I'll post this here in case those who asked do not see the old link anymore.
Ok - here are the pictures from the Tamron AF28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 LD Aspherical (IF) Macro lens on a D70 that I promised.
Note: this was a about the worst light conditions you can have, flat dark grey day with off and on rain and drizzle. All shots taken on Auto or Sports mode and were handheld.
The lens did ok but not great. Had to bump the ISO to 400 and 800 for one. All images had noise which I cleaned somewhat. One picutre is from yesterday (flag photo) when the sun was actually out for a little while.
Did you try bracketing to get brighter exposures or would that have given you shutter speeds too slow to work with. The shot of the flag is quite good.
Did you try bracketing to get brighter exposures or would that have given you shutter speeds too slow to work with. The shot of the flag is quite good.
No - it was horrible weather and I just wanted to get some test shots on auto modes. I'll go back out and do some manual settings in the same area when things settle down. The flag was the day before with much better lighting. I think the lens will do fine for now. I'll just have to turn up the ISO and bracket like you say.
Probably a great travel lens when you don't want to take anything else. I look foreward to hearing more about this. I find the range great, but if the results aren't good??
Since there is interest I will try and post more photos using different settings and light. It will likely be next week though as I will be pretty busy for a few days (weather is still lousy anyway). TTYL.
OK - as promised here are a few shots I was able to capture this weekend under a variety of conditions, indoors and out. ISO ranges of 200, 800 & 1600. I included the originals (downsized only to 800x600) and a second copy of each edited, neither copy has been cropped. All shots were handheld.
If you are wondering what the name of the mountain is, it's Mt. Baker in Washington State. The area most of the shots are taken is called the Skagit Valley. The volleyball shots are from the Women’s NCAA Western Regionals (Elite Eight) held at the University of Washington Friday and Saturday. Huskies (UW) won and now go on to the Final Four! Go Dogs!
Thanks for posting these. I'd be curious to see some full resolution versions posted, cropped if need be to fit the size you want to post. It's really the only way to judge sharpness!
Thanks, I found the wide variety of shots very interesting, and they all look good. Those sports shots are great handheld shots!!
So, do you like this as a good all around "walking around" lens? The weight looks good (as compared to my 70-200 f/2.8 !!), and the price is right. Overall, are you happy with the results?
Thanks for posting these. I'd be curious to see some full resolution versions posted, cropped if need be to fit the size you want to post. It's really the only way to judge sharpness!
Good idea. I'll try and add them to the site today sometime.
Thanks, I found the wide variety of shots very interesting, and they all look good. Those sports shots are great handheld shots!!
So, do you like this as a good all around "walking around" lens? The weight looks good (as compared to my 70-200 f/2.8 !!), and the price is right. Overall, are you happy with the results?
Weight and price are very good and I think it is going to work out as a walk around lens, at least that is what I have ben doing so far. I have been using the kit lens (which is sharper) for most of the closer in stuff and will likely use it for landscapes that I want the wider view. On the long end it works for me for now but I do know that eventually I will want to go for a faster 200-400 or a prime 400 for nature photography. But they are pricey and this will have to do me for awhile. It will help me get through all the learning curve.
I too have the Tamron 28-300 lens and have had it for some time now. I find that if you can manually focus it can give very crisp images. I have taken some and blown them up more then I thought I would be able to. I also found that if the light is not that good it has problem auto-focusing and that even in good light the auto-focus was slow. I like the lens for still photography, but if there is action I really think it could be better. I too am looking for a faster lens, not sure which one I will get. I am using it on a Canon 10-D.
I added the 800x600 100% crops from the "out of camera" originals. Remember, these were handheld using a new camera and lens by a still learning photographer, ie. they are CRAP. But they give an idea of worst case for this lens.
On your edited shots, are you using levels/curves??
I have found that almost everything out of my 10D looks kind of dark and needs levels/curves. Even with my 50mm f/1.8 and 70-200 f/2.8 (when used indoors) shots nearly always look a little dark. Don't know if it's the camera, the lenses, or ME!!
On your edited shots, are you using levels/curves??
I have found that almost everything out of my 10D looks kind of dark and needs levels/curves. Even with my 50mm f/1.8 and 70-200 f/2.8 (when used indoors) shots nearly always look a little dark. Don't know if it's the camera, the lenses, or ME!!
My Dad is always fond of saying "operator error"!
To varying degrees yes. I normally do some contrast adjustment, then levels, then any tint adjustment if needed, clean with neat image or the like if needed, resize and then run un-sharp mask. The shots I edited here ran the full spectrum of how much, if any, of each step was needed. With my limited experience using the D70, the kit and Tamron lens, I have found that the better the light the less editing I needed. The lower light shots had pretty poor range in the histogram and needed more work.
Thanks for adding the crops. I think these are the best way to judge and compare lenses in the "real world" (short of shooting test patterns). If you have an alternative lens to compare to that overlaps some focal lengths, it would also be a great experiment to shoot the same shot with two lenses. Kind of what they do at Steves Digicams with different cameras (shoot the same 'scenes', though not on the same day).
I am impressed how low noise the D70 is at the higher ISOs (a-100Crop04.jpg). One of the reasons I bought my Rebel, but I've not been very happy with the level of noise it actually has!
This will be the last update to my Tamron lens test site. We had some sun yesterday so I went out and took some addtional shots of birds. They are posted at the link below. As before i posted 100% 800x600 crops, an edited version and the original file reduced in size. All shots are handheld using my D70 with a new Tamron 28-300mm lens.
Okay, I'm confused. You said all shots were taken with the Tamron 28-300 lens, but under the photos, it says 500mm.
I'm really interested in the lens, also. I tried one in the store, but it was very slow to focus. I bought the Quantaray 28-300, because it focused almost instantly. However, at the 300 end, I can't get a very good shot. Do you know anything about Quantaray? I only have another week left before I can no longer return it.
I'm more interested in picture quality than speed, (actually I want both!! :) but I'm not sure which lens will do better between the Quantaray and Tamron. Thanks for any advice.
