An All-in-One on the RoadEd Heaton takes the Tamron 16-300 VC PZD Macro for a test-drive to check out its zoom range, versatility, and image sharpness. |
Article by Jenn Gidman Images by Ed Heaton |
Landscape master Ed Heaton never knows what he's going to encounter when he's traveling near home or around the country at of the photo workshops he leads with his wife, Kelly: He could be peering down over a mountain precipice in the heart of the Adirondacks, into the eyes of a Holstein calf in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, or up at a serendipitous double rainbow in his own backyard in Lancaster. That's why he was excited to receive the new Tamron 16-300mm VC PZD Macro lens over the summer and start testing its image-making mettle. |
With an 18.8X zoom that's capable of covering 16mm (a 35mm equivalent of 24.8mm) to 300mm (a 35mm equivalent of 465mm), the 16-300 is able to capture sweeping panoramic landscapes, then tap into its telephoto capabilities to take powerful close-ups of distant subjects. "I love the range of this lens," Ed says. "Being able to shoot from 16mm to 300mm with just one lens is incredible. Plus, with its new Piezo Drive (PZD), the autofocus is noticeably faster, I have no issues with the lens hunting, and my pictures are really sharp. We took a trip to the Adirondacks north of Lake George for a canoe festival soon after I got the lens, and it ended up staying on my camera just about the whole time. It was perfect." |
One of the first places Ed took his 16-300 was on an expedition to the top of Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondacks with his family. "I wish I could say we hiked up to the top, but we didn't," he says. "We drove up practically to the top, then took an elevator the rest of the way. The elevator lets you out inside a weather station, and from there you can walk out and around the mountain and explore a little bit." |
For his first wide view of the scenery, Ed headed to the opposite end of the mountaintop and shot back toward the weather station. "There are certain pictures you leave people in, and certain ones you don't," he says. "There were other people besides us up there, but I just wanted a straight-on shot of the weather station," he says. "If I had tried to get people in there shooting at 16mm, they would have looked like ants. In those cases you can either try to wait until the people are out of the frame or you can clone them out afterward." |
The next two pictures in the series show the range of the 16-300, with Ed zooming in on his son, Zach, who was standing on a ledge overlooking the valley. "I don't care how old your kids get-you're still nervous when they're standing that close to the edge of a mountain!" Ed says. "First I zoomed in to about 86mm, then got even tighter on him at 300mm. It was great to be able to stand in the same place and use the lens to show him from different perspectives."
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Having the 16-300 at his disposal also means Ed can take advantage of those fleeting, spontaneous moments. "We were at home one day when it was storming outside," he says. "There was a terrific downpour, and when I came outside afterward, around 7:30 in the evening, one of my neighbors pointed and said, 'Look at that rainbow!' I ran over and took a picture of it with my iPhone, then realized I needed to get a picture with my camera, too. So I ran inside, grabbed my camera, and ran back out. I was able to play around with the zoom quickly to find the composition I wanted, with the trees falling nicely in the bottom third of the image and the rainbow framing them." |
The cutting-edge optics employed in the 16-300-including three Molded-Glass Aspherical elements, two LD (Low Dispersion) elements, and UXR (Ultra-Extra Refractive Index) glass-blend with multiple layers of coating to deliver clear, sharp images that show every detail with minimal ghosting and flaring. "We live in Lancaster County, so it's a lot of back roads and farms and Amish country around here," Ed says. "We were driving around one day when I pulled over to photograph this group of cows standing at the edge of a fence. I wanted to get that perspective where I'm low and shooting wide open, like a wide-angle or fisheye picture. I took this at 16mm, right up close next to him. You can see all the detail in his little hairs and how intently he's staring at me. He was more than a little curious about what I was doing." |
The 16-300 is also an expert performer in low-light situations, as Ed found out while checking out some local summer festivals in the evening. "I'm big into country fairs-I always find so many great captures when I go," he says. "At one of the fairs we went to, they had fireworks at the end of the night. I had set up my camera on a tripod to wait for the show and decided to try out the 16-300. It turned out to be a great lens for the distance I had to be to capture the fireworks." |
At a different fair on another summer night, Ed was able to tap into the 16-300's Vibration Compensation (VC) feature, Tamron's proprietary image-stabilization system that keeps the viewfinder image stable and the tracking smooth for sharp handheld images. "I use a tripod for 99.9 percent of what I shoot, unless I'm just walking around having some fun, which is what I was doing that night," he says. "The 16-300 is a terrific lens for when I'm just strolling around like that. This Ferris wheel actually turned different colors as it spun and looked so neat. I turned the VC on, leaned against one of the stands, and took the picture holding as still as I could. I love the way it came out." |
To see more of Ed Heaton's work, go to www.edheaton.com. |