Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD

Photo Examples:

Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD

Today I received the ever elusive lens; Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD for Nikon. I have watched video after video, and read review after review and found that there is a lack of photo examples using this lens. I have created a photo album on my Flickr page dedicated to pictures taken with this lens and will be updated as images are posted. Here is the link: Link to Tamron 150-600mm Album on Flickr

First off, I want to mention that I used this on a Nikon D7000 and a cheap shoulder strap that I purchased from Best Buy (I can't find my Black Rapid strap). I decided to not go out with a tripod this time around and later will go through how that went. So on this trial run I had the following equipment:

• Nikon D7000
• Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD
• Generic Shoulder Strap

Jumping right into the lens...it's pretty big. My previous lens was a 70-300mm lens and was easily a handheld lens, and jumping to this lens was a challenge on the field. To date this will be my biggest lens weighing in at 4.3 lbs (68.8 oz) with the tripod mount attached. It is 10.1 inches long and about 14 inches fully zoomed in at 600mm. What does this all mean? It's still be shot being just hand held and is a 4x zoom lens. 

With Lens Hood

This image shows you the scale of the lens with the lens hood on, next to a double AA battery. It extends about another 4 inches when you zoom out to 600mm, so the lens hood is a great thing to always use so you don't hit the glass when you zoom in. 

Lens Hood and Ring Mount Off

Due to the size I will be purchasing a bag for it to be stored in since it did not come with one. 

The other image shows the lens hood, and ring mount, removed. 

To prep for shooting wildlife, I set my camera to manual and set to auto ISO with a max setting of 800. This allows the camera to adjust the ISO without me needing to change the shutter or f stop on the fly, helping me to not miss the photograph. My default shutter speed was set to 1/1000 due to the crop sensor making the 600mm actually act as 900mm. I didn't want to play with the VC right away, so I disabled that on the lens right away. 

Right away, I could only feel a slight increase of weight on the shoulder with this lens, but not as bad as I thought I would. Again, it's only 4.3 lbs so it's not as heavy as the large 600mm f/4 lenses. Within seconds I was able to snap a shot. 

1/1000 sec at f / 6.3, ISO 800 @ 600mm cropped

 As you might be able to see, it is a bit soft but it still was able to get great detail. Look at the foot, you can see the water coming off of his foot. I had numerous other shots of song birds as I walked out to a stationary blind, but nothing to interesting. A few minutes in the blind an opportunity came.

1/1000 sec at f / 6.3, ISO 320 @ 600mm cropped

1/1000 sec at f / 6.3, ISO 200 @ 600mm cropped

There wasn't to much action near the small lake, it was also a heavy overcast, so I decided to call it the day. As I drove out of the park I looked at one of their ponds and noticed a lot of dead cattails with a few birds on them. So I hopped out and was able to get close enough for some great images. The first image came out of the camera very close to the way it is shown here, I only added some slight reverse vignette and of course color saturation (since I shoot in RAW).

1/1000 sec at f / 6.3, ISO 800 @ 600mm No cropping done

1/1000 sec at f / 6.3, ISO 800 @ 600mm No cropping done

 Summary, I really enjoyed this lens. The images were a bit soft all around but it was an overcast day and wasn't able to shoot at a great ISO, so after the slight cropping and noise reduction the images got even softer. The bottom two images are the only non-cropped images and as you can see they are pretty sharp on the bird. Also, my arm never got tired and there was a few times that I held up the lens for 1-2 minutes. There was also some times that I felt I could have gotten better images if I had VC and/or a tripod. So please continue to return to my blog or check out my Flickr page to see updates.

I also did get one image out of the day that I posted on my web gallery for sale. Check it out!

http://www.stevensantamourphotography.com/Main-Page/Products/Nature/Animals/i-32KV9cc

whitetail deer art

A New Chapter: Nature

Not sure if you have noticed or not, but 2014 is almost 25% done already! April is here, which means rainy days, warming up weather, and animals return back and become more active. For the past 4 months you may have noticed that I haven't been posting many blogs or pictures. I have actually been looking at my photography plan and decided it was time to switch over.

Quick History:

I started out doing photography of landscapes and it quickly grew into friends and family wanting portraits done. Shortly after that, I was requested to shoot a wedding. Excited about the opportunity, I purchased a pro level lens for portrait/wedding shots; Tamron 20-70mm f/2.8 with VC. It was an amazing lens and my research showed that it was a staple for any wedding. So I spent the money and purchased it with credit with a new camera that offered low light ability; Nikon D7000. At the time, I couldn't afford a full frame camera like a Nikon D600 (and still can't afford one). I decided I was going to really dig into portrait photography. I ended up doing dozen of photo sessions and ended up doing two weddings, pretty much breaking even with all my expenses the first year!


When I started this, I told myself I would only do weddings/events/portraits until I can afford a super telephoto lens (over 500mm). Well, the time is now! Last January, a new lens was introduced to the market that raddled the professional world and extreme nature hobbyists like myself.  Tamron released the SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD (Tamron's Official Page for this lens), at a very low price for this length of a lens. It's not as good as glass as the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 200-400mm f/4G ED VR II Lens, but from the reviews and looking at the $5,000 price difference, you can see why my interest was captured. 

I've been following reviews for this lens for months. Watching YouTube channels for people's reviews; both professional and non-professional. Across the board, everyone was impressed. I could see some difference in the quality and not to mention the f stop is only 5 at the 150mm and the fastest the lens fully zoomed is only 6.3. This requires a relatively good day to get images and also the lens isn't weather sealed. However, the price again reflects all of this.

I was expecting to wait 5-6 years to get to this point to have a super telephoto zoom lens, but because of this release I'm ready to do it now. To start this process I listed my portrait lens on Craigslist for 900, taking a small hit on the retail price of the lens (about $500) with only a year worth of use. However, remember that I paid that lens off already last year. So I looked at this as selling old equipment and upgrading, so this lens will only end up costing me $200 dollars. With only a few contacts and a few no-shows, I decided to post on my personal Facebook page and was able to sell it in a week.

Now, up to that time I was in a slight chaos mode with my photography. I'm going to take a huge hit in sales because I am not able to do portraits anymore and I no longer have a wide angle lens to take landscapes! But, my real dream is to do nature photography. Capture animals in their element.

I will be making a new blog either this weekend or next weekend, on what I'm hoping this year will result in. I don't plan on making nearly as much as I did last year, or even half of it. But, I do plan on having much more fun!  Also, this lens is on back order for another few weeks. So I wont be able to shoot to much until then. 

This bird above was taken out of my double pane glass door and a screen door using my 70-300mm lens. That is why the image is a bit soft but I am hoping to get more of these type of shots, but much more sharp obviously, of many different types wildlife. 

Imagine the type of images with double the zoom!