WHY THIS PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER DOESN’T USE “ALL IN ONE” ZOOMS

I learned over 40 years ago talking to established professional photographers about where I should invest my money in photography equipment and every one of them said: “Put your money in your lenses.” You can save money in other gear like your tripod, camera bags, even your camera bodies, but not on lenses!

That’s why I’m not favorably impressed upon the announcement that Tamron has released an ultra tele-zoom with the widest zoom range yet—18-400mm; f3.5-6.3 for $649.00  This new lens, like its predecessors offering 18-200mm and 18-300mm, is still saddled with the same f3.5-6.3 variable apertures that makes all of these “all-in-one” zooms useless for professional portrait work. 

Aperture control: 

Why is that you ask?  Well, for the amateur photographers reading this that don’t know how one of these “all-in-one” zooms function, here’s the problem with these things: the variable aperture zoom lens only gives you its widest aperture f3.5 at 18mm and as soon as you start zooming it starts reducing the maximum aperture until you reach its maximum telephoto (200, 300, or 400mm) where the widest aperture is a paltry f6.3. What’s wrong with f6.3 you ask?  Well, if you are ONLY photographing group portraits, absolutely nothing. If I’m photographing an individual’s portrait I, like most professionals, want my aperture at f2.8 to f4.5 when my lens is zoomed in say at 200mm or 300mm.  That’s how professionals create portraits with separation between the background and the subject, while giving the background a nice painterly defused glow and/or Bokeh effect to the specular highlights.

Like this:

f2.8 @ 1/250 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 200mm

The worst thing about the variable aperture lens is that you, the photographer, have fewer choices in what you can pick for an aperture at a given focal length; the damn lens is telling you what you’re getting!  The f-stop is too important a decision, in professional photography, to be left up to a compromised lens design.

Auto Focus:

Another downside created by the relatively small maximum apertures of these “all-in-ones” is how they work (or don’t work) with your camera’s auto-focus system.  Many camera’s auto-focus systems require apertures of f5.6 or wider to function properly.  They need LIGHT to detect the contrast in a scene to lock focus quickly and accurately. That is another thing that we as professionals cannot compromise on! We rely on our auto-focus completely (don’t even try to manually focus a modern lens!) to “get the shot”. If our auto-focus does not work our yield goes down and that translates into a loss of income! If you do any action or sports photography the temptation in buying an “all-in-one” that teases you with 200, 300 or 400mm capability (especially at $649.00) is easily dashed when you discover that these lenses autofocus worse (or not at all!) at the best focal lengths ( 200, 300, and 400mm) for sports!

Sharpness, Chromatic Aberrations:

Yes, there’s more that these lenses are plagued with… Again, if you intend to use these lenses at their long focal lengths, guess what?  That’s exactly where they are the Least sharp! Where are they the sharpest?  At their Wide focal lengths—great….

Next, to quote dpreview.com, “A generous helping of chromatic aberration is to be expected with a SuperZoom.” This lens flaw is color shifting towards the edges when at wide-angle.  It can also happen in the telephoto ranges as well.

Finally, Distortion

All lenses distort and you as a photographer have the ability to lessen how much by watching your camera to subject distance and by using longer focal lengths when possible. However, these “all-in-ones” can have plenty of barrel distortion at wide and strong pincushion distortion at longer focal lengths. 

So, it just may be that spending $649.00 on a lens that can sabotage your image quality is spending too much! Spending twice as much—or more—on a lens that can do what YOU want it to do can be a wise, creative, investment.

Here’s my favorite lens…

The Canon 70-200 f2.8 Lens

The Canon 70-200 f2.8 lens is simply the Best lens I’ve ever owned in over 40 years in photography. It has paid for itself many times over in portrait sales, International PPA Competitions, and rock solid reliability because of its beautiful build quality.

’Til next week….

Author:  Jerry W. Venz.  PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site:  http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

PHOTOGRAPHY OF CHAOTIC ACTION!

I've been reading for years that the Canon 5D MKII is NOT good for sports or action photography.  Since high speed action photography is how I learned photography in the 1970's, I decided to give my 5D MKII a real workout with some of the most difficult action to photograph--the chaotic action of rodeo!

I call rodeo chaotic action because it's action that is unplanned.  You never know where animals are going to go or what they're going to do.  That's very different than photographing racing motorcycles or race cars on a track.  I always knew from turn-to-turn, within a few feet, where a vehicle was going to be because, having been a racer myself, I knew the best "line" through each turn.

In rodeo all we have is a starting point--we know the bronc, the bull, or the calf is busting out of that gate or chute--after that they can go anywhere in the arena!
This is a real challenge for our auto focus, our framing ( constant zooming ), and exposure.

So, this was a great test of the 5D MKII's ability to auto focus while tracking action while leaving the zooming and exposure to me in manual mode.

My camera setup--using the Canon 70-200 f2.8 L IS II lens--was:

AUTO FOCUS: AI Servo ( for moving subjects when the focusing distance keeps changing )
DRIVE MODE: Continuous @ 3.9 frames per second
IMAGE QUALITY: jpeg L

I used the large jpeg because I did not want anything to slow me down; If I used RAW I could exceed my maximum burst rate and fill the buffer which would time-out the camera. Working within the camera's limitations I wanted to give it the best chance for success.

This was one of those, scary, chaotic situations where my subject charged TOWARDS ME--note the gal RUNNING FOR HER LIFE!

This one was a little more challenging for the auto focus with all the moving people in the background, but It did well.

A great action series where the auto focus tracked very well as I panned and zoomed.

A much more difficult series because I panned across a VERY BUSY background and then they changed direction, coming towards me, forcing me to zoom-out!

I think that,  working within the camera's capabilities, the 5D MKII is a fine camera for action photography--another feather in the cap for a SUPERB PORTRAIT CAMERA!

As always, if you have questions don't hesitate to ask. Asking questions is the best part of learning.

Author:  Jerry W Venz, PPA Certified Master Photographer