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It is now over a month since Cameracraft September/October 2023 went out to printed edition subscribers and was released in the App and Pocketmags, and to our digital-only subscribers who received the link to download in a September 1st email.

With main features previewing the season we are now most definitely in – Autumn or Fall – it’s only fair to let the world see the issue with the informative New England Fall article by Jeff Folger, and the introduction to wonderful Welsh waterfalls at this time of year from Jon Rees. And as usual it’s an edition with plenty to read as well as great photography. Please subscribe to our worldwide digital delivery £15 a year to get future issues on the day they are published, or choose the printed edition sent out by mail at the same time. Just click on the cover for the download link to read this edition free!

Nikon 70-180mm f/2.8 is 2X converter compatible

What does this mean? Well, it means that unless Tamron – the undoubted OEM of this lens just as they are the OEM of the Nikon Z 28-75mm f/2.8 – have redesigned the lens to differ in the rear mount baffles and design from their 70-180mm for Sony E-mount, a 2X converter for the Sony SHOULD be possible despite Sony’s long-standing ban on any third party 2X.

Here is the Sony rear mount.

Below is the Nikon Z-TC2 converter, which has an unusually slim intruding optical tube.

The Nikon Z mount has a register (back focus) of 16mm compared to Sony’s 18mm, which is a fairly neutral aspect as there is more room for the length of a converter barrel, but with the optical design of the Tamron and Nikon counterparts being identical the Sony rear group is 2mm closer to the bayonet mount. This should not affect how a suitably sized optical tube could be positioned.

Sony’s mount is however very much smaller in diameter than Nikon Z, a mere 46.1mm compared to 55mm. That’s nearly 9mm. so looking at the Sony rear mount photo and comparing it with the Nikon can be deceptive. That optical tube is 29mm is diameter, and the rear baffle in the Tamron E-mount would limit any intruding tube to 22mm. However, a modified Tamron E-mount with its rectangular baffle replaced (perhaps a Mark 2?) could have enough clearance with provision for the contact bezel .

We should not forget that Tamron invented the modern teleconverter with the Twin Tamron 135mm f/4.5/225mm f/7.7 (not a 2X, but a 1.7X) launched in 1958 – the lens which pretty much started Tamron’s journey to where they are now.

– David Kilpatrick

Our November/December issue is out now

All of our direct digital download subscribers have now been sent their link to get a high-res PDF of the latest edition – and all those subscribing through Pocketmags or reading on Apple, Amazon or Google devices are enjoying their favourite photographic title.

Every picture tells a story, and we ask our photographers to tell the stories connected with their images. Faye Yerbury explains how someone copied her work by shooting over the shoulder, Paul Hands reveals his best-selling ever jigsaw – a perfect Christmas scene in Olde England! We visit the Beamish Living Museum of the North and a night time shoot with a World War II bomber, see how the Sony A7IV shapes up with major firmware updates, try Tamron’s lovely little 20-40mm f/2.8 zoom, and make prints for D-I-Y photo books and greetings cards using doubled sided inkjet papers

To subscribe on Pocketmags (currently they have a sale on) just go to https://pocketmags.com/f2-cameracraft-magazine

We also have printed copies ready to post – we don’t keep a large stock of back issues so move fast! New subscriptions taken out in November will start with this issue.

Sign up now to read the next issue first!

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The latest issue, September/October 2022, takes us to the end of summer with a preview of The Photography Show (Sept 17-21) and tech tests of the £5,000 Leica Q2, Tamron’s £239 24mm f/2.8, the 7Artisans 50mm f/0.95 and the Rogue Round Flash kit which makes ordinary old camera-top flash work like circular reflector systems. It goes lives at 1.00am on September 1st, after our copies go out in the August 30th mail.

We kick off with Danny and Ted’s amazing adventure – our rock photographer’s encounter with heavy metal’s Ted Nugent. Kevin Wilson takes Sigma’s 105mm f/1.4 to Sicily for his daughter’s long-delayed wedding – Iain Poole shoots cars and bikes on the sands of the Yorkshire coast. Kenny Martin pushes the value of learning and training, while in Boston USA we meet Jaypix Belmer and her Hiphop and street culture projects.

Ian Knaggs perseveres despite creating images which he doesn’t like. Mark McNeill’s new book on Amazon, Britain by Night, gets four pages with a following feature on dark sky astro photography from Kate Hughes. Tim Goldsmith wonders which of today’s cameras will ever be as legendary as the Nikon F – and we show the results of our second Assignment, plus a Rearview Gallery devoted to black and white.

Rogue runs full circle – magnetic flash modifiers

ExpoImaging, Inc., creators of the Rogue FlashBender speedlight modifiers, today announced new Rogue Round Flash Magnetic Modifiers for popular round flashes and rectangular speedlight flashes including Godox V1, Godox R100, Godox HR200 head for AD200, Geekoto GT 250, Geekoto GTR, and Westcott FJ80. Compatibility with Profoto A1, Profoto A1x, and Profoto A10 flashes requires the Rogue PF Adapter. Photographers want their speedlight modifiers to be easy-to-use, lightweight, and durable, and the new Rogue Round Flash Modifiers are all those things. Each modifier component is made from impact-resistant materials to withstand drops and conveniently stack together, whilst the white silicone dome collapses to save space in your gear bag. Rogue Round Flash Modifiers stay put because each magnetic component incorporates six custom-designed neodymium magnets, which provide a strong attachment force to the flash. The custom design safely and securely keeps the magnets within the modifier ring.

Rogue Flash Adapter has a stretchy silicone mount that enables a quick attachment to speedlight flashes using a metal ring mount to attach other magnetic modifier components.

Small adapter is compatible with Godox TT350, Canon 430, Nikon (SB600, SB800), Nissin (i40, i60A), Sony F32, and other similar sizes. The larger standard adapter is compatible with Canon 580, Godox 685, Nikon SB900, Nissin Di700A, Sony F60, and other similar sizes

Rogue Flash Gel Lens
Enables users to attach colour gels to circular flashguns by placing gels between the magnetic Gel Lens. Unlike other magnetic modifiers, the unique design safely captures the neodymium magnets and keeps them in place.

Compatible with Godox (V1, R100, and HR200 head for AD200), Geekoto (GT 250, GTR) and Westcott FJ80Requires the Rogue PF Adapter (sold separately) to be compatible with Profoto flashes (A1, A1x, and A10)Can be used with rectangular speedlight flashes when combined with the Rogue Flash Adapter (Standard or Small)

Rogue Flash Grid 45
The Rogue Flash Grid 45 provides a popular grid angle for spotlighting control when shooting classic portrait or commercial product photography. Use alone to create a circle of light with a 45-degree spread or stack together to create smaller light circles.

Compatible with Godox (V1, R100, and HR200 head for AD200), Geekoto (GT 250, GTR) and Westcott FJ80Requires the Rogue PF Adapter (sold separately) to be compatible with Profoto flashes (A1, A1x, and A10)Use with rectangular speedlight flashes when combined with the Rogue Flash Adapter

Rogue Flash Diffuser Dome
Great for wedding, event, and portrait photography, the Rogue Flash Diffuser Dome snaps securely to the flash and softly diffuses the light from shoe mount flashes.

Attaches directly to the flash with the Rogue Flash Gel Lens included in its baseCompatible with Godox (V1, R100, and HR200 head for AD200), (GT 250, GTR) and Westcott FJ80Requires the Rogue PF Adapter to be compatible with Profoto flashes (A1, A1x, and A10)

Rogue Round Flash Gels 
Place Rogue Round Flash gels between any two magnetic modifier components to add a colour correction or vibrant colours for your portrait photography. Available in two sets including the Ultimate Portrait Collection and the Colour Correction Collection.

Enhance your portrait photography with multiple shades of flash gelsGel diameter of 71.5mm fits other round flash modifier systemsCompatible with Godox (V1, R100, and HR200 head for AD200), Geekoto (GT 250, GTR) and Westcott FJ80

Bundle Kits for Round Flashes and Rectangular Speedlight Flashes 
The new Rogue Round Flash Modifiers are also available in kits with the most popular modifiers bundled for round flashes or rectangular speedlight flashes. For photographers exclusively using round flashes, the Rogue Round Flash Kit comprises the essential light modifiers, including the Rogue Flash Grid 45, Rogue Flash Gel Lens, Rogue Flash Diffuser Dome, 3-Gel Sample Set, and a storage pouch. This kit allows for the modification of two round flashes simultaneously using the grid or diffuser dome with the included sample gels. For photographers using round flashes and rectangular speedlight flashes, the Rogue Round Flash Kit + Rogue Flash Adapter bundle includes the Rogue Flash Grid 45, Rogue Flash Gel Lens, Rogue Flash Diffuser Dome, 3-Gel Sample Set, storage pouch, and a Rogue Flash Adapter (standard or small). This bundle allows for the modification of 2 flashes simultaneously (round flash or rectangular speedlight flash) using the grid or diffuser dome with the included sample gels. 

Rogue Round Flash Magnetic Modifiers Compatible with Rogue FlashBenders v3 
The Rogue FlashBenders v3 design is compatible with the new Rogue Flash Magnetic Modifiers. Previous versions of the Rogue FlashBenders are not compatible with the new magnetic modifiers.

Further information: Lumesca Group, UK distributors – https://www.lumesca.com; Expoimaging, manufacturers – https://www.expoimaging.com

Cameracraft Assignment competition – enter by June 15th

To enter this competition you must be a verified subscriber to Cameracraft – it doesn’t matter whether that is print or digital. but it must be directly with Icon Publications Ltd (Pocketmags subscriptions can not be verified). New digital subscriptions delivered in PDF format can be found here, see side bar, at £15 per year. Great prizes from Permajet at The Imaging Warehouse, and Anthropics developers of Portrait Pro and Landscape Pro.

Tamron 35-150mm f/2.0-2.8 Di III VXD review

The first magazine test of the new Tamron reached Cameracraft readers in our March/April edition. Now that other magazines are reviewing the lens, it’s time to release David Kilpatrick’s practical user report on-line.

Tamron 35-150mm on Sony A7RIV body

IT’S THE MIDDLE of a dark winter and the new Tamron super-fast ‘group to portrait’ zoom has been doing the rounds of dealers, and we get the chance to use the lens for a good test period starting in January just as the days are getting longer. It’s 3pm and it looks like 4pm with heavy cloud. A quick exposure check says why this lens will be a priority purchase, in a hurry, for wedding photographers.  Fortunately the days get brighter and longer during the time trying out this versatile lens.

So many weddings have been postponed due to earlier Covid venue restrictions. To get 1/125s shutter speed, which is very much needed to ensure expressions and fairly small movements are not motion-blurred, it was ISO 2500 at f/2.8 on the day the lens arrived. Between this and the end of useful daylight that changes rapidly to ISO 6400 and beyond, and eventually to 1/30s. Any sensible wedding photographer would now be digging out the f/1.4 lenses, firing up the battery flash kit and hoping the indoor setting works well.

However, there’s a zoom now for Sony full frame users which can cover most weddings or outdoor portrait sessions on its own, replacing a fast 35mm and 50mm and most of the range of a 70-200mm f/2.8.

The Tamron is 155mm long and 90mm in diameter

The new Tamron 35-150mm manages to hold its widest aperture of f/2 from 35mm to just short of 40mm, and doesn’t drop to f/2.8 until 80mm. 

f/2 35 to 39mm

f/2.2 40 to 59mm

f/2.5 60 to 79mm

f/2.8 80 to 150mm

This is good, as so many zooms with a fast minimum focal length lose a third or half a stop with a mere nudge of the ring – those 17-35mm f/2.8-4 lenses made for SLRs were often f/3.2 at 18mm! With studio flash you might set f/2 and start work at the short end of the zoom, but with so many systems studio or location now being TTL and high-speed sync of one kind of another this probably doesn’t matter. Set the lens to f/2.8 or any smaller aperture, and it acts as a constant aperture zoom

How about the chosen focal length range? I’d argue that 28-135mm, with similar aperture benefits, is more useful because there’s a chance of never needing to change lenses.  There’s a quick way to check what matches 35mm for groups, using just the long side of a landscape frame. It’s almost the same as the 36mm dimension of the sensor, with an angle of 55° covered horizontally. If you’ve got an APS-C sensor it matches 23mm, on MFT 17mm, on Fujifilm GF and other popular 50MP medium format models it’s 44mm, on the biggest like Hasselblad HD6-100C it’s 53mm. 

35mm is not a bad wide end for practical reasons

This angle of view works well because many rooms have Golden Ratio dimensions, not unlike an A4 page. Stand near one end of a 5 x 7m room, put a group at a comfortable distance away from the opposite wall, and you’ll cover it well with some of the side walls visible. In a square room, you can just take in the opposite wall with no sides visible. The working distance gives scope for bounced flash, there’s no distortion of body or face width towards the ends of a group even if it’s tightly composed.

In fact having the wide-angle end limited to 35mm may improve your group photography and weddings in particular by making you keep that little bit of extra distance.

However, the real world sometimes throws difficult spaces and camera distances at you. This new Tamron is not an all-in-one outfit. It’s almost essential to have a 24mm, or a zoom such as Tamron’s 17-28mm or Sony’s 16-35mm.

The range

The statue of Sir Alec Douglas Home at The Hirsel estate, Coldstream, is a rare example of a life-size bronze standing on a soap box height plinth. The versatility of the 35-150mm range and the fast aperture is demonstrated here – above, 35mm and f/9 for the depth of field; below, both at 150mm and f/2.8 from different distances, showing the bokeh pattern.
At 150mm, from a distance…
At 150mm again, from closer in. Both at f/2.8.
Zooming out to 35mm and closing in a bit shows how different a perspective on a figure can be achieved. For test, taken at f/2 full aperture.
Still at 35mm, moving in close and keeping the aperture wide open at f/2. This can be a versatile lens.

Tamron 35-150mm performance

The optical performance of the 35-150mm is well above expectations for an f/2-2.8 design. It’s better than any past attempt at ƒ2.8 on a similar range, and this is down to mirrorless versus SLR body thickness. You can use it wide open at any focal length and be sure of sharpness in the plane of focus, and that is pretty flat corner to corner despite considerable pincushion distortion growing from 50mm to 150mm. The  built-in and Adobe lens profiles are essential but not identical – while in-camera JPEGs are very well balanced across the frame, the default Adobe vignetting correction is much too strong. 

Without correction this lens loses between one and two stops of light in the outer field when used wide open, with a central zone of around 20mm diameter representing the nominal aperture. The lens profiles boost the gain to compensate and if you set the Sony A7RIV to its ISO invariant optimum of 400, faces at the extreme ends of a group may be recorded as if ISO 1600 was used. For the best results, shoot raw and don’t underexpose (no need to follow the expose to the right mythology though). If you use the Adobe Lens Profile, adjust the vignetting to minus 60 for full aperture shots if you want to remove the effect. If you stop down to ƒ5.6 it’s pretty much gone anyway.

At 150mm with no Adobe lens profile correction, showing vignetting and pincushion distortion at ƒ2.8.
The same raw file with Adobe Camera Raw profile corrections applied. In-camera JPEG corrections do much the same.
Here we have 35mm and f/2 uncorrected.
This is the same raw f/2 file with profile correction applied.

There’s a strong case for just letting the wide aperture vignetting be – don’t correct it at all. Many pictures will look better, including landscapes, portraits and most street shots.  The distortion correction, on the other hand, is worth leaving turned on. Because the lens has pincushion rather than barrel distortion over most of its range, the corners don’t get stretched, it’s the centre of the image which is expanded slightly. As this is the sharpest area the correction tends, if anything, to even out the finest detail rendering over the frame unlike barrel distortion correction which degrades the corners visibly in many cases.

When Sony’s 90mm G macro was constantly being called the best lens ever, I tried three examples and all fell short of the standard expected. Just for interest I set the Tamron 35-150mm to 90mm (actually reported 91…) and shot a series from wide open to smaller apertures, on the same architectural distance subject I’d used for the Sony. Despite being on 60MP not 42MP the Tamron zoom was clearly much sharper across the frame than the Sony.

Here’s what detail enlarged from the 150mm f/2.8 shot looks like.
Here’s 35mm f/2 detail. Sadly The Border Hotel’s delapidated facade will soon be a thing of the past, as it’s been a great test target for several years. The letters of the name fell off one by one but no-one was killed…

But – it’s a fast superzoom. Plenty of expert voices on Facebook will assure you it can not possibly be as good as a modest range zoom or an acclaimed macro prime.  Don’t take their word for it, try the lens. And now we need to look at the downside of such an ambitious superzoom – it’s a large and heavy lens, it uses an unusual internal and extending hybrid zoom design, and it doesn’t focus into the semi-macro range like most other Tamron and competing lenses now do.

I regularly walk round with the 70-180mm Tamron f/2.8 on the camera and the 17-28mm and 28-75mm in a small shoulder pouch. All three of those go into the little Vanguard Sydney II 22 bag with the A7RIV. But just the body and this one 35-150mm lens could fit.

My first step was to replace my slim camera strap with an extra wide heavy duty neoprene Optek – the springy shock-damping handled almost 1.9kg of combined camera and lens round my neck well enough. Often I hold my camera in my right hand ready to lift to the eye and shoot, and don’t let the weight hang on a strap. It was like having a 70-200mm f/2.8 to handle and many users are happy with that all day. I’m not that keen on the 82mm filter thread, but that’s what it has to be.

The lens hood has a single bayonet release button set in its rim, and you need to get it the right way up to fit. It’s very secure once on.

The USB socket

Then you come to the advanced aspects – this is a very fast focusing near-silent voice coil drive (VXD) design, and has three control buttons plus zoom lock, AF/MF and a three-position Custom function switch. With the aid of USB connected software (no dock needed) the lens can be customised for aspects like focus barrel direction/speed and even function (change to control ƒ-stop), and two preset focus points via the buttons.

The zoom ring is placed near the body with the focus ring being the main much deeper front barrel. This is the opposite to existing Tamron zooms and takes some getting used to, but it’s practical with the size and weight of the lens.

More statuary, this time at The Haining, a publicly owned mansion with a loch and grounds entirely free to walk round – not even a parking charge – in Selkirk, Scottish Border. This one is at 150mm and f/2.8.
Here’s a more likely aperture to use if you had real people in a random group – f/11. But note how obtrusive the background has become.

With minimum focusing of 85cm at 150mm to 33cm at 35mm, the subject scale is 1:5.9 and 1:5.7 respectively – that’s a field around 9.5 x 14cm, so not in the wedding ring shot class but fine for flowers, hands and many other close-ups. The 9-blade aperture creates a very attractive smooth defocus and if there are lights or candles in the background this lens gives full aperture bokeh discs, not clipped ellipses, at focal lengths from 35 (f/2) to 60mm (f/2.5) and with only a hint of cat’s eye shape at the extremes of the shot at 80mm (ƒ2.8). Longer than this and you’ll see some degree of this effect though using an APS-C or smaller crop cuts out the more visibly ellipsoid highlight bubbles. Depending on the light source you’ll see some ‘orange peel’ texture which is typical of zooms using moulded aspherical elements – there are many ways to remove this from finished edits. There are no ‘onion ring’ effects which are much harder to remove and occur with lenses using older aspherical moulding methods.

Bokeh Airey discs, f/2.8 and 150mm.
Zooming back to 107mm still at f/2.8.
82mm and f/2.8 – a 10 x 8 shape crop from something like a party or wedding shot with lights would lose the cat’s eye shapes at the ends of the frame.
At 60mm and f/2.5 the chatoyance only affects the extreme corners. Sure, I write elliptically. What less would you expect?

As for real cat’s eyes, the lens behaves perfectly with Sony’s animal and human face detection and eye AF and even managed to keep up with the most impossible close range movement of chickens – fine for eye sharp focus if not for the shutter speed.

Sony Animal Eye-AF at 150mm and f/2.8. It’s got that bit more depth of field than a 200mm f/2 or something extreme. However, it’s hardly unique to this lens. Every 70-200mm f/2.8 pot-boiler zoom ever made for an SLR or DSLR or mirrorless can do 150mm f/2.8 much the same. They just can’t do 35mm f/2.

This lens has a USB-C connection (no cover, it’s a waterproof port) and the Tamron Lens Utility, on 64-bit PC or Mac, can customise functions.  After thinking the utility was not working (on three different systems) because it said Lens Not Connected when it was, I found you ignore this and click on the Start button for the functions you want to modify – like changing the 1, 2 and 3 positions of the Custom switch to alter the behaviour of the focus ring (direction, linearity, use as aperture ring) or lens buttons (AF/MF, A-B Focus, Preset Focus, Assign Function from Camera, or Clear Settings).

Lock for zoom (not really much needed) and one of the three lens function buttons which occupy the remaining cardinal points.

All three lens buttons do the same, which might be missing some useful tricks such as two focus points assigned to different buttons. A-B focus and Preset distance have selectable focus speeds, and are strictly Movie functions (you have to press the Record button in Movie mode to program the distances, then use the lens buttons to activate the focus change during filming). The lens is fairly silent in focusing but an external microphone is desirable. It has almost no focus breathing regardless of the focal length set, though use at full aperture will produce some shifts as the bokeh expands and contracts – the real angle of view remains very constant from close-up to infinity.

You are advised to get a good USB-C cable to make use of the software to program the lens’s functions (mostly of interest to movie makers who can set the buttons to initiate point-to-point focus transitions).

This lens costs £1,599 so you need to know you need it to invest. It hardly came off the camera in six weeks partly because of the convenience of not having to change lenses, and just carrying the camera and this one lens.

– David Kilpatrick

For further information, visit:

https://www.tamron.co.uk

Compact metal 20mm f/2 from Sigma

The new 20mm f/2 DG DN Contemporary lens for full frame E and L mounts from Sigma will sell for under £650 in the UK from February 25th. It extends their compact, metal barrel prime ‘I’ series range which includes f/2 models in 24mm, 35mm and 65mm focal lengths.

Sigma I-series 20mm f/2 DG DN Contemporary

It also offers a filter-friendly alternative to the very large and heavy 20mm f/1.4 Art lens. It uses 62mm filters, weighs 370g and is just 72.4mm long (much the same as the 24mm f/2). It has a magnetic lens cap and all metal construction, including the bayonet lens hood. A second plastic clip-in lens cap is also supplied. The design with a physical aperture ring is similar to Sigma’s high-end ciné lenses.

The lens with its hood, seen here in ‘bare metal’ before the black coating is applied to the components.

It uses three high-precision glass-molded aspherical lens elements, one SLD element, and one FLD element. Suppression of sagittal coma flare makes the 20mm f/2 ideal for night sky with stars near the extreme corners of the field. 

Other specifications include:

  • Lens construction: 11 groups, 13 elements
  • Angle of view: 94.5 
  • 9 rounded diaphragm blades
  • Minimum aperture: f/22
  • Minimum focusing distance: 22cm
  • Maximum magnification ratio: 1:6.7
  • Inner focus system
  • Compatible with high-speed autofocus
  • Stepping Motor
  • Compatible with Lens Aberration Correction
  • Support DMF and AF+MF
  • Nano Porous Coating
  • Super Multi-Layer Coating
  • Aperture ring
  • Focus Mode Switch
  • Petal-type lens hood (LH656-03)
  • Magnetic metal lens cap (LCF62-01M)
  • Mount with dust and splash resistant structure
  • Support for switching between linear and non-linear focus ring settings (for L-Mount only)
  • Compatible with SIGMA USB DOCK UD-11 (sold separately / for L-Mount only)
  • Designed to minimise flare and ghosting
  • Every lens checked using proprietary MTF measuring system
  • High-precision, durable brass bayonet mount
  • Made in Japan

For further information:

#SIGMA #SIGMA20mmF2Contemporary #SIGMAContemporary #SIGMAContemporaryPrime #SIGMADGDN #Iseries #SIGMAIseries

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