For Scott Stulberg, the edge-to-edge sharpness of the Tamron SP 150-600mm VC and SP 15-30mm VC is the key.

By Jenn Gidman
Images by Scott Stulberg

From Death Valley and the wheat fields of Washington State to the South of France and the monasteries of Burma, Scott Stulberg has traveled the world with camera in hand, especially making his mark with his signature travel and stock photography. "I'm constantly looking for things to shoot that really capture my eye," he says. "Lately, I've been getting more into the pretty stuff around the globe that will sell as fine art, as well as night photography, which has become a real obsession of mine. I love photographing after dark and the sensory overload that it always seems to portray. It's really unlike any other kind of photography and something I never get tired of. One thing that stays constant, though, no matter what I'm photographing: It’s always about lighting and composition and the desire to capture photos that are different, unique, and powerful."

The new Tamron SP 150-600mm VC lens has given Scott the photography power he needs in many shooting situations, from wildlife and Parisian cityscapes to the night sky photography he's come to love. "You can do so much with this lens, as it covers what I call the 'Magic Zone,' which is from 200mm to 600mm," he says. "Images can take on a whole new feel and dimension with these focal lengths. There isn't much out there to compete with the long range capability and great image quality of this unique lens."

The white horses of the Camargue in Southern France, where Scott leads a spring workshop, provided him with one such chance to test out the lens. He captured this ancient breed of wild horses as they splashed through the water, and the 150-600 allowed him to keep the photographic elements sharp. "Taking pictures of these horses is an intense experience," he says. "I was in the water with my students, yelling instructions to them how to get a shot like this. I photographed the horses in Aperture Priority mode at F/6.3 at 400mm, 1/1000th of a second. Look how sharp that lead horse is, from the hair on the horse's head to the water drops shooting up into the air."

A moonrise photo allowed Scott to witness the ability of the 150-600mm to produce supersharp images even at the 600mm end of its focal-length range. "When you're shooting something like this, getting the correct exposure is difficult," he explains. "If you expose for the moon, the overall image will be way too dark. And if you try to expose for other than the moon, the moon will get blown out."

"I wanted to capture those amazing clouds and the whole feeling I was getting, and the 150-600 helped me do just that," he continues. "I took this all the way at 600mm, F/6.3, with a ½-second exposure and ISO 400. The sharpness I was still able to achieve is pretty amazing for that focal length."

But while he's tapped into that lens during his Camargue horse workshops, for capturing a variety of other wildlife, and for images like the moonrise, Scott really appreciates using the new Tamron SP 15-30mm VC lens for photographing the night sky. "Night photography is a gold mine now, even more so than sunrise and sunset photography," he says. "With this lens, I can shoot wide open at F/2.8 and keep my ISO at 3200, and capture sharp shots of the night sky with minimal noise. The edge-to-edge sharpness of the 15-30, plus the lack of vignetting that happens on other lenses, helps me capture perfect stars every time."

For his night photos, the agriculturally rich Palouse region of Washington State is one of Scott's favorite locales, described by a local chamber of commerce as a "photographer's dream," with "gently rolling hills of wheat, barley, peas, lentils, and canola [offering] spectacular panoramic views and the wildflowers and country roads dotted with 100-plus-year-old barns." "I love to do workshops there because it's just pure Americana," he says.

On a recent trip, Scott was able to capture two photos with the 15-30mm, including the Milky Way over a local barn. The rapport he had struck with the owners during previous workshops allowed Scott to broach a lighting issue that cropped up as he and his students set up one evening.

"They had a security light that goes on and off at night, and because I planned to do a 30-second exposure, I knew that would ruin the photo—everything in it would be blown out," he says. "So I asked them to turn it off before they went to bed, which gave me the dark scene that we needed. The light you see on the fence in this image is from another light that's about a quarter-mile away on the main highway; then, with light-painting, I added light to the white house, the red barn, the tree, and the fence in the background. It worked flawlessly and every student got the shot!”

He took his students to another property long after sunset and faced a similar lighting situation. "If you look on the right side of the image, there's another little house at the bottom there, and right next to that house there's another powerful security light coming from another house," he says. "That light hit the ground in front of the barn and went across the large expanse of grass. I did some minimal light-painting on the tractor and the barn with my flashlight, and the owners loved the way that image came out. The grass appeared as this amazing green because of the mercury vapor light floating around the place."

Where the 15-30mm came in especially handy for Scott was keeping the stars sharp in this image. "Keeping your foreground sharp and the stars sharp is pretty hard to do in an image like this," he says. "Having a good tripod and knowing how and where to focus is key, but a lens that can handle the night sky is crucial, and the 15-30 came through for me. I took this at 15mm at F/2.8 using a 25-second exposure at ISO 2000."

For a photo of the Milky Way over Sedona's Cathedral Rock—a shot Scott explains is extremely difficult to capture because of timing issues—he tapped into his night-sky knowledge to set everything up just right. "I knew the moon was going to go down around 3 or 4 a.m., so I went there with a friend and first took some photos of the moonlight on the rocks so I could capture all that detail," he explains. "Then we waited on a blanket for about half an hour, leaving the tripod with the camera right where it was; I have an app that tells me exactly where the Milky Way will be at a particular time, so I knew when that was going to happen. All I had to do was change my exposure, shoot the Milky Way, then combine the two different photos in Photoshop. I took this at 16mm at F/2.8, with a 20-second exposure at ISO 3200. The result was just what I had imagined, and my Tamron lens was the key!"

To see more of Scott Stulberg's work or sign up for an upcoming workshop, go to his website at www.asa100.com.