Shadow on photograph when using 16mm Wide Angle Lens

Hi,
I recently bought a Tamron 16-300mm F/3.5-6.3 lens for my Nikon D3200. However, I noticed that when shooting at 16mm I have a shadow at the bottom of the photograph - as if something in the camera is getting in the way. As soon as I go to 18mm the shadow disappears. Does anyone know what might be causing this?

Welcome to Nikonites!

If you could post a picture, that would help us to help you.

packerfan said:

Hi,
I recently bought a Tamron 16-300mm F/3.5-6.3 lens for my Nikon D3200. However, I noticed that when shooting at 16mm I have a shadow at the bottom of the photograph - as if something in the camera is getting in the way. As soon as I go to 18mm the shadow disappears. Does anyone know what might be causing this?

Click to expand...

It sounds like you are using flash, and at wide angles, the long lens is blocking the light from the flash, the lens making a shadow in the bottom part of your image. At less wide angles, the image does not include the area of this shadow.

Here is a quickie sample of a lens shadow at wide angle, a different camera and different large lens, but the same situation.



Alternately, the internal flash is only designed for coverage of a 18 mm lens and longer (D3200 Reference Manual, page 170). So it may just be unable to cover a wider area.

D3200 Reference manual, Nikon | Download center | D3200

Welcome to the forum. Wayne's thoughts are probably correct

Yes I would say Wayne is correct. If you are using a lens hood then remove this as it might improve things but at 16mm On my FF D750 I still get a curved shadow at the bottom. Try to shoot to allow for this to be cropped out.

I am with Wayne, a way around this is to use a flash on the hotshoe (this will raise the flash above the area in which is getting affected) or use it off camera

Yes, Wayne, you are right, I was using the flash. Your photo is exactly what I am seeing. I guess I'll just have to bear this in mind and compose it in a way to enable me to crop it.

Thanks for everyone's help on this.

The internal flash is set quite low, so with a lens+hood beyond a certain diameter will interfere with the flash. Your only recourse is to either shoot without a flash or use an external flash gun mounted on the hot shoe (with some long lenses this will also interfere for close shots).

Welcome to the forum.

Welcome to the forum. As you have already found out, there are a lot of good people on here ready to help when they can. Glad you found what the problem is.