Tamron Blog: Angle of View

SHEDDING LIGHT ON MEN!

 By Hernan Rodriguez

Whether shooting images for a commercial client, or to further my portfolio, I like to begin my images with a visual concept, drawing ideas from everywhere such as dreams, movies and just about anywhere. With my background as an Art Director, I illustrate most of my ideas on a sketchpad including diagrams, to illustrate where I would place my lights, and maybe what I want to portray in the final images. I find this technique to be a good practice and highly recommend it because it eliminates the guesswork. Even if I don’t use that particular idea, I save the notes and refer to it later, as a ‘tried and tested’ archive. It also comes in handy when I have a client wanting a specific look, which I might have already perfected.

A question was recently brought to my attention – ‘Do you ever photograph men’?

After reviewing my portfolio, I realized from my body of work that I do, however, probably not enough. I put a casting out for men, tested for hours, and finalized the shoot. It turned out great! So with that said, here is one of my approaches to photographing men. 

LIGHTING

First objective in this next lighting diagram was to have the largest wrap-around light source I could attain. I wanted to come up with a new approach in creating an image with a commercial feel and good transitions throughout the skin tone.           

For this reason, I chose to start my light set-up with the placement of my fill light. I decided to use 2 large 86” white satin Westcott oversized umbrellas. I placed both of these umbrellas directly to the left and to the right of my camera, feathered towards my subject. The umbrella from camera left coming across the front of the subjects left shoulder, and the umbrella from camera right coming across the front of the subjects right shoulder. Almost a type of criss-cross. Each light was close to six feet infront of subject, and each light needed a reading of F4 individually with a combined reading of F5.6 together.This gave me a beautiful wrap around fill which cannot be attained by just one light source.

Second objective was adding a bright accent on my subject’s face with quick fall-off. I wanted to highlight the upper region and let it graduate to darker.

For the key light, I placed a 22” beauty dish fitted with a honey comb grid and a sock (diffusor) over it to cut down the light further. This also allowed me to place the light closer to the subject for quicker fall-off. This was placed on a boom directly over camera approximately 36” above subject with a reading of F8 1/2.

Third I added two more lights from behind and on each side of my subject as accent. One was a 7” reflector with a 20 degree grid set at F11, and the other was a small 16x20 soft box with little diffusion set at F11.5.  A cyan Rosco gel was added for effect.

One last light 7” reflector with a 30 degree grid was used for the background. As these were a series of images, the background light metered between F11 and F16, depending on the “look”. 

TIP: When photographing men, this light setup creates contour, shape and shadows.

LENS CHOICE

I used a Tamron SP 90mm macro which allowed me some compression even at a small aperture. You can see where the focus falls off in the close-up of the hand. The distance from my lens to my focusing point was about four feet.  Elements behind that point would quickly fall off focus.

The overall exposure was set at 125th sec at F8 1/2 ISO 100

Out On The Ice

 

By Mike Moats

It's that time of year here in Michigan when the ice freezes solid enough on Stoney Creek lake to walk on, and capture some of the leaves that lock in the ice. There is a section of the lake that the westerly winds blow fall leaves into the lake which freeze over. I used my 18-270 Tamron to shoot these images.

Here's what I'm looking at, and I search out any interesting subject.

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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!

Himalayas in Black and White

By André Costantini

About 125 miles west of Kathmandu you will find Pokhara, the second largest city in Nepal. It is located at the base of the Annapurna mountain range, which is part of the Himalayas. Now although you will not be anywhere near the famed Mt. Everest, you will be near only three of the top ten highest peaks in the world and be privy to quite a view from town and the surrounding hills.

Pokhara is a famous destination as a launch point for travelers to spend weeks trekking the Himalayas. With only several days to stop by, we didn't have time for a proper trek, but had plenty of time to hike about and take in some of the spectacular scenery.

The deceptive thing about this landscape is that without anything for scale you really have no sense of how massive these mountains really are. The peaks in the image are over 23,500 feet tall. The altitude I am making these images is probably only 3,500 feet. The peaks are roughly 30 miles away and there is a tiny paraglider in the bottom center of the image, probably at about 5,500 feet and probably only 2 miles from us.

The conversion to black and white was done using Nik Silver Efx Pro 2.0 which is a really great black and white plug in for Photoshop, Lightroom or Aperture. The density of the sky was so blue even without the use of a polarizer, that the black and white conversion came pretty easily with a dark sky without much manipulation. In this case the key was to use the software equivalent of a red filter on the camera, which makes the blue tones, blacker.

Certain images tend to lend themselves really well to black and white. This image was one because there was nice contrast from the snow and the clouds against the sky. In the original image the intense blue color hues overpower the form of the clouds and mountains. But when the color is removed now our focus shifts to the contrast of the clouds and mountains against the sky for something a little more striking. I have included the original image below for comparative purposes.

This image was taken with the Tamron SP 70-200 f2.8 VC. The focal length was 70mm and the aperture was set at f7.1 at 1/640th of a second.

Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal

By Ken Hubbard

 

When you head to Montreal, Canada the week in between Christmas and New Year's you expect a few things like, the streets and shops decorated for the holiday season, tourists who came to see this historic city, cold weather and snow! I know the reason I wanted to go up to Canada in the middle of winter, were the great photo ops in this beautiful old city regardless of challenging weather conditions. Well, with a major snow storm hitting the city the night I arrived and lasting throughout the entire next day, I was put to the test early. For at least the first full day I was there, it was going to be an indoor shooting experience. Which was fine, since I was staying in Old Montreal and there are a number of Cathedrals and other historical buildings to shoot, they just needed to be open!

Luckily, Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal was open despite the whipping winds and heavy snowfall. One good thing about such a bad weather day is that less people are out sight seeing and what would usually be a very busy day inside the Basilica was now a much easier photographic experience. There was only one potentially bad mistake I made, I didn't want to carry my tripod around in the snow storm, so I left it back at the hotel. I usually depend heavily on a tripod in such low lit places as this, especially when I'm dealing with exposures of anywhere between 1/2 sec & 1/8 sec. even with my ISO set to 1600. Luckily for me the three lenses that I brought were all well suited for low light shooting because of either a fast F/2.8 aperture, Vibration Compensation, extreme wide angle of view or the combination of all three. The three lenses I used were Tamron's SP 10-24mm, 18-270mm VC & SP 17-50mm F/2.8 VC.

Since the Tamron 10-24mm is an extreme wide angle lens, it was a bit easier for me to hand hold my camera at slower shutter speeds like 1/4 sec and still get sharp images. The wider the angle of view your lens is the easier it is to hand hold. For example, if you look through your viewfinder when you have a lens set to 300mm, you can actually see your camera moving all over the place. Now, when you put another lens that is 10mm on your camera, you don't see the camera shake at all. The second Lens that I used was the Tamron 18-270mm, because I used some longer focal lengths it was harder to hand hold. This is where the Vibration Compensation system really helped, I was able to slow down my shutter speed about 4 stops than I normally could and was capturing images down to about 1/3 sec. The last lens I used was the 17-50mm F/2.8 VC. With the added feature of a fast F/2.8 aperture in this lens along with the wide angle of 17mm and the Vibration compensation, all allowed me to capture some images down to 1/2 sec. The images attached to this blog were all hand held using either one of these three lenses and were shot with various apertures, ISO 1600 and shutter speeds between 1/2 - 1/8 second.

Cold Weather Camera Tips

by Jillian Bell

December 21, 2012 marked the start of our winter solstice. In Minnesota this means 20F temperatures, warm scarfs and beautiful winter landscapes. Anytime you are out photographing in below freezing temperatures, be weary of how your camera can react. Batteries deplete faster, condensation can build on fast warm ups, lenses can fog. To help keep your gear at its best, follow these guidelines.

Tips for Shooting in the Cold

• Pack extra fully charged batteries. To extend rechargeable battery life, keep them warm in your pocket rather than in your camera bag. When possible, non rechargeable lithiums or alkaline batteries are preferred and have better cold weather resistance (an adapter might be needed for SLR cameras).
• Always travel and use rain covers. These keep cameras dry in the snow and sleet.
• Only change lenses outdoors when necessary. If possible go inside, or a sheltered area. If your equipment gets wet, dry as soon as possible.
• Keep microfiber cloths handy for cleaning, and keep dry within plastic bags / containers. Plastic film containers work well for this. Also, know where your cards are stored. Use a waterproof card case to keep cards dry if they ever are dropped into the snow. Brightly colored cases are easier to find.
• I prefer fingerless gloves for dexterity. Mittens can be worn over for warmth. Find a system that works best for you.
• MOST IMPORTANTLY - When you are bringing your electronics back inside, warm them up slowly. Put your camera inside a sealed plastic bag, or I put my whole case inside a cooler. Place them in the coldest area inside to warm equipment up slowly. This minimizes the risk for condensation and shock to the new environment.

Happy New Year Everyone, Enjoy these photos from our last snow fall - Jillian

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The Tamron 17-50mm Gets the Shots I Need

By Laura Yanes

Recently, I was asked by a firefighter I was photographing, “What kind of lens are you using?” He’s an amateur photographer and naturally just as curious about my gear as I am about his.

In fact, I’m so much more interested in his gear that I’m embarrassed to say I had to look at the lens to answer his question. Oh, of course I know it’s a Tamron lens and that it has quickly become on of my favorite tools for the work I do creating portraits of firefighters around the nation. But to tell him specifically it’s the SP 17-50mm F/2.8 just doesn’t roll off my tongue easily.

I never learned to pay much attention to the technical details of the equipment I use. That goes for my computer, my smart phone, or even the car I drive. I’m one of those over-confident people who starts using the equipment first then reads the manual later.

I wasn’t trained to understand the ins and outs of the gear. I’m not as interested in what’s in or on the camera as I am about what comes out of it.

I can proudly say I was trained by New York City firefighters in the days, months and years that followed 9/11. They taught me to look with my heart when framing a portrait. They showed me how to listen to their sorrow with my ears and with my lens. They let me into their private domain where I was allowed to share their tears of grief, their humor, their camaraderie, and a few too many meals. They even brought their children for me to meet and photograph.

After the deaths of 343 firefighters in the World Trade Center, many of the families of surviving firefighters wanted their sons and husbands to quit before anything happened to them, too. These brave men and women asked me to show their loved ones just how passionate they are about their jobs, how proud they are of their engines and trucks, and how much they love the members of their crews. Together, they are a family connected by their commitment to serve their communities and protect each other while protecting us all. We saw that again in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and the support they showed to other first responders in Newtown, CT.

So it’s important to me to find the humanity, the dignity, the courage, and the pride of firefighters and reflect it in the photos I take of them. The challenges of the work requires simplicity, ease, and speed. I’m always working against the next alarm, the next 9-1-1 call, the next joke, the next moment - whatever it might be. Being ready emotionally is just as important as having my equipment ready.

Over the past 11 years, I have counted on my Tamron lenses to be there for me.The 17-50mm is no exception. I trust it to do the job I need it to do without worry. So if I’m photographing a man about to retire after 30 years of service, I can focus on him, not my equipment. I can talk him through the moment to ease his shyness, I can ignore the poor lighting conditions and limited space, I can laugh with the crew surrounding me lobbing jokes and tossing teases to my subject while we try to get the shot before the next emergency.

The joy of working with the Tamron 17-50mm is that it provides me with the flexibility and ease I need in this environment. Working in such tight quarters I rarely have need for a longer focus, but often require quick adaptation from a close shot to a wider one without losing essential time to change the lens or even switch cameras. I may be in the middle of an intimate portrait then catch from the corner of my eye the catlike steps of a crew preparing to thank a retiring captain for 30 years of service with a traditional prank of affection.

There is no time to change the lens, just get the shot. Thankfully, with the Tamron 17-50mm, I’m ready for anything that might happen in a fire station!

To learn more about the project go to www.FireFighterArchive.com.

 

Why the 17-50/2.8 is almost always my 'normal' go to lens.

By John VanSteenberg

At Tamron, a group of us travel extensively to fulfill the 350 events we stage each year teaching photography and training people and attending conventions, etc.. Those include everything from nature and macro workshops, “zoo days”, staff training events, convention booths images, and almost any kind of photography seminar imaginable. And, traveling to and from these events is often the time we get to make images.

Additionally, much of my personal work includes photographing “social events”. In my case, it involves appearances with athletes at social and promotional events. These often include group functions like awards dinners, public appearances, fitness clinics, etc.. Typically, these happen in restaurants, social halls, gymnasiums or the like. Often, they include meetings and dinners and are technically very much like photographing wedding receptions or business functions.

Because of the wide variety of situations, most involving small groups of people, in low light, many requiring specifically using flash or ambient light only; I find my Tamron SP 17-50/2.8 VC on my camera almost all the time.

1) Coverage. The 17-50mm range on an APS-C body is perfect for social functions. From portraits to table shots to “grip and grins” to couples in conversation, to dance floor situations, I seem to never have to change lenses. (For full-frame bodies, I would choose the Tamron SP 24-70/2.8 or SP 28-75/2.8 models.)

And when documenting seminar attendees, booth set up at conventions and even for fine art landscapes, the 17-50 fits virtually every situation except the most extreme wide or telephoto situations.

2) Hand held low light capabilities. The fast 2.8 constant aperture means I can work with ambient light in the situations requiring it. The additional capabilities of the VC technology enable me to work in light that we would never even consider a couple of years ago. I have never seen any stabilization feature that is as effective. Everybody’s ability to shoot hand held varies, of course. But, I find I can hand hold 1/8^th to 1/4^th of a second, depending on my caffeine intake.

3) Improved flash functionality. Having the constant f/2.8 is crucial for social events. I dislike the flat and high contrast usually associated with most on-camera flash photography. Therefore, in the field, to soften the light and create more wrap, I always use a fan type flash modifier, when flash is required. The drawback to this is that the effective flash distance is reduced about in half. The fast and constant f/2.8 aperture offsets this loss of light, allowing me both a higher quality of light and the greater distance required for many group shots.

4) Close focusing capabilities. In addition to citations and plaques, athletes are often awarded rings in recognition of certain events or championships. Just like the ring shots at weddings, these ‘ring shots’ come up often. With the ability to focus down to about 12 inches and a reproduction ratio of 1:4.8, I can fill the image with anything slightly larger than a business card.

5) Video clips. Today, photographers are often required to produce video in addition to still images. Again the constant f/2.8 aperture plays an invaluable roll. It prevents exposure shift associated with zooming when using a variable aperture lens. And, it allows for effective depth of field control to de-emphasize objectionable backgrounds.

6) Optical quality. The fast f/2.8 means that at f/4-f/5.6 my images will be sharper than any variable maximum aperture lens I have encountered (because they are not yet into their “sweet spot” of maximum sharpness). This means that from the eyelashes on portraits to the faces of everyone in large groups, I can be certain of great enlargement capabilities and satisfied clients.

Also, as with all SP models from Tamron, it is possible to get a bigger maximum enlargement size than with non-SP models. This becomes very significant when high quality display prints are the goal.

So, for all of these reasons, the 17-50 range is virtually my normal lens and is always on my main body unless I am traveling, then it goes to my 18-270 VC..

Wild Poinsettias

By André Costantini

 

The poinsettia as a Christmas flower allegedly traces its roots to the 16th century in Mexico, it's popularity in America is largely a 20th century phenom. In many parts of the world, such as Mexico, India and parts of Nepal, the flower grows in the wild and is more of a shrub or a tree. And it was on a hike in Nepal, specifically Pokhara, at the base of the Himalayas that we came across a huge plant towering over us with the sky behind. Though I am used to seeing poinsettias in December in America, I was not used to a large plant hanging ten feet overhead. I had my new Tamron SP 70-200 f2.8 VC lens with image stabilization already on the camera and was able to take this image at 181mm at 1/40th of a second hand held. The aperture was f7.1 and the ISO 125. The camera was set in Manual mode.

Depending on the situation, I use my camera in different modes. In this case Manual not only allowed me to control the camera to properly expose the flower, but also to maximize my depth of field and image quality with a lower ISO. In general the lower the ISO the better the image quality but because there is a relationship between ISO and shutter speed, one has to make choices to optimize your picture. Having Tamron's VC (Vibration Compensation) stabilizer in the lens allowed a shutter speed of 1/40 of a second hand held at 181mm. 10 years ago this would have been almost impossible to get without a tripod.

Even though my lens can open to an aperture of f2.8, sometimes you need additional depth of field to get the image you want. In order to get the central poinsettia sharp and the surrounding ones a little soft, at 181mm the aperture was stopped down to f7.1.

When exposing an image that is back lit, it is necessary to over-expose, from what the cameras meter will tell you. This is because the meter, if you leave it in an evaluative or matrix setting, is looking at the entire frame and does not know you want to expose for a back lit subject. By overexposing, the blue sky turns white and the black flowers turn red. The image below is how the camera wants to expose it automatically. Often, great images are all around you, even if you are not in Nepal, but sometimes you have to manipulate the camera to make pictures the way you see them. Until next year...