Jack Neubart

Light is a precious commodity in close-up and macro photography. The closer you get to your subject, the more light you lose through lens extension. Move to within inches of the subject and your camera or body may block the existing daylight. Also, the closer you get, the more depth of field you lose, so it would help to stop down. All of this translates to a need for additional light—in other words, a supplementary light source. What’s more, when shooting live critters and wind-blown plants, we may also need that light source to freeze subject movement, or at least provide shutter speeds that are fast enough to contain movement. To meet these needs, I’ve often turned to a macro ringflash and, alternatively, a macro twin flash. An economical alternative is an LED ringlight.

I thought that Tamron had outdone itself first with its 70-300mm lens and then with the 24-70mm f/2.8  and 90mm f/2.8 Macro lenses: all bearing the SP (super performance), VC (vibration compensation), Di (digitally integrated primarily for full-frame sensors), and USD (ultrasonic silent drive) monikers. There are of course other noteworthy lenses in the lineup, but these are the ones I tested for Shutterbug. Now comes the impressive Tamron SP15-30mm f/2.8 Di FC USD, which the company first previewed way back at photokina 2014. With this lens Tamron has created a near-flawless masterpiece in optics that simply blew me away!

Just as the celebrities he photographs have to reinvent themselves for every role, Patrick Ecclesine is constantly putting on new hats as a photographer.

“As photographers, we have to remember what got us here today may not work tomorrow, in the sense that we constantly have to reinvent ourselves,” Ecclesine astutely affirms. “As a photographer, you’re there to capture a moment. Well, moments change, life changes, things evolve, and so you have to be open to that and not rest on your laurels or get stuck in your ways.”

The first question I’d ask of any camera is this: Is this camera a good fit for me—for my hand, for my style of shooting, for what I want to shoot?