I  .... neeed .... ND filter! WOWsers!

@fred99 were the planes shot with the tamron?

joker97:

I  .... neeed .... ND filter! WOWsers!

joker97:

 

@fred99 were the planes shot with the tamron?

 

Yes - all of those I think.  All hand-held (no tripod).
It gets pretty difficult at >400mm or so focal length, finding then holding the plane in the frame.  From the ground in the crowd, it's a bit hard to guess where they're coming from and when.  It would have been nice to have a seat in the stands.  I bought the lens used for $1,000, from the serial # it's older than when they made a change to firmware to improve stabilisation when tracking moving subjects.  The firmware can be updated on the lens apparently, but I guess I'd need to pack it up and send it away.  I don't know how much difference it makes.  I'm sceptical of reviews and the practical relevance of lab tests and sample images of sharpness of lenses at very long focal lengths.  I can take a test shot in ideal conditions @500mm, and it's very sharp indeed, but in use it's very tricky, atmospheric shimmer degrades the image but also upsets continuous AF - it will hunt, and the only way to stop that is to use single-servo AF - but that may not give accurate focus either.  I checked the AF to see if it needed fine tuning calibration at >500mm, set up on a tripod at a distant target (300m or so) using liveview zoomed in and then you can see why you're not going to nail every shot, the target drifts in and out of focus with atmospheric conditions when the focus system isn't moving at all.  You aren't going to nail every shot at that focal length with any camera/lens combination - at least not if you pixel-peep. An example below - 500mm @ f8, 1/400, ISO 100.  100% views on the right of the plane which looks very wobbly, and the surface of the water has turned into an abstract blur. That's more graphic than in typical conditions, but the effect is always there if you look close, and is a reality of shooting at long focal length in most conditions at distances over a few tens of meters- and a $15,000 lens won't solve the issue.

Yeap, nothing will fix atmospheric haze etc, a better lens might be slightly sharper, but not much more then that. The main advantage of the more expensive telephotos is faster aperture, so you can use them in more demanding situations, where there is little light, or you need an faster shutter speed. Also blurs out the background a lot more. They will also autofucs a lot faster nad more accuratly, and will have a lot better weather proofing.

Yes - it's distance, but in combination with conditions at the time, focal length, and of course how hard you want to pixel peep and how many pixels there are to peep in the first place.  36-50mp Fx or >20mp dx isn't very forgiving at 1:1 pixel view on screen, but you're looking at detail of part of an image close up which if viewed full size would be several metres across.  Even printing at 16x24, as I do routinely, you need to be a bit careful to not reject shots which might seem to be a bit "off" focus etc when viewed at 1:1 pixel view on screen - they can actually look as sharp as a pin printed.  For printing, I sharpen while looking at 100% view, but also back off to about 33% view on screen to get a more general representative impression.  I'm waiting for someone to make a high quality 30" 8k resolution (or more) display with perfect colour and costing $50 - in the meantime, I'll compromise.

The Tamron focuses quite fast indeed and seems accurate, those really aren't limitations IMO. Mine seems to need no AF fine tune calibration at all - very hard to check this at the 600mm end, but that's the result I got, which surprised me. Faster (aperture) would be nice to have, as I'm finding I sometimes have to bump ISO up a bit more than I'd like, but at anything closer than 50 metres or so and at or over 400mm or so DOF is so shallow that you'd probably want less blurring out of background than more in many cases, so might want to stop down that large lens quite a bit, subject dependant.
The worst things about the lens are lack of good weather sealing (subject to the fact that you'll never get full weather sealing on an extending zoom), and that the manual focus ring is much too sensitive / highly geared to be useful for manual focus at long focal lengths.  I also find the hood a bit tricky to fit and remove.  Another bad point is that if you want to use a filter on it for protection, then unless you want it degrading images (significantly at long focal length) you're into atmospherically priced territory - so high that it had me thinking I'd likely shed more tears by damaging the filter than damaging the front element.  It came with a 95mm filter supplied by the previous owner. I thought I'd bought a dud lens until I removed it - and it's not going back on.  Taking care means always using the lens hood - and as mentioned, that's less than ideally designed.

Perfect it isn't - bargain it certainly is.

The good points are low cost, light-weight but apparently quite well made and solid, effective VR, much better optical performance than lenses costing 3x more only a few years ago, and that light-weight quantified by ability to easily use the lens hand-held in combination with the VR at 500mm (or more).

Mine has already sucked in a bit of dust behind the front element.  I removed the front element and cleaned it.  Very easy - but with one serious possible gotcha (there are shims which must be removed and replaced exactly as they were).  If I need to do it again, I'll post a "how to" with photos.  About a 15 minute job to do.  No doubt invalidates warranty, but I didn't have one.

RileyB:

 

Stu: Thanks @RileyB, I'll have a look!

Was thinking of heading to Queenstown later in the month for an astrophotography workshop with Mark Gee, but it'd cost around $700-$1000 to fly down and back, food, rent a vehicle and a cheap room and hope the weather is fine!

 

 

 

Rob Dickinson would be worth looking at for astrophotography worksshops as well, not sure what his prices are like but here is his website: http://www.rjd.co.nz/index.php?route=product/category&path=63

 

Cheers Riley.

Keep meaning to schedule some astro workshops but I'm flat out with things at the moment so its not easy!

A contributor to this thread has passed away :(

Thanks @Sam91 

Such absolutely terrible news indeed. Rest in peace Riley. 

Oh man, what terrible news.  Top bloke by all accounts.  A sad day.

Oh jeez.. :(

Condolences to his family.

Memorial thread here. Still can't believe it's happened.

Rest in peace. Too soon.