Tamron Blog: Angle of View

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..

Just Go Shoot Yourself!

By Rob Moody

I had an experience working at the Great American Scrap Booking Festival this year that caused me to think. I viewed literally hundreds of scrapping pages and a theme started to present itself. The theme was that the photographer/scrapper was in very few, if any, of the images in their own scrapbook. It was as if just the camera went on all these trips with a family that didn’t have a mother! I was shocked, but then thought about my photography and realized, I was guilty of the same thing.

After this experience, I started to look at the entire body of work that I’ve created as a photographer. As I spent time looking at various images from adventures past, I realized that when it comes to my passion, nature photography in the mountains, I have many great images, but unfortunately not very many that include me in the adventure.

I’m making a conscious effort to change this.

On every trip since then, I have made sure to either take images of myself or hand the camera to others to snap off a couple. I think often times we think of ourselves as the photographer, so naturally don’t think of ourselves as being in a potential part of the photograph. This is crazy because of the extensive selection of tripods, cable releases and remote controls available for every camera today. Alternatively, you can use your cameras self-timer and a tripod to get yourself in the image if you want to go lightweight and inexpensive.

Shooting yourself presents a couple of challenges:

One is how do you compose the image intending to include yourself?

Another is how do you focus the camera when you are not in the picture yet?

The answer to the composition question is to pre-visualize yourself in the image as if you were shooting another person doing the same thing. Realize that a great many things you do while adventuring might add interest to the body of work. Plan to record like a journalist to add more flavor and tell more of a full story about your adventures.

Another tip is to compose the image as if no one would be in it, and then include you as part of it. A self environmental portrait of you doing the things you love. Be your own model, it’s a great photographic learning exercise. Think about the magazines you read and the images included of people doing things you normally wouldn’t think to photograph, the behind the scenes stuff.

The answer to the focus part is method. If another person is going to be in the image with you, you can simply focus on them and then run over and place yourself next to them in the image. If you are the only one in the picture, focus on something in the area where you will stand for the image. To do this, place your AF point selector to single point AF and move it to the item in the picture where you will be standing, for example a rock or a patch of grass. Then use your self-timer or remote/ release to trigger the shutter with you in the picture on that spot.

Another method you can use is to set a specific distance on the lens. Most lenses still show distance identification markers in both meters and feet. For this, set the focus to manual and turn the focus ring to your preferred distance. For example, set the focus to 6ft and then stand approximately 6 feet away from the camera.

The key to both methods is to take several images so you have something to choose from. Also, this will improve your chances of getting a focused image with you in the right place in the composition. Greater depth of field with an f/stop like f/8 – f/16 will make it more likely everything will be in focus. The less depth of field the less chances of getting exactly what you want in focus. This is somewhat trial and error at first, but with a little practice in the backyard you’ll get the hang of it. Have a little fun and shoot yourself. I hope to see you out there.

Impromptu Portraits

By André Costantini

There was just a moment or two. Well, maybe three. But I wanted to take a quick impromptu portrait. I knew the light was great, but there was not a lot of it. When I say that, I mean I could see it with my eye, but sometimes what I see, the camera can't quite capture. Have you ever had that experience? You see it and you know that it's there but when you try and take a picture, it falls a little short. There is nothing more frustrating then knowing that it's possible but not being able to make it. It doesn't matter what "that" is, but in this case, it was a picture.

It was my brother and I. We had a couple of days together for the first time in a long time and these days there is never enough time to be able to do everything we want to do. He came up for the weekend and we were working on a capital project (AKA rebuilding the side deck.) We came in for a break and he sat down at the table and I grabbed the camera. The light was coming from the sliding glass door in front of him. When he sat down I knew I just had to take it. So I asked him to stay there for a moment as I composed the image. I used the wider angle to incorporate the setting. As I took the first picture, I noticed the window in the background and then asked him to move closer to it. Though the light from the window added dimension to the image at the table, it was really bright when he sat in front of it. In the second picture, he was totally backlit because the light from the door which so nicely illuminated him in the first picture was barely enough to expose his face. In other words, I saw him, but the camera didn’t. It wanted to properly expose the curtain which would result in a really dark figure.

There were two things that I needed to be able to do to get it the way I saw it. The first was the exposure. With so much backlight (the bright window behind the subject), I needed to quickly trick the camera’s exposure. I had to overexpose the camera’s metering system, which gets confused by the brightness. I was using manual mode, so I over exposed what the camera’s meter said (if you are using Program or Aperture Priority use the EV Compensation and go to the + side one or two stops.) The second was using a slow shutter speed. The toughest part about using a slow shutter speed is being able to hand hold them for a non-blurry picture. Fortunately, the lens I was using had a stabilizer and in this case Tamron’s Vibration Compensation (VC) technology. It makes the difference between blurry and clear pictures (unless you always carry a tripod.)

Sometimes, life happens quickly. Both of these images were taken about 90 seconds apart. When I was faced with these challenging photographic circumstances, Vibration Compensation Technology saved the day. Be ready. Be prepared. Capture the moment (or two.)

UGGIE - "THE ARTIST"

By Hernan Rodriguez

I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE WITH YOU ONE OF THE CHAPTERS OF MY NEW UPCOMING BOOK, "75 PORTRAITS by Hernan". THANKS TO AMHERST MEDIA. THIS PARTICULAR DIAGRAM IS OF UGGIE THE DOG.

One of the most exciting things about being based in Los Angeles area, for me, is the opportunity to work with celebrities. When the phone rings or I’m checking my emails, I never know what celebrity I will be shooting next. Uggie was my first canine “star.” Uggie is most remembered for his role in the Academy Award winning film “The Artist.” He came prepared for his publicity shoot with his honorary “Oscar“. Not bad for a dog!!

These images showcased, were created for Uggi’s book. We did a series of three different looks. One image I really wanted to capture, was a classic portrait of Uggi, to be able to convert into black and white. Similar to the style and time period of the movie he starred. For such an image, I tend to keep the background simple and clean. I used a thunder grey seamless paper roll set four feet behind Uggi. I also needed a platform for Uggi, so we used a variety of set chairs. Both short and tall. Contrast was not an issue, being that Uggi is white. In approaching my lighting setup, I also needed the latitude to allow Uggi to move freely, without missing the light. I created a set that would wrap light completely around Uggi.

For my keylight, I used a large 30” beauty dish with a grid, and on some of the shots created, I taped black gaffer tape around the edges, to narrow my light. I often use this technique as well as black cinefoil around the perimeter of my beauty dish, to shape my light. I placed this light overhead at a high angle to create shadows. My keylight metered F11. For my fill light, I used a combination of two lights. The first was a 36” silver umbrella, set at 90 degrees to camera right. This light was feathered across Uggi. Since Uggi’s coat is white, placing my light forward, would flatten my lighting. This light metered F5.6. The combination of my key and fill, kept depth to the final image. My second fill was an on-camera ring flash. This light was used as weak fill if needed. It metered F4. One small 12”x18” softbox was placed directly over Uggi’s right side and just two feet behind. This light was metered equal to the keylight. It added just the right amount of soft highlights as accent. I also used a flash head equipped with a 20 degree grid, for added highlights, set to Uggi’s left side, 3 feet behind. This light metered 1/2 over the keylight. One last light was a flash head with a 30 degree grid, placed four feet in front of the background. This light was 1/2 brighter than the keylight as well. My final exposure was 200^th of a second at F11. ISO 100.

HERE IS A QUICK VIDEO OF UGGIE'S BEHIND THE SCENES PHOTO-SESSION.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6WduC3xZ1PE

Kids in Kumasi

By André Costantini

Father Raphael now runs the basilica. It was not his first choice. Formerly, he had done more outreach and procurement of supplies for rural villages. But when the new archbishop was appointed, his grace decided it was time for the father to move into the city and run the cathedral. Though his work had changed, he still had involvement with many people who were dealing directly on the streets. Among them were three Nigerian nuns who had lived across from the basilica for the past eight years, and as long as there was funding, they didn't have plans to go anywhere. The former archbishop had started their program and had recruited the three Nigerian nuns. Their program had grown, now with several employees and with volunteers supplied mainly from the Netherlands. It was a small chain of events that lead to our meeting. The father had borrowed their van to pick us up and as I knew the father and we needed to return their van, it was at this point I learned of their program.

Every morning during the week, the nuns and volunteers would meet and decide who would go into the field and who would remain. They were not there to convert but to provide support. Their mission is to go visit communities of street children in and around Kumasi market and make them aware of their facilities including the opportunity to bathe, participate in activities and should they want, have the opportunity to return home. Kumasi market is the largest market in Ghana, with the promise of opportunity for work and draws hundreds of kids from broken homes or those from impoverished regions. Many of these children are under the age of 12. The work that they typically do is moving products from place to place in the typical Ghanaian way, with a large bowl on their heads.

One of the nuns offered to take me through the market and show me what they do and some of the places where the children congregate. Several days later when I had a free morning I spent the morning with them. When we returned back to their facility, many children had come. I offered to take portraits for those who wanted to. Some did, some didn't. 25 children decided to be photographed. It wasn't until that evening that I realized all 25 individual portraits were taken in 8 minutes. As I didn't recall feeling rushed, it is times like these I am reminded that photography has the ability to alter time as well as capture a slice of it. 7 of the 25 are depicted here. All images were taken with the New Tamron SP 24-70 f2.8 VC at various focal lengths mostly f4.0 1/400th.

Passing the Camera

By André Costantini

I can remember one of the first times I handed my professional camera to a 3 year old and the reaction on the parents face. As many times as I have done this over the years (knock on wood) none has ever been dropped. Children usually understand the value of what they are holding and seem to be quite careful.

There are two things that consistently happen when letting kids use "adult cameras". First, they feel a sense of empowerment and secondly they become part of the process, which is especially helpful if part of your goal is to photograph them. Here are a few pictures from a recent brunch where we passed the camera around the table and everyone got a chance to take some pictures. These were all shot with the Nikon 7000 and the Tamron SP 17-50 f2.8 taking advantage of the available light and f2.8 aperture. I bet you can guess who shot who.

Diptych: Nature vs. Industry

by Jillian Bell

I took a photograph this summer of a plant eaten away by an insect of some sort. I was drawn to the repetition of shape, and how precise the wear marks were. I was curious what made the marks, and why there were spaces, creating the letter "i". Recently, while at a sale day at Dodd Camera in Ohio, I looked up and saw a similar pattern. If you can believe it, the second photo is taken of a fluorescent light fixture hanging above the counter. I cannot say if I was entirely successful, but I tried taking the second photo to mimic the first one. I did not have the first photograph in front of me, but my first thought was how similar these two objects are even though their makeup and purposes are completely different. The photograph of the plant leaf was taken with the Tamron SP 180mm F3.5 Macro at F/4 and 1/30^th of a second. I like it better in color but decided to show in B&W to relate both images better. The fluorescent light photograph was taken with the Tamron 18-270mm VC PZD at F/6.3 and 1/2500^th of a second. Exposure was set +0.05 to allow the whites to really pop. This is a true testament in keeping your eyes open. I have learned to always keep my camera on me. I never know when I will find something interesting to photograph. Thank you for reading.

The Unexpected Guest

by André Costantini

This year the Christmas tree came from the backyard and on the evening that we put it up I noticed a gigantic spider or rather a gigantic shadow from a tiny spider as it walked over the tree lights. But with so many lights trying to find the actual spider became an exercise in futility. And I went to bed knowing that at least the spider was tiny. The next morning I heard some rustling towards the top of the tree and my mind immediately drifted to those urban myths of cactuses exploding with thousands of spiders. So I was somewhat surprised to see a butterfly, who apparently found it warm enough to emerge and thus our Christmas butterfly was born or maybe more accurately had arisen.

My internet detective work led me to believe that the butterfly is an Eastern Comma, on account of the comma like slit in the wings and the coloration. He or she, as I am not in the business of distinguishing the gender of butterflies, was quite cooperative as a subject landing on the finger of my fiance and exposing the innards of it's wings. The butterfly has taken a liking to the bedroom window in the afternoons and the outside of the window curtain in the evenings. She has been with us for four weeks now and seems quite content, especially when some birds unsuccessfully attempted to eat her through the window. But I digress, on the first day of our acquaintance, I was compelled to photograph my new friend. And of the 120 or so images I shot, came a collage, a portrait and an abstract of the butterfly in the tree.

All images were taken with the Tamron SP 60mm F/2.0 macro lens. The collage images were taken at 1/100-125th of a second at 1600 ISO f3.3. The images themselves are not manipulated other then erasing the edges to soften them and laying them out together. Because of the depth of field and the movement of the butterfly with respect to the shutter speed, some blur occurred, resulting in an image that resembles painting. The portrait was 1/125 ISO 800 f3.3 and is two images combined together to increase the depth of field and create more planes of sharpness. Butters in the tree was 1/80th ISO 8000 f4.0. I focused the lens to its closest focus point to get the tree lights to blur into nice round circles and then moved around to get the butterfly silhouette in the foreground.

Sometimes the unexpected guest can become the center of attention, especially when it is a butterfly in your living room in mid December in the northeast of America.

Achieving that Selective Focus

By André Costantini

If you are looking to achieve selective focus there are three things to know that effect the depth of field in your images. They are aperture or f-stop (interchangeable terms), focal length and the distance of focus to your subject. Wider apertures like f2.8 or f2.0 let in more light but provide less depth of field. With longer telephoto lenses there is less depth of field. And the closer your focusing point, or to generalize the closer the subject to the lens, the less of your image will be in focus. This becomes especially apparent with true macro photography. So combining all of these principles will then create the most exaggerated effect. This image was taken with the Tamron 28-75 f2.8 at 75mm at f2.8 at just under 2 feet away.

This image was made in Brazil one afternoon when I was working on assignment down there. As you can see the eyebrows and mustache are in focus but everything else quickly falls out. When using this technique it is critical that you get your focus exactly right. The good news is that when you look through your camera's viewfinder on your SLR, you are seeing what the camera will record at the lenses widest aperture. So you will always get exactly what you see in the viewfinder when the aperture of your camera is set to the wide open setting. Sometimes when working this close to people I will switch the focus mode to Manual. A slight physical movement on the part of the subject or the photographer is enough to make a critical last minute decision and can be the easiest way to achieve the best focus. Be careful not to get "off axis" of the plane of your subjects face, otherwise you can wind up with one eye in focus and the other one out. Also if you tilt up or down you may wind up with the eyes in focus and the lips out. If you are looking to avoid that, make sure that the back of the camera is parallel to the subjects face.

Using a wide open aperture close to your subject can create nice portraits because the effect of something very sharp next to something very soft is often pleasing for our eyes as an audience to see. Speaking of seeing, even though his eyes are dark, I had him face the sky on an overcast day. That creates the soft highlights in his eyes which give the image more depth. Our eyes are drawn to contrast and where light meets dark creates this. He is standing on a balcony with an overhead covering, which is helping to give direction to the light and shadow on the top of his head and cheek.

So if you want to maximize the effect of the selective focus remember to open wide, go long and get close.