Tamron Blog: Angle of View

MFD: A Tip on Getting Closer

By Jillian Bell

MFD stands for Minimum Focusing Distance and is the closest distance any lens can focus. Used properly, it allows a lens to achieve the greatest magnification within its working range. Each lens has a specific MFD and is measured from the imaging sensor denoted as the ᴓ symbol on the top of your camera. Any zoom lens that says “macro” has the capability of 40% life size (1:4) and is considered a close up photography lens. To use a zoom lens with macro properly, zoom the lens to its furthest length and place your camera at the minimum distance. For example, if I am using Tamron’s SP 28-75mm F2.8 lens which has an MFD of 13", I will zoom to 75mm and focus 13” from the camera sensor (ᴓ). Use a tripod for the most consistent results. This is an obvious tip, but very important to note. For the most flexibility, look for one with a center column that can bend at a 90° angle and legs that can be set to different angles. A stable foundation is essential for images with a long depth of field. Other things to note: for greater stability, use a remote or 10 second timer to allow any movement from you or the camera to settle.

As always, thank you for reading.

MFD symbol on camera

How-To-Seminars - Macro

By Jillian Bell

If you haven't had a chance to visit Tamron's website lately, you should. It's recently redesigned making it easier to find events in your area, and how to videos / articles. 2013 is exciting because Tamron has added Subject Specific, How-To Seminars. I am presenting (4) of the total (8). Through my next few blog posts you will get a taste of what I will discuss.

Looking Into a Small World, Macro Photography:  Understanding, and successfully seeing the world through macro photography brings to life a new perspective.  When considering the smaller scale, every detail plays a bigger role to identify the subject, decrease distraction, and create a truly impactful image.  Through this seminar, we will clearly define what macro means; discover how subtle decisions make big changes; and make sense out of an abstracted scene.  Lastly, when dealing with common macro subjects such as insects, flowers, and jewelry, we will discuss how they are handled differently indoors and outdoors, commercial vs. nature etc. 

Now the hardest part about getting into macro photography is really training your eye to look at a scene. What parts are you inspired by? Are there any unique elements? Have you looked at all the different perspective ways to look at the subject? Here I am looking at a basic one light set up on a bouquet of flowers. I like photographing roses because I feel everyone can relate to them in some way. The hard part about them is making your rose photo look different than any other rose photo you have seen before. Rose petals create amazing leading lines throughout an image and I enjoy how my focus lies on the edges of the petals rather than in the center of the bloom. Don't be afraid to rotate your images to create the best balance and use of lines. With most macro photographs, there is not a clear orientation, so have fun with it.

Tamron SP 90mm F2.8 VC USD Macro ISO 100 F11 @ 1/40sec

The next thing I look for is flower deformations. This makes your images unique, and adds intrigue. Be careful with white flowers. You will need to over expose slightly to get the correct whiteness. Macro is all about leading lines. I took this next photo vertically, creating a strong upward line with the daisy stem; then leading your eye back downward with the deformed, curved petal. Simply composed, blurred out, non-distracting background makes this piece my favorite of the three.

Tamron SP 90mm F2.8 VC USD Macro ISO 100 F13 @ 1/160sec

The last image I almost didn't get… Thinking I've shot every flower in this bunch, I set my camera down and noticed all the wonderful bubbles forming on the vase itself. Like I said in the beginning: Look at every aspect of your subject. I cropped as a panoramic because I pictured this image sitting above my couch in the living room. It also emphasizes the bubbles, minimizing the hard green diagonal lines.

Tamron SP 90mm F2.8 VC USD Macro ISO 100 F8 @ 1/250sec

Thanks for Reading – Jillian, Tamron USA Technical Representative

Checkout more images from this bouquet celebrating Macro Monday on TamronUSA Facebook page or on BellTamronUSA on Facebook.

Trapped in that Frozen Water

 By André Costantini

There is something trapped in that frozen water. And fortunately it wasn't me. Though when my leg fell through the ice to my knee, it almost happened! The odd weather this year with sub zero temperatures one day and 56 degrees two days later, made interesting conditions for sure. So seeing an iceberg stockpile in the river peaked my interest and despite a cold leg and some impaled brambles, it proved to be a great photo opportunity.

I had my new Tamron 90mm f2.8 VC Macro, which gave me the opportunity to get in really close and explore the worlds entrenched within the ice. The first image is an overall picture of the ice chunks, water and debris. Because of how it froze, it's a little hard to tell what is moving water and what is frozen. As you can see there was a myriad of textures to explore. I was only limited by my ability to physically get over to them and my tolerance for handling the cold.

As I slowly got closer to the ice I began to notice all the different worlds trapped inside based on the air and conditions the water cooled. In some of these images there are seemingly figures and in some cases even look like fossils or scientific studies. Because some of the ice was clear and some cloudy, depending on what plane the focus was on, the resulting images were different.

Speaking of focus, I had the lens set to manual focus for all of these images. The lens of course is auto-focus and even has an Ultrasonic motor for quick and quiet focus, but most of the time, especially for macro shooting, I find manual much better. The reason is quite simple, because there are several planes of focus which could be the "right one", manual gives you more control. Also, for the real close stuff I find it is better to physically move back and forth slightly and watch how the image changes, clicking when I see something that interests me.

Now in general, most macro photography is achieved best with a tripod, however in this case, due to the precarious situation of thin and uneven ice (and the fact that I didn't have one) all of these images were hand held. Fortunately, the new 90 has VC (Vibration Compensation: Tamron's image stabilization) which helps you hand hold images. All of these images were taken between 1/125 and 1/250 of a second at f8-f3.5. With macro it can also help you shoot at smaller apertures to get the depth of field you desire at slower shutter speeds. This is not a substitute for a tripod for all macro photography, but it can be helpful in certain conditions. And if you are using a tripod, make sure you turn the VC off.

One of the most incredible parts of this experience, is that no little frozen world is identical and of course they are all so temporary. You have the opportunity to capture some of natures happenstance in a way that will only occur different the next time even if the process is the same!

My Top Ten Favorite Images Of 2012

By Mike Moats

Even though 2012 has not come to a close yet, I couldn't wait any longer to post my top ten favorites of 2012. Well actually I lied about the number I'm posting, I just couldn't narrow it down to ten, so I came up with twelve images. There is a nice variety of images, many that I shot when I was out on the road doing my Macro Boot Camps. Images were shot using either the, Tamron SP 90mm macro, Tamron SP 70-300mm VC, or the Tamron 18-270mm VC PZD.

I will start with this image shot in the winter of 2012, and work through the spring into the fall. This was shot in a small frozen puddle in a park near my home. I liked the design of the leaf on the right and the bubbles. The thousands of tiny bubbles add a nice texture to the black background.

_____________________________________________________________________

In March I was in Raleigh, North Carolina for a workshop, and one of the local photographers and friend Susan Bailey asked if I would like to visit the Duke Universities Arboretum as the flowers were starting to bloom. I like the flow of the petals in this flower, and the soft pastel color.

_______________________________________________________________________

While I was at the Duke Gardens the tulips were just starting to bloom, I like how this budding tulip was being cradled in this leaf.

____________________________________________________________________

Now moving into April, I was presenting at the Bird and Photo Festival in St Augustine, Florida, and I visited a small park. It was early morning and I found this pair of Bird of Paradise leaves that were backlit by the sun. Nice abstract pattern.

______________________________________________________________________

While still in St Augustine, I strolled down to the beaches in search of feathers or shells. I found lots of nice shells composed in the sand and this was one of my favorites.

___________________________________________________________________

Back in the spring I started playing with different subjects outside of nature photography. Its been lots of fun and I've produced some very cool stuff with all kinds of subjects. I had a blast photographing water and oil. This was my fav of the oil and water shots.

____________________________________________________________________

Now we're heading into the fall, and I'm in the Boston area doing a workshop and had a day off to shoot, so headed up to Rockport, MA. Stopped by a small harbor of boats and saw this nice reflection in the water of the boat and ropes.

______________________________________________________________________

I heard about this very cool place called Old Car City. As I was on my way from Savannah, GA to Cincinnati, OH, I stopped in at Old Car City, which is 50 miles north of Atlanta, and 2 miles off I-75. There are over 4,000 classic cars scattered over 6 miles of trails through out woods and fields. Had a blast and got tons of great images. I scheduled a 2013 spring workshop there that sold out within days. People love shooting rusty junk cars.

_____________________________________________________________________

When I made it to Cincinnati after Old Car City, I stopped at a small Arboretum and found this unusual looking succulent. I used the Solorization filter in Nik Software to get this really cool look.

____________________________________________________________________

I had two weekends of workshops in the twin city area in Minnesota. Jillian Bell who is a Tamron Tech Rep lives in that area and went with me to the Minnesota Arboretum, which is run by the University of Minnesota. The indoor area was just a small building with some tropical plants, but I found this nice succulent that turned out very nice.

_____________________________________________________________________

While at home and in between traveling to workshops, I started visiting some of the local Detroit area museums. This one was shot at the Henry Ford Museum.

____________________________________________________________________

We have another nice car museum called the Walter P Chrysler Museum. Too bad attendance over the years wasn't strong enough, so the museum is closing as of January 1st. This is a cool abstract of reflection in the fender of one of the cars.

That's my 12 favorite images of 2012, thank you for stopping by and viewing them.

__________________________________________________________________

Website and Workshops

Macro Images & Controling Your Depth of Field

By Ken Hubbard

 

A few days ago a questions was asked of me on Facebook about one of the images I posted. The question asked if I used focus stacking software on the posted image of orchids which were taken while conducting a workshop at Parkside Orchids in Pennsylvania earlier this year. For those of you who don't know, focus stacking software allows you to create a larger depth of field than is normally attainable by merging images taken of the same subject with the same cropping, but with different focus points. When the images are merged the depth of field increases. The image above was the image in question, and no, there was no focus stacking done to this image. Anyone can obtain the same look by understanding the 3 things that effect depth of field, aperture, focus point & focal length.

First, lets look at aperture (or in other words your F-stop), the larger your aperture (F/1.4, F/2.8...) the smaller the depth of field & the smaller the aperture (F/16, F/22...) the larger the depth of field. This image was taken at f/32, which helped maximize my depth of field. Next is focus point, or how close you are to the subject you focused on. Keep this in mind, the closer you get to your focus point the shallower depth of field and images taken at the minimum focus distance of a lens, the DOF will be extremely shallow. This image was taken with the 90mm Macro lens which has a minimum focus distance of about 11 inches. I did not like the composition when shooting that close so I moved away from the flowers to about 22 inches. As I move away from my subject from 11 inches to 22 inches my DOF increased. Lastly, the focal length of the lens also affects your depth of field, the wider the angle of the lens the larger the depth of field. For example a 10mm lens will have a much larger depth of field than a 500mm lens.

In conclusion, to maximize the depth of field of this image, I stopped down the aperture to F/32, moved a little further away from the subject (22 inches) and used a 90mm focal length lens (instead of the 180mm Macro lens which would have had a shallower depth of field).

Winter Transition

By Jillian Bell

I had the opportunity last week to go photograph with Mike Moats, a professional photographer who uses Tamron lenses. We both gravitate towards close-up photography and got some amazing shots walking around a brown, plant-less arboretum in Minnesota. Here in Minnesota we have not seen a lot of snow yet. I was inspired by the transition into winter. A brown normally uninteresting landscape becomes a focus of what once was. The remnants of fall colors and full ponds now covered with ice; the last leaf hanging on the branch. This first photo (where I got this theme) is a wood covered bridge. You'll notice the shade still has snow, but the sun in some areas melted it away. Then we focused on the pond. Mike showed me how he photographed the leaves frozen in the water; which ones to look for, how to see texture within the ice. Overall I started the day not expecting anything interesting to photograph. I left the day inspired and with a handful of amazing images.

As always – Keep your eyes open, and thank you for reading. Jillian

See more images at www.facebook.com/pages/BellTamronUSA

Check out photographs from Mike Moats at www.facebook.com/mike.moats - www.tinylandscapes.com

Old Car City

By Mike Moats

If you like old rusting cars and trucks you will be in paradise if you visit Old Car City. Located about 50 miles north of Atlanta, and just two miles off I-75, Old Car City is the largest collection of classic cars in the world. Over 4,000 cars are scattered throughout acres and acres of woodlands. It is one of the most interesting places I've had the opportunity to shoot at. This is not your typical junkyard with most of the parts of the cars missing, the majority of the old cars are fully intact. The owner welcomes photographers and the entry fee is $15 for the day. I used my Tamron SP 70-300 VC and my Tamron SP 90mm macro.

For Macro Workshops visit my website at www.tinylandscapes.com.

 

Close-Up Images From Henry Ford Museum

by Mike Moats

As a pro macro photographer I have always concentrated on photographing nature. Many times during the four seasons we have slow periods when subject matter in nature isn't as available, so that is the time I spend looking for new close-up/macro opportunities. Close to my home in southeast Michigan we have an amazing attraction called the Henry Ford Museum. It is home to a massive historic collection of antique and unique automobiles, trains, planes, machinery, farm equipment, furniture, clocks, carriages, firearms, and more. Most of the subjects are behind ropes and barriers, so a longer lens is needed. I used my Tamron SP 70-300mm VC USD lens which worked prefect. The 300mm reached out when needed and I was always far enough away and never inside of the minimum focusing distance of the lens. I could fill the frame with small areas of the subjects and easily zoom in and out to frame the composition. We are not in the macro range with these images but in what we call close-up photography capturing small areas of a large subject. Here are some of the images from the museum. I will be offering some workshops at the museum in the future.

See more images from the museum at: www.tinylandscapes.com

Macro And A Zoom Lens

By Mike Moats

I did some test to see exactly how tight of a shot I could get with my Tamron 17-35 wide angle zoom and my Tamron 70-300 telephoto zoom. Both lenses are just regular lenses, and not listed having any macro capabilities. I compared the two zooms to my Tamron SP 90mm 1:1 macro. Here is the set up with the 70-300. the minimum focusing distance was 44 inches. If I move in any closer then 44 inches, it won't focus.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

This is the shot with the 70-300 and as tight as I can shoot on this shell. The area that I was able to capture was about 7"x10". So not too bad, and it diffidently could be used for some larger subjects in close-up photography.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

My 17-35 wide angle lens was able get me tighter on the subject at it's minimum focusing distance.

In order to get this shot I had to move in really close with the 17-35 lens, and the minimum focusing distance was about five inches from the front of the lens to the subject. So you can do some fairly tight close-up photography with this lens but you will have to work in very close to the subject to do it.

______________________________________________________________

Now I tried it with my 90mm macro, and I reached the minimum focusing distance when the front of the lens was about six inches from the subject. Now look how tight of a shot I have. It measured at 7/8th of an inch by 1 and 3/8th of an inch. Pretty tiny area.

Here is the minimum focusing distance with the 90mm macro lens.

So if you have a wide angle lens you will be able to do some fairly tight close-up images, and if your shooting larger subjects or covering a larger area, you could get by with the 70-300 in a pinch. But for the true macro work you need that macro lens.

__________________________________________________________

Macro Madness – The Colorado Wildflower Bloom

By Rob Moody

It’s a very exciting time in Colorado. The wildflowers are starting to bloom all over Colorado and the neighboring states. Every year this slow and colorful parade starts low in elevation and progresses to higher altitudes as the spring turns to summer. It’s a dream macro playground for both macro enthusiasts and nature photographic professionals! If you don’t yet have a macro lens in your tool kit, this is the time of year to consider adding one. Whether it’s in your own garden or in my backyard, The Rocky Mountains, macro lenses offer you a great opportunity to adventure into a world within a world. In fact, you can find fascinating macro landscapes no matter where you live. They are all around us.

Below I have included wildflower images taken with the Tamron SP 60mm f/2.0 1:1 Macro lens. I love the way you can use very selective depth of field with this lens. Using F/stops like f/2.8 and f/2.0, I can bring unique focus to the subject while at the same time rendering the flowers in the background out of focus with less depth of field. I use f/stops like f/4 and higher if I desire greater depth of field or a more in focus background. I find photographing wildflowers to be incredibly relaxing and rewarding. You see great images of wildflowers all around you from the magazines you read to the websites and offices you visit. If you own your own DSLR, why not make this the year you create your own masterpiece to frame and put on the wall or post on the web? With a macro lens and a little practice, I know you could do it!

Please be careful when photographing wildflowers not to step on or damage the surrounding growth. A good quality tripod and the proper remote or cable release can make avoiding plant damage and macro photographing much easier. It’s likely that you will encounter wet areas as you look for freshly blooming wildflowers. Some form of pad(s) for your knees, elbows and hands comes in handy as you will find yourself resting on all four in back of the tripod for long periods. Practicing with your new macro lens and a tripod in the backyard can be very beneficial before that big vacation wildflower shoot. Whether it’s in your state or mine, I hope to see you along the trail.