What were you thinking!

Dancer in San Francisco’s Chinatown

Tamron 24-70mm 2.8 G2 - f/4     1/200  ISO 640

What lens should I use? This is always the first question we are asked by our workshop participants as we get ready for a setup. Let’s face it, we all have our “favorite” lens and we get it. If we are trying for a specific vision (trying to get that one shot…), that closeup headshot, that ultra wide shot of the bride getting ready with her girls around her then by all means do what works for you. However, taking a couple out for an engagement shoot, senior high school portraits, family portraits and the like there is nothing like the portrait photographers workhorse the 24-70mm 2.8! During a workshop you might see us slip on an 85mm 1.4 but 9 times out of 10 it’s a 24-70mm 2.8 and out lens of choice was an easy one, the Tamron 24-70mm 2.8 G2.

Tamron 24-70mm 2.8 G2

Here is why we chose it, it gives great color, amazing contrast and is incredibly sharp. There are a lot of lenses that check those boxes, you say… Yes, the thing that put it over the top for us was the weather sealing, we tend to travel with our gear and put it in extreme locations that require not letting the bad stuff in and this lens does just that! Did we forget to mention that we LOVE the lens hood and the locking button?

Greatest lens hood ever!

Need a couple more reasons? The image stabilization is amazing, Tamron claims shake reduction up to 5 stops and we are believers. Many times we find ourselves in a situation where we are hand-holding under 1/20th of a second and getting tack sharp photos. We love our 85mm lenses for portrait work but the bokeh on this lens is wonderful.

Check it out for yourself at B&H Photo: https://go.magik.ly/ml/ksz8/

Always be ready…

Now back to the photo. While creating some fun images in San Francisco’s Chinatown  we had our very talented Australian dancer Lily Rose posed up in some doorways getting some tighter shots when all of the sudden the door next to her opened up revealing this very nice 98 year old man coming to see what was going on! Her is the beauty of the 24-70mm, without missing a beat we could simply turn the lens from tight to wide and capture this great moment that could not be duplicated. Like Henri Cartier-Bresson said, “the decisive moment”...

Fortunately we had already set up our lighting and was ready when our special guest unknowingly arrived. At this point we had lit the scene with one Interfit Badger Unleashed battery-powered monolight with a 20” portable softbox to camera left. All we needed to do was turn the light slightly to the left and viola! Two subject lit with one tiny softbox.

Badger Unleashed

by Interfit

A couple of years back we might have been more likely to have said “Lily Rose, take a break while this guy comes out so he doesn’t mess up the shot”. Not today, life happens fast and a great lens allows us to capture those moments.