Lens images from photozone

I went to shop today to purchase the Canon EF 24-70 F/2.8 L II that is going to become my workhorse for next years. Since I could not sell all the lenses I had for the change, they gave me the Tamron SP 24-70 F/2.8 for trying, if I am not satisfied I can purchase the Canon 24-70 later. They are so sure I'll like the tammy (since many other professional photographers buy it and are happy with it) to let me use it for some days and I wanted to give it a chance.

I do usually avoid third part lenses, not that they are bad, but for reliability, assistance, compatibility, autofocus and other small things I always prefer to use Canon lenses, even if they cost more. And the Canon EF 24-70 F/2.8 costs A LOT more! My decision to purchase it depends on the cash-back Christmas offer they make now (ok, let’s make some adv for Canon, they need it!  ^_^ SEE OFFER). Even after the 250eu refunding, the difference between the two is still a lot, about 750 eu.

I must then say that for almost half the price of the Canon I am very very tempted to keep the Tamron. Let’s see why. The Tamron has image stabilisation aka VC, which can be very useful, especially for the photography I make. I don’t do landscapes and if I do I prefer to use specific lenses (although I must say, before going on the details, that to my eyes the Tamron is a bit better than the Canon EF 17-40 F/4 L I used for it @24mm). For reportages, wedding and travel photography, no use of tripod, the VC is a good thing (Canon 24-70 is missing) but only at 70mm I do feel I need it. After testing, it seems to compensate to max 2 stops (not the 3-4 rated by Tamron, but it is very subjective), which is good nevertheless.

About shape and weight: It is a very compact lens although very large too, 82mm of diameter, it is not heavy (same as the Canon) and surprisingly feels less on the hand than my Sigma EF 35mm 1.4 Art I used for comparison, they are close though. Tammy weights 825 grams, it seems a solid tool to use. Is rated as tropicalized and the construction is indeed very good, although all plastic, good plastic. The lens barrel is mostly made of plastics but it is of high quality and it is tightly assembled. The new weather sealing is very welcome, of course. Same goes for the very fast and silent USD (ultrasonic AF drive).

I don't like the reverse ring for changing focal lengths, which pushes you to use the left hand in a not correct manner, then I find the very tiny focusing ring disturbing, but usable, and hate the fact that the lock is usable only at 24mm. But the zooming is good, mean there is not a chance that the focal length could change, the ring is neither too hard nor to loose to move. I tried a polarizer I had, 82mm, never used on other lenses, it made the focusing imprecise and the images blurred, probably due to bad polarizer itself not the lens, it is a cheap one.

Let’s see the IQ which is the most important thing for many (I was more concerned about AF). The image quality is very good, I suspect a little front focus what I have to try to assess later, as for now sharpening and contrast of images appear quite good @ F/8, even at the corners. I tried the Sigma 35mm 1.4 for comparison. It is a marvellous lens, we know it, an high quality prime. The Sigma is quite sharper, especially at corners. But the differences are not big. The Tammy is good, mean they are both high quality lenses, the Sigma is so much of an excellence that it does not make justice to the also good Tamron.

Let’s see some images (they are nothing special, sorry, soon I’ll ad some pictures I would make even if I was not to test a lens ^_^):

This image is 35mm wide. I tested the Sigma that is native 35mm and the Tamron at 35mm. Both at F/8 to see the best sharpness in situations such as landscape photography (although it is not the reason I bought it for).

All pictures were processed with ACR 8.3, I only corrected the chromatic aberrations (which is very low for both lenses), not the distortions nor vignetting. Also the default sharpening of ACR (25%) was reduced to 0.

Sigma 35mm, 100% crop, centre:

And the Tamron:

At F/2.8 (what interests me more) the Tamron is definitely better than the Canon 24-105 F/4 L IS USM (at F/4) that I gave to the seller for change. We can see that at centre and F/8 the Tammy is just very slight less sharp than the Sigma. Bad light is confusing, afterward we show another image where we can appreciate how sharp the Sigma is, better even at F/8 in the centre. But let’s see further.

Sigma 35mm @ F/8, corner:

 

Remember that NO sharpening at all is applied, even not the default sharpening applied by ACR, Lightroom DPP, etc.

This is the Tammy @ F/8:

Not bad at all!

Now I want to show another image’s crop after the pictures has been sharpened in PS. I applied a sharpening of 100% with a radius of 0.5 at the original size file (full resolution). Here is the image (again, not a nice one, I know! ^_^):

Sigma @ F/8, centre, sharpened:

This is the Tamron @35mm & F/8 and sharpened:

Even after sharpening the Sigma is a tad sharper, it is visible but just at pixel level. And Sigma has more contrast, what can be added in post-production. Lateral CAs are very low which contributes to the high sharpness perception even at the corners, as we will see now. Indeed when you remove chromatic fringing the halo around objects remains. Both the Sigma and the Tamron have no problem with that. Let’s see.

 

  

The Sigma is impressive. Look at the red car or the windows in the very corner, so sharp. Light was low. Here’s the Tamron:

Less sharp, here the difference is bigger than at centre. Let’s remember that this image has not been post-processed, mean the contrast could be improved.

Finally I wanted to test something that you can not test: zoom vs. prime. Sigma is better, end. But, what happens if you are on the field and a dramatic sunset happens in the far away and the only shot you can make is a narrower (field of view) FOV? You have to zoom. I repeat that I’m not interested in landscapes but the same can happen when photographing people. This is the shot we could take by zooming up to 70MM:

So I wanted to see if by taking a Sigma 35mm image (the best) and up-resizing it to the same magnification of the Tamron @70mm the higher quality of Sigma could make it against the magnification given by a zoom. The answer is: NO…of course. Here the crops:

After this I made some other shots on field using the F/2.8. At centre the Tamron is not loosing much in comparison to F/8. And you don’t need corner-to-corner sharpness when shooting with that aperture. Sometimes you do, but the VC is useful by allowing you to narrow the aperture at F/4 or F/5.6 for better DOF.

One of the thing that also positively impressed me is how well chromatic aberration is under control!. Lateral CA is really so few that it easy correctible in Camera Raw, Lightroom or DPP with no detail lost. By this picture taken at 70mm & F/2.8, we can appreciate it.

This is the Lateral CA, very low. Of course it can be more with a stronger light:

This is after activating the simple chromatic aberration correction in ACR 8.3 (and no need to further increase the correction on green/purple channels):

All this determines a good perception of contrast/sharpness also at the borders.

One thing that needs further testing is the image stabilisation. It is very effective. Tamron does not claim, as Canon does, how many stops it can stabilize, and the thing can change a lot whether you shoot indoor with safe conditions or outdoor with wind and quick action. Of course remember VC does not freeze action, it only compensates the hand-shaking. By a short test you can see that the images start to be a bit blurred (only visible at 100% magnification, not visible after reduction to web dimensions) at 1/15. We talk about the long focal length, @70MM. So 1/15 is very good. I show the 1/15 image as the large one, at 600x600px, just to show how at a web resolution even a bit blurred image appears sharp enough:

 

One thing I noticed is that the VC can be very effective at very low speeds such as 1/15 but sometimes “fail” at much safer shutters such as 1/80, 1/50. This is confirmed by the DPReview’s site too. They say it fails to compensate the pressure on the shutter button. Let’s see an example, both pictures at 1/50:

By the way, I remember shooting similar test images with my EF 24-105 F/4 IS L at F/4 (not 2.8 as here) and the focus area (centre) was not at all so sharp as Tamron’s. No sharpening has been applied.

This is an example of the bokeh at 24MM and close distance. It is good, not the best ever seen but to my eyes it is prime’s quality:

Bokeh seems also ok by other images I made, transition is always very smooth, but I’ll test it with specific shots outdoor at 70mm.

Finally I liked the autofocus a lot.  It is fast and silent, it works well even with low light (I use an Eos 5D Mark3). I also liked that it can focus quite close with a good MFD (about 0.38) and AF is definitely better than the Sigma’s one which is ok. It seems also more consistent to me, mean the Sigma is not precise if near infinite or at MFD, the tammy seems better. You can see it in the VC-test images above, they were sho with AF and quite close to the subject

I do generally shoot very close to the subjects, even if not interested in macro photography. As reported in other reviews, the Canon 24-70 2.8 USM L II has some issues at short distances. Another good point for the Tammy.

I’ll expand this review in future…

EDIT: This is a full resolution image (ugly picture), the Tamron @35mm & F/8, so for landscape. This image has been a bit post-produced, a 50% of sharpening applied in ACR. Sigma 35mm is visibly sharper ONLY at the extreme corners. Just look by yourself, I’m impressed! 

RIGHT BUTTON THEN CLICK OPEN IN A NEW WINDOW

I finally had the time to make some shots with good light, these are not what I intend to use the lens for but can give a good idea how much the lens can resolve. This image is shot at 70mm (very usefull when trying to get an image without distortions and as flat as possible) and F8. Image has been processed in ACR and a sharpening of 100% (radius: 1.0px) has been applied in Ps). In ACR distortion and perspective have been corrected, chromatic aberration too, some green fringing remains at the border, see the fench on top/right but is barely visible):

RIGHT BUTTON THEN CLICK OPEN IN A NEW WINDOW

 

©2013 Marco Palladino – all rights reserved

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From chapter 10 of the book “Elegance and Dignity – Stories from India”

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Hampi is a village in northern Karnataka State of India, on the banks of Tungabhadra river and within the ruins of Vijayanagara, the former capital of the Vijayanagara Empire. The city of the ancient Vijayanagara continues to be an important religious centre, housing the Virupaksha Temple, as well as several other monuments belonging to the old city. In the area is located a large number of buildings and monuments that originally belonged to the ancient city and Hampi is located in the centre of the ancient site of Vijayanagara. Ruins are a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986. The central areas of the city, which include what are now called the Royal Centre and the Sacred Centre, extend over an area of at least 40 km². The natural setting for the city is a hilly landscape, spotted by numerous granite boulders. The Tungabhadra river runs through it, and provides protection from the north. Beyond the hills, on the south bank on which the city was built, a plain extends further to the south. Large walls and fortifications of hewn granite defended the centre of the city. The city flourished between the 14th century and 16th century, during the golden age of the Vijayanagar empire. During this time, the empire was often in conflict with the Muslim kingdoms which had been established in the northern Deccan. The victorious Muslim armies proceeded to raze, depopulate, and destroy the city and its Hindu temples and icons.

Even if the empire continued to exist, thereafter it went through a slow and long decline, the original capital was not reoccupied or rebuilt. It has not been occupied since. Recently, several projects to redevelop the area have been put in place, the bazaar area that occupied the first row of columns on the sacred avenue has been reallocated. This has caused riots and protests, but it was one of the crucial steps to redevelop the area for tourism, supported by UNESCO itself. Hampi receives thousands of tourists (the last decade has been a boom time for tourism in Hampi, with the visitors on the rise from one million to 1.3 million between 2009 and 2010), but the highest percentage is made of pilgrims attracted to this holy place, not of foreign tourists. Tourism has the potential to become a resource for local development by improving living standards and rising the level of infrastructures and services, yet it can also be detrimental to the area and the society it supports. The concentration of population and of tourism activities within the most sensitive area has, in the recent past, resulted in several conflicts of varying degree and nature. Unregulated development, uncontrolled expansion of tourism activities, rural-urban migration, shifting of livelihood, changes in lifestyles, fragmentation of the social structure specially at the household level, these are the big risks.

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Ruins of the ancient city as well as temples, or what remains of them, are still inhabited places, daily used by the population and the visiting pilgrims. There are also many homeless people who sleep here, even families, you see them in the evening while preparing their simple beds made of towels and gathering around a little light or just staying under the moon. The tropical climate encourages this lifestyle and ensures acceptable outdoor living conditions, except in the monsoon season. It is an India out of time, seemingly indifferent to its modernism, simple and naive. These places are considered sacred and many go there for pilgrimage, they sleep wherever is viable. The Tungabhadra river was the lifeblood of the capital. Many well-developed channels brought water to the capital. These channels also fed cultivable areas of the walled city and beyond. The features were so advanced to be maintained by the Tungabhadra River Authority in their projects of 1950. The conservation and recycling of water had acquired enormous importance in arid areas. There were several irrigated areas within the walled city making the fortress very self-sufficient and able to withstand long sieges. Rivers and collection tanks, today as in the days of the Empire, occupy a vital role for irrigation as well as for the local ecosystem, in many regions of South India.

They are a source of drinking water for rural communities and for their livestock as for fish-farming, but also to recharge the groundwater, to control floods, etc. However, the most significant supply has drastically decreased due to various socioeconomic and institutional factors, particularly due to changes in the pattern of land ownership, caste, class configuration. Too much emphasis is given to the sewer systems and to exploitation of groundwater. These valuable resources are in a state of collapse, contributing to an increased vulnerability during drought. Vijayanagara kings were known for their (Hindu) religious patronage, and it is mostly likely that their emblems too reflects their affiliations. The Royal insignia of the Vijayanagara kings spots 4 elements: Sun, Moon, Dagger and Boar. The most unusual for an ancient Indian emblem is the image of a boar, though it is a significant symbol in Hindu Mythology. The third avatar (incarnation) of Vishnu is in the form of a boar (Varaha). The mythical layer of Hampi has some strong association with Ramayana. In the sacred cave different modern icons are to be seen: Ganesha (the elephant) and Shiva (with the trident). Symbolically Shiva is often represented with a phallic icon called Linga, it is to be found often  in front of the ancient temples.

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Just off the tourist tracks, in the countryside, life seems to be hanging at the time of the Vijayanagar. In the empire, most of the people lived on the cultivation of rice, wheat, ragi, cotton, sugarcane. There were plantations of coconut, areca and betel. The Portuguese influence introduced the cultivation of onion, tobacco and nutmeg. The magnificence of that time is lost but this is where the most important challenges for the future of the site are to be faced, which is very important from the point of view of nature and landscape conservation. Here we meet again those communities we have defined as preindustrial. They alternate with modern and crowded city, having with them commercial connections. However, the lifestyles of the poorest villages are anchored to a bygone era. The farming villages are places that are not overrun by garbage and pollution, where traditional methods are still used for irrigation, crops and pasture. Work is done by humans and animals, using a simple plow. Countryside, however, has not gone unchanged throughout the infamous green revolution.

Intensive crops, fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides were the ingredients of this "green revolution", sadly encouraged in many countries of the developing world. Here too, many farmers are returning to a sustainable approach to agriculture. Rice cultivation is particularly abundant and heavily dependent on monsoon and therefore on climatic factors that regulate them. One of the worst problems brought about by the policies of "development" is the introduction of eucalyptus plants (a plant native from Australia), that have literally dried up streams and groundwater. Temples and rice fields, orchards, expanses of sugar canes, reminiscence of the colonial era, palm trees and banana trees, pilgrims and sadhus, farmers immersed in emerald fields, monoliths. Visions that follow each other and rise imagination. This place undoubtedly has a unique and indescribable charm.

 

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©2013 text and photos by marco palladino – all rights reserved

 

 

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I have an Eos 5D Mark3 since few months, it replaced the Eos 5D2 I used in India that had partially left me because of poor weather sealing giving problems to the contacts. I always judged with some reservation the image quality of the 5d line , coming from the 1Ds mark2. These cameras do produce excellent images, but some  really bizarre problems in cameras of this level do continue to appear.

 

Already in the Indian photos, taken with Eos Eos 40D and 5D Mark2, I started to notice some strange things: the old 40D held up much better than the other when some overexposure of the shadows is applied in ACR, without altering the overall exposure. The Eos 5D Mark2 had often noise in the shadows at low ISO, even 100, a noise made of stripes (vertical banding), as the image from a fax.

 

I have not changed the Mark2  because the camera was broken, the problems with the contacts were resolved immediately by the excellent Canon Service Center in Rome. I decided to change it for many reasons, starting from the AF, a most versatile one,  but also for a significant improvement in the well-known problems of noise, at least as for these already seen in the EOS 5D2. A general upgrade in short, without waiting for miracles but certainly hoping for a more complete and versatile camera for all uses, eg. also for sport, in which the Mark2 was very lacking.

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