Tamron Blog: Angle of View

Shooting Motion with Panning

By Jeff Allen

 

A great way to photograph “night light” subjects is to follow, or pan, with the subject as it moves past you. The best results are achieved when using the continuous shooting mode on the camera, so there are more frames to choose from. Experiment with shutter speeds, but the results are generally created with shutter speeds ranging from 1/10 sec. to 1/60 sec., depending on how fast the subject is moving and the amount of available light. When panning, leave a bit of room in the frame for the subject to “move into”. This shot of a carousel horse was the third frame of a of five-shot burst shooting as the horse approached and passed by. Good results can be achieved with this technique whether hand-held or panning on a tripod.

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.

Adventures with Tamron : Holidazzle

by Jillian Bell

This post is a little late for the holidays, but still worth sharing.

Celebrating it's 20th season this winter, the Holidazzle Parade brings a festive reason to venture out into the cold. It is sponsored by local businesses and is made up of about 15 floats, choirs singing, marching bands, and of course an appearance by Santa Clause to finish off the night. It runs Thursday - Sunday the weekend after Thanksgiving until the weekend before Christmas. Holidazzle is rather unique in the fact that each float, and those walking in the parade are completely covered by lights, glitter, and costumes. The excessive light displays are essential because here in MN the sun is setting by 5:00pm. It has a family friendly atmosphere, all of the floats have storybook themes and if it's too cold, there is plenty of hot cocoa, or a sky way system to watch from above. Personally, I am a fan of holiday light displays. There is a challenge to get good exposure having high contrast, and moving subjects, but I think these turned out well. The exposure for these images floated right around F6.3 @ 1/60th of a second, with my ISO ranging from 1000-3000. For best results, keep your camera on manual mode and under expose by a full stop. Once you figure out what exposure the scene is, setting the camera in Manual over Aperture, Shutter priority, or another mode will keep your exposure consistent. Keep the same rule of thumb for photographing holiday lights on your home. Underexpose slightly, but in this case, you can use a very low ISO to reduce noise, and achieve better detail. Tripods are a must for this application. My favorite part of all these photos, is how vivid the colors are. I don't decorate much at my house, so being able to celebrate the season by other means is appreciated. Wishing you well, whichever season you are celebrating. Thank you for reading.

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.

 

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.

Olympic athletes toil and quietly inspire children to greatness

 By John VanSteenberg

Many years ago, I attended an event where legendary Olympic decathlon Gold Medalist Bob Richards spoke about the connection between generations of Olympic Athletes. He described his discussions with other Olympians each of whom recounted to him the exact day in their childhood when their personal Olympic quest began.

In each instance, an existing Olympian had come to their school, or their camp, or their church to speak about the path that had taken them to the largest athletic stage in the World: the Olympic Games. On each of those days, the kids met greatness in the flesh and listened to the story of their own personal small beginnings, of the decision to strive to excel, of the commitment to try a little harder, to seek a better performance and to focus on excellence; simply put: to do their very best. For 6 generations backward, he traced the specific day that the flame had been sparked in a small child who soon grew to replace their inspiration on the world stage.

Today, I got to go to such an event. I saw not just one Olympian, but two, happily toiling together in the hot humid sun of summer to celebrate and give back to the kids and coaches that they once were themselves.

Three time Olympian, multiple GOLD Medalist, and multiple world record holder "Butch" Reynolds has, for 15 years, returned to his home in Akron, Ohio to stage the Butch Reynolds Care for Kids Foundation, Track and Fun Camp. This year, he called upon 2008 Olympic Team member and North American Boxing Association Jr. Middleweight Champion, Shawn Porter (a fellow Akronite) asking him if he might like to come down and talk to the kids too.

(Shawn (L) and Butch (R) spend a minute connecting.)

For Shawn, it was a no brainer. Anywhere there are kids and sports, Shawn is always as available as his busy schedule permits.

So, this year, over 200 kids from several organizations came to a playground to run together, to have fun and compete. They got to meet and interact with each other and these two history making athletes. Kids were everywhere. They ranged from tiny to preteens. All just being kids together. No big entourages were present. No media. Just two guys that wanted to say to these kids that if they did it, so can you, to kids from all walks of life.

 
(Butch, Shawn, Ken Porter, a host of volunteers and a few dozen participants gathered for this photo.)

When you see the look on a 6 year olds face when he first sees Shawn display a REAL professional title belt shining in the sun; when you see these famous guys drop down to their knees to tie a kid’s shoestring or just spend 3 minutes in real conversation connecting with a kid that can be changed forever; you (and they) forget the thousands of hours of work and dedication they each had to demand of themselves to be able to be real to the kids. You also see the beginnings of the idea of greatness light in the eyes of those kids that are touched by the possibility of future accomplishments. "All anybody can ask is that you try your best. That's all we ask of you today." said Reynolds. "I came to this very track to run when I was getting ready to go to Beijing." said Shawn.

(Butch & Shawn address the crowd before the running started)

Every one of these kids ran a little harder today; and a few will run harder for ever, I think. We owe these and many other great under appreciated athletes and volunteers a debt of thanks far beyond what we know. Neither of them would miss a meal if he chose not to come do this ever again. Yet, neither of them is ever likely to forego the chance to be there. The truth is they want to be out there where they began, with the kids again. You can see it on their faces.

There are great advantages in being "the photographer!" You get to go extremely fun places and hang with people you might NEVER get to interact with otherwise. Today I got to hang with 200+ kids, two of which were a little taller and played like fun was the only record they were aiming for.

You can visit multiple Olympic Medalist and World Record setting runner Butch Reynolds at: www.BRworldclassspeed.com

You can visit former Olympic Team member and Professional North American Boxing Organization Jr Middleweight Champion Shawn Porter at:www.shawnporterboxing.com

The Soft Focus Screen

 By André Costantini

It seems that people are often concerned with getting the sharpest optics available. I can recall back in another age where people would spend literally thousands upon thousands of dollars to get the sharpest lenses that the world had to offer to then put a soft focus filter on it because it was “too sharp” for photographing the imperfections of people. I understand wanting the sharpest lenses so that you have the option of “how sharp” you want it. It is just one of those little quirks that makes me laugh. With today’s technology lenses are sharper than ever and most photographers now do most of their softening in the computer.

Earlier this month I picked up my camera as I noticed that the light off the water coming through the window screen. Not only was the image diffused, but the bright reflections of the sun also created little dotted crosses in the highlights. It just happened to be one of those things that I came across, purely by accident. It was an observation, a moment that probably required the angle of the sun and my distance to the subject and window screen to be just right. The effect looks like I used one of those star filters or some nifty Photoshop effect.

Now it’s not that I can’t do this in Photoshop, well actually I’ve never tried so I have no idea, but I am a firm believer that if you see something you like the way it is, you might as well photograph it that way. I like having options, but I also like getting results. And I always try to remember that doing as much as you can to get your image the way you want it whilst in the field will save you a ton of time in front of the computer.

Speaking of which, it wasn’t until I got the image on the computer that I noticed that you can actually see the dock through the subject. And the highlight by her leg appears to almost in the foreground. I’m no physicist, but I am guessing that the window screen literally caused this by making multiple images on top of each other and thus seeing multiple angles simultaneously, literally allowing you to see through the person. My assumption was that there must have been some serious diffraction going on and with some half-hearted research I conceded that the inter-web seemed to agree with me.

Just for kicks I went into Photoshop to see what would happen if I attempted to create this effect. And what did I find? If I had one image layered on top of another image and used the Screen blending mode on top layer, it created an extreme version of that effect on my image. Then if I duplicated the bottom layer, changed the opacity of the middle layer and combined the top two, the effect was almost identical. I guess it turns out those people at Adobe named the blending mode, Screen for a good reason. So even though I still can’t explain to you the exact science of how it happened, I can tell you my observation led me to a discovery. Now if I could just get Photoshop to make those little bright crosses…

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

 By Hernan Rodriguez

Have you ever received a special gift or purchased that special something which you set aside for a moment free of distractions and to give it your undivided attention? Well, for me one of those moments arrived in a small package. They say good things come in small packages, and this was no different. I mean, this little guy is a Power House. I'm talking about the TAMRON 60mm F2 Macro Lens. I literally shelved it for about a month, allowing the time to free myself of all my work responsibilities. It was worth the wait. As I have blogged before, I like to really test and have fun with new equipment to establish some references for future jobs and ventures. This lens I'm sure would be great for shooting nature and close up photography, but I specialize in personalities. What better trial run than shooting "little people", I thought. Talk about a lens that allows me to get up close and personal with children. I mean, kids are fun, energetic, full of spontaneity and honest emotions. When most people think of child photography, they think particularly of a 70-200mm lens. It allows them the latitude and gives them that "comfort zone" distance from their subjects. I've shot with both and I personally believe that it really is about the trust factor. Once you break common ground with children and win them over, it doesn't matter what you shoot with. On some shots, I literally was shooting the 60mm 12" from my subject. With kids, you can not get up close before making sure you get personal first. Find out what they like, what makes them laugh, what they are in to-and I assure you some honest images. The lens is just there to record that.

My first subject was the Cover Boy of PhotoShop User Magazine I had shot four years ago. The boy does not like to take pictures, but the camera loves him. Go figure-that's a blog all on its own. LOL. Now all grown up at seven, and with a contract with Ford Models, mind you, it should make things easier. On a sidebar, when I shot the cover, I literally took the shot with the last twinkle of light setting behind buildings, and used a white board at his waist level. He was so perplexed on why he had to take pictures. I promised him just one click of the camera and a "happy meal". With kids you have to be willing to compromise for a shot, and it payed off. My first shot with him was almost the exact replica. I mean, the sun was literally setting at a very quick pace behind buildings, again, with just minutes of sunlight left. Kids love adventures, and we were up for one. With permission, I put the kid on my back, and carried him up a ladder onto a roof top. Like a true photographer, chasing that perfect light. In all honesty, I don't shoot location much, but when I do, I look for that light that is right off the tip of a tree, roof top, building, or something that scrims the light back naturally for me. Most people refer to "Open Shade", but you have to look for the best quality of light in that open shade. Almost like a top light or "north light". And for this reason alone do I go outdoors. We spend all our time in the studio trying to mimic mother nature at a price, and here we have it for free. LOL. So back to the shot. Using the 60mm macro on portraits will definitely show more compression than a normal lens would. Which is a good thing when my main objective is that expression. Even shooting at a high aperture of F8, the compression of the fixed 60mm macro is still visible. This compression is partially due to the closer distance allowed between lens and subject. In this particular shot, I was about a foot from my subject. I bumped up my ISO to 400 to be able to get that F8. It brought my shutter speed down to 1/15th of a second, and hand held. OUCH!! Why did I choose these particular settings. Well for starters, the only spot to shoot was in front of an air-conditioner vent which was spinning at a pretty quick clip. I thought it would make a great shot dragging my shutter to get some cool motion blur from the vent, and at the same time making it less distracting. All in camera. The natural compression of the lens worked in my favor to rid of the distracting trees as well. You can see where the lens begins to fall off right behind the hair. Had I used a 70-200/ 2.8 lens for compression, it would have brought my shutter speed up to 125th/sec. stopping most of the action of the vent, making it a distraction. This is why I pay close attention to lens choices before hand. I can make an ordinary shot an amazing shot. Another added bonus to the 60mm is the natural vignetting occurring from the lens.

The second shot of the boy was a combination of natural light and two large white satin umbrellas on either side of the camera. This created a beautiful wrap around light which was balanced to one stop less than the ambient light. There was no need to overpower the beautiful light occurring from mother nature. One small gold umbrella was added to the opposite side of the sun, to camera left and behind the subject. This light was equal to the suns exposure of F8. It added warmth and highlights to the entire image giving it an almost surreal appeal.

 
My other child subject was nine year old Wendy. The first setup was underneath a roof line with the sun just hidden back from the top edge. I placed a large 7ft scrim 4ft over Wendy's head, which created a beautiful soft light. She was also positioned in front of a wall of Jasmine flowers. I also placed a white board under her waist level to add brightness to the eyes. My final exposure was set at 125th @ F2.8 1/2. The 60mm macro was very instrumental on my final composition and provided great compression of the busy wall of flowers. We conversed for about 10 minutes which was enough time to get up close and personal, and capturing great and genuine expressions. Well there you have it. I am making this a two part series on capturing children. I had a recent project soon into this blog which I want to incorporate in this segment. Next time we will explore using the 60mm macro in the studio with some more fun times with our little people.

 
Please Stay Tuned, and Many Thanks.

HERNAN

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.