Taking Image Making to a New Level ... A Very Low Level of Light, That is.

By John VanSteenberg

  

Midlife Chryslers at the Northside

 

The Northside Tavern in Akron, Ohio is definitely a hangout, but a great one, famous for "Loud Food and Spicy Music". When I'm in town, I go there for two things: GREAT music and the toughest shooting challenge I can find for almost any new piece of gear. You see, basically, they have no lights on stage. (Well, just a couple of 150W floods dimmed by color filters to nothing.)

 

I wanted to test and demonstrate Tamron's groundbreaking image stabilization 18-270 under REAL world, extremely tough conditions. I like practical demonstrations that show the worst case that real consumers are likely to encounter, and that fits the Northside to a "T" for low light photography. 

 

Fortunately, a great modern blues-based band (The Midlife Chryslers, see them at: www.linelevelmusic.com) was scheduled in and I could feed both appetites. 

 

So, the photographer's situation is this: 500 people are crowded into a bar fit for about 100. Every square foot not covered by a table or chair is now being used as the dance floor. The band is killin' 'em and the crowd is on their feet dancing, moving and jostling everyone, including me. It's so tight the servers are taking half hour just to navigate through the crowd I’m in.

 

The light is so bad, my ISO is at 1250, even at that the readings are a pathetic 1/10th to 1/13 second shutter speed at about f/4.5, the focal length range is from 100-200mm approximately. (And I’m contending with the pushing and shifting crowd.)

 

What I came out of there with was a great night of music and images like these:

 

This shows the Chrysler's lead guitar and vocalist Marc Lee Shannon, who is always moving on stage. Note that the stationary detail is exceptional (chain and earring) and blur elsewhere is minimized. Some of the visible blur (see the brown wall to left of  Marc) is from the very narrow depth of field at f/4.5. Some is from subject movement (see Marc’s hands and the mic stand, as examples of motion blur). Hand/camera shake is almost eliminated even at these ridiculously slow shutter speeds.

Shows sax master Paul Christensen. I like the energy of his motion. But that would just look like a blurred image without the tack sharp mic right in front of him produced by the stabilization of Tamron's 18-270 VC lens.

 

This image shows the difference between subject movement and camera shake. It also shows the benefits of the tri-axial VC system Tamron developed. Note that many of these images are actually shot with the camera horizon on a diagonal for composition, something where other stabilization technologies will usually fail to function.

 

Again, the sax player is soft because of depth of field. Eric Sosinsky, is sharp. The bass guitar key head is subject movement.

These images are sharp all the way to 11"x14” enlargements, thanks to VC.

This Chrysler (Michael Stanley Chrysler) looks great. He also holds the record for selling out Blossom Music Center (beating out the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and a lot of others at 60,000+ seats in one 3 night stand). Since this is shot at about 100mm focal length, the benefits of VC are less pronounced than at say 200mm. Even so,  considering the light conditions, there is a huge gain in productivity evident.

 

 
BTW- THIS is what they all would have looked like without Tamron’s VC technology (VC=OFF).

So, in summary, I doubt that most of you will need a lens that not only focuses and functions beautifully in extremely poor focusing conditions, but also produces amazing stabilization of camera-based shake challenges that are THIS severe. But, the 18-270 VC certainly expands the range of images available to almost any photographer with an APS-C sensor.

 

Special thanks to The Midlife Chryslers for permission to use their images in this blog. For more information on these great musicians and their work refer to:

http://web.mac.com/marcleeshannon

www.linelevelmusic.com

Comments

[touristguy87]

Hi,

I love the Tamron line of superzooms for good sharpness across the frame all the way across the zoom range and a great zoom range as well, they are the one set of superzooms that I have tried that don't require software lens-correction. One of the great discoveries in my photographic life. I have but one request, especially now that the Tamron 18-270VC has arrived (a year or two too late :)

...can you guys make them faster and sharper :))) ? At least F2.8 at the wide end and maybe F4 at the long end? I realize that would make them bigger and heavier & more expensive...but the benefit would be worth it. These are great lenses but they get slow fast, making the zoom range mainly of use in good light or shooting off a tripod. Though I can get decent shots with them handheld throughout the zoom range down to about 1/13sec or slower, faster of course at the shorter lengths.

It would be great if they were faster in general and sharper across the frame below F8. They are great products. I'd love to see a "pro" set that are faster and sharper near wide-open. Maybe also (as a compromise) a set that are faster, sharper across the frame at lower F#s, and only 28-135 effective instead, say a 5x/7x zoom instead of 10x or 13x. 28-280 F2-F4 with VC would be wonderful! Of course on cameras with body-IS they wouldn't even need IS in the lens, so maybe that would be a great start and then add VC to them later.

Especially in a world of $900-$1200 F2.8 24-70s (without IS even) and F4 24-105 IS lenses. I'd happily pay twice as much for an IS lens that's a stop if not 2 stops faster across the wonderful 10x range, and certainly that doesn't have to be stopped down to F8 to get a flat-sharp image.

Also I know the G1 fans are eagerly awaiting their own version :)

Muchas gracias :)

[ps if you need a "beta tester" for these, where can I sign up?]

[Oregon retirement community]

One of the best night i've seen!