Tamron 50-400

[dperez]

I wanted an intermediate telephoto, and also wanted to keep the size and weight down, so I went for the Tamron 50-400.

It's become my butterfly, dragonfly, flowers, rodeos, close-up and some wildlife lens. It goes down to around .5 lifesize, which is handy for close-up photography, and it's what I'm using for focus stacking on the Alpha 1.

I've tried it alongside the Sony 100-400, and it's been a good alternative for me so far.

 

[Impulses]

Ooo I'd be curious to see your focus stacked efforts... I've not shot a lot of close-ups with mine yet but I did manage to get some nice butterflies! I'm really enjoying it too, first tele I've had that "large" and probably the only one for the foreseeable future. It actually handles better than I thought it would, tho I ended up getting an iShoot collar for it that locks (there was an earlier version that wouldn't), and I attached a slim PD plate to the top of the foot so I can put an Anchor on it.

I've shot it handheld for hours without issue, but it's also nice to be able to hang it from a strap without putting it away in the bag, and it rides better with the strap attached to the foot and one of the camera lugs (probably puts a little less pressure on the mount too).

 

[Becksvart]

I wanted an intermediate telephoto, and also wanted to keep the size and weight down, so I went for the Tamron 50-400.

It's become my butterfly, dragonfly, flowers, rodeos, close-up and some wildlife lens. It goes down to around .5 lifesize, which is handy for close-up photography, and it's what I'm using for focus stacking on the Alpha 1.

I've tried it alongside the Sony 100-400, and it's been a good alternative for me so far.

The Sony 100-400 has somewhat better magnification at 400mm as I understand it (I find the specs a little hard to find but it seems to have an mfd of 0,98m and 0,35x max magnification potentially across the focal range) whereas the 50-400 has a better macro feature (0,5x) at 50mm and 0,25x at 400mm. (Do correct me if I've gotten something wrong)

Do you shoot dragonflies and other closeups at 50mm or at longer focal lengths and the diff with the Sony simply isn't very relevant?

I ask because dragonflies and things has been labeled one of the points of the Sony 100-400.

 

[Impulses]

I wanted an intermediate telephoto, and also wanted to keep the size and weight down, so I went for the Tamron 50-400.

It's become my butterfly, dragonfly, flowers, rodeos, close-up and some wildlife lens. It goes down to around .5 lifesize, which is handy for close-up photography, and it's what I'm using for focus stacking on the Alpha 1.

I've tried it alongside the Sony 100-400, and it's been a good alternative for me so far.

The Sony 100-400 has somewhat better magnification at 400mm as I understand it (I find the specs a little hard to find but it seems to have an mfd of 0,98m and 0,35x max magnification potentially across the focal range) whereas the 50-400 has a better macro feature (0,5x) at 50mm and 0,25x at 400mm. (Do correct me if I've gotten something wrong)

No that's right AFAIK, max magnification on the Tamron is lower towards 300 and 200mm too (than at 400mm), it does hold 0.5x thru 70mm and 0.4x thru 100mm tho (0.28x at 135mm). MFD is as short as 9.8" at the short end and 58" at the long end.

I think MFD is the same for the GM throughout the full range? (~38") Which means lower magnification at all shorter FLs. Each has it's pros/cons I guess, a lot of Tamrons seem to have a varying MFD, I think they often list it in the specs for both ends of the range.

Do you shoot dragonflies and other closeups at 50mm or at longer focal lengths and the diff with the Sony simply isn't very relevant?

I ask because dragonflies and things has been labeled one of the points of the Sony 100-400.

 

[Becksvart]

I wanted an intermediate telephoto, and also wanted to keep the size and weight down, so I went for the Tamron 50-400.

It's become my butterfly, dragonfly, flowers, rodeos, close-up and some wildlife lens. It goes down to around .5 lifesize, which is handy for close-up photography, and it's what I'm using for focus stacking on the Alpha 1.

I've tried it alongside the Sony 100-400, and it's been a good alternative for me so far.

The Sony 100-400 has somewhat better magnification at 400mm as I understand it (I find the specs a little hard to find but it seems to have an mfd of 0,98m and 0,35x max magnification potentially across the focal range) whereas the 50-400 has a better macro feature (0,5x) at 50mm and 0,25x at 400mm. (Do correct me if I've gotten something wrong)

No that's right AFAIK, max magnification on the Tamron is lower towards 300 and 200mm too (than at 400mm), it does hold 0.5x thru 70mm and 0.4x thru 100mm tho (0.28x at 135mm). MFD is as short as 9.8" at the short end and 58" at the long end.

I think MFD is the same for the GM throughout the full range? (~38") Which means lower magnification at all shorter FLs. Each has it's pros/cons I guess, a lot of Tamrons seem to have a varying MFD, I think they often list it in the specs for both ends of the range.

https://phillipreeve.net/blog/sony-gm-100-400-f-4-5-5-6/ shows the lens at mfd at 100-400mm where clearly the magnification is the greatest at 400mm, just as you write.

Whether the GM has less magnification at all focal lengths below 400mm depends on how quickly it drops from 0,35x I guess? It doesn't seem listed anywhere and I'm not knowledgeable enough to deduct it.

Its marketing page says "Floating focus and high positioning precision have made it possible to achieve a minimum focus distance of just 3.22 feet (0.98 meters) with up to 0.35x magnification. You have a versatile 100 mm to 400 mm super-telephoto zoom range, plus outstanding close-up performance at 100 mm." . What, relatively outstanding compared to..other equal zooms at the time? They obviously can't mean relative to the other focal lengths of this lens. https://electronics.sony.com/imaging/lenses/all-e-mount/p/sel100400gm

Whatever, the Tamron is better for halfway macro at 50mm and the GM at 400mm, each has its merit. I would prefer 400mm but then the GM is however creatively one looks at the buying-new-options at least twice as expensive as the Tamron.

 

[Impulses]

I wanted an intermediate telephoto, and also wanted to keep the size and weight down, so I went for the Tamron 50-400.

It's become my butterfly, dragonfly, flowers, rodeos, close-up and some wildlife lens. It goes down to around .5 lifesize, which is handy for close-up photography, and it's what I'm using for focus stacking on the Alpha 1.

I've tried it alongside the Sony 100-400, and it's been a good alternative for me so far.

The Sony 100-400 has somewhat better magnification at 400mm as I understand it (I find the specs a little hard to find but it seems to have an mfd of 0,98m and 0,35x max magnification potentially across the focal range) whereas the 50-400 has a better macro feature (0,5x) at 50mm and 0,25x at 400mm. (Do correct me if I've gotten something wrong)

No that's right AFAIK, max magnification on the Tamron is lower towards 300 and 200mm too (than at 400mm), it does hold 0.5x thru 70mm and 0.4x thru 100mm tho (0.28x at 135mm). MFD is as short as 9.8" at the short end and 58" at the long end.

I think MFD is the same for the GM throughout the full range? (~38") Which means lower magnification at all shorter FLs. Each has it's pros/cons I guess, a lot of Tamrons seem to have a varying MFD, I think they often list it in the specs for both ends of the range.

https://phillipreeve.net/blog/sony-gm-100-400-f-4-5-5-6/ shows the lens at mfd at 100-400mm where clearly the magnification is the greatest at 400mm, just as you write.

Whether the GM has less magnification at all focal lengths below 400mm depends on how quickly it drops from 0,35x I guess? It doesn't seem listed anywhere and I'm not knowledgeable enough to deduct it.

It seems the MFD is the same at all FLs (based on a couple reviews I quickly googled, I dunno if they're accurate), which means max magnification would gradually decrease no?

Its marketing page says "Floating focus and high positioning precision have made it possible to achieve a minimum focus distance of just 3.22 feet (0.98 meters) with up to 0.35x magnification. You have a versatile 100 mm to 400 mm super-telephoto zoom range, plus outstanding close-up performance at 100 mm." . What, relatively outstanding compared to..other equal zooms at the time? They obviously can't mean relative to the other focal lengths of this lens. https://electronics.sony.com/imaging/lenses/all-e-mount/p/sel100400gm

Hmm, weird! A typo maybe and it should've read "outstanding close-up performance at 400mm"?

Whatever, the Tamron is better for halfway macro at 50mm and the GM at 400mm, each has its merit. I would prefer 400mm but then the GM is however creatively one looks at the buying-new-options at least twice as expensive as the Tamron.

The GM does get TCs too which I imagine might be useful for shooting critters at longer distances.

 

[Becksvart]

I wanted an intermediate telephoto, and also wanted to keep the size and weight down, so I went for the Tamron 50-400.

It's become my butterfly, dragonfly, flowers, rodeos, close-up and some wildlife lens. It goes down to around .5 lifesize, which is handy for close-up photography, and it's what I'm using for focus stacking on the Alpha 1.

I've tried it alongside the Sony 100-400, and it's been a good alternative for me so far.

The Sony 100-400 has somewhat better magnification at 400mm as I understand it (I find the specs a little hard to find but it seems to have an mfd of 0,98m and 0,35x max magnification potentially across the focal range) whereas the 50-400 has a better macro feature (0,5x) at 50mm and 0,25x at 400mm. (Do correct me if I've gotten something wrong)

No that's right AFAIK, max magnification on the Tamron is lower towards 300 and 200mm too (than at 400mm), it does hold 0.5x thru 70mm and 0.4x thru 100mm tho (0.28x at 135mm). MFD is as short as 9.8" at the short end and 58" at the long end.

I think MFD is the same for the GM throughout the full range? (~38") Which means lower magnification at all shorter FLs. Each has it's pros/cons I guess, a lot of Tamrons seem to have a varying MFD, I think they often list it in the specs for both ends of the range.

https://phillipreeve.net/blog/sony-gm-100-400-f-4-5-5-6/ shows the lens at mfd at 100-400mm where clearly the magnification is the greatest at 400mm, just as you write.

Whether the GM has less magnification at all focal lengths below 400mm depends on how quickly it drops from 0,35x I guess? It doesn't seem listed anywhere and I'm not knowledgeable enough to deduct it.

It seems the MFD is the same at all FLs (based on a couple reviews I quickly googled, I dunno if they're accurate), which means max magnification would gradually decrease no?

Yes. The Sony goes from 0,35x at 400mm to ..less at 300mm and so on as the preeve series shows, whereas the Tamron..oh. I get it now, when you wrote "lower magnification at all shorter FLs" you did not mean "than the Tamron". Sorry, my mistake : )

Its marketing page says "Floating focus and high positioning precision have made it possible to achieve a minimum focus distance of just 3.22 feet (0.98 meters) with up to 0.35x magnification. You have a versatile 100 mm to 400 mm super-telephoto zoom range, plus outstanding close-up performance at 100 mm." . What, relatively outstanding compared to..other equal zooms at the time? They obviously can't mean relative to the other focal lengths of this lens. https://electronics.sony.com/imaging/lenses/all-e-mount/p/sel100400gm

Hmm, weird! A typo maybe and it should've read "outstanding close-up performance at 400mm"?

Yes maybe. They could not have aimed better if they wanted to confuse : P

Whatever, the Tamron is better for halfway macro at 50mm and the GM at 400mm, each has its merit. I would prefer 400mm but then the GM is however creatively one looks at the buying-new-options at least twice as expensive as the Tamron.

The GM does get TCs too which I imagine might be useful for shooting critters at longer distances.

Very true

 

[dperez]

With my hybrid focus stacking setup, I can do good close-ups. I'm not trying to use the Tamron 50-400 for fer-real macro. For that I've got a Tamron 90mm macro, Nikon version adapted to the Alpha 1, and extension tubes for that if I need them.

But the Tamron worked really well for me shooting butterflies, and depending on how skittish they are, it'll work well for dragonflies...

Here are a couple recent shots using the Tamron...

Sony Alpha 1, Tamron 50-400 @200mm, 16mm extension tube. 1/50, f8, ISO 500 (high base ISO). Subject size approximately ¾ inch. It's a VERY TINY rose. Six shot focus stack. This has been cropped and sharpened (and dumped to a jpg it looks oversharpened to me, but it's actually not).





Same setup but shooting bursts. These are really small bees - probably 1/2" long. They're not those huge 2" bumblebees that are so much fun to photograph! I caught this one flying to a flower.





And last, this is the full-frame (8640x5760) of a lily. It's a 24-shot focus stack that covers the whole distance of the lily. Same equipment at 120mm on the lens. This is the DNG as it came out of Helicon Focus with just basic Lightroom adjustments.

 

[Impulses]

With my hybrid focus stacking setup, I can do good close-ups. I'm not trying to use the Tamron 50-400 for fer-real macro. For that I've got a Tamron 90mm macro, Nikon version adapted to the Alpha 1, and extension tubes for that if I need them.

But the Tamron worked really well for me shooting butterflies, and depending on how skittish they are, it'll work well for dragonflies...

Here are a couple recent shots using the Tamron...

Sony Alpha 1, Tamron 50-400 @200mm, 16mm extension tube. 1/50, f8, ISO 500 (high base ISO). Subject size approximately ¾ inch. It's a VERY TINY rose. Six shot focus stack. This has been cropped and sharpened (and dumped to a jpg it looks oversharpened to me, but it's actually not).



Same setup but shooting bursts. These are really small bees - probably 1/2" long. They're not those huge 2" bumblebees that are so much fun to photograph! I caught this one flying to a flower.



And last, this is the full-frame (8640x5760) of a lily. It's a 24-shot focus stack that covers the whole distance of the lily. Same equipment at 120mm on the lens. This is the DNG as it came out of Helicon Focus with just basic Lightroom adjustments.

Amazing and superb shots, far beyond anything I've done with it heh. Is there something else involved in what you called a hybrid focus stacking setup, beyond the 16mm extension tube? I'm kinda surprised you went to 200mm on that first shot since that's actually where the zoom has the lowest magnification factor (about the same as at 300mm, higher at 400mm and much higher <200mm).

 

[dperez]

My problem was that the very small rose was in a sort-of garden plot, and I couldn't get the tripod/camera, or ME, any closer. So, I manually focused at minimum distance, then increased the zoom 'til the front edge of the flower was sharp. This got me closer than WITHOUT the extension tube.

Things work best when you have the flexibility of getting closer to the subject.

The hybrid stacking probably sounds somewhat convoluted, but what I did with the Alpha 1, which doesn't have built-in focus stacking was:

Configure the Movie button the toggle between AF-S and MF, pair the Bluetooth Remote with the camera, turn on magnification, set peaking on and pick a color.

to use:

Do all your other settings as normal for you - aperture, shutter speed, ISO, single shot, etc. Manual mode is nice for this 'cause you don't want the exposure changing in mid-series.

I usually turn off tracking and face/eye focus. This should cause Wide and Zone focusing to focus on the nearest point, which may or may not actually be the nearest point YOU want, but most of the time it gets me close.

Put the camera in MF.

Toggle into AF-S. Adjust the zoom so you're happy with the composition. Use Wide, Zone, or Spot and AF to find the nearest point. This will get you CLOSE MOST of the time.

Toggle back to MF. Start adjusting the focus point and the magnification should come on. Move around, find the exact closest point, and you're ready to stack. If you're not sure you've got the closest point, check other places and/or pull the manual focus closer - you may waste 1 or 2 or 3 shots before you hit the actual nearest point, but that's a whole lot better than MISSING the nearest point - a blurred foreground when it's not deliberate usually means the series is unusable.

Trigger the shot with the remote.

Press the "T" button as many times as needed to move the focus as far as you want. This is the part you need to determine, but in my testing I found I didn't get any out-of-focus bands at 4 presses. At 5 presses the bands, if any, are virtually invisible, so 5 presses is also usable. Even 6 is probably fine depending on your distance and how critical you are.

Trigger the shot and repeat.

As you shoot, you'll see the focus peaking move the colored area across the subject. When it gets to the end (or past), stop shooting.

It's faster to set up the series than it is to read, and after that it's just waiting for the subject to be still and shooting the series.

 

[Impulses]

My problem was that the very small rose was in a sort-of garden plot, and I couldn't get the tripod/camera, or ME, any closer. So, I manually focused at minimum distance, then increased the zoom 'til the front edge of the flower was sharp. This got me closer than WITHOUT the extension tube.

Things work best when you have the flexibility of getting closer to the subject.

The hybrid stacking probably sounds somewhat convoluted, but what I did with the Alpha 1, which doesn't have built-in focus stacking was:

Configure the Movie button the toggle between AF-S and MF, pair the Bluetooth Remote with the camera, turn on magnification, set peaking on and pick a color.

to use:

Do all your other settings as normal for you - aperture, shutter speed, ISO, single shot, etc. Manual mode is nice for this 'cause you don't want the exposure changing in mid-series.

I usually turn off tracking and face/eye focus. This should cause Wide and Zone focusing to focus on the nearest point, which may or may not actually be the nearest point YOU want, but most of the time it gets me close.

Put the camera in MF.

Toggle into AF-S. Adjust the zoom so you're happy with the composition. Use Wide, Zone, or Spot and AF to find the nearest point. This will get you CLOSE MOST of the time.

Toggle back to MF. Start adjusting the focus point and the magnification should come on. Move around, find the exact closest point, and you're ready to stack. If you're not sure you've got the closest point, check other places and/or pull the manual focus closer - you may waste 1 or 2 or 3 shots before you hit the actual nearest point, but that's a whole lot better than MISSING the nearest point - a blurred foreground when it's not deliberate usually means the series is unusable.

Trigger the shot with the remote.

Press the "T" button as many times as needed to move the focus as far as you want. This is the part you need to determine, but in my testing I found I didn't get any out-of-focus bands at 4 presses. At 5 presses the bands, if any, are virtually invisible, so 5 presses is also usable. Even 6 is probably fine depending on your distance and how critical you are.

Trigger the shot and repeat.

As you shoot, you'll see the focus peaking move the colored area across the subject. When it gets to the end (or past), stop shooting.

It's faster to set up the series than it is to read, and after that it's just waiting for the subject to be still and shooting the series.

Oh wow no I understand perfectly, I'd heard of using the BT remote for this purpose and I got it que a while ago but hadn't ever tried it or seen the process described in such detail, thanks!