Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 Di VC USD Review

fhibbs12

Senior Member
Just curious as to what your settings are in the gymnastic shots. I've just just start fiddling around with indoor basketball and with 1/800 2.8 ISO 3200 my images are no where near that crisp? Where they processed in LR? If so what luminance settings?
 

NVSteve

Senior Member
Just curious as to what your settings are in the gymnastic shots. I've just just start fiddling around with indoor basketball and with 1/800 2.8 ISO 3200 my images are no where near that crisp? Where they processed in LR? If so what luminance settings?

Sounds like your camera. Tell you what, I'll trade you my D600 for your D750:p

They installed a ton of new trusses below the ceiling (so that they can support real concert rigging requirements now), along with some strange new lighting. Because of the new lighting, this was the first time I shot at a fixed ISO1600 for over 90% of my shots instead of auto. Shutter is set to 1/1250th. I do run them all through lightroom, but I don't know all the settings off the top of my head. I do know that I don't touch luminance at all, but am not sure if it pops in a default value (like some of the fields) or not. I gave up messing around with noise reduction unless I have a photo that is uncropped & really needs it. Shrinking them down for Flickr gets rid of virtually all the visible noise. Even when viewing the originals at full size (shrunk to fit the display) on my 1920 x 1200 monitors, the noise is not bad at all.

Shooting at 1/800th, do you really need to push it to ISO3200? Also, the reason I shoot at 1/1250th is because that is the minimum speed which allows me to catch action blur-free for the most part. I would think that basketball would require a faster shutter speed than 1/800th. That may explain why some of your images are not "crisp." The hardest part for me was getting the white balance right, especially with the old lights they used. Now it's pretty easy, except that there are a ton of shadows because the only lights in the arena that are on during meets are directly above the floor only.
 

fhibbs12

Senior Member
OVACcheer2015FB (1 of 1).jpg

1/800 f4 3200 ISO resized to 1600 Wide
 

NVSteve

Senior Member
I guess it's just my bad habit of cropping and viewing 1 to 1 on my 1440p monitor..... what size do you resize down to?

I crop all my gymnastics shots, mostly because: I don't have a 2.8 lens greater than 200mm & I want to show only the main subject of my shot. But, my crops still end up being fairly large, unless I have a shot of something happening on the other side of the arena. For flickr, I resize everything to 1280 pixels on the longest side via a batch process in Photoshop.
 

fhibbs12

Senior Member
I crop all my gymnastics shots, mostly because: I don't have a 2.8 lens greater than 200mm & I want to show only the main subject of my shot. But, my crops still end up being fairly large, unless I have a shot of something happening on the other side of the arena. For flickr, I resize everything to 1280 pixels on the longest side via a batch process in Photoshop.

Maybe its the resizing to 1280 long. Im usually viewing all my images full size. Honestly this 750 seems worse than my 600 at same ISO. I still own the 600 will have to test.

Thats odd, I could have sworn ISO 3200, EXIF is saying 4k
 

fhibbs12

Senior Member
1 to 1 Crop with no Noise reduction 5k ISO shot at f4
test1 (1 of 1).jpg

Noise Reduction Added to same image

test2 (1 of 1).jpg

I killed the image just for this testing. It wasn't framed like this on purpose :-D

Is this typical noise form a 5k ISO image at 1 to 1?
 

NVSteve

Senior Member
Here is one of mine that hasn't been resized, only cropped down from the full resolution shot. Grain is there, but I don't think it looks too bad (depending on how well flickr handled it). Open it in a new window to get the full size. I don't shoot above ISO2500, but I do know that there will be noise. I checked my LR settings and I have luminance set to zero.

16301879917_c485def715_o.jpg
 
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murphc13

Senior Member
Hello all.Have any of you been able to compare this Tammy to the 2.8 VR II,in terms of IQ,AF speed and build?The AF speed would be my biggest concern....otherwise i'll consider this when the funds allow.Looks to be a great buy
 

NVSteve

Senior Member
Hello all.Have any of you been able to compare this Tammy to the 2.8 VR II,in terms of IQ,AF speed and build?The AF speed would be my biggest concern....otherwise i'll consider this when the funds allow.Looks to be a great buy

Not the 2.8VR II, but I did have the 70-200/f4. From everything I've seen, the f4 is on par with the 2.8 (the Nikon), if not a little better in some areas. Having shot the f4 and Tamron 2.8 indoors and outdoors, I honestly never saw a difference. AF speed is able to keep up with everything I shoot, and that's a biggie. About the only negative I can think of, although I never tested this against the f4, is that I feel the Tamron is a bit soft at 200mm & f2.8.
 

murphc13

Senior Member
Thanks mate.I think I'd prefer a 2.8 over an f 4.Especially as these lenses will be used indoors a lot and twice the light allowance equals twice the shutter speed or half the ISO.How's the Tamron at 200 and f4/5.6?
 

NVSteve

Senior Member
Thanks mate.I think I'd prefer a 2.8 over an f 4.Especially as these lenses will be used indoors a lot and twice the light allowance equals twice the shutter speed or half the ISO.How's the Tamron at 200 and f4/5.6?

I'd say pretty good, especially at 5.6. You'd have to go through all the pages of this thread-I'm sure there are some posted shots at 200/f4 or f5.6.
 

carguy

Senior Member
Hello all.Have any of you been able to compare this Tammy to the 2.8 VR II,in terms of IQ,AF speed and build?The AF speed would be my biggest concern....otherwise i'll consider this when the funds allow.Looks to be a great buy

Matt Granger has a great 4 part comparision (on youtube) between the Sigma, Tamron VC and Nikon VRII. Check them out.

Just bought the tamron yesterday :)
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
I just had a copy of this lens delivered the other day and haven't really even had a chance to run it through it's paces yet, just some basic test shots. Still, my initial impressions are telling me this is one helluva lens. AF seems very snappy, colors are bright and contrast-y, sharpness appears to be nothing short of jaw-droppingly good and without having even touched the "AF Fine Tuning" menu. I'm thinking it might have a tendency to overexpose a bit on my D750 but not badly. So far, this is proving to be a VERY exciting lens.
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