Surprised with Tamron 90mm results

[bubbaque]

It all depends how physically far away you are from the subject. I used a tamron 90mm on a cropped sensor camera for these pics and the only difference is how physically far away I am.

 

[N2950H]

You can test your camera/ lens combination.
http://www.kscameraclub.org/docs/pdfs/focus_test_chart_edited.pdf
I have had to do this before. It is a simple setup.

Thanks WVNed, I'll give this a shot.

 

[N2950H]

It all depends how physically far away you are from the subject. I used a tamron 90mm on a cropped sensor camera for these pics and the only difference is how physically far away I am.

Beautiful shots. Regardless of how far away these images are, your focus is spot on which seems to be what my first problem is. Can you tell me about how far away you were from these two corals so I have a frame of reference? And I assume that first image was then cropped in post?

Given that we're shooting with the same lens and I have a full frame sensor, my equipment should be able to capture images as crisp as this assuming I am using them correctly.

 

[bubbaque]

Beautiful shots. Regardless of how far away these images are, your focus is spot on which seems to be what my first problem is. Can you tell me about how far away you were from these two corals so I have a frame of reference? And I assume that first image was then cropped in post?

Given that we're shooting with the same lens and I have a full frame sensor, my equipment should be able to capture images as crisp as this assuming I am using them correctly.

I don't remember exactly how close I was but as close as the lens let's you go and still get in focus. The top picture was taking in a very shallow frag tank which I can get as close as I would of liked.

Concerning your out of focus pics, you need to take a ton of pictures when you are trying to take a picture of something. I may take a dozen pictures and only one is in focus.

The picture isn't cropped too much. What is cropped is a little off the right side of the image.

Here is the unedited picture.

And here is the picture from above. You can see the little that was cropped off.

 

[N2950H]

Ah, ok. So that was a top down shot. Thanks for sharing as seeing images like yours that were taken with the same equipment (albeit loads more experience) is encouraging.

My tank is only 12" deep (waterbox frag 80) but I ordered a porthole anyway just to see what I can do with top down shots up close.

 

[bubbaque]

Ah, ok. So that was a top down shot. Thanks for sharing as seeing images like yours that were taken with the same equipment (albeit loads more experience) is encouraging.

My tank is only 12" deep (waterbox frag 80) but I ordered a porthole anyway just to see what I can do with top down shots up close.

The porthole will help get better pics. I use it for all my pics.

 

[WVNed]

The crop sensor makes a difference in close work. 90 x 1.5 = 135mm equivalent.

 

[N2950H]

The crop sensor makes a difference in close work. 90 x 1.5 = 135mm equivalent.

Not sure I understand this statement. Are you saying a crop sensor is better for macro shots?

 

[WVNed]

Yes it is. It makes all your lenses seem to have a longer focal length thus more magnification.
To get a comparable frame from a large sensor camera to a crop sensor you are going to have to crop the image.
All of my bodies are crop sensors for this reason.

A brief explanation I stole off the internet.
The most visible difference between full frame and crop sensor is their field of view. In fact the term “crop” implies just exactly that. The smaller sensor’s field of view is a crop of the full frame. This means that if a full frame DSLR like a Nikon D800 and a crop-sensor DSLR like a Nikon D7100 take the same photo from the same distance, with the same lens and point of view, the D7100 will capture a tighter field of view than the D800.
Focal length measurements on lenses are based on the 35mm standard. If you are using a crop frame camera the sensor is cropping out the edges of the frame, which is effectively increasing the focal length. The amount of difference in the field of view or focal length with a crop sensor is measured by its “Multiplier.”
For example, a Nikon APS-C crop sensor has a 1.5x multiplier. When a Nikon 50mm f/1.4 lens is attached to that Nikon DSLR, the focal length is multiplied by 1.5x and effectively acts like a 75mm lens on a full frame DSLR.

I am sure you can take excellent pictures with a full frame camera though.

Crop sensor cameras excel at macro and telephoto. Full frame cameras excel at landscape and wide angle stuff.

I wanted to do wildlife stuff. A 500mm lens is equal to a 782mm lens in 35mm format on a crop sensor body.

A 105 macro lens is equal to a 164mm lens.

I think purists go for full frame cameras and buy better lenses to make up for the focal length. I cant afford that.

 

[N2950H]

Thanks for the thorough explanation. It would seem to me that once you zoom in a little bit on your image from the full frame camera you'd be back on a level playing field with the crop sensor, maybe even still a little better off since you're theoretically starting with a higher quality image.

That said, I can see how shooting with a crop sensor would make it easier to ensure you are properly focused since, well, everything is larger from the get go.

 

[N2950H]

I spent some more time this evening playing with the camera, shooting in the f/11-14 range as suggested, and this time shot in RAW and touched them up in lightroom a bit. I feel like I do see a marked improvement so I will keep going down this path and trying to hone my technique.

 

[Tyler Sheley]

It all depends how physically far away you are from the subject. I used a tamron 90mm on a cropped sensor camera for these pics and the only difference is how physically far away I am.

Do keep in mind that this lens on a crop sensor is effectively a 135-140 mm lens (multiple of 1.5 or 1.6 depending on nikon or canon) so you will get a good amount more zoom from this lens with a crop sensor.

 

[Tyler Sheley]

I spent some more time this evening playing with the camera, shooting in the f/11-14 range as suggested, and this time shot in RAW and touched them up in lightroom a bit. I feel like I do see a marked improvement so I will keep going down this path and trying to hone my technique.

With all those megapixels on the 800 you can do a ton of cropping as well and maintain quality.

 

[najer]

Focus, as I was told, you can't polish a turd, this evening, my pics are ok but I only still shoot J pegs because I can't be bothered to learn raw image processing!

 

[maroun.c]

You are using a full frame body so your 90mm lense acts like the 90mm lense it is!
Most others are using cropped sensor bodies where the 90mm gets multiplied by 1.5x crop factor so acts like a135mm lense so gets more zoom and pics are more close to ur subject.
Many factors go into this and the added crop zoom comes at the expense of more noise/unsharpness ...
Another factor that comes into play is pixels and cropping. Your camera offers much more megapixels than mid range crop sensor cameras, or at least way more than enough to be able to crop to close down on your subject without affecting picture quality so experiment with that.
Extension tubes will give u more magnification but ur subject should be close to front glass (only few inches working distance)
I use both a crop sensor and a full frame body and even without a proper macro lense can achieve good magnification with the full frame and a 50 mm sensor with the 24-120mm lense.
Make sure that ur image is sharp enough as zooming or cropping will magnify the picture, unsharpness and noise.