• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Tamron SP 150-600mm F5-6.3 DI IF VC USD (1 Viewer)

Last edited:
njlarsen said:
I am not sure whether the issue that you have is only DOF, but to me these images again demonstrate that getting an entire bird in focus on these levels of reach is very difficult. I would probably be happy with these images, but again, looking at them from raw on my own PC would make judging that a lot easier.

Niels
Click to expand...
Like I said above Niels I am also not sure that it is DOF as I was at f11 and they are big crops so I was not that near. Having said that I believe that the DOF on a Full Frame is not as great as on a crop Camera at the same focal length. I am inclined to think that it is just the limitation of the lens when it comes to really fine detail. I have found in particular that fine detail on white/light areas of a bird can sometimes be a bit smeary. Still there is no doubting that it is a relatively cheap and light weight way to get to 600mm.
Attached is the full frame of the first Dunlin shot I put up - on reflection I was probably to greedy on the crop on all those shots :eek!: I think I will try some more from the series with looser crops!
 

Attachments

  • dunlin01 full frame.jpg
    dunlin01 full frame.jpg
    179.9 KB · Views: 85
Last edited:
Interesting indeed Roy ,I would now go along with your appraisal ,a 1.6 crop sensor camera would help in that direction to . I can get to a native 560mm with my lens plus t.c and retain a/f BUT it's centre point focus only ,to use the full focus range I would need this lens .
What I can't work out Roy is why you had to drop to f11 ,was that purely for sharpness ,could you not have just increased your iso and dealt with noise later .the shots I have seen from others tend to be nearly wide open at full zoom .so what was the reasoning ??
 
the black fox said:
What I can't work out Roy is why you had to drop to f11 ,was that purely for sharpness ,could you not have just increased your iso and dealt with noise later .the shots I have seen from others tend to be nearly wide open at full zoom .so what was the reasoning ??
Click to expand...
Although I have had this lens for a few months now I have not used it a lot Jeff so still trying to work it out. From what I can see at the long end you need at least f8/f9 (as Micloi suggested) so closing down to f11 on the full frame (which has a narrower DOF) seems reasonable. It could be that diffraction is setting in at f11 in which case there is very little room for playing around with the aperture. Re opening the lens up to near wide open this would mean you could use a lower ISO so noise would be less of a problem not more!!!
I guess at the end of the day the subject and conditions I was shooting yesterday were not ideal, I also had no choice but to shoot from an angle that was looking down at the birds so that did not help - the lens lives to fight another day :t:
p.s. it could be a very good birding lens with the up and coming 7D2 ;)
 
Last edited:
Work in progress then Roy ,I will look into this further now after seeing your results so far ,hopefully I will be able to retain the 400 f5.6 and move on some other gear I have that's not used much
 
Stephen,

I will take my first pics right away Monday evening when I get home from work if the lens has arrived by then...just to test it out, make sure it's all aligned, etc. It will just be some shots in low light around my yard, but at least to confirm all is in working order. The first 'proper' shoots with the lens will be next weekend, 13th & 14th, when I can bring it out to my favorite wetlands spots, and hopefully get nice sunny weather at least during some part of the day...I'll be shooting birds in heavy tree cover and shade at high ISO, birds in direct sun for feather detail, and birds in flight...and probably a fair amount at 600mm wide-open.
 
MiguelM said:
The most interesting part is that it will focus at f/8 with their 1.4x converter
The worst part is its weight
Click to expand...
Surely AF at f8 is a function of the Camera and not the lens? Unless they are fooling the AF system even more so that even with a 1.4x tc the Camera still thinks its f5.6!!
 
MiguelM said:
The most interesting part is that it will focus at f/8 with their 1.4x converter
Click to expand...

But it is f6.3 at the long end (meaning f9 with a 1.4X T/C). It may AF towards the wide end of the zoom range but what's the point of that?

Unless 'fooling' the camera into thinking it's f5.6 works with a T/C too.

Ooops Roy got there first.
 
At 2.8kg the Sigma 150-600mm would no longer be hand holdable for me. This is a big difference between the Tamron. IQ will likely be a big step up as it is using 2 fluorite lenses. It would likely be very sharp wide open vs having to stop down the Tamron.
 
Last edited:
The weight of the new Sigma will rule it out for me. Mind you I have no doubt that it will be better than the Tammy IQ wise. I would love a third party manufacture to come up with a decent 500mm or 600mm prime even if it was f6.3 although the 600mm would still be fairly heavy.
 
Last edited:
Warning! This thread is more than 9 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Similar threads

I
D7500 or 90D?
Replies
3
Views
1K
Oldnintheway
O
M
Tamron announces firmware for Z6/Z7
Replies
1
Views
1K
marcsantacurz
M
Chosun Juan
Tamron 2nd generation SP 150-600mm Di VC USD 'G2'
2 3
Replies
47
Views
31K
Apodidae49
Apodidae49
I
Need advice for large diameter astroscopes
Replies
8
Views
7K
Tord
Tord
C
Huge reductions on used camera equipment at mpb.com this week only!
Replies
0
Views
871
clarempb
C

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top