The Tamron 100-400...

So I sold my Tamron 150-600 and bought the Tamron 100-400. It’s a bit smaller and lighter and easier for me to walk around with. I usually take it with me when I walk Roxie in the morning. You never know what you’ll see.

So this morning I had it with me and saw a female cardinal in a tree off the walking path. Now, I’m not a bird photographer. Have never gotten a good photograph of any kind of bird. Anyway, I zoomed out to 400mm and took a few photographs changing the angle to try to get a shot of the cardinal without tree branches in the way. I thought it was to far away to get a decent image.

Here’s the full frame image. The camera was a Nikon D7500, a 1.5 crop sensor body making the 400mm the equivalent of a 600mm on a full frame body.

And here is a cropped version. I am amazed at the sharpness of not only the lens but the cropped image as well.

So I guess this lens is a keeper.

“It’s a good day to shoot.”

Big Zoom...

I’ve been shooting with the Tamron 18-400mm since Sunday afternoon and I really like it. A fantastic zoom range and a perfect lens if you just want to be out with a camera and one lens.

Can’t wait for warmer weather so I can shoot some close ups zoomed out to 400mm. Here’s an example at 18mm and 400mm to show how close you can get. Shot on a tripod.

18mm

400mm

And here are a few random images.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there”

Update on Alien Skin Exposure X3...

It’s been about a week and a half since I installed the trial version of Alien Skin Exposure X3. After using it exclusively as my image editor, I am going to buy it and replace Lightroom for 95% of what I do with a RAW processor. There are some things that Exposure X3 does not have yet, but an upgrade in on the way next month.

I like that there is no catalog thus no need to import images. In some cases people have multiple catalogs and since you can only have one catalog open at a time, it can be a real pain when you need images that are in different catalogs. Now, you don’t need separate catalogs, but the larger the catalog is, the more time it takes to load and display the previews. The catalog has been replaced by the concept of Bookmarks. You can bookmark any folder on a local or external hard drive. 

Folders bookmarked on the local C drive and an external drive.

All of the options are available for RAW processing as in the Develop module in Lightroom.

Exposure X3 also ships with an amazing number of Presets you can use as a starting point for processing images. You can also create your own presets.

There are some things missing in the current release and one of the most important for me is printing. But there is an upgrade coming next month with printing and other enhancements.

So all in all, I think it’s a great RAW processing application for not only those proficient with Lightroom, but perhaps even better if you’re just starting to process your RAW images.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.”