First Day Images and Shooting With the Tamron 28-300mm VC Lens

Good Morning Everybody,

We got started bright and early yesterday heading down to the church first thing in the morning and shooting till noon.  Then it was a lunch break and then we headed back to the beautiful Mother of God Church photographing until about six o'clock in the evening.

This location is one of my favorites because it offers so much variety for the class both inside and outside the premises. And, the pastor is so gracious to let us, more or less, have the run of the place all day long.

The weather obliged us too with moderate temperatures and mostly cloudy skies making the shooting experience much less challenging than it would have been had we been shooting in the bright sunlight.

Today LaDawn and I review the class images – this is a favorite part of the class.  What looks so easy in the PowerPoint the day before translates into a much different experience when you’re actually on site shooting.  Will then review the images I made recapping the key points on lighting and composition.

After lunch were off to one of the most beautiful parks in Cincinnati and planning to work there until around dusk this evening.  After a short break then it's down to the Cincinnati Riverfront area where we will finish up  at about nine o'clock this evening. You're right, it's a long day. But by the end of it we should have some great photographs and some great shooting experiences to remember.

Since I'm a little short on time today let me quickly show you some of my favorite photographs that I made yesterday with a short description of each.

This was one of my first images of the day yesterday. As I mentioned in yesterday's post I have the opportunity to try Tamron’s new 28–300mm VC lens and I shot with it most of yesterday.  As with any of the large ratio zoom lenses, quality can sometimes be compromised at the longest settings. This image was made at 168mm handheld at 1/20th second.  I printed a 24 x 36in of it this morning and it really looks quite nice.

In the image above I wanted to compress the pews which required that I use a long focal length lens once again. This image was made with the Tamron lens zoomed to 168mm handheld at 1/13th second. From the low shutter speeds it seems Tamron’s VC – Vibration Compensation – was doing just fine especially at these long focal lengths at which I was shooting.

The next two images below were made in the garden outside of the church. The first image you see was once again taken at the full extension of the Tamron lens – 300mm at F5.6 the maximum aperture of the lens at the zoom range. I am seeing a slight falloff in sharpness but it’s a large “head size” subject and I don’t find it that objectionable. I plan to experiment with the lens again at this 300mm but I’ll shoot at a smaller aperture to see how the image quality improves. I suspect that it will. 

This next image was also made in the side garden of the church. It was shot at the 200mm setting at F5.6. I've made 24X 36 inch prints of all the images you're seeing here in today’s post.  They all look quite good, sharp and balanced even shooting at this zoom range nearly wide open.  

This next image is one of my favorites from yesterday shoot. We were outside in the open shade in a very confined part of the parish rectory.  One of the class members pulled out the silver reflector and bounced a little bit of light back in our bride’s face.  As we were trying to set up for the photograph the wind started blowing and the veil was flying all over the bride's face.  I suggested we just let the wind blow and shoot away.  It was a kick to see some of the images.This is one of my favorites from the several that I had captured during that short windy session.

This last image below was one of the final images that I shot yesterday. This image was made with my new Canon 8-15mm Zoom Fisheye lens.  I have to tell you, this is one of the sharpest lenses I've ever seen. Yesterday I was shooting both RAW and small JPEG’s utilizing the camera’s dual card feature.

Late last night, as I was selecting the images for printing, I grabbed the wrong image pulling from the small JPEG of the photograph instead of the RAW file.  I didn't realize it until this morning when I was reviewing my 24x36 inch prints - they all looked great. This image below I noticed was particularly sharp, hence my enthusiasm for the 8-15mm Fisheye. 

But, when I returned to Lightroom 4 this morning to review the images one more time I notice that I had inadvertently grabbed the small JPEG for printing instead of it’s RAW counterpart. Needless to say, it was quite a surprise to see the quality I was able to maintain even from the small Canon 5D Mk3 JPEG - what beautiful and super sharp print!

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Hey gang, that's it for me today. Class starts in a short while and I better get moving. How about I'll see you again tomorrow with another set of images from today shoot. Have a great rest of the day and I'll see you then.

Adios, David