Advice? Tamron 150-600.

HatWearingFool · Dec 22, 2014

Please forgive me for reposting these pictures from last weeks wildlife thread.

The photos are from my first outing with a brand new Tamron 150-600. After hearing so many good things about this lens I'm a little disappointed with my results however the lighting was bad, it was my first attempt with a new lens and this is my first serious attempt to photograph Snowy Owls. To cap it all off it looks like I slightly overexposed my images.

Basically I was disappointed regarding resolution and detail.

Any hints from 150-600 users? All of the photo's were taken with some form of physical stabilization such as a monopod (no super stable tripods used). I know 600mm isn't the shapest focal length for this lens but I used F8 in an attempt to compensate. Would I be better off shooting at 500mm or 550mm and cropping? Although I'm not a professional I like to think of myself as a informed and practiced amateur.

Does anyone suspect the focus is off? I used autofocus for all of the images. Perhaps next time I will attempt to manual focus to see if my A65 is slightly missing focus with the lens.

Hopefully things will improve on future outings. I'm fairly confident they will because it takes time to learn the ins and outs of new lenses.

I'm going to try to get some serious time in photographing these birds. Depending on how things go I may detail my efforts in a future post.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post. I'm open to any suggestions.

I realize this is over sharpened. Just haven't cared enough to redo it yet.

dlkeller · Dec 22, 2014

And what, exactly, do you find wrong with these aside from the slight underexposure (you said they were over exposed which certainly isn't the case in these samples) and white balance issues which resulted from metering on white object and can be easily corrected in PP?

I'm not looking at them in 100% but they look very nice to me and certainly nothing a little PP wouldn't correct.

--
Dave

HatWearingFool · Dec 22, 2014

Well I guess I was expecting more detail. Here is crop from the Sony 500 Reflex that was hand held from further away. I feel it held up just as well and in general people seem to think it's detail level is quite poor.

HatWearingFool · Dec 22, 2014

Also if I increase the exposure in PP right now it seems to wash even more feather detail out (in this photo the face loses any detail aside from beak/eyes). I felt I over exposed slightly because parts of the feathers are currently pure white (i.e. no detail at all) for example in the middle of the back in this photo.

dlkeller · Dec 22, 2014

I recognize I am looking at, and working with a different image than you but this looks pretty good to me when I pulled it up in PS El and just did a quick "auto correction". The eyes might do with a little "spot sharpening" but posting on DPR seems to soften them up a little anyway. Again, working with your posted image would be different than viewing an original in a large blow up.

--
Dave

KE_DP · Dec 22, 2014

Cool owl! Wish we had some of those around here.

I think there's just not enough light to get a great image at full 600mm +crop sensor, but these are good, just underexposed IMO. ISO 800 might not have been enough in heavy overcast conditions... I imagine it's also slightly less than optimum at full focal length on the lens. Did you shoot RAW? I'd try some PP and see if that helps too.

I just recently got the Tamron 200-500 and ran into similar struggles in anything less than full sunlight, the results deteriorate proportionately - more light/better --> less light/worse.

busch · Dec 22, 2014

Could you post one of these at a higher res, please? They look under exposed to me and slightly out of focus. I think I can PP one to look okay if I have a higher res to work with and without any sharpening.

BTW, very jealous you have these to shoot!!!

HatWearingFool · Dec 22, 2014

iGirl said:
Cool owl! Wish we had some of those around here.

I think there's just not enough light to get a great image at full 600mm +crop sensor, but these are good, just underexposed IMO. ISO 800 might not have been enough in heavy overcast conditions... I imagine it's also slightly less than optimum at full focal length on the lens. Did you shoot RAW? I'd try some PP and see if that helps too.

I just recently got the Tamron 200-500 and ran into similar struggles in anything less than full sunlight, the results deteriorate proportionately - more light/better --> less light/worse.

--
- Karen
http://www.karenengel.com
http://www.karenengelphotography.com

Yes I also am hoping most of the issue boils down to lighting. It was a very grey day.

When I dialled up the exposure (at shutter time or in PP afterwords) it seems that more exposure just washed out even more detail in the white areas such as the face and the middle of the back. I have a couple of higher exposures and when I dialled the exposure back in post the detail didn't come back from the face and middle of the back. So I thought perhaps I should have gone lower in exposure and pushed in post?

The histogram in aperture looks like this:

I'm wondering if I had dialled the exposure down at shutter time if more detail would have been preserved in these channels? It would also have meant I could go with a lower ISO for possible better detail.

However, I shot some at ISO 200 and the detail didn't seem any better, however that may have been due to a lower shutter speed/shake.

All photo's were processed from raw. I could spend more time on them but I didn't seem to be able to pull any extra detail without extreme artifacts.

Here are two raws if other people want to take a stab at it. I admit I'm not fantastic at PP.

dropbox

Be warned: If you manage a lot better than I could I will want to know your secrets

HatWearingFool · Dec 22, 2014

Just posted a link to 2 of the raws in last message.

dropbox

As stated before, if you do a lot better I will want to know your secrets

I admit I'm not the best at PP.

KE_DP · Dec 22, 2014

Going higher ISO will add more noise, but also bring out more light. It's kind of a trade off. Exposing to the "right"/more is better because if you under expose you get nothing but dull shadows and then you try to bring it up in post and all it does is amplify the noise from being too dark. I understand your concern of blowing out whites though, on a white bird. Not easy in low light.

HatWearingFool · Dec 22, 2014

I went back and found one of the photo's I took at ISO 200. There definitely seems to be a bit more detail than the posted ISO 800 photo's. It isn't giant but the difference is definitely noticeable.

So ISO is definitely one of my issues.

I've added the ISO 200 raw to the dropbox link

Dropbox

Also perhaps I should explain that when I shoot I'm aiming for something that can be printed at 16x20. I have many successful prints at this size from my A65 so please don't recommend moving up to full frame... although an A77II is on my future purchase list.

zackiedawg · Dec 22, 2014

I'd say you likely have a few different issues coming together - all having some effect. Certainly I do know the lens is capable of delivering more sharpness and detail at that focal range and aperture - though light is certainly going to make things much better. I don't know how much of a percentage the poor light contributed, but I think it certainly did a little bit. I also feel like the focus is just a touch off. Hard to tell for sure - but assuming you focused on the eyes, there appears to be just a hint of better detail possibly down near the body of the owl, noticeable mostly in the first two shots, while the face looks like it might have lost a touch of detail from being a little out of focus. And the third contribution is likely the ISO, which will rob you of some fine detail when pushing the contrast more, with the slight limitation to dynamic range, noise, and noise reduction all possibly affecting things a bit.

The telltale will of course be if you get perfectly sharp results on a lovely sunny day - that would possibly rule out the focus being off...though the focus itself in the camera might be OK but missed a bit on your shots due to the lower contrast in poor lighting.

Though I have pretty good luck here in Florida with crisp bright light much of the time, I have had to shoot in some very low light, and at fairly high ISO levels from 1600 to 3200 with the Tamron at 600mm, and still find I'm able to get focus nailed well on my camera and detail is still retained nicely wide open - though a little ultimate sharpness lost to the ISO levels and reduced contrast.

Ed at Ridersite · Dec 22, 2014

1) With the Snowy Owl, there isn't a lot of contrast, so focusing will always be hit & miss to some extent. I have the same trouble shooting hawks from the front sometimes.

2) Regardless of the camera metering, these needed about one more stop of exposure. This would help detail & reduce noise. The owl is underexposed. The big hump in the histogram is the sky.

3) ISO-800 in cloudy conditions will always produce quite a bit of noise in my experience. If I can get away with it, I'll always try a few shots at ISO-400 - hoping SSS will work wonders ;-)

4) in the two RAW files I downloaded, you did not focus on the eye. Focus was on the body below the eye. Strangely, precise eye focus always seems to work best with animals, even if the feathers/hair are not as well focused.

5) Using f8 was correct IMO. Maybe f11 would have been even better (just for more DOF), but in that light, probably not possible. And, yes, shooting at maybe 500mm might have worked better. You'd get more DOF (at same f-stop) and likely a little more lens sharpness.

I use the A-77 (same sensor as you) and shoot RAW. When shooting birds, I hate to have to go above ISO-400.

HatWearingFool · Dec 22, 2014

Ed at Ridersite said:
1) With the Snowy Owl, there isn't a lot of contrast, so focusing will always be hit & miss to some extent. I have the same trouble shooting hawks from the front sometimes.

Yes I wasn't able to get the camera to focus on the face, so I went with the body. I'd hoped the DOF at F8 would be enough. Although the part of the photo that bothers me the most is the white area between the shoulders. No detail at all.

Ed at Ridersite said:
2) Regardless of the camera metering, these needed about one more stop of exposure. This would help detail & reduce noise. The owl is underexposed. The big hump in the histogram is the sky.

I'll try bumping the exposure next time. It just seemed like even more detail was lost as more of the bird just became "white". But I will try out brighter exposures next time and see what happens in post. That histogram is from the photo with no sky. It's the bird on the post.

Ed at Ridersite said:
3) ISO-800 in cloudy conditions will always produce quite a bit of noise in my experience. If I can get away with it, I'll always try a few shots at ISO-400 - hoping SSS will work wonders ;-)

The ISO 200 shot does indeed contain slightly better detail, but the difference doesn't seem dramatic. But I agree lower is always better. I will try harder to get the ISO down next time.

Ed at Ridersite said:
4) in the two RAW files I downloaded, you did not focus on the eye. Focus was on the body below the eye. Strangely, precise eye focus always seems to work best with animals, even if the feathers/hair are not as well focused.

I think I'm going to try a few with manual focussing next time. I've been suspecting something is up with the focusing in these photo's.

Ed at Ridersite said:
5) Using f8 was correct IMO. Maybe f11 would have been even better (just for more DOF), but in that light, probably not possible. And, yes, shooting at maybe 500mm might have worked better. You'd get more DOF (at same f-stop) and likely a little more lens sharpness.

Yes, Unfortunately I don't think I could have stretched to F11 in the given light especially if I'm going for another stop of exposure. But if I get a chance in better light I'll try both F8 and F11 to see how much difference there is. I'm curious about this one.

Ed at Ridersite said:
I use the A-77 (same sensor as you) and shoot RAW. When shooting birds, I hate to have to go above ISO-400.

--
AEH
http://aehass.zenfolio.com/
http://aehass.zenfolio.com/blog
Question: What do you do all week?
Answer: Mon to Fri. Nothing, Sat & Sun I rest!

Thanks for taking the time to look at the raws. I appreciate the feedback.

Douglas F Watt · Dec 22, 2014

Some good feedback from the forum. I suspect that the focus was just slightly off, (tough for the AF to grab much in this case) and the lens at 600 is getting a bit softer, even if f8 mitigates that somewhat. here was my stab at some DXO PP. I don't think that these were much if any underexposed, at least to my jaded eye.

somewhat sharpened, minimal PRIME NR, DxO clearview

Could do more if had more time, but thanks!

--
DFW

HatWearingFool · Dec 22, 2014

Yes I will know a lot more after a few more days of shooting. If only I didn't have this pesky work thing getting in the way of my hobby!

I was hesitant to post after only 1 day of shooting, but I thought I might get some simple advice like shoot at 500mm and F8 and crop or some such.

I'm also going to test out some manual focus shots next time. I've never any consistent focus problems with any other lens, but I know these things happen.

zackiedawg said:
I'd say you likely have a few different issues coming together - all having some effect. Certainly I do know the lens is capable of delivering more sharpness and detail at that focal range and aperture - though light is certainly going to make things much better. I don't know how much of a percentage the poor light contributed, but I think it certainly did a little bit. I also feel like the focus is just a touch off. Hard to tell for sure - but assuming you focused on the eyes, there appears to be just a hint of better detail possibly down near the body of the owl, noticeable mostly in the first two shots, while the face looks like it might have lost a touch of detail from being a little out of focus. And the third contribution is likely the ISO, which will rob you of some fine detail when pushing the contrast more, with the slight limitation to dynamic range, noise, and noise reduction all possibly affecting things a bit.

The telltale will of course be if you get perfectly sharp results on a lovely sunny day - that would possibly rule out the focus being off...though the focus itself in the camera might be OK but missed a bit on your shots due to the lower contrast in poor lighting.

Though I have pretty good luck here in Florida with crisp bright light much of the time, I have had to shoot in some very low light, and at fairly high ISO levels from 1600 to 3200 with the Tamron at 600mm, and still find I'm able to get focus nailed well on my camera and detail is still retained nicely wide open - though a little ultimate sharpness lost to the ISO levels and reduced contrast.

--
Justin
galleries: www.pbase.com/zackiedawg

HatWearingFool · Dec 22, 2014

I think you did a better job sharpening than I did. I might have to look into DXO. So that if I evaluate DXO can you let me know if you did anything besides upping a sharpening slider?

busch · Dec 22, 2014

After looking at those I am on the opinion that they are under exposed by about a stop and the focus is off with a touch of motion blur. Have you checked the AF micro adjust on this lens?

Looks like several things came together to make them appear soft. I know all too well the light problem! :-(

Douglas F Watt · Dec 22, 2014

Just three-four minutes of fidddling: somewhat sharpened, minimal PRIME NR, DxO clearview

Hugo600si · Dec 22, 2014

Had a quick look at the raw's and in my opinion you primarily need more light, especially at the eyes, a lower iso setting, higher shutter speed 1/(2xfocal length) I use with aps-c and it seems slightly out of focus back or front can't tell. I thought my 70-400 wasn't as sharp as it should be when I just got it, until someone told me to slam on a big flashgun, and shoot a number cans/bricks. Just some backfocus and not enough light as the bricks were beautifully sharp... bricks

Good excuse to spend more time shooting with the lens!

I am mightily jealous on your surrounding wildlife, would love to be able to have a chance at these owls... I'd probably very quickly have a 150-600 as well

Advice? Tamron 150-600.

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