Posts Tagged Tamron 28-75
October 13, 2009 – Merritt Lake Trail
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on October 13, 2009
Fall color on the Merritt Lake trail
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1136
Hey everyone. I mentioned yesterday that I’d try to post a picture from this weekend, and that’s exactly what I did. I took Julie and Wes along with me on the Merritt Lake trail, which is 5 or 10 miles past Stevens Pass along Highway 2. I had been on the trail before (last year at about this time, actually. In fact, I think it was exactly 1 year ago today), but that time Julie stayed home, since she was 8 and a half months pregnant. That’s right, I left my wife who was about to pop at home while I went to go play outside. I am truly that awesome.
Anyway, my first thought was to try out a different trail, but the colors were so nice on this one last year that I kept telling myself how much Julie would like it, so I figured now that she was actually able to come along, we may as well hit it up again, and we weren’t disappointed at all.
Western Washington has some stupendous fall color action, although you wouldn’t know it. We tend to be known much more for pine trees and rain. But we’ve got the whole spectrum out here, everything from brilliant reds to golden yellows to flaming orange. Up in the mountains, it’s usually in little islands within the seas of evergreens, but down in the lowlands we get full hillsides of mind-blowing color that rivals anything New England can boast. You don’t believe me, do you? Yeah, I wouldn’t have either, until I saw it myself. This particular trail is a particularly good place to go for color, since you get to walk through these huge canopies of autumn goodness. Everything from the bushes down by your feet to the tree canopy just glows. It’s fantastic. You’re up at around 4,000 feet, so the trees up there tend to change earlier than those down here at sea level. So we’ve still got a couple weeks yet before we see the best of the show around town.
I hope you all are enjoying this time of year, wherever you are. You should get out and take some pictures, it only comes around once a year. Remember: underexpose by 1/3rd or 2/3rds of a stop, otherwise the color will get washed out. You want those leaves to GLOW. Okay, that’s it for today.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens. 1/200s, f/4.5, ISO 100. Focal length: 28mm.
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October 9, 2009 – Bee and Daisy
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on October 9, 2009
Bee and Daisy
Friday, October 9, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1094
Another bee, another daisy, whatever. Awhile back I said I had a feeling in my gut that taking pictures of bees on flowers just may become my new obsession, and that turned out to be right on the mark. I have so many of these pictures that if I don’t spread them out, I’m going to scare away my whole audience. Well, “scare” isn’t the right word. “Annoy” is probably better.
If you’ve been reading and paying attention to this blog for awhile, you’ll know that the word “macro” can mean a lot of different things. As in, there are several levels of macro. I think the word itself (at least in the context of photography) generally just means focusing on things that are close (ie, “macro mode” on a point-and-shoot). In practice, it generally means taking pictures of little things – usually flowers – and having those little things be the big star of the show. There are a lot of camera lenses you can buy that say “Macro” on them, and it’s not entirely clear what exactly that means. I mean, there are true MACRO lenses, on in particular that I know about that has a magnification ratio of up to 5:1….
Hold up, let me take a step back. This confused me for awhile, so it’s worth talking about. Magnification ratio. I think we all know what the term is ABOUT (making things look big), but what does, say, 5:1 mean, exactly? Good question, let’s address that.
Right, magnification, magnification.. Let’s start with the easy case. A magnification ratio of 1:1. So, you all know basically how cameras work, right? You have this lens that focuses the light into a spot inside the camera, onto the sensor (or the film, in the case of a non-digital camera). In the case of a traditional 35mm camera, the target is, yes, 35 mm across. In most digital cameras, it’s a little bit smaller. (Although there are digital cameras, usually the higher-end SLRs, that have a full-size (meaning 35mm) sensor. I’m not going to go into what differences that makes here.) Regardless, there’s a target where the light coming through the lens is focused. With me so far?
Normally, when the light that will be making your picture is shining on the target/sensor, it’s quite a bit smaller than the real thing. If you’re taking a picture of a mountain, or a person, the real thing is almost certainly less than 35mm across. Let’s say that you are taking a picture of your buddy, and for simplicity let’s say that you’re using a 35mm camera, and, also for simplicity, let’s say your buddy’s face is exactly 350mm across. If you take a picture where the edges of your buddy’s face exactly touch the edge, then you’re working with a magnification ratio of 1:10. Make sense? The number before the colon is the size on the target, the number after is the size in real life. So, 1mm on the sensor represents 10mm in real life. Let’s say you get a bunch closer, and zoom all the way in, so that now you can only fit in half of the face. Well, now the ratio is 1:5, since you’ve got a 175mm (350mm divided by 2) object that’s 35mm across on the sensor.
So, following that pattern, we can get to the idea of 1:1 magnification. Meaning, something that’s, say, 10mm across (like a bug) will be exactly 10mm across in the image being shined on the sensor. 1:1 is actually a very LARGE amount of magnification as far as cameras are usually concerned. Because if you then view that image on your computer screen, that 10mm bug (that’s a centimeter) will take up a third of the frame. That’s BIG!
So, to take it one step further, imagine what happens when you get to, say, 2:1, or 3:1. Now the image on the sensor is BIGGER than real life, and the results will be more and more ridiculous. This is the part that got me for awhile, there is a **HUGE** difference between a magnification ratio of 2:1, and a ratio of 1:2. (Well, there is a 4x difference, to be precise.)
Camera lenses that supposedly do “macro” usually specify a “maximum magnification ratio”. What that means is, through a combination of zooming in and getting to the closest point that the lens will focus, that is the *maximum* ratio that you can get with that lens. In my experience. any lens that will get you to a 1:1 ratio or beyond will cost a LOT of money, as in, at least a thousand bucks generally. And they’re hard to find. But lots of lenses still claim that they do “macro”. Most of those lenses will usually get you to a 1:4 ratio, sometimes 1:2. That’s a big difference from 1:1, but it as long as you’re taking pictures of things that aren’t TOO small (like, a flower, for example), you can get a great image. If you’re hoping to shoot images of the little hairs on a fly, then you’ll need something more.
So, this image, while still in the “macro” realm, clearly isn’t at the extreme end of the spectrum. This one was taken with the lens that I recently settled on to be my primary mid-range lens, the Tamron 28-75 f2.8. (Amazon link: http://bit.ly/z7D8t ). It’s got its maximum magnification ratio listed at 1:3.9. So, definitely not extreme, but enough to get some nice flower shots. And actually, I don’t believe I was at the maximum end of the spectrum either.
There are a variety of methods I’ve used to get in further, which have been covered in some detail in earlier posts. If you want to read more about those, just go back into the archives, or ask me, I’m happy to talk about it at length. But, here’s a quick list: I have a big telephoto (70-300 mm) lens that has a macro mode that gets in to about 1:2, I’ve got a “macro kit”, which is basically a set of magnifying lenses that you put on your lens like any other filter, that help you focus closer and magnify the image a bit, and I have a reverse-mount that I put on my 18-55mm kit lens. THAT gets you some ridiculous magnification. Well beyond 1:1, although I’m not sure how far beyond. Fun stuff to play around with, and all quite a bit more affordable than a $1000+ macro-specific lens.
So there you go. Please do let me know if you want to know more about my macro explorations. I’m still an extreme beginner, but there’s a lot of fun ground to cover. So, have a great weekend!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens. 1/320s, f/7.1, ISO 100. Focal length: 75mm.
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September 28, 2009 – Rose
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on September 28, 2009
Rose
Monday, September 28, 2009
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1103
I mentioned that I had a whole bunch of these, right? Yeah, I wasn’t kidding, really.
Actually, to be perfectly straight with you, I didn’t have this one until this weekend, it was not a part of the previous pile. I just added to it a bit. In the interim, I actually made a couple more changes to my equipment. I went ahead and made a decision on my overall lens strategy. You of course all remember that for the past couple of years, I’ve been exclusively using a Tamron 28-300 (actually, two Tamron 28-300′s, one without image stabilization, then later, one with – Amazon links here: http://bit.ly/vuRVr , http://bit.ly/vShrg ), but earlier this year I decided that using a super-zoom meant I was making some sacrifices in image quality. That sent me on a quest to figure out what lenses I really wanted to use moving forward.
First, I filled out the wide-angle part of the range. I rented a Canon 10-22 (Amazon: http://bit.ly/1GhCtc ) just to make sure I wanted one, then I picked up a Tokina 11-16 based on the recommendations of the guys at the camera shop. (Amazon: http://bit.ly/166NGM ). But that still left me with the meat of the problem: what to do about the mid range, where, let’s be honest, most of us take most of our pictures. My lens budget was already running a bit thin (okay, it was way past thin), so I figured this one would be a challenge. But it turns out Tamron makes a couple great lenses to fill that need, a 17-50, and a 28-75 (Amazon: http://bit.ly/z7D8t ) that I ended up going with. So far I’m really happy with it, and it’s actually more versatile that I was expecting. (I was expecting that I would constantly find myself wanting to swap out to my old 70-300 mm telephoto that I’ve sadly had to start carrying to fill out the range, but I’ve found that the 75mm end gets me just far enough in that I don’t really feel the need for more except in rare circumstances.)
Today’s picture was actually taken with that lens, paired with an Opteka macro kit, which is the same thing as the Hoya macro kit that I’ve been talking about for awhile now, except a different size, to fit the new lens. Good stuff all around.
By the way, I keep posting those Amazon links because if you actually use them and then buy something (I don’t think it even has to be the thing you clicked through to), I get 4%, which as I mentioned awhile back, is only 96% away from being totally sweet. So far none of you have bought anything, but I’m still holding out hope. 
That’s it! Enjoy the crazy fall weather that seems to be rolling in everywhere!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens w/ Opteka Macro Kit. 1/500s, f/6.3, ISO 100. Focal length: 75mm.
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