacations together the first week of July, this year was no different. We decided to head up to Maine and rent a few cabins on the Blue Hill peninsula overlooking Penobscot Bay, this is a very low key and quiet place to escape to. It is always nice to travel and spend time with family, but as a photographer it can be a test of patience at times, considering all you have to take into account when traveling with so many people. From experience, I've learned that these trips will yield very little in the way of "fine art" images, but that is OK. I've also learned to appreciate taking fun pictures of family and the places we go together without worrying about having to get the perfect image to use somewhere or print and hang for a gallery. With all that being said, my camera bag that usually weighs in at about 35-40 lbs is cut down to about 15lbs with only the minimal amount of gear being packed and brought on the trip. One of the ways I kept weight to a minimum was packing the Tamron 18-270mm VC PZD lens, I ended up using this lens for 90% of the images I shot while in Maine.

Even on trips with the family I am always ready to take a picture, many times while driving you pass something that will make a great image but your gear is packed away and you convince yourself not to stop and you keep on driving to your destination. I always keep my camera bag open on the back seat of my car and the camera set with either the 18-270mm (for the APS-C sized D7000) or 28-300mm (for the full frame D700), this way I can pretty much stop the car, pick up the camera and start shooting. In this image I came across an antique (it seems everything is an antique these days) sign shop on the side of the road, I quickly pulled into the parking lot grabbed my camera and started shooting. I wanted to keep a straight on perspective of the outside wall, so I lined up my back bumper in the middle and then climbed onto the bumper to gain some height. I positioned myself as close as I could to center both top to bottom and left to right, keeping all lines as straight as possible.

 

Kids Don't Sit Still For Long

 By Ken Hubbard

I'll start this off by saying that I don't have any kids myself, but do have 3 nieces and a nephew. So, I do know full well that kids just don't sit still for very long. Back in late September my sister's family and I went out for the last kayak trip of the year, we had a pretty good warm spell which made for a great trip. Emily, my niece, as usual went charging down the river as soon as she hit the water as fast as she could. The three adults, myself included, didn't even try and catch up, since this was going to be about a 5 mile trip and we needed to conserve a little energy.

I always bring a camera on these trips, and this time was no exception. Luckily for me I just got my sample of the new Tamron SP AF70-300mm VC USD lens and brought it along to try out. As the rest of us slowly paddled our way up river we came around a bend and there my niece was, just aimlessly floating about. She was sitting there in some really nice light, so I picked up my camera and started shooting, but within 5 seconds and maybe 6 shots she realized we were there and once again she was like a rocket taking off paddling out of sight. The 1st two images are from those six images. The ultra quick focusing speed of the USD (Ultrasonic Silent Drive) in the the new 70-300mm made all the difference in capturing the 1st shot of Emily looking sideways.

 
As the day progressed I took many more images but ended up liking this last image the best. My sister is just coming out from the darkness of a low bridge, so there is just enough light hitting her to show some detail, while the background is brightly lit. I also like the few droplets of water falling from her paddle. You can capture all these small details made even more clear because of the incredible sharpness of this new 70-300mm lens.

The Cuyahoga Valley National Park: Part One-Peninsula, Ohio

 By John Vansteenberg

Sitting astride the Cuyahoga River and deep in the heart of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park lies the tiny village of Peninsula, Ohio.

Once a transportation center and grain milling center, now the hub of the park, Peninsula boasts a complete restored lock on the famed Ohio Canal, and is a haven for the bicyclers, hikers and other visitors to the park each year. It is also home to some great artisans, and various dining and social establishments. The historic steam-driven Cuyahoga Valley Railroad Train stops there for riders on its way through the valley.

The train station in Peninsula.

Homes date from the early mid 1800s. Casual is the operative word for the tens of thousands of visitors each week passing through by car or bike or hiking the Park trails.

Typical homes in Peninsula.

In both winter and summer, it’s the natural gathering place for park visitors. Every season brings something different. These images were made in the afternoon on Labor Day weekend with the AF 18-270 VC, my favorite travel lens.

Foot/bike bridge over the Cuyahoga River beside the Lock.    Deep Lock from the Ohio Canal: The sign display is about 4 ft tall.

 

The Winking Lizzard sits in front of the the train station and the entrance to the trail along the biking/hiking path making it a reliable meeting place.

About Father's Day

 By André Costantini

Well it's almost Father's Day 2010 and half the year is already past us. Over time, it is little moments that become etched in our memories. Often we are left with the memory of the emotion but not necessarily the circumstance. Photography allows us to document the little (and big) moments in our lives. If much of photography is about storytelling, it is often the photographic challenge to convey that story in a single still frame. But, sometimes the best way to convey an experience is through a series of images. The more information you see, the more that the mind can construct or recollect the story.

In this case by using five frames you get a better understanding of the movement, interaction and love between a father and a son which includes elements of mimicry, teaching, happiness and laughter. All five of these images were taken within the same minute along with 7 others which I chose not to include. So that is roughly one image for every five seconds over the course of a minute. Action and interaction doesn't always happen every minute but when you come across something happening, spending the time to engage in it can yield you some great images. The first two images were taken at a 60mm focal length with the Tamron 28-75 f2.8 and the last three with the same lens zoomed to 75mm. Getting closer to the subject over the course of the action also helps create a feeling of closeness as their action becomes closer. The background is so out of focus because of the f2.8 aperture on the lens wide open, which is how these images are taken. Using the wide open aperture allowed the shutter speed to be around 1/1000 of a second which is freezing any movement effectively. And for those taking notes, the ISO was set at 200.

After I went back and reviewed the raw images, in Adobe Lightroom, I made some minor tweaks to the files. I started with using one of their black and white developer presets and then adjusted the contrast, saturation and exposure to my liking. After exporting jpegs from Lightroom, I then opened the files up in Adobe Photoshop to create the layout the way you see it here. In this case I added a little boarder (or stroke) to each individual image to make it pop off the white "matte". I chose the orientation based on the fact that it would be published in this blog, that lends itself better to a vertical rather then horizontal series. All told, these five images represent a total time of about 1/125 of a second, but the potential to have an impact is far greater.

A Less Flashy Holiday

 By Jeff Allen

Looking for a way to give your family gathering photos a different look? How about leaving your flash in the camera bag? With the new Tamron SP AF17-50 f2.8 VC, you can do just that. Let me show you how.

The “SP” in the model name means Super Performance, and the title is well deserved. Sharp at all apertures, plus the fast 2.8 maximum aperture of the lens allowed me great low light opportunities. Additionally in this new model Tamron has included “VC”, Vibration Compensation stabilization which gave me incredibly sharp shots even at really long shutter speeds. I was able get low light shots I wouldn’t have even considered shooting without the benefit of a fast stabilized lens.

1/6 sec @f3.5 (ISO 800)

1/10 sec @f3.2

1/10 sec @f2.8. ISO 400, artificial room light

Wow! No pet eye effect, no red eye with babies or blue-eyed adults, and no harsh flash shadows!

1/25 sec@f2.8

1/15 sec@f2.8, ISO 200, daylight through picture window

And I didn’t forget to play with abstract shots and still life’s. Easily captured hand held images, and without a need for a tripod thanks to Tamron’s VC stabilization.

1/6 sec@f4.5

1/6 sec@f2.8, ISO 400, light from subjects

Try the New Tamron SP AF 17-50 f2.8 VC for your next family shoot. Leave the flash behind once in a while.

Good Shooting.