Need advice, feeling dissapointed!

[Stevitski]

Good morning all,

2 weeks ago I've bought a new Tamron 18-270mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD . Reason? I don't want to switch lenses and I saw a great website from a guy who took 365 days foto's with this lens.

Last weekend I was 4 days on Ibiza and I wanted to test my lens, but I'm a little bit dissapointed... Maybe it's not the lens, but my photography skills. I'm new, and I'm learning every day, but I want some guys who can check my pictures. I want them sharper, more to the professional side...

I'm feeling a little bit confused at this moment, thinking I bought the wrong lens. But then when I look at the website from the other guy, I think, maybe it's just me?

Can you guys help me and check my pictures?

www.flickr.com/photos/119201014@N04/

Thx for the feedback.

 

[ronlane]

Welcome to the site. You will get more response by posting a few examples on this thread (3 - 5). I looked at you photos. On the photo of the lady, it looks like the focus was on her forehead, so that's to too far off.

If you are worried about the lens, test the sharpness of it. Get a news paper and tape it to a wall and then use a tripod and focus the lens on the news paper where the paper fills the frame and then take shots through the range of apertures to see where it's soft and where it's most sharp.

 

[The_Traveler]

There are several things it could be.
First I would check to be certain that the shutter doesn't go unless focus is achieved.
Then I would test sharpness of lens.
If most of your shots are in the sun and the shutter speed is very fast, you should not be using image stabilization. That will cause image unsharpness.

 

[The_Traveler]

I really should have been more candid before but, inferring your experience from your question, a possibility is that the original user was more experienced both in taking pictures and in post-processing.

 

[TwilitLens]

Hi there, Stevitski. Good advice from everyone so far. A couple of extra things you might find useful:

- If you take a lot of shots on a tripod, remember to turn image stabilization off for those situations. The inherent stability in a tripod has been known to confuse IS mechanisms.
- A good way to be sure of your DoF is to use a calculation utility such as DOFMaster. Several smartphone apps are available.

 

[Derrel]

On thw wide-angle shot of the water, there is plenty of visible distortion, which makes the horizon line appear curved, and there is also quite a bit of visible chromatic aberration, which is what makes everything look as if the image had been shot through thick aquarium glass; those two issues can often be corrected, or at least mitigated, by using the lens correction profiles in Lightoom. String barrel distortion like that, well over 2%, as well as strong chromatic aberration, are very common problems with many short focal length lenses; it's very possible that the fellow whose work you admired used every modern software advantage to maximize the appearance of his images. There are in fact a number of software applications that are designed to help with lens-based problems, such as barrel distortion, pincushion distortion, and also apparent perspective distortion, keystoning, chromatic aberration, lack of sharpness, and so on. DxOMark makes software for this, as do other companies. Lightroom under lens correction profiles might very well have the 18-270 in the newest version of Lightroom. Looking at the photos on Flickr, I do see that the images are not "top shelf", and it looked to me like SOME of it is, indeed the lens, like on the wide-angle water shot for example...it's got that Coke-bottle bottom look that MANY lower-end kit zooms have down around 18mm-25mm...a lot of CA< strong barrel distortion, merely average resolving power.

 

[KmH]

All of the 'superzoom' (10x+ zoom range) convenience lenses have image quality issues, because so many design compromises have to be accommodated. It doesn't matter who made the superzoom lens.
that is a technical price you pay for the convenience of the superzoom range.

So you have to work around the various issues buy knowing what issues your superzoom lens has, and knowing how to use your camera to minimize the problems.
Some of the problems simply cannot be worked around very effectively, like soft focus and some types of optical aberration.

Tamron 18-270mm F 3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD review Digital Photography Review
Conclusion - Cons

• Rather soft at telephoto, especially wide open
• Strong distortion across most of the range
• Chromatic aberration at each end of the zoom (most pronounced at telephoto)
• Slower autofocus than its peers

 

[table1349]

All of the 'superzoom' (10x+ zoom range) convenience lenses have image quality issues, because so many design compromises have to be accommodated. It doesn't matter who made the superzoom lens.
that is a technical price you pay for the convenience of the superzoom range.

So you have to work around the various issues buy knowing what issues your superzoom lens has, and knowing how to use your camera to minimize the problems.
Some of the problems simply cannot be worked around very effectively, like soft focus and some types of optical aberration.

Tamron 18-270mm F 3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD review Digital Photography Review
Conclusion - Cons

• Rather soft at telephoto, especially wide open
• Strong distortion across most of the range
• Chromatic aberration at each end of the zoom (most pronounced at telephoto)
• Slower autofocus than its peers

+1

 

[Joves]

Also I am guessing you are using one of the auto modes. The other photographer may have been shooting in manual. With any of your zoom lenses they have their own sweet spots where they will produce good images. So I suggest you control your aperture to start with and compare how it affects the final image. Also if you are shooting in Jpeg only, I suggest you go for both RAW+Jpeg. With the Jpegs you can sharpen up your images in camera, but do not go too heavy handed when using it, or you will get jagged edges.