Nature and outdoor photographers will tell you that you can never have too long of a lens – the more millimeters, the better! I’m one of those photographers.
For me a single lens that has wide angle settings for inclusive scenes and can zoom out to capture distant subjects is preferable to carrying multiple lenses. The lens that attracted my attention was an 18mm to 300mm zoom. However I was only able to find one made for APS-C sensor cameras.
My main camera has a large full-frame sensor with a resolution of 9504 x 6336 pixels. Luckily it can accept APS-C lenses although the sensor resolution is reduced to 6240 x 4160 pixels.
Here’s a small gallery comparing the relative image sizes when using the APS-C lens and full-frame lens. While these samples are not subjects from the outdoors I hope that they illustrate the concept of mm reach.
Below are side by side sample photos taken at various lens setting. The photos on the left were all taken with the Tamron APS-C lens. The photos on the right were taken with the Sony full frame lens.
Keep in mind that although the subject size is smaller on the right, there are more pixels available if you crop the image in post processing.
For me, the bonus in using the Tamron lens is the addition of reach up to 300mm which gives me the ability to capture more distant subjects from a single lens.
I just returned from a recent trip with my full frame Sony camera and the Tamron lens. The two photos below were taken from a distance and the extra mm’s gave me a more detailed images of the two birds.
My back was grateful too since I was weighted down with only a single lens instead of two lenses that could offer me the same range.
As a bonus I can use the new Tamron lens with my older and smaller APS-C size Sony A6000 camera.
Written by:
Arnie Lee
If you read my previous post, you’ll know that I recently returned from attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Since the 1980’s Ive been attending CES which showcases many of the newest gadgets and products that are destined to be delivered to the marketplace.
At the Nikon booth a bright orange colored camera caught my attention. This was the Nikon Zf which was introduced last November (2023).
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The Nikon Zf is a 24mp full frame mirrorless camera that shares some of the looks of older classic SLRs – the familiar pyramid viewfinder, a circular shutter dial, an independent ISO dial. I was told that it’s able to capture 11fps stills and handle 4K video at 30fps. The autofocus tracking can recognize nine types of subjects. The image stabilization is linked to the AF point. The rear screen is fully articulated. The camera also features several dedicated black and white modes. For the fashionable photographer the Zf is available in six different colors. The price is about $2250 with 40mm f/2 lens. | 
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After speaking to the Nikon rep who explained the camera’s features, he walked me over to their in-booth photo studio for a demonstration. I registered my name and email address and found myself in line to have my picture taken. Here the photographer was using the Zf camera surrounded by a set of lightboxes. After sitting for a series of six photos I walked over to the nearby monitor where the artist assistant showed me the resulting pictures. Whatever the artist did, the portraits turned out better than my real life visage.
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Later in the day, the images from the photoshoot arrived in my email box. Here are a couple of the portraits taken with the Nikon Zf.  |
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My thanks go to the people from Nikon for a new set of portraits and for showing me another one of their newest capable cameras.
Many of the photographs that you take are non-replaceable. Whether they are snapshots of family, birthday, anniversary, reunion or other events, most likely they are important possessions that you do not want to lose.
In the days before digital photography, many of us stuffed negatives, slides and snapshots in the proverbial shoebox for safekeeping. But with the advent of digital cameras photography became easier and less expensive resulting in a steep increase of the number of pictures and videos that we took. And of the number has literally exploded with the addition of our always handy cellphone camera.
The question is – are we taking the steps to backup and/or organize all of our photos and videos? Nowadays there are a myriad ways to store images. The one you choose is based on the amount of effort you have to expend to backup and organize your stash and the cost for storing them.
Here’s a few of the ways that I backup and organize my photos and videos. From here on in when I refer to images this is to be both photographs and videos.
Cellphones fall into either the Apple iOS category or the Android category. And since your cellphone doubles as cameras, it’s a good idea to backup the images regularly.
While I’m insistent on safeguarding the images on my cellphone, I’m also interested in doing so as easily and inexpensively as possible. So I’ve chosen several ways to do this that are simple and automated.
My cell is an iPhone so I don’t have a lot of experience with Android models. Android owners can use both the Google and Amazon services for backup up their images.
My iPhone can automatically upload all of my photos to the Apple cloud for safekeeping.
Apple iCloud users are entitled to 5GB of storage with their account. This amount of storage is enough for about 2500 photos of average size. For larger photo collections, you can purchase 50GB additional storage for $.99 (99 cents) a month. I have 8,000 photos and 1,300 videos in my current collection. If you have a huge collection you can purchase 2TB of storage for $9.99 a month.
I also have Google Photos app installed on my iPhone. Google Photos copies the photos on my iPhone to my Google Library in the cloud. I purchased 100 GB of storage which cost $1.99 per month. Currently I have more than 30,000 images but using only 36 GB of the allocated storage. There are other options to purchase additional storage on the Google cloud. For Android users the Google Photos app has an option to backup the photos on your cell phone to your Google Library in the cloud.
Google Photos has features to edit, add descriptions and comments, identify faces, organize images into albums and share images.
Google Photos users are entitled to 15GB of storage with their account. This amount of storage is enough for about 7500 photos of average size. For larger photo collections, you can purchase 100GB additional storage for $1.99 a month.
The Amazon Photos app is also installed on my iPhone. Amazon Prime members receive unlimited free storage for photos and 5 GB for videos. You can use either their iOS (iPhone/iPad) or Android app to automatically backup your images. Non-Prime members can purchase 100 GB of storage on the Amazon cloud for $19.99 per year ($1.66/month). Currently, I have about 9,000 photos and 2000 videos stored on the Amazon’s cloud using 82 GB of storage.
Amazon Photos has features to edit, apply filters, add text and organize images into albums or groups and share images.
As you can see, I have safeguarded my cellphone photos in three different places. Maybe it’s “overkill” to have three different backups but the process is automatic. Since I have more images than the allotted free space for the various services I don’t mind the few dollars a month since it saves me the worry that I might otherwise loose an important event.
It’s easy and either free or inexpensive so please don’t forget to protect your photos and videos.
Written by: Arnie Lee